Textured Layers

Compressing Time with Videos

I can finally demonstrate my method of painting intuitively in the studio.  Thanks to the convenience and quality of the ipad camera and easy editing software, I can compress an hour of studio time into a mere two minutes of video time.  I can work on multiple paintings and resort the movie clips into seamless footage that hopefully tells the story of each painting's development.


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I'm presenting a "Textured Layers" demo at the Hunterdon Watercolor Society on April 1st.  Having only an hour to demonstrate, I will bring six paintings in various stages of development.  The members will be able to view the online tutorials to watch how the various stages of the paintings were created.  I will demonstrate adding a new layer to each of the samples.  The final painting will be a completed painting.  That will leave five for the next demonstration, each one stage further along.

Stage Two - textured with mouth atomi er and saran wrap

Textured Layers

Exercise - Creating a more neutralized Color Wheel

A more neutrali ed color wheel ...

In the last exercise I used aureolin yellow, permanent crimson and phthalo blue.  In the following demo I am using raw sienna, cadmium red deep and ultramarine blue.  At the end of the video I show a comparison of the colors in identical color schemes.  The second video demonstrates how to make the scaled color mix strips that will provide more information about the wonderful transitions between the two primary colors you choose to create your wheels .... and ultimately, your expressive paintings.

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https://vimeo.com/62700184

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For this color wheel I chose a color I never use..... Cadmium Red Deep.  I am surprised at how lovely the mixes are.  This exercise is great for opening up ignored tubes of paint and discovering new ranges of color.  The paperclip in the red paint was used to coax the pigment out of the tube!  Notice that I keep the primary colors completely clean and unmixed.  I wash my brush constantly so that I don't carry unwanted pigments into my mixes.  In the following video I show you how to paint your color strips.  The music is a bit wonky...... I've uploaded it multiple times without being able to correct it.....  I'm still learning how to make my own videos!

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Remember to label both your color wheels and your color mix strips.  Be daring!  Try pigments you think might be terrible when mixed..... see what happens.
Exercise - Creating a more neutrali ed Color Wheel

Exercise - Color Scheme Game Color Wheel

Create a Limited Palette Color Wheel

Using the Color Wheel Game Templates, you can easily and quickly create a color wheels for a limited palette of one yellow, one blue and one red.  In the following video I used Aureolin Yellow, Permanent Carmine and Joe's Blue.  I label every color wheel so that I know which pigments result in the mixes on the wheel.  I save the wheels for future reference.  You may be surprised at some of the extreme variations available from a limited palette of three tubes of paint.

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The video is 8 minutes long.... it may take a while to upload.

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This week's exercise is to make at least four color wheels using different combinations of a red, yellow and blue.  Try to use a cool red (Ali arin or Crimson) and a warm blue (Ultramarine) in one of your wheels.  In another, try a warm red (Cadmium or Scarlet) and a cool blue (Phthalo).  It's not necessary to have the templates to make the color wheels.  You can simply draw circles and divide them into twelve sections.  The color wheel template kit is available here.

 
Exercise - Color Scheme Game Color Wheel

A Night of Jazz in Portland, Maine

Live Ja in Portland, Maine

The Mark Chillemi Quintet played to a full house at Blue in Portland, Maine.  I love seeing an attentive, listening audience in a bar that supports live music!  We were lucky to find the last two seats at the bar in the back of the room.  People kept pouring in.  I could barely see the musicians, but their music filled my ears without obstruction.



I'll post the weekly bog exercise tomorrow....... my brain is on overload, juggling the joys of life as an artist and the gift of being able to express that journey with the world.... both close and far.

Ladies listening from the bar, Blue, Portland, Maine

Sketchbook Drawings: Drawn first in ink with vintage Sheaffer fountain pen, followed by watercolor using a waterbrush.
A Night of Ja in Portland, Maine

Color Mixing Science Lesson

A first attempt at an online video post...

My twenty minute science lesson was captured last week during the Color Scheme Game Workshop sponsored by the National Association of Women Artists in New York City last month.  Thank you, emka!  It was emka's first attempt at using her phone to capture a video.  I think she did a great job.  It's up to me to figure out how to rotate the frames within the video..... eventually, I'll figure it out.

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https://vimeo.com/61845730

 

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The Michael Wilcox Color Wheel is a fabulous visual aid to teach the science of light waves as it relates to mixing pigments.

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After spending the entire day teaching myself how to use imovie (with the help of online tutorials)  I am ready to tackle the rest of the videos emka shot during the workshop.  I'll get better at this.... I promise.

 
Color Mixing Science Lesson

Brain Overload and Online Tutorials

Online Tutorials .... Integrating Technology

I'm taking the week off from posting a Monday Exercise.  I'm happy to say that I've been out late again painting musicians (at Hat City Kitchen) and syncing my high tech devices together so that I can film and post while traveling as well as facilitate creating online tutorials.  I'm off again to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of Big Ed Sullivan's Monday Night Blues Jam in New York City.  Being an artist has its ups and downs.  The ups definitely outweigh the downs!



I arrived at Hat City Kitchen too late to sit close to the band.  Instead, I sat all the way in the back by the door.  The music was great and the crowd was fun to paint.

Guy wearing hooded sweatshirt, checking his phone.

three ladies sitting at the bar

Rob Signorile's Band at Hat City Kitchen, Orange, NJ

Watching the crowd enjoy one another ... and ... the music!

 

 

Paintings: drawn first in ink with a dip pen, followed by watercolor

 
Brain Overload and Online Tutorials

Portrait Demo at Essex County Watercolor Club

Demonstrating Intuitive Painting

I've been invited by Essex County Watercolor Club to demonstrate painting figures, not an unreasonable request considering most of my exhibited work is either abstract or figurative.  The difficulty in demonstrating my method of painting figures is that I paint them intuitively, not academically.  I don't use a model when I work in the studio. I allow figure(s) to emerge from many layers of thrown and splattered paint.  The features, character, personality and narrative is never predetermined.  The figure and I are, at first, total strangers.



These large, studio paintings, either oil or watercolor, are created over a period of one to three consecutive days.  Each session lasts six to fourteen hours.  For me, the experience is thrilling.  For an observer, the experience would be dreadfully boring.  I can't imagine asking someone to watch me spend hours controlling puddles of water with an eyedropper, or to watch me watch the colors, tipping the paper this way and that..... maybe ..... or not ...... depending on how they are drying and which direction they are flowing.  Demonstrations are usually only an hour to an hour and a half in duration.  Until now, I have turned down requests to demonstrate my figurative painting.

Ladd - the man behind the camera - filming at a Blues Jam

My other method of painting figures is also intuitive.  I paint people doing what they love to do, mostly musicians and dancers.  The energy of the creative artist in action, combined with the energy of the audience, ignites my creativity in a way that nothing else does.  Every experience is a surprise, unique and invisible.  Each moment vanishes instantly.  All that remains is the energy of consecutive moments in our shared space ..... and the image of that energy expressed in ink and watercolor on my paper.

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Portrait Demo at Essex County Watercolor Club

Back to the Easel

Tax Prep for 2012 is complete!  Snow floats down from the heavens, a pot of hot tea is steeping and I am ready to switch my focus from numbers to shapes, colors and values!  What a joy to return to the easel.  In preparation for the upcoming solo exhibits on Healing through Art I am reworking many of the paintings from the 2003 exhibit that introduced my intuitive paintings to the public.

Left: Untitled No.6, 2003   Right: Untitled No. 6 2013 ......... Oil on canvas, 30" x 40".  Day by day, it's difficult to measure growth, to be aware of increased knowledge, understanding and the ability to see what to do next .... to see where a painting can go a bit further toward a stronger resolution.  After a decade of painting and drawing daily, as well as growing older (and hopefully, wiser) the message behind the art has experienced a transformation, one that is more positive, more optimistic, stronger in communicating the energy I experience when creating these abstract, intuitive paintings.

Back to the Easel

Sweet Potato Vine

Rooting Tubers in Jars of Water

I didn't have sawdust or wood shavings for storing my sweet potato vine tubers over the winter.  Instead, I stuck toothpicks into them, suspended them in glass jars and covered them with water.  Before long, two of the tubers sprouted leaves.  After three days glued to piles of paper and my computer, I took a break from preparing my 2012 tax return and focused on the lovely leaves reaching toward the winter sun...... great shapes to play with design.

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I'm ready for spring.  I dream of the annual trip to Well Sweep Farm to purchase my supply of potted herb plants.  The herbs I wintered over are struggling, doing their best to look healthy and happy.  The aroma of scented rose geranium and rosemary still brighten my day when I brush against them in passing.

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Artist Trading Card - Sweet Potato Vine Leaves - drawn first in ink with a fountain pen, followed by watercolor.

Sweet Potato Vine

Weekly Exercise - Values Alter Shapes

Changing Values ... Changes Shapes

The importance of choosing the value of a shape can't be ignored. Color is both seductive and deceptive.  Being aware that even slight alterations of value can either diminish or strengthen the mood of a painting could make the difference between creating a painting that expresses your experience ... or doesn't.  Here is another valuable exercise from my old, lesson plan book.

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You will need twelve small pieces of paper of the exact same si e.  Mine were 3" x 3.5".

Step One:  On the first piece of paper, invent either a simple landscape, still life or abstract using only two basic, compositional shapes.  On the second piece of paper, repeat the two shapes and add a third.  On the third piece of paper, add a fourth shape.  On the fourth piece of paper, add a fifth shape. (Illustrated above - the column on the far right)

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Step Two:  (Illustrated above - center column) Repeat the compositional shapes.  With a soft pencil, make one of the two shapes as dark as possible.  Make that same shape as dark as possible on the other three pieces of paper.  With each added shape, create a new value.  The fourth drawing should have all five shapes, each a different value. One of the shapes should remain white.

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Step Three -Moon shape and sky shape are the same value in this drawing.

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Step Three: (Left column of top image) On the last four sheets of paper, draw the five basic shapes very lightly.  As you did in Step Two, make the same shape as dark as possible on all four sheets.  On the first of the group, make the other four shapes as light a value as possible, but make all of them the same value.  Repeat on the second of the group, then choose on of the light gray shapes and make it darker (a value midway between our light gray and your darkest dark).  Repeat on the third of the group, then choose one of the remaining light gray shapes and shade it a value between your mid-value and your dark value. On the last sheet, shade the shapes as close to the last sheet of the second series as you can.  The difference between these two sheets will be that you will not leave a shape white in the last series as you did in the second series.  The shape will be a very light value, but not as light as white.

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Observe the differences between the drawings.  Focus on the subtle differences between values of neighboring shapes the next time you stand before your easel.

 
Weekly Exercise - Values Alter Shapes