Play with your art materials

Today I felt compelled to write about the benefits of playing with your art materials, especially if it's in a medium you don't usually work in.  You can learn about mediums and perhaps become more interested in working in a new medium by experimenting with it.  If you're not setting out to create a cohesive piece or art and just want to experiment with materials then you're less inhibited and more free to just have fun and that is why I feel it's a good idea to play with materials every so often.  When you have a mental block is one of the optimal times to take part in this type of exercise.

Let me tell you why I decided to write about this today.  Last night my younger daughter who is 10 years old and I were working on painting some ocean waves onto a piece of cardboard with acrylic paints for my wife's Halloween costume that will be "Rub-a-dub Three Men in a Tub" and I learned a lot by just playing around.  The two of us were just slopping on paints in various blues, greens and purples and we were trying to work fast so that we were working wet in wet for blending purposes. 

The two of us had so much fun just painting and talking.  More families should do this type of activity instead of turning on the TV or playing video games.  You can learn alot about your children and bond with them by doing something as simple as moving paint around and creating silly pictures.  It doesn't have to be a set picture or even have to be a great work of art when you're done.  Create an abstract painting, make shapes or swirls of color, paint colorful clouds, layer acrylics and see how layering can create new colors and have fun.

Back to my point that is you can learn how materials handle and their possibilities by just experimenting with simple designs.  You can try new materials to see what they can do.  You can use your normal medium and try new things without the pressure of creating a masterpiece.  If you don't normally layer your oils then give it a try.  Try oils over acrylic to see what you can achieve.  Try pen and ink over acrylic or heavily thin your oils and try using them like watercolors but above all you should have fun and learn!

Almost everyone is thinking about or going green these days so why not do your part.  I recycle old boxes all the time and using them to do sketches on and experiment with.  Some of the paintings on my web site are painted on old boxes.  I cut out sides of boxes from cereal, crackers, snacks, etc and then put one or two coats of acrylic gesso on them and let them dry.  I usually cut out the boxes and stack them flat until I have a bunch and then I paint on the gesso with a large brush and let them dry and then do a second coat if desired.  You can also recycle your old tin cans as well and use them as potential canvases and perhaps make some money at it as well.  Check out my previous post on "Crushed Can Art" pioneer Charles Kaufman who is a very successful and wonderful artist.

There are some paintings on my web site (see above) that were painting on boxes.  In the photo of the plaster cast in this blog posting you can see the shadows from the corrugated box.   Of course these are not meant to be lasting paintings because boxes are not meant to last a lifetime and sometimes if I really get into a painting and it comes out good then you do have regrets of not painting them on canvas or masonite to begin with.  But I guess you have to hold yourself back from letting that happen.

Art Renewal Center (ARC ) is must see

"Empire" ~ Julio Reyes  (Won Best In Show ~ ARC Salon 2009-2010)

If you are an artist, collector or even just someone who like to look at art then visiting the Art Renewal Center's website is a must-see!  This web site hosts some of the finest images done by the world's best artists.  The Art Renewal Center (ARC) is most famous for it's annual ARC Salon art competition and the ARC has the winners and honorable mention's art work posted on their site.  You can also purchase copies of the ARC Salon catalog which contains all of the photos of the winning artwork.

Julio Reyes won Best In Show for ARC Salon 2009-2010 (see photo above) for his incredible and masterfully depicted "Empire" painting.  Please stop by Julio's web site to view more of his amazing works.  He is just one of many artists that I aspire to be some day. 

Visit Julio Reye's web site at: www.julio-reyes.com/

There are lots of informational technical articles, atelier listings, search the ARC museum, purchase hi-resolution prints of the artwork, listen to podcasts and much more on their site.  If you feel so inclined and think your painting skills are masterful and you think you have what it takes then you can also sign up for the next ARC Salon competition.  I still have a few more years before I'm even close the the caliber of the artists who enter this competition but that day will come.

You can visit the Art Renewal Center by going to: www.artrenewal.org/.

Karin Jurick: Painting A Day Pioneer

"Left Holding the Bag" ~ Karin Jurick

I've been following Karin and painting along with Karin on her "Painting A Day" blog.  Karin is one of the pioneer's of the "Painting a Day" concept and I believe that combined with the fact that she produces beautifully depicted scenes rendered in a wide spectrum of colors are what makes her pieces so highly collectable and sought after.  She mostly creates smaller pieces such as her current series of faces, appropriately entitled "100 Faces" which are all 6" x 6" in size.  Karin has a few videos on YouTube that you can watch by clicking here so you can see how she works and view the video that describes her paletter (or pizza pan in Karin's case).

Please visit her web site at: web.mac.com/kjurick and take a look.  Her paintings are available for reasonables prices in the range of $300-$500 and considering that I believe that these will at some point be considered collectible and will only go up in value then you might be able to get yourself a nice piece of art and an investment.

You can also visit Karin's Painting A Day Blog and although she put the "Weekly Challenge" project on the back-burner to focus on her painting and gallery representation (isn't that postion we all aspire to be in?) you can still visit her "Differenet Strokes from Different Folks" blog and take on her previous challenges.

Greg "Craola" Simkins: Walk on the Surreal Side!

"ItWanders" ~ Greg "Craola" Simkins

The latest Juxtpoz magazine features a fabulous artist names Greg "Craola" Simkins.  "Craola" is the nickname he had when he was a graffitti artist.   Greg has since earned himself a successful career as a fine artist and one look at his work and you'll see why.  Even if you're not a big fan of surreal art, you cannot help but appreciate the strange beauty at which he depicts his incredible and bizarre worlds.

I believe Greg sums up his work himself when he wrote on his Biography page of his web site, "Upon watching a documentary shortly after on Yellowstone National Park, I was amazed at the number of different elements in nature that are so familiar to me but will never be realized by each other.  We will never see snow covered coral reefs inhabited by butterflies alongside moray eels. Deer will not gallop beside killer whales and birds will never share their nests with a family of jellyfish. Of course, it is now my job to make some introductions and see where they go.  These are some of the symbiotic relationships that are going on peripherally in the world I paint into." 

You can see for yourself that unbelievable made believable worlds created by Greg by visiting his site at: www.imscared.com/ or visit his blog at: craola1.blogspot.com/.

Terry Stickland: Exceptional Fine Artist

"The Ascent" ~ Terry Strickland

I've been a follower of Terry for some time now and I felt it necessary to give her mention on my blog because I love her work. She paints beautifully and I love the emotion she brings forth in her work not matter how subtle.

Terry has a BFA in Graphic Design from the University of Central Florida. She has had a very diverse art career, working as an illustrator, teacher, silk screen artist, and a courtroom sketch artist.  Some of her clients have included ABC Televsion, Sea World and Busch Gardens just to name a few.  She is now devoting her time working full time as a painter.

At the time of this article I'm hoping that I might be able to afford her two classes that are coming on on November 13th and 14th at the Gadsden Art Museum in Gadsden, Alabama. You can book a spot by calling(256) 546-7365. Please visit Terry's web site for information and to view her work at:  http://www.terrystricklandart.com/ or visit her blog at: www.terrystricklandart.blogspot.com/

Terry writes on her website, "I consider intangibles, challenging myself to capture small nuance in relationships, life, death, and love. Much of my work is about transitions, whether it is a midlife juncture or coming of age as a universal truth. These paintings are decisions reflected and possibilities contemplated. I'm frequently inspired by fairy tales, superheroes, or works of literature, and reexamine them in a contemporary way." 

It's the small nuaces that Terry mentions that draw me to her work.   I love the way she conveys the emotions in the subjects of her portraits.  Please pay a visit to her web site and her blog, her work is must see!

Use of Lines to Sketch

When sketching out your painting onto your surface of choice, it is a good idea to sketch using straight lines only- curves lines make sketching too difficult. It's easier for the brain to comprehend straight lines than it is to understand curves.

You can break down curves into multiple straight lines for the most part. You need to capture your images big shapes and overall outlines. When sketching you should be constantly be comparing how each line relates to others in the composition. You need to see how each of the lines intersect or would intersect with each other if the line continued on in each direction.

You should look at you subject as a series of shapes not as name-able parts of an object. Look for angles, shapes such as squares, triangles, rectangles, etc.

Inexpensive Palette

I recently attended a impromptu drop-in life drawing/painting class a few weeks ago and after the class I had a change to chat with some of the artists and after questioning her about her palette, she gave me the details about her choice.

She explained that she had taken a workshop with Dawn Whitelaw awhile back and this was the palette that Dawn usually teaches with. She went on to say that the reason Dawn uses this palette is because it's cheaper on her art students who don't have that much money to purchase paints. She has her students purchase only 4 tubes of paint in primary hues and then has them mix their secondary hues and from there they can additionally mix tertiary if necessary.

Here is Dawn Whitelaw's palette for her students:

Holbein titanium white
Winton cadmium deep red hue (naphthol pigment)
Utrecht cadmium yellow light
Ultramarine blue (any brand)

She said that Dawn also explained that because they are inexpensive paints and have more fillers and oils, they can be used without a painting medium.

This is also great in the fact that a student can purchase a large tube of paint instead of purchasing the smaller tubes because that is all they can afford. It seems one of the biggest quirks that art teachers report are that art students only squeeze out a tiny bit of paint instead of squeezing out large globs of paint to work with. It seems that Dawn's palette might eleviate this tendancy in students because they're not paying a lot for their paint, only buying 4 tubes instead of 14 or more and if they buy large tubes then they're more inclined to squeeze out large globs of paint. I know would feel better about it.

I think this is a great idea and it was nice to see that Dawn is working on a way to help out her students by discovering a nice alternative for painting supplies for her students. I'm going to give this palette a go and blog about it once I have enough information to report.

Zorn Palette



"Hins Anders" ~ Anders Zorn

The Zorn palette is very useful and can be a lot less intimidating for artists learning to paint. This palette is a warm palette with the black being the only cool pigment which makes this a good choice for learning to paint portraits. It takes out the frustrastion of having too many color choices and lets you address your values and shapes instead of worrying about mixing flesh tones from a huge color palette. This palette also allows you to get to know these pigments and how to mix together and makes you more familiar with them.

Anders Zorn was a Swedish painter know for his wonderful portraits of people of Sweden and also of his nude figures. Zorn did not limit himself to just those four colors and after you learn to paint portraits and figures using this palette, it's easy to slowly add additional pigments as needed. For instance adding Ultramarine blue would be a great first choice to add to this palette and you could work with these five colore for some time before adding a sixth color and so on.

It limits the number of color choices and when used in more sophisticated compositions it can get you used to locating certain colors next to each other in order to make other colors appear more warm or cool or make on color appear more lighter or darker than it actually is.

The Zorn palette is made up from the following paints:

White
Ivory Black
Cadmium Red Medium or Light
Yellow Ochre

You'll notice the absence of some of the major players in the color world such as blue and green and that is because you're expected to mix them using the above palette.

Yes, you're expected to mix blue from Ivory black and white, orange from Yellow Ochre and Cadmium Red Light or Cadmium Red Medium and make green from Yellow Ochre, Ivory black and white as needed.

"Mona" ~ Anders Zorn

You are expected to place your complementary colors next to each other so they appear closer to their pure colors than they are. For example you're suppose to place you blue mixture next to your orange mixture to make the blue appear more blue.

With the Zorn palette there are chromas and hues that can’t be mixed but mearly sug­gested. Quite often by using warm and cool con­trasts, you can cre­ate the impres­sion of the col­ors that are not really there. A good exam­ple is cre­at­ing the illu­sion of blue eyes using only a mixed grey from white and black by plac­ing oranges, warm yel­lows and reds near the black and white mixture.

Tools for Finding Values

One of the skills that separates good artists from great artists is the ability for the artist to see and render values. It's more important to get the values down than it is to get the correct colors. You have to train your eye to recognize different value if you want to have any hope of moving your artwork forward.

There are a couple of tools you can use to help you recognize values and break down your images into distingquishable darks and lights. There is the value finder, black mirror or the Claude Glass as it formally referred to as and you can also buy or make a colored viewer out of red or green plastic.

1. Value Finder - this is the most helpful tool for learning to see and render values. It's a hand-held tool with 10 colored squares on it with either a notch or a hole in each of the 10 colored squares. One of the squares is colored white which is on the far end of the card and black on the other end of the card and in between there are 8 squares that start with light gray and slowly increase in darkness up to an almost black gray. You can use this tool by holding up to a still life or photo and by peering through the hole or the notch you can compare it to the various value squares until the color and the value square are almost indistinguishable in the value.

You can make you own by painting 10 squares ranging from white on one end and slowly darkening the white and painting 8 squares in between, each getting darker, and painting pure black in the last square.

2. Black Mirror or Claude Glass - this tool is good for limiting the middle values so you can see the major value shapes. You can view a still life or photo as light and dark and limited middle values. This is just a black piece of glass you look at your image in. You can purchase these or make your own. The real Claude Glass is slightly concave but you can make your own with just a flat piece of glass.

You can make your own by painting the back of a piece of glass and covering the edges with masking or electric tape to prevent cuts.

3. Colored Viewer - this is anther tool you can use to limit the values of an object by limiting the number of values you see. This is a bit easier to use than the black mirror because you can value your subject through the red or green plastic. You can purchase there or make your own.

You can make your own by purchasing some red or green cellophane or a plastice red file folder and using as is or tape it to a pre-cut picture matt or cut your own frame for it and taping the plastic to it.

Getting Values Correct: Simple Steps to Getting Values Right.

1. First get a photograph or setup a still life with a light coming from side.

2. You need to squint your eyes in order to simplify the photo or still life.  You want to squint so you see the large masses of light and dark values.  You want to break down what you see into two areas: light and dark.  If you don't then you need to squint harder.  You should see two main areas of value: light and dark. If the light and dark areas are not obvious to you, squint harder.

3. Draw or Paint in your dark value shapes.

4. Draw or Paint in your light value shapes.

5. This will leave the remaining values that are left when you stop squinting.  These are all the values that are in between the darkest and lightest values or the middle values. 

6. You now must determine whether each of the middle values belongs on the dark or light side of the value scale.  Value scales are usually divided into 10 values with black being at one end and white on the opposite end and 8 middle values increasing in range from light gray to dark gray.  Therefore there will be (4) values leaning toward the lightest value and (4) shades leaning toward the darkest value.  Some value scales are simplified even more by only including 5 middle values to simplify the learning of seeing values.

7. It's easier if you use a value finder tool which you can purchase cheaply or you can make your own value finder with some heavy stock paper or cardboard and white and black paint.

There are some other tools you can purchase or make yourself.  You can make your own black mirror or Claude Glass or make your own value finder viewer.

Courtroom Sketch Artist

A co-worker asked me last week why you don't hear about courtroom reporters that much any longer. I replied that because the courts allow cameras in the courtroom for almost all of the trials now so it's another job that's been lost in the progress of technology.

I did some research and was surprised to learn that the good artists could get as much as $10,000 per sketch and also get expenses paid for as well for some assignments.

Gary Myrick was a sketch artist for over 30 years and was in high demand for a lot of assignments and covered major cases in his career.

Check out his web site:
http://www.freewebs.com/courtroomart/

Unless prohibitied by a judge for specific cases, courtroom artists are allowed into any courtroom.  Courtroom sketching is a great way to practice your sketching skills and it's free.  You can practice doing quick sketches of the courtroom.  You can sketch witnesses in the witness stand, the judge, and the jurors who stand still for good periods of time during the trial.  Bring some business cards and hand them out if anyone inquires about your work.  It's almost a sure bet that someone will be looking over your shoulder at some point so hand them a card.  Marketing never sleeps!

If you hear about a closed courtroom case where cameras are not allowed then who knows, you may be able to sell you sketches to a news station and make some money in the process.

Artist Aaron Wooten

I found out about Aaron reading a magazine (no, don't remember which one) at Border's Books in Boston. The painting that was featured was one a Marilyn Monroe posing nude done in gratuitous shades of browns, grays and reds. I loved the way his brush strokes were loose yet direct at the same time. The image of Marilyn was a caricature of her body but Aaron kept the distortions of the head limited as though Marilyn body was erased and replaced by some genetic copy of her former body.

I felt compelled to visit his website to see more of his work and was not disappointed. Some people might think of his work as simplistic and perhaps sophomoric but I enjoyed his work. I love the way he distorts his figures so that they are grotesque and a bit sexy at the same time.

I particularly loved the images in his "Beach Chicks and Beatniks" collection and for more adventurous (18 or older) crowd, I also loved the pseudo-abstract images of the orgies in Aaron's "Uninhibited" collection. Aaron uses hard-edged shades of red to create these crazy images of fornication. Viewers be warned, the "Uninhibited" collection is not for G crowd.

You can visit Aaron's web site at:
web.mac.com/aaronrwooten/

Sketching on Public Transportation

It's been a long time since I posted something so I though I would post some comments about my daily commute. I've demoted myself from Commuter Rail train to the MBTA buses and trains in order to save $100 per month in costs and it hasn't been easy. For anyone who is not a resident of Massachusetts, let me explain that the Commuter Rail are the big Amtrak-type comfy trains that you actually get to sit down in and the MBTA are the public transportation trains that are packed with people bumping into you and sometimes giving off foul odors as well. And everyone knows how buses are and why they are prime opportunities for comedy.

Anyway, I've been sketching on the trains and buses and enduring bone-jarring braking, turns that would make most race car drivers envious and hitting pot holes and speed bumps at high velocities. I've become quite skilled at sketching during quite adverse conditions but no matter how difficult it is - I'll sketching. The only way to become better at ANYTHING is to practice, practice, practice!

Artists and potential artists make all kinds of excuses not to draw and paint but if you want to get good then you have to practice. You have to draw and you have to paint if you want to improve. All you need to draw is a pencil and a piece of paper. It doesn't get any easier or cheaper than that.

I sketch faces from the free newspapers and recently I started sketching photos that I have stored on my Blackberry. I took some photos of my Loomis and Barque books and I bring them up on my Blackberry screen and sketch from that. I also sketch people on the train. You have to sketch them quick because you never know which stop they'll be getting off the train so it makes things interesting. You can even sketch your own hand or your shoes or your feet if you don't have shoes but I hope you do have shoes.

Keep sketching! You can find at least 30 minutes a day to sketch - no excuses!