Posts Tagged: painting

A Stitch in Time

A Stitch in Time 12-30-12

A Stitch in Time

6″ x 6″ (15 x 15 cm) – oil on gessobord – commission

It took a lot longer than anticipated, but I finished it this year! This is a very important painting for me and I wanted to do it right and took my time. This is my first commission. And an international one at that.

With this year almost gone I see many of my artists friends doing a recap. I read them with great interest – people have accomplished great things, painted significant works, showed work in important places, taught numerous students, and thought up amazing innovations. I thought to myself I must do a year-end post as well.

So here it goes:

  • In 2012 I painted 11 paintings and sold almost all of them. Got and painted my first commission!
  • Made my sketching a serious practice, drawn numerous sketches, traveled to Stockholm and sketched there.
  • Founded Urban Sketchers Chicago group as a part of Urban Sketchers global movement. The group is now 75 artists strong, meets monthly and has its own FB page and blog.
  • Met and friended a great many artists around the world and learned a great deal.
  • Began to understand and use social media marketing – it works, how amazing!

It was a great year – 2012. Here’s to a better one in 2013!

Fiddlesticks

Fiddlesticks 12-2-12

Fiddlesticks

8″ x 8″ (20 x 20 cm) oil on gessobord panel

SOLD

The whole time I was painting Fiddlesticks I was remembering “Odessa Tales” by Isaac Babel. If you haven’t read this, hurry – you are in for a treat … you can thank me later. It is better in Russian, that being the original language, but the English translation is very good too. I bought the English version for my husband who does not speak Russian and he laughed his head off from cover to cover :). He is still quoting from it all these years later. Anyway, “Odessa Tales” was the originating influence for this painting.

I did not have any major painting discoveries during this work. I did confirm for myself that my homemade medium recipes work better for me than various readymade mediums from the store. I make a Lean medium for my first color pass and a Fat one for my second and later passes. Now I have a collection of fancy brand mediums that I don’t use anymore.

Yesterdays

Yesterdays

6″ x 6″ (15 x 15 cm) oil on gessobord panel

SOLD

Something was right about this idea, or composition, or colors, or whatever… because it painted like a dream. Easy and smooth, without difficulties or usual anxiety, the colors and shapes just played along agreeably and it was all finished before I was ready to make a conscious decision about that. Ha! – it was ready to be signed.

But then I realized that I don’t have a title. I did not panic… so it would take me a day or several to think of it. But a good title was eluding me… I made my family think of the title… no, it was not happening for them either. After a few days of struggle with something that is usually so easy I made a decision – I would crowd-source it. So I put the painting on Facebook and called out to my friends.

In 8 hours I had 23 gorgeous titles! I had titles from as far as Australia, Singapore, Ireland, Israel, Canada, East and West coasts…. In the end I chose the title that came from two blocks away. Mary Lanigan Russo, my friend and neighbor and an urban sketcher from Chicago, suggested “Yesterdays”. A couple of hours later Jim Bumgarner, an urban sketcher from Tri-Cities WA, suggested “All My Sorrows Seem so Far Away” and thus settled any doubts. I have amazing friends!

Latest Gossip

Latest Gossip

6″ x 6″ (15 x 15 cm) oil on gessobord panel

SOLD

Some thought that I gave up painting… I don’t blame them! I’ve been posting sketch after sketch for months… but I’ve been painting too. Remember after “Unwrapping” I promised myself to avoid painting crinkled paper unless it is a commission? Well, I could not stay away – crinkled paper is addictive. I must be a glutton for punishment… It took this long and was a major pain.

This little painting had the longest “ugly” stage I can remember. Until three days ago it looked like the best candidate for recycling bin I’ve ever seen. I am not sure why I did not give up. My daughter says that I go through this with every painting. I think she is right, it is always a pain, uncertainty, major self-doubt, anxiety and confusion. I hear from my artists friends, writers friends, musician friends that it is the same for them too. So much for happy bohemian life style. I hope you like the painting though.

O Sole Mio

O Sole Mio

6″ x 6″ (15 x 15 cm) oil on gessobord panel

SOLD

Remember how it sounded when Pavarotti sang it? It is hard to come up with something sounding sweeter than that. And of course pear shapes invoke certain associations. Anyway, pears are so easy to anthropomorphize… they are so much like us. I have no trouble imagining them serenading each other or singing a duet.

Of course, painting a music score is a lot less sweet. It’s pretty much a pain in … wherever. In oil while keeping perspective… I hope I did it correctly. If you can read music and see a mistake – don’t tell me, I don’t want to know!

Waiting for Adam

Waiting for Adam

8″ x 10″ (20 x 25 cm) oil on gessobord panel

SOLD

Just apples to try a different technique. And a tongue in a cheek joke as an afterthought. Coming up with a title was harder than painting it. As sure as god made little apples… an apple a day… All of this was so trite that I was very tempted to title this Untitled. Every self respecting artist has something called Untitled. But then my husband came up with A Garden of Eve, and I loved it, and of course took it a step further.

Unwrapping

Unwrapping

8″ x 8″ (20 x 20 cm) oil on gessobord panel

SOLD

It’s been almost three months since my last oil painting. There are several reasons why. I’ve been away, and painting not in my own studio is slow somehow. I’ve been organizing the Chicago chapter of Urban Sketchers, and that took time and effort. But the real reason it took this long is that my subject was so damn hard! I can’t believe I actually got it to the end! It would be a while before I paint crumpled paper again :).

Rover and Bessie

Rover and Bessie - oil on gessobord - 6"x6"

Remember Beanie Babies?

Oh, the 90’s… Shelly was perhaps in the first grade when Beanie Babies became all the rage. We succumbed – they were so cute. Irresistible, really. And their names were so clever, like Speedy – the turtle :). We collected them for several years, and now we have a box full. A few have peanut butter or other food smears on them, some are dirty from being loved too much, but all are still perfect props, wonderfully colorful and posable. Here, for you, are Rover the dachshund and Bessie the cow – a dear memory of my daughter being little.

In other news:

I will be going on my yearly trip to Israel to be with my parents. I am leaving in 2 days and will be staying there for a month, back in April. So, if I don’t have a good way to scan/photograph images while on the trip – there will be no posts until I return. Or perhaps technology will oblige, and I will post sketches and paintings. I do plan to paint, am bringing two panels with just prime and drawings on them. And I plan to sketch a lot. In fact, I connected with Urban Sketchers Israel and hope to do a sketchcrawl with them if logistics cooperate.

Shalom, darlings! 😀

 

 

Make Tea not War

Make Tea not War - SOLD

6″ x 6″ (15 x 15 cm) oil on gessobord panel.

I am a tea buff, as in tea aficionado, tea connoisseur, but otherwise known as a tea snob. In our little tea universe we study and admire tastes, aromas and colors. We understand tea terminology, geography and pedigree. We frown at shredded tea leaf or added flavors. We are purists who mail our precious tea leaves from their countries of origin. Among us tea bags are an insult and Lipton is a dirty word. You get the picture. I am not gone that far on this tea road, but far enough to bring my tea with me when I travel.

And of course we admire teaware. Teaware is an art form in itself, many collect teaware, which can run up astronomical prices for historical and rare pieces. I am not a collector, but I have a few teapots. Different teas require different pots to bring out full flavor.

This little painting is of my silver teapot from England. Not particularly old or historically significant, but it is pretty and I like it for Ceylons or Darjeelings. There is no deeper meaning here, I just wanted to paint a silver teapot. Check out the multiple reflections of the clementine! And because it is an simple painting I thought a line from Monty Python is particularly suited for the title.

Eiger Trail

Eiger Trail

6″ x 6″ (15 x 15 cm) oil on gessobord panel.

In the year 2000 my husband and I went to Switzerland and did some wonderful mountain hiking. The absolutely amazing experience was the Eiger Trail near Gimmelwald. I was completely  spellbound with its majestic beauty. So much so that I even bought a local souvenir (which I never do, btw) – a local goat toy. These goats are the  funniest critters – black in the front, white in the back, curious and fearless creatures. This still life is another one in the Reflections series I am working on.

A few days ago my friend and artist Carol King (Carol King blog) asked about process and steps it takes me to paint these still lives. An excellent question that I promised to answer.

My process:

I usually start with an idea. The idea can be visual – color I like, line that is intriguing, texture I haven’t tried before. Or it can be intellectual – memories, poetry, or emotions that touched me. This idea brings forward objects that could express it. I often have to hunt for these objects in thrift stores or borrow them from my friends and family – sorry, guys!

I make numerous compositions from objects I assembled and experiment with light. Following Norman Rockwell’s methods I take dozens of photos of my various setups in various lights.

Bringing the photos to my computer I sort and discard. With the remaining few I work on crop and composition. Half the time I can’t get an image that satisfies, and when this happens I go back to playing with my objects and light and camera.

Once I have a composition I like, I draw it in pencil. I often use grid method working from my computer screen and make my drawing as accurate as I can. At this stage I make decisions about details and routinely skip and omit portions that I don’t want in a future painting.

I rub the back of the drawing with vine charcoal creating a transfer surface and transfer the image onto the gessobord. Gessobord by Ampersand is my preferred surface because it is very smooth. The transferred charcoal image gets corrected and then fixed with Krylon fixative.

When fixative is dry I put in an imprimatura layer. I like my paintings to have warmth coming from within, so my usual imprimatura is done in yellow ochre or burnt sienna or burnt umber or a combination of them.

I use Gamblin oils, Gamsol for solvent, and Galkyd Slow Dry medium. Here is the list of my colors:

  • yellow ochre
  • burnt sienna
  • burnt umber
  • alizarin crimson
  • venetian red
  • cadmium red light
  • cadmium yellow light
  • cadmium yellow medium
  • cadmium orange
  • viridian
  • ultramarine blue
  • cerulean blue
  • payne’s grey
  • portland grey
  • ivory black

I use two whites – titanium and flake white.

I would give you my preferred brushes too, except I don’t have them. I have many brushes I use and dislike to various degrees, some more and some less. But I haven’t found brushes that would do what I want without a struggle. I will write about brushes in another post.

I use several sources as references for painting. I paint from the laptop screen, which is very convenient because I can enlarge details and lighten darks to see better. And I use a printed reference, which is convenient in a different way because I can rotate it. I also have my objects present so I can see the real colors.

I wait until my imprimatura layer is dry and begin the background. I usually work background to foreground and dark to light. The difficulty starts when my background is light and foreground is dark. In this case I abandon reason and work easy passages first and difficult ones later.

I let the background dry overnight. I prefer it to be reasonably dry, but it is not a must. If it is still tacky next day, I begin painting my foreground composition anyway using a painting bridge.

It usually takes several days to paint the first color layer. When the first layer is dry to touch I often do a coat of retouch varnish to even up sunken colors and assess where I am.

Then I do the second color layer, correcting, deepening, creating variations, adding details and brightening highlights. I may use Galkyd medium in the second layer.

Second layer complete I add another coat of retouch varnish and assess again. Often at this stage the painting begins to speak to me, telling me it is time to round things up. When I hear that, I correct mistakes I can find and get out my “Finishing a Painting Checklist.”

Reading books, blogs, talking to painters and making paintings myself I compiled a list of things to check at the final stages of a paining. I go through it and check and correct things. But it is not as analytical as it sounds. Sometimes I see something that needs changing according to my list, but I like it the way it is and leave it. In fact, I disregard a lot of rules, some of them rather fundamental.

Against well known and well established rules:

  • I paint flat on a table
  • I use small, smaller and smallest brushes
  • I love details and paint a lot of them

And I am unrepentant and unapologetic.

I sign my small paintings with initials only. When a painting is sold or goes to a show I add a label in the back with a title, media, my full name, and year painted.

I let my small oils dry for at least a week before I varnish them. I use Gamvar varnish applied with a brush.