Out of Pocket

I will be on vacation starting for the next week.

Hopefully I will have some solid paintings or drawings to post when I return.

Out of the Loop

 

Sunset

I took this picture on my camera phone while walking in Old Town Alexandria last week.  The sky was so amazing I felt like I was looking at a Maxfield Parish painting.  At some point I think I will paint it.  I seem to be collecting photos of subjects I want to eventually paint. 

I have several wall mounted kitchen cabinets with glass doors.  In an effort to make the kitchen seem larger, I placed some mirrors against the back of the cabinet.  This weekend I shot several self portraits of me looking in to the cabinet.  I thought they were pretty quirky and the light was high and at true north.  If I do paint one it will be fairly unflattering, but when you paint you have to paint what you see honestly.  Hopefully not as honestly as Freud (I love his paintings of Leigh Bowery).

This week we have several makeup sessions with Robert Liberace.  Although we were supposed to paint a grasaille study of the model I just brought pencils and paper (well I had my silverpoint materials as well, just in case).   All of my oil paints and brushes are packed up and at my friends house.  He’s driving to Boston this weekend and delivering them for me. 

I am taking a vacation that will involve a 3 day painting workshop, and some fun plein aire painting with my friends as well. I haven’t had a vacation since Christmas and with my new job I didn’t feel comfortable leaving until now. I probably should take this one but frankly I need the break.  I am not normally a water baby (I prefer the mountains and fly fishing) but 8 days at Cape Cod sounds like heaven. 

On Monday and Tuesday we’re hitting the museums and the public library.  There are four of us that are huge Sargent fans and a visit to the Gardner as well as the Public Library are musts.

I can’t wait.

Winks, from postsecrets.com

The post card is from postsecrets.com which is a wonderful site that allows people to reveal their secrets and it delighted and charmed me (that’s code for it made me belly laugh).  I think it’s a healthy and necessary one, especially if you have a dark one, sharing the tough ones allows you the grace of knowing you’re never as bad as you thought you were and that no matter what you’ve done someone else has probably done it as well.  A dear friend used to say that you were, “only as sick as your secrets.” 

Sorry for the weird spacing on this post.  I retried posting it twice and no luck with the formating of the photos or paragraphs.  Must be some type of glitch.

Peanut Butter and Jelly

 

PB&J 12 by Duane Keiser

 

In Amercia a favorite sandwich for both children, adults and now artists is a  peanut butter and Jelly sandwich.  

I love artist Duane Keiser’s work especially his paintings of mundane food.  I have a number of his egg paintings and drool over his paintings of raspberries, kisses, and PB&Js.  Hi current work for sale at his eBay store is a great painting of a PB&J sandwich.  Even funnier is the name of the movie he shot of him making the painting, it was initially titled, “How to Make a PB&J” (it’s now titled PB&J(v2).

Twinrocker Paper

Twinrocker Yale Paper

I was going to write a post about a great deal being offered at Twinrocker Paper.  Their handmade paper is gorgeous and sadly fairly expensive.  The Yale Cream paper (laid) in the light weight (similar to the weight of paper used in a good quality hardbound book) and they had a run of seconds.  Since the paper (depending on finish – laid, wove, hot pressed or cold pressed etc) can run between $9.00 – $10.00 a sheet, it is beautiful and worth it. 

The deal/sale for the seconds was if you were buying the paper and it was under 10 sheets you received 30% off the price, if you bought 11-25 sheets it was 40% off and if you bought more than 26 sheets it was 50% off that price.   Quite agood deal.  I purchased several sheets and although I was told there was crinkling at the edges, but it wasn’t noticeable to me.

Sadly I wasn’t fast enough to post this and a classmate told me last night, that he’d purchased the last of it.  For those of you who knew about this great deal but didn’t take advantage of it, the opportunity is gone.  For those of you who did know and scored some great paper at 1/2 price congrats. 

William Matthews' Book (Image from Amazon.com)

The papers take pencils, chalks, inks and (depending on weight of the paper) watercolor beautifully.  In fact, William Matthews uses a specially formulated (read lovely brown)Twinrocker paper for many of his beautiful watercolors.

If you’re wondering what the hoopla is about the paper, you can order a sampler pack of either the normal papers ($15.00 + shipping), decorative papers ($15.00 + shipping),  or a combination back ($30.00 + shipping). The paper is wonderful.

One caution about the Twinrocker site, the page that contains information about the papers and weights is not linked to the page you actually order the papers so ordering can be confusing.   Twinrocker uses unique phrases to describe weights.  For instance I mistakenly assumed “LA” equaled laid paper and happily ordered several sheets to try.  LA actually refers to a weight of paper. This is the linkfor the explanation on paper weights and terms.  And, if worse comes to worse and you’re still confused, call them.  I’ve found them to be extremely helpful and friendly.  If you love pencil work, recommend trying their cornflower blue and the delphi gray.  I think they would both be great for life drawing. I have some of each but I’ve been hording them.

The last time I ordered through them, I called the order in on a Saturday, it was shipped on Monday and arrived neatly packed on Wednesday of the same week.  By the way, if you spend more than $100.00 the shipping is Free.

I use the Twinrocker for drawing in Robert Liberace’s class.  The paper is prepared with the watercolor was (usually ochre) and then a layer of the amber shellac with denatured alcohol (1:5 ratio).

Pelikan Plaka Sources

 

Pelikan Plaka

Ok I’ve talked about silverpoint in several posts and happened to mention Pelikan’s Plaka which is a water based casein paint that is sold in 1.75 oz glass jars.

I live in the metro DC area (Washington DC and parts of Maryland and Virginia) and have bought this at the Utrecht art store in DC (it’s near the National Women’s Art Museum) and Plaza Arts (in Fairfax, VA on Nutley Street)both carry the black or white plaka.

I found it by doing a google search of the words “pelikan +plaka” there were several hits.  It looked like quiet a few of the on-line stores carried both the white and black found here but also some wonderful light blue and a gray.  (I’ve been tinting mine with watercolors). 

 On-line I found it at a ASW, Jerry’s Artarama and several other locales.  There was also an art supply store called Island Blue in Victoria, BC that had a great price (I think it was 2.31 a bottle and they had a huge variety of colors) for it  (too bad the shipping was $21. CDN).  There was also an ebay store that had a ‘lot’ of bottles but the colors were hideous.  If you want to order it online and you live in the states try Mister Art or Utrecht. They have it for $3.21 and 4.39 respectively.

To use Plaka as a ground.  Simply apply one light coat  (using a flat watercolor brush or a hake brush) onto your surface (recommend smoothest paper possible, I use either arches hp watercolor paper or my moleskine sketchbook, but a nice bristol board should work dandy as well).  If the paint is too thick and sludgy don’t be shy about adding a small amount of distilled water to it to loosen it up enough to paint with.

I don’t always paint to the very edges, I like it when the  paper shows through along the edges; but paint to the edges if you prefer.  The paint dries in about 10-20 minutes.  Make sure it is completely dry before attempting to draw on your surface.

After the plaka dries I usually burnish it with a soft cotton rag or even a nylon.  Robert Liberace recommends just one coat, I’ve seen books and articles that suggest several layers with buffing in between.  I recommend you try it with various layers and buffing/not buffing and see which one works best for you.  I’ve considered experimenting with the rabbit skin glue replacement (I think it’s called pve size) that is considered a better ground than rabbit skin.  But the idea of having to add the titanium pigment makes me nervous because I would be doing this in my home.  I have pets and some health issues, either of which make it a very bad idea.  If you decide to try it always wear gloves and a commercial quality respirator.  The pigment powders are fine and many of the pigments are toxic.

My sister has a fairly extensive posting about silverpoint/metal point on her blog, Measure by Measure, with recipes for grounds using bones, rabbit skin glue et al.  I just use the plaka but I am not necessarily worried about long term conservation since I am learning and the prepped paper is for class or for drawing at home but not for sale.  We talked yesterday about the cotton used in arches watercolor paper and perhaps she’ll comment here about it and explain her reasoning.

If you want to try silverpoint recommend you visit both by sister’s blog post as well as the silverpoint web site, which features demos for applying grounds, information on techniques as well as selling supplies (both 24kt gold wire as well as silver wire).

Some Recent Work

A fellow member at the Keiser Collectors asked if I would link some of my work. Most of these are scattered throughout this blog, but I wanted to make one post that linked the ones I like the most.

Pencil Drawing

I hope you, the reader, do not think of this as mass advertising or self promoting. I am just trying to link what I have in one spot so she can see it. I will probably take this down in a week or so. So here goes, the ones I really love I will put a narrative down to explain it a bit.

This pencil drawing was made in just under three hours. The overall image is about 8×10″ but I cropped the photo so that you could really see the detail of the model’s face. The model’s hair is amazing and you may be able to faintly see the earrings he was wearing, they were like tiny ivory tusks.

The paper is Gutenberg cream laid which was given a wash of ochre and then painted with a diluted solution of shellac. It probably sounds odd, but we use prismacolors which tend can be waxy. Using the shellac changes the surface and enables you to really add layers to your drawing with out the wax.

Nude Study (Graiselle)

The oil painting on the right is one of my favorites, it was the first one I made in Robert Liberace’s class that I actually liked. I used a RayMar panel (it is belgian linen that is double oil primed) which I love, these are relatively inexpensive, lightweight and the paint just slides right on them. I use these or unstretched linen taped to a Masonite panel because they are light, easy to transport and don’t require a lot of space to store.

Although the background looks blue it’s a blue-grey created by mixing lamp black with titanium white. The graisselle was made using varying amounts of brunt umber and brunt sienna with white. No other colors were used. The model’s head is a little large and frankly her chin should be lower, but I decided to stop while I was ahead. Her belly did pouch like this but that was mainly due to the angle I was at along with her pose.

Silverpoint Torso Study

This silverpoint study was created on the last day of a Robert Liberace Upper Anatomy workshop in April 2008. The drawing was made in a moleskine sketchbook (the heavy paper one). The surface was prepared using Pelikan’s Plaka an opaque white casein product that is water soluble.

The model’s name is Adam. He has a remarkable physique. When Rob was talking about the terres major (a muscle group near the shoulder blade) Adam was flexing his to really show you where it is and how it looks. He’s pretty remarkable.

Arm Study

I love silverpoint although frankly it’s difficult to use in classes since many times we only have the model for one evening.

This study was a quick pencil sketch of the back of Adam’s arm. It was drawn fairly quickly in my.

Although it photographs very blue (in real life it isn’t so it’s some idiosyncrasy of the camera), one of my favorite silverpoints is not (technically speaking) well executed. I just like the image of the outstretched arm. We were painting or drawing a model named Wayne. Robert Liberace uses way a lot and the model is featured in many of Rob’s paintings and drawings.

Angel Wing Study

I had a hard time that evening and gave up trying to draw his entire body and just focused on his arm, It reminds me of the studies of a bird’s wing which is outstretched. As I stated before it’s technically lacking and I can’t honestly say why I like it so much, I just do.

Alan

This next painting was made in Ted Reed’s class. Studying with Ted was challenging because he forced me to use powerful/bold colors and to use thick paint. The model in this picture is Alan. Although the skin may see to be very orange in the picture it was an accurate depiction/rendering of the color of Alan’s skin. The lighting was intense and very warm which mixed with the orange from his shirt that reflected onto his skin. This is probably the boldest I’ve ever been with oils.

I had started a 16×20″ painting of Alan that was an unmitigated disaster. Halfway through the second session, I gave up and started a portrait in profile on a toned raymar panel. I painted this in about two hours, I finished what I could because we only had him for the two sessions and I’d wasted one session with the full body painting. Although the color key is high and very different than what I usually use, I really liked this one.

Zuleka

The picture of Zukieka was painting in New Mexico when I first started painting with oils. I am placing this next to Alan’s portrait so that you can see the difference in technique. I think I’ve come a lot further but still have quite a bit to do. I’m also posting a few more pictures of things I worked on this year.

Seated Figure, Oil Study

The painting on the right is an oil study of a male torso. I have to say that I love how the right arm of the model turned out. The left side of his torso looks odd, but he was twisted oddly and he moved a bit. The main thing I had to learn painting this was to simply be aware of how the smaller sections of light and shadow were interacting across his back.

Detail From Seated Oil Study

I included this close up of his right arm because I really liked how it looks. It makes me feel good because I can see how the anatomy workshops with Rob (Liberace) are starting to pay off for me. I may not be able to rattle off the names of the smaller structures (muscles/tendons etc) but I do understand what is below there and am now trying to correctly render what is visible and try to make sense of it.

This one study was completed in one session (3 hours) so it was a race against the clock. I’ve left it mounted on the board I painted it on (and the tape as well) simply because I like how it all looks together.

Charcoal Study

Finally, here is a charcoal study of a female nude. I lost it around her abdomen but I liked how her knees looked, I think the lighting was pretty dramatic.

A friend urged me to stay away from charcoal after this session, since it frustrated me to no end, I didn’t enjoy how dirty everything felt and I simply am not that good at it.

Ideally this gives you an idea of what I am working on and my skill range. I am still fairly new to oils, I’ve been painting about 2 1/2 years. I’ve drawn and doodled my entire life but drawing (and painting) from life is fun and incredibly challenging.

Hope you enjoyed the glimpse. I have several other works I like but I felt that this was more than enough to give an idea of what my work looks like; mostly figurative oils, pencil and silverpoint. Thanks for stopping by,

Studio Escalier and Michelle Tully

Cages d'Amour (Physalis peruviana) by Michelle Tully

When I first started learning to paint with oils I spent a great deal of time searching art magazines and books as well as the Internet.  I had only a few questions in mind; how did I wish to paint, whose work did I find and then love,  and more specifically what did I wish to paint (e.g., figure, still life)?

Since I was new to oil painting and only had a watercolor background everything was new and I felt I  could explore without any preconceived notions getting in the way.

Flying Apple by Michelle Tully

I first stumbled upon artist Duane Keiser’s blog I noticed a link his blogroll for a blog called  The Silver Fortress.  When  I clicked through the site, I read that The Silver Fortress was a blog for an art school in Argenton-Chateau, France.

According to their site they were a “a contemporary classical art colony” in Argenton-Chateau, France.  I wasn’t sure exactly what an art colony was but it sounded interesting so I started exploring the site further.

The creators of the Silver Fortress Blog, are Timothy Stotz and Nichole Michelle Tully, they  run a contemporary classical art school called Studio Escalier in Argenton-Chateau, France.

Emily by Michelle Tully

The Silver Fortress was a blog established to sell small daily paintings created by the faculty at Studio Escalier and the proceeds were used to fund a scholarship fund.

The school’s faculty is impressive:  Timothy Stotz, Nichole Michelle Tully, Anthony Ryder and Ted Seth Jacobs. According to the site, Tully and Stotz  were two of  original eight members of the Jacob Collins Studio and founding members of the Water Street Atelier in Brooklyn NY. In an intereting aside, I believe Timothy Stotz and Duane Keiser both attended Randolph Macon College in Richmond, VA.

Onions by Anthony Ryder

Artist Tony Ryder is renown for his draughtsman skills  as well as his sensitivity when painting the human figure.  He heads his own studio and academy in Santa Fe New Mexico.

Anthony Ryder is the author or the book, The Artist’s Complete Guide to Figure Drawing: A Contemporary Perspective on the Classical Tradition.   Both Timothy Stotz and Anthony Ryder studied with Ted Seth Jacobs at the Arts Student League in New York City, NY.

Above St Johns by Michelle Tully

According to the Studio Escalier site, Ted Seth Jacobs has taught art at the New York Arts Student League, The New York Academy of Art and he is the founder of the Ecole Albert Defois in France. Ted Seth Jacobs conducts workshops within the states as well as overseas.

Ted Seth Jacobs is “esteemed for his strong influence on three generations of artist-draftsman, and artist-teachers in NYC, including Andrew Reiss, Jerry Weiss, Anthony Ryder, Randolph Melick, Will Cotton, Jacob Collins and Michael Grimaldi among others.”

The Ortiz and Sandia by Michelle Tully

Studio Escalier offers several courses, an intensive 3-month program, a 9-week course of study, or a  one-month course of study in either the facilities in Argenton-Chateau or it’s newest offering of Paris.

Although I subscribe to the Silver Fortress feed and I am not certain when they actually ceased their scholarship fund raising efforts through the blog and eBay.  Currently I receive posts of studies that are in process by the faculty.  It’s extremely instructive by I miss the opportunity to view Michelle’s wonderful 4″x4″ gems.

Note, I forgot to mention that I actually own all of these paintings (except the poster study).  I used to keep both of the New Mexico landscapes next to my bed to remind me of New Mexico when I was homesick.

Sarah Poster Study

I should probably also mention that if you are an artist who is interested in classical realism, you should seriously look into attending a session, whether one month or more, at Studio Escalier.  If you go through the Silver Fortress blog you will get an excellent sense of the techniques and methods that Timothy and Michelle.  Usually they begin with a pencil study and then progress to a ‘poster’ study.

When I first started reading about Timothy, Michelle and Anthony Ryder’s techniques I didn’t understand the term.  Basically its a way of rendering your subject looking only at broad strokes of paint, trying to work out composition and color harmony issues.

I spent forever trying to buy a portait study.  I wanted one to be able to see their layered approach to painting, (charcoal, thin thin diluted wash over charcoal, thing diluted layer with color and the final glorious layer.

Update

It looks like Michelle Tully and Tim Stotz are back up and posting paintings on ebay again-horray!

Robert Liberace Collection (part 2)

 

Untitled Female Torso Study by Robert Liberace

Artist  Robert Liberace teaches classes on Fridays at the Art League in Alexandria Virgina.  He teaches drawing in the morning, oil painting in the afternoon and either a drawing or a painting class in the evening; it switches back and forth each term.

I love that he teaches an evening class because it provides those with traditional day jobs the opportunity to study with Rob.  Additionally, if you are focusing on a specific skill, say you’re working on your figure painting, he will usually accommodate you and your focus. 

All of the work I own by Robert are studies or demonstrations from his class.  I love the raw energy and the fresh feeling of these works.  They are not or finished; they are quick and convey as important information as possible (shadows temperature, flesh tones, what the reflected light is doing to the skin and the shadows etc).
 
The Female Torso Study  was created within about an hours during class.  Rob spent time explaining what he was doing as well as the choices he was making (i.e., what to emphasis, what to edit)  as he drew the model.  If you click on the picture you should be able to see the picture larger and really get a sense of how delicately the drawing was done.
 

Untitled female head study by Robert Liberace

Another wonderful drawing I own by Rob is a Untitled Female Head Study done using pencil and chalk.  One of things that might be easy to overlook on the Female Head Study is the egg floating above the model.  Rob will often start both his drawing and painting demonstrations by drawing (or painting) an egg.  Rob uses the eggs to demonstrate how simply we can render the light and shadows as well as the reflected light and cast shadows.

Quite often the eggs are wonderful jewels in their own right, but I find them very instructive sitting next to the figure or portrait.  They allow me to see clearly where the lights/shadows are without getting lost in the details of where to place the model’s features.

 

 

Untitled Silver Point Drawing by Robert Liberace

 This last drawing is one of my favorites.  The model is one that Rob has used for a number of his drawings.  To really see the range of this model’s abilities I recommend you view Robert’s page at the Arcadia Gallery website.

I have to apologize in advance for the quality of this photo.  It is difficult to photograph silver point because the metal tends to reflect light and throw it back at the camera lens.

If you have never heard of silver point, recommend you take look at this  silver point website, it is a great source of information, forums and resources for those interested this medium.

The basic technique for silver point (or any metal point since you can use gold wire or platinum wire as well)  is to draw using a piece of silver wire on a prepared ground.  It can be time consuming and it takes some skill because once a mark is down on the paper it is there forever.  The silver tarnishes over time, so a well executed silver point drawing will only get lovelier over time.

I have several more drawings, one wonderful ink portrait (a friend gave that to me for a housewarming gift!) as well as a phenomenal leg study.  I will try to get them photographed and posted soon.