Study Time

A few posts back I promised to post about how I study. First I have to mention that I absolutely love to study. Not only art, but a wide variety of topics from A to Z. There are so many fascinating things to learn about. I have always thought that it would be wonderful to be paid a salary to just be a student for the rest of my life. I suppose in a way I am paid a salary, it just isn't in the traditional form of pay. The upside to that is that it isn't taxed!

So, like so many studious folks I take a multimedia approach to studying. Most of it comes in the form of books. Even though I try to cull my books now and then, I still have a lot and they all over the house! Here a bookshelf that is next to my spot by the wood stove in our living room:

I love this shelf that my mate made for me as I can reach any book I need without getting up. As you can see, there is a number of art books on the left. Just a small selection from the total. There are also books on sewing, herbs, music, and cello playing. These are what I am currently referring to. There are also a few Plein Air Magazines tucked in there. I learn something from each and everyone. I always pick up new information whenever I re-read them too.

I also have several videos. I like videos but, by necessity, they tend to be a bit more limited in scope than books.

Of course, if you have read my previous posts, you probably realize that I do a lot of practical studies. About 99% of them are plein air. I have painted close to 300 in the past two years with 82 of them being wave studies. When I first started painting en plein air, I realized I was going to have to paint a lot and that many of them wouldn't be that great. I don't have a lot of extra funds so I tried to find ways to save money and still accomplish my goals. After a bit of research and crunching some numbers I decided to use canvas pads. The one on the right is mostly what I have used. The 12"x16" has been perfect. I can get 4-6"x8" canvas per sheet, or 40 per pad. I think it came to about $1.60 a painting. I didn't feel so bad if I messed up. Plus, I wasn't going to be tempted to sell my study if I got a good one. Since I don't use reference photos, these are the only reference material I have, along with any sketches.

After I cut the canvas to the size I want, I tape it with white artist's tape to hardboard panels I cut for that purpose. When I am finished, I remove the tape and pin it up on my bulletin board. When I fill the board up, I take them down and it is ready for a new batch. I am down to my last 6 or so cut and taped canvases to use. After the cotton ones are gone I have the Centurion linen canvas pad to use. The canvas is a lot nicer and I am thinking I want to mount the sheets to panels first so they will be more permanent. I am still thinking on that one.

I decided that when all of this is used up, which will be fairly soon, I will graduate to Centurion pre-mounted linen panels. They are fairly reasonable in price and I want to start painting more with an occasional finished plein air painting in mind vs. a study. I will continue to upgrade my panels as I can afford to. Here is my bulletin board just recently, before clearing it. It is on its way to being filled up again.

All of this is materials and resources so far. I also do practical studies with paint, pencil, and other mediums. These are value scales I put together to help me with paint values. I used Color-Aid paper, glued them to cardboard and coated them with acrylic gloss medium. I have been working on my values lately and am starting to see progress.

Here are a few samples I painted using an artist's painting that I admire as value reference. I worked to match the range of values in the painting and gained quite a bit of understanding from the exercise.

Finally, I have a couple of online classes that help keep me accountable yet give me time to go at my own pace. The biggest and best by far is Sadie Valerie's Online Atelier. This gets me back to my roots of highly disciplined and structured academic art study. I have only done the introductory exercise and had it critiqued. Sunny days to paint and life's concerns have slowed me down but I am determined to continue. Michelangelo is reputed to have spent an hour a day drawing. If it is good enough for Michelangelo, it is even more so for me! Here is my first submission. It took 5 hours and is graphite on paper.

I know, not terribly exciting is it? It was done without a model, just in imagination. My next assignment is to draw ellipses (done), an outlines exercise (nearly done), and another value sphere like above. The point is to see improvement. Once it is critiqued and Sadie gives the green light, you move to the next exercise. It is progressive with one skill building on the previous skills. I will post these in their own posts in the future.

This is a long post. It covers a lot but not quite everything I do. So now, when you graciously notice the improvement in my work, you will know that it really has nothing to do with "talent" but just determination, hard work, willingness to fail, the wonderful artist people who surround me, and a pinch of good fortune thrown in.

I would love to hear what other people do to study, no matter what the medium or skill. Please feel free to post a comment!

-Renee

Wrangling a Painting

After a few days break over the weekend, I got back to the painting in progress that was causing me such grief last week. I knew a bit of time away would help. This is very much a painting in progress as it is passing through its ugly duckling stage. All the colors are blocked in and now I am going through again and adjusting tone, half-tone, and colors as well as slightly tweaking the drawing part as needed. I need to lighten the dark shadows on the teapot a bit as they look too dark, and too blue, to me now. I am satisfied, so far, that I got the wayward teapot size and shape under control. It was going wild there for a bit. I will be moving around the painting and bringing everything up to the same level of finish before adding more detail.
I mentioned in a previous post that I am reading A History of American Tonalism: 1880-1920. I really am enjoying the book even though it is physically challenging to read such a huge tome. I decided to try something I read on the white tablecloth when the painting is at the right point for it. I will describe it, whether it works or not, when I get to that point. I am not even sure if it is an appropriate technique to use but I like to experiment and think it is worth a try. I am aiming to get to that point for the next post on Sunday.
I have been exploring more artist blogs and will have a few to share when things slow down a bit. We are having lovely, stormy, winter weather here on the wild north Oregon  coast. Just right for long cozy days in the studio!
Will be reporting on the progress soon!
-Renee

Onward!

Here is the next still life I will be painting. This is a photo of the set up. As you can see, I did indeed go back to raid the local candy store. Couldn't resist the sparkly colors of the sugar crystal candy. This little still life tells a bit of the story of our little town in the present time. At least, as how I see it. I will go into a bit more detail once the painting is done.
I have been so busy just learning how to paint over the past year that my drawing has not been getting as much practice. I decided to add a bit more of it back to my art practice and drew the still life with the intent of transferring it to the canvas before preceding with the painting. I actually prefer to draw with the paint right onto the canvas. When I started painting a lot of things clicked for me. I realized that I can judge relationships and shapes better with shapes and forms than with lines. That said, I still went ahead and drew the set up for good practice. Here is the drawing which was done from the live set up, not a photo:

The drawing of course is from a slightly different angle than the photo. The photo itself is crooked in order to get some kind of good enough lighting to show the pencil. This isn't a full rendering but it has the information I need to proceed. I didn't add all the shadows and there are the "see-through" lines of the teapot behind the candy. There are plenty of things that would still need to be corrected if I was going to do a finished drawing. I would also approach the drawing different if that was my final goal, for example the lines wouldn't be so heavy at this point and the shading would be done with more care for tone. This drawing is the same size that the finished paint will be, 9"x12".
I also wanted to mention the faint composition lines. I usually just mark the center but since I was out of practice, I went ahead and drew a box the same size of the painting and marked the center at the sides as well. There are a couple of plum lines here and there too.
I really do enjoy drawing. Perhaps because I have been drawing a lot longer than I have been painting, I find it more relaxing than painting. Painting is wonderful and I really do love the color and effects that paint produces. I look forward to when I feel as comfortable with painting as I do drawing.
This will be fun. I will also do a crayon painting of this setup for a local fun art show. I have been practicing my crayon work!
Finally, relating to the previous post about art books, another one came to the library for me today, American Light: The Luminist Movement 1850-1875, by John Wilmerding. Should be interesting!
-Renee