Progress and "Herstory"

I have been working away, honestly! I just didn't post last week. As I have mentioned before, this is taking me longer than I thought it would and it has been a  true learning experience. I thought about posting my progress last week but the painting was in a very awkward spot. So, here is the last picture I posted of the painting's progress:

 

And here is the latest:

I have got the first layer of color in on the whole painting. I am doing a little experimenting now and also going back over and refining forms and color. I would like to think that I will be stopping once I have done another go through. This is supposed to be a study, not a masterpiece. I really am anxious to move on. It has allowed me time to think things through though. I have been thinking how to continue my studies and what direction I want to go. I do have a final goal. I want to acquire the level of skills I need to be able to paint anything I want to depict. The skills will always be added to even when I am satisfied that I have reached my goal. 

I am not going to say anything more at this time. I will wrap up my thoughts when the final picture is posted on this painting. 

In the meantime, I came across an interesting comment on an article about women artists and why they are not proportionally represented in our society compared to male artists. It isn't for lack of female artists as many articles report that the number of women graduating from art programs are greater than the number of men, yet only a small percentage are represented in galleries, art shows, and museums. I would add trade magazines and books to that list! I am not going to talk about the actual numbers here as there are more informed resources out there. The comment that caught my eye was actually a challenge. It pointed out that even female artists who blog often have long lists of male artists they admire and few, if any, female artists. The comment is a challenge for us women to start finding and exposing others to the many female artists both past and present that are out there. 

I have been thinking along those lines for quite a while, even before I started this blog. There is a huge gap in our art history courses when it comes to women artists. As the documentary "Who Does She Think She Is?" mentions, the person on the street is hard pressed to name even five women artists. I have been studying on my own and am starting to find more and more remarkable and overlooked women in the arts in our history. I decided to add a little variety to my blog by featuring a female artist, if not every post, frequently. I am going to start out with women from our past history, or herstory. As this post is plenty long, I will be starting these posts next week. In the meantime, in the "Artists Who Inspire" sidebar on this blog, you will also find many links to contemporary female artists. Yes, there are a few men too!

Finally, today is Memorial Day here in the U.S.A. I want to send thoughts of gratitude to the women and men of our armed forces and their families. I also want to acknowledge all the wonderful service and rescue animals who are also heroes in their own right.

-Renee

Slow but Steady

Progress has been slow but steady on my still life painting. I finally got all the color in but need to make a few more readjustments on the small pitcher before taking an update photo of it. I need to wrap up the painting as I am itching to move on to several quick color studies. This has been a good lesson for me. That said, I am working out a composition for one of the paintings I have been wanting to do for quite a while.
In the meantime, it is plenty busy around here. In the past, I always enjoyed seeing the baby cows and sheep in my neighborhood. Now, I get to see baby seals and seabirds! The other day I was walking Twill on the beach when I came upon a marked off area with people stationed at various points routing folks around. It was right down from my house too. Turns out a baby seal had been born that morning and would be on the beach until the tide came up enough for it to rejoin its mother. I ran home and grabbed the camera then, after taking a couple of pictures, ran home and grabbed my painting gear and loaded it into the bike trailer I made. I grabbed a quick bite of lunch and rode down to the beach to join the seal warders and paint. I stayed until the newborn seal pup got back into the water around 5pm. Hopefully the mother was waiting for it somewhere in the waves. A representative from the local park ranger was busy shooing people away as the baby swam south in the surfline. Here are a couple of pictures. It was such an interesting day.

 

The middle picture is of my bike and trailer at rest of course. This was the first chance I had to test out the trailer and it worked just great! Twill was only there a few minutes as she came down with my husband. We were stationed at a good distance. I had the biggest telephoto lens we own on our camera. The mother seal will abandon her baby if people get too close. Hopefully this one didn't.
This beautiful area continues to inspire and amaze me. Next week I plan to have an update, perhaps the final one, on my still life.
-Renee

Letting Go

I missed posting last week. Last Saturday the weather was nice so we decided it was time to go through the remaining bins that were stored in the garage. Some of those bins have not been opened in over two years as we have been moving around. It took us two days to go through everything. When we first put our house up for sale I had a weaving studio. The plan at that time was to go to the University of Oregon to get a MFA in fiber art. To make a long story short several things happened that caused a huge re-evaluation of life and I ended up changing directions and going to the Ashland Academy of Art (now Atelier Maui). Amazingly enough, once the decision to pursue painting instead of fiber was made, and we made that commitment, the house sold and we moved to Ashland. The plan was to be in Ashland for at least four years. Isn't there a quote about God laughing when you tell him your plans? Well, most of you know, the school decided to move to Maui and we decided not to follow. So, those bins, they have been moving around unopened until last weekend. Oh my. Needless to say, some of the stuff we packed in those bins no longer fits in our life. We ended up letting go of about half of the stuff. Some of it we will sell but most of it went to the thrift store and to other homes. It feels great! The stuff we kept needed to be put away in the house to be used which has taken more time than I invisioned.
Unfortunately, all of this has cut into my time in the studio, much to my frustration. Well, that is part of the reason. The other part is more letting go. I have had time to struggle a bit with being on my own before I had planned to. I will admit it is at times a bit hard to see all growth and the beautiful, wonderful work my former fellow students are doing in Maui and not occasionally wish I had made a different decision. I have had to let that go too. Don't get me wrong! I in no way regret the decision to move here instead of Maui and feel it is the right one. Letting go of all that will allow me to move forward, afterall, there are many wonderful artists who have learned on their own.
So, that is what I have been up to in addition to attending local emergency preparedness fairs, general living, and riding my bike on the beach when possible. I do have two pictures of last week's life drawing session which was such a treat. We had a beautiful young pregnant woman pose for us. This is the first chance I have had to draw a pregnant woman in the nude and I found it fascinating. It was interesting to see how the growing baby changes the balance and stance of the body and how the body shifts and changes. It was also a joy to see the beauty of the mother to be. The following two photos are of drawing and painting I did while experimenting with the different mediums. Sorry for the creases on the charcoal and conte crayon drawing! The drawing is about 20 minutes and the painting is 30 minutes.

The studio is cleaned up and ready to continue working in. The weather is supposed to be nice a few days this week so I am hoping to get in a bit of plein air painting. A heads up for any fiber enthusiasts, I will have some handwoven fabric, purses, yarns and fibers to give away and sell coming up soon. I will announce it here and put it on my sleeping weaving blog. So, onward! I am excited and ready to get back to work.
-Renee

New Experiences in Life Drawing

I have been trying a new-to-me medium and technique in life drawing. Due to the small room and problems that solvents can produce, we are asked to not use them. Understandably so. I wanted to try sketching the figure from life in oils so I ordered a few tubes of a water-mixable oil paint. Royal Talens Cobra paints to be specific. I ordered a tube of burnt sienna, ultramarine blue, and white. Here is my second attempt using the paints.

This is painted on Fabriano water color paper that I gessoed with three layers and then added an acrylic grey tone to. I am struggling with three things at once here, working with an unfamiliar medium, an unfamiliar technique, and of course the ever present building of figure drawing skills. It can seem overwhelming at times but actually, it is a heck of a lot of fun! The paint really does seem to be in between an acrylic and oil paint. It certainly doesn't glide like oil. It feels sticky to me. It dries faster than oil and slower than acrylic. I think I will be able to adapt to it with a little bit of practice though.
This oil sketch was done over a one hour period.
Here are two ten-minute gesture sketches. One has more detail than the other as I focused on different goals for each one.

With this one (above) I was really focusing more on getting the nuances of the gesture than on proportion. There were so many interesting things going on in this pose.

I worked to get the gesture on this one too but I also wanted to get a bit of the form in and the interesting angle of the head. The model is reclining against a wall with his right arm crooked over a pillow.
I am slowly working on my still life. I really would like to get it finished as I want to spend some time painting quick color studies. It is taking longer than I thought but then, I made it more complicated than I had intended. All part of the learning.
The sun came out today and is supposed to visit with us for a few days but it is still very chilly. Too chilly for my fingers to be out plein air painting even though I can't wait to get out with some frequency.
We shall see if spring decides to stay awhile this next week as there will be several minus tides (neap tides) and therefore tidepools to explore...
-Renee

Contributing to Beauty and Wisdom

We had a whirlwind of a week with both expected and surprise visitors. The weather went from constant pouring rain to a day and a half of sunshine then back to pouring rain. Between the wonderful visits and the day and a half of sunshine after not having seen the sun in ever-so-long, I did not spend much time in the studio. I did get to life drawing on Sunday and today will get a couple of hours in. I will settle back into studio practice now that I have caught up on the life necessities.
I do have some exciting news though! A bit of back-story first.
The little village I live in does not have home delivery of the mail so us local townspeople all have PO boxes at the post office. I walk the two blocks daily to pick up our mail. I have to laugh, as this is the closest our mail box has been to our house in 25 years. It used to be half a mile up a gravel road, or, more recently, across the town of Ashland.
Today my husband and I walked to the library and then the post office to pick up books and mail. I am expecting a couple of books in the mail and sure enough, we had a few packages. When we got home, I wondered which book came, the art book or the running book? Much to my surprise, it was neither. Instead it was a new book by Patti Digh, What I Wish for You.

This is a very special book because, I didn't order this copy. I received it because I am one of several contributors to it! I had sort of forgotten about the book so was surprised when I opened it. Let me explain how I ended up contributing to it.
I had come across the wonderful website and books of Patti Digh at 37 days. I find her work beautiful and inspiring. I follow her blog and website and one time she put out a personal call to gather wisdom and advice from her readers to give to her daughter who was graduating from high school and entering into a new phase of her life. I thought that was so beautiful but didn't really think much more about it until one day, not long after,  I was doing something completely unrelated when I had a powerful thought and connection around Patti's call. I suddenly found I did had something to say/contribute. I never had a daughter but if I did this was something I would want her to know. I submitted it even though I was moved by how profound the writing that others had submitted was. I felt mine was pretty simple and humble but it was from the heart.
It turned out Patti's publisher was also reading what people were contributing and they decided to put it all in a book. I, along with the others, was sent a form to give permission for consideration to put what we contributed into a book. I must confess, I almost didn't send it in. Funny how our minds work. I was thinking that what I wrote was so simple, surely they wouldn't want to include it. Then I realized how silly that was. I had given the words as a gift and it wasn't up to me to make that decision. I sent in the permission, and they decided to use it. My contribution is on page 95, exactly as I had written it.
This has been such a gift, not only to her daughter but to me and many others as well. In addition, I  learned an interesting lesson about giving. Patti's work has always moved me and I keep her books where I can grab them when I need a shot of beauty and inspiration.
So here is what I wrote, which is now on pg. 95 of What I Wish for You by Patti Digh,

"Find the beauty.
It is everywhere and in nearly everything.
It is in truth and in places least expected.
It is right in front of us where we sometimes cannot see.
Find the beauty.
It is always worth living for." -R.L. Delight

The book is filled with stories, insights, and beautiful art. A sweet and lovely little book worthy of gifting to someone you love, or yourself!
Now, back to the studio!
-Renee

Interlude

This will be a short post this week. We are enjoying our dear friends who will be off for home tomorrow. The weather has kept us all pretty much cozied up in the house but it has been wonderful to catch up and enjoy laughter and serious talks.
My early birthday present did arrive and here it is!

As you can tell by the pictures it is a beach bike. It is a lovely cherry red with flames on it no less! We live on the north end of a seven mile long beach. A round trip walk down to the south end would be a fourteen mile hike. One of the reasons I wanted a bike to ride on the beach was so I could get my sketchbook and easel down to the south end where there is a jetty that occasionally plays host to seals. There are also many beautiful spots to paint on the way down. The bike works well as a seat to sit and sketch from. Needless to say it will also be a wonderful way to get some exercise.
Here are a few fifteen minute to thirty minute gesture sketches from the last few life drawing sessions.

I will be getting back to work this week on my painting and figure drawing so I will be posting those next time. I wish I could say that I will be able to get outside to do some painting but the weather forecast still looks pretty grim. The upside is that it doesn't tempt me outside when I need to be in the studio.
Here's hoping the sun will visit soon!
-Renee

Let the Color Begin

The color is slowly trickling into the painting. I am having a lot of fun too! I do love to experiment and I enjoyed spending time playing with every combination of every red and blue on my palette to get the colors in the fabric. Well, almost every combination. I did try to keep the color temperatures separate so that I had a nice range of cool purples and warm purples to play with. I am slowly darkening the background and am still getting the first layer of color over the entire painting.
I must admit this painting is a little more involved than I had intended. In addition, the progress has been slow  because I also work on studies both in painting and drawing to continue to build my skills. I will be working on several short color study/still lifes that are much simpler. The studies are pretty mundane but I will post a few of them next week as part of my purpose with this blog is to show the progression of a beginning artist. I want to show that an artist must build skills as much as any other profession. So many people I talk to assume that art is a talent that one is born with. Ha! Talk to a well established, seasoned, successful artist and they will be the first to tell you that it takes blood, sweat, and tears, not to mention endless practice. Of course, all of that work is deeply joyful and highly satisfying. It has been so far for me.
The studies I do such as gesture sketches over and over are like practicing scales on a piano or any other musical instrument. Not glamorous but necessary for true mastery.
Today I spent a dark and stormy morning at the local life drawing session. Not a bad way to pass the time!
We have some beloved guests coming on Friday to spend a few days with us. I am hoping to have my friend hold a few poses that I can recreate with my manikin in addition to a few quick gesture sketches. I am also expecting an early birthday present that will be a big help in getting around with my plein air easel and sketchbook. If it arrives in time, I will have some fun pictures to show.
Here is hoping that Spring will show her beautiful warm face soon!
-Renee