First Portrait Attempt

Here is my first portrait attempt! I used charcoal on Strathmore charcoal paper that I toned with charcoal dust before I started. This is a six hour session done in 50 minute or so chunks of time spread out over a week or two. The subject is my handsome husband. I haven't done a full scale charcoal drawing in a while and I found I was a bit out of practice. To my eye, it shows. There are plenty of mistakes but, for a first attempt, I am pleased.
Life drawing today wasn't so great. I have come to the realization that it might not be the best use for my time and money due to the nature of life drawing with a diverse group of people who all have different needs as to artistic direction. I am going to pull back for a while and rethink the situation. I must add, this decision has nothing to do with the wonderful group of artists who come to life drawing. It has more to do with my own needs and resources. I do miss being part of a group with a common artistic goal.
This is a short post this week as I want to get a few more things in place today so I can hit the studio hard next week.
-Renee

Introducing Clara Peeters

Need I say that I am learning about some wonderful women artists as much as anyone reading this blog?! Let me introduce Clara Peeters:

Vanitas painting;it is plausible that the woman in the painting is Clara Peeters (1594-c1657. More in general this is to be considered a Personification or Allegory of Vanitas 1613 - 1620 http://www.csupomona.edu/~plin/women/peeters.html Most sources consider this a self portrait. According to my trusty book; 50 Women Artists You Should Know (Weidemann, Larass, Klier, Prestel Publishing, N.Y, 2008), Not a whole lot is known about this artist. She was born in the Netherlands about 1594. She is credited as one of the founders of still-life painting with her first known work at age 14! Like so many women in the history of the world, not much is recorded. It is surmised that she was under the guidance of a studio or apprenticed to a master. There are about 80 known paintings of hers that have survived, she had signed at least 30 of them. Her final painting was dated 1657, and is now lost. The circumstances of her death are unknown. Some of the images of her paintings that I have seen show beautiful and rich detail. Unfortunately, they don't show up as well here but I will try it anyway. Her still-lifes are exquisite with incredible attention to detail. One of her most famous is Still-Life with Fish and Cat. Clara Peeters, "Still Life of Fish and Cat," n.d, Oil on panek, 13 1/2 x 18 1/2 in. Source: http://womeninthearts.wordpress.com/page/3/ I searched for a good image but was not able to find one of good enough quality to do it justice. The descriptions on various websites and the picture I have in the book show beautiful and skillful work.I find it rather frustrating that so much of her work is spread so thin and details about the paintings seem to be rather sketchy. I would love to see a major exhibition of her work. So, after checking Clara out, here is a bit of my humble work. All I have to show this week is a 30 minute life drawing sketch. While I am grateful for still life sessions here in our little town and only 4 blocks from my house, I must confess, I do miss so very much 18 and 24 hour poses. Here is my sketch which was done with earth brown pencil on drawing paper.

Vanitas painting;it is plausible that the woman in the painting is Clara Peeters (1594-c1657. More in general this is to be considered a Personification or Allegory of Vanitas

1613 - 1620

http://www.csupomona.edu/~plin/women/peeters.html Most sources consider this a self portrait. According to my trusty book; 50 Women Artists You Should Know (Weidemann, Larass, Klier, Prestel Publishing, N.Y, 2008), Not a whole lot is known about this artist. She was born in the Netherlands about 1594. She is credited as one of the founders of still-life painting with her first known work at age 14! Like so many women in the history of the world, not much is recorded. It is surmised that she was under the guidance of a studio or apprenticed to a master. There are about 80 known paintings of hers that have survived, she had signed at least 30 of them. Her final painting was dated 1657, and is now lost. The circumstances of her death are unknown. Some of the images of her paintings that I have seen show beautiful and rich detail. Unfortunately, they don't show up as well here but I will try it anyway. Her still-lifes are exquisite with incredible attention to detail. One of her most famous is Still-Life with Fish and Cat. Clara Peeters, "Still Life of Fish and Cat," n.d, Oil on panek, 13 1/2 x 18 1/2 in. Source: http://womeninthearts.wordpress.com/page/3/ I searched for a good image but was not able to find one of good enough quality to do it justice. The descriptions on various websites and the picture I have in the book show beautiful and skillful work.I find it rather frustrating that so much of her work is spread so thin and details about the paintings seem to be rather sketchy. I would love to see a major exhibition of her work. So, after checking Clara out, here is a bit of my humble work. All I have to show this week is a 30 minute life drawing sketch. While I am grateful for still life sessions here in our little town and only 4 blocks from my house, I must confess, I do miss so very much 18 and 24 hour poses. Here is my sketch which was done with earth brown pencil on drawing paper.

1613 - 1620

http://www.csupomona.edu/~plin/women/peeters.html
Most sources consider this a self portrait.

According to my trusty book; 50 Women Artists You Should Know (Weidemann, Larass, Klier, Prestel Publishing, N.Y, 2008), Not a whole lot is known about this artist. She was born in the Netherlands about 1594. She is credited as one of the founders of still-life painting with her first known work at age 14! Like so many women in the history of the world, not much is recorded. It is surmised that she was under the guidance of a studio or apprenticed to a master. There are about 80 known paintings of hers that have survived, she had signed at least 30 of them. Her final painting was dated 1657, and is now lost. The circumstances of her death are unknown. Some of the images of her paintings that I have seen show beautiful and rich detail. Unfortunately, they don't show up as well here but I will try it anyway. Her still-lifes are exquisite with incredible attention to detail. One of her most famous is Still-Life with Fish and Cat.

Clara Peeters, "Still Life of Fish and Cat," n.d, Oil on panek, 13 1/2 x 18 1/2 in.
Source: http://womeninthearts.wordpress.com/page/3/
I searched for a good image but was not able to find one of good enough quality to do it justice. The descriptions on various websites and the picture I have in the book show beautiful and skillful work.I find it rather frustrating that so much of her work is spread so thin and details about the paintings seem to be rather sketchy. I would love to see a major exhibition of her work.
So, after checking Clara out, here is a bit of my humble work. All I have to show this week is a 30 minute life drawing sketch. While I am grateful for still life sessions here in our little town and only 4 blocks from my house, I must confess, I do miss so very much 18 and 24 hour poses. Here is my sketch which was done with earth brown pencil on drawing paper.

30 minute sketch, brown pencil on paper. July 10, 2011

The next couple of weeks I am going to be painting like mad to see if I can get a couple done for two local group art shows. I am continuing to work on the charcoal portrait of my husband.

Should be an interesting and busy week!

-Renee
P.S. For some reason Blogger is playing games with my font and size. Sorry for the weird reduction and change.

Ah Summer

It looks like we are going to have a sunny and warm Fourth of July here on the northern Oregon coast. I have been itching to get outside to paint. I could but....I am feeling a bit overwhelmed this weekend. Our little town of 700 hearty full time souls has swelled by several thousand people to partake in the festivities. Every house has several cars, the streets are crawling with people and their dogs and herds of small shrieking children. The beach is crowded with people burning the beautiful driftwood logs and, in one case, a tourist knocked down a street sign and threw it on the fire (he was fined). Even though there are signs all over the place forbidding fireworks on pain of citation and fine, there are fireworks all over the place. We don't have a large police force, as one would guess for such a tiny town.
It is funny how fast we claim ownership of a place. We have such a wonderful local culture of sustainability and recycling, and love, gratitude, and respect for the incredible natural beauty of the area. It is a bit hard to see people come in, shatter the peace and drown out the sound of the ocean with their music, disrespect the laws, and leave trash on our beaches. Specially, for me, thousands of people (someone told me 10,000!) Well, all this has made me feel a bit reluctant to go out and paint until the holiday is over and most of the people go home.
So, with that rant out of the way (if you are still with me, I appreciate you hanging in there) I will move on. I have started a charcoal portrait of my husband. It is my first attempt at a portrait. I have been reading and viewing videos and figured it is time to just do it, and make mistakes, and do it some more. I am also working on my first ocean painting using an oil sketch I did on the beach and a few photo references. I will have more on that later. I have a color study all set up. A simple color study this time! Life drawing continues and all the work feels good.
Of course, we have had well loved visitors with more to come and now the holiday weekend but thankfully summer days are long. Love it!
No pictures of my work this time but I want to wrap up with another woman artist from the past. I plan to look up more on this incredible woman, Rosa Bonheur 1822-1899. She lived an unconventional life starting with her upbringing. She was allowed to follow her tomboy nature and was the daughter of a drawing master. She was sent to a boy's school with her brothers! She blossomed as an artist early in life with encouragement from her father. She was a master painter of animals. Here is one of her most well known pieces:

The Horse Fair, 1853–55
Rosa Bonheur (French, 1822–1899)
Oil on canvas

96 1/4 x 199 1/2 in. (244.5 x 506.7 cm)
Signed and dated (lower right): Rosa Bonheur 1853.5
Gift of Cornelius Vanderbilt, 1887 (87.25)

On view: Gallery 812   Last Updated June 29, 2011

Source: Rosa Bonheur: The Horse Fair (87.25) | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art

This painting is 8 ft by 16ft! Here is another beautiful one:

Rosa Bonheur, Sheep by the Sea, 1865; Oil on panel; National Museum of Women in the Arts

 

 

 

Source: http://www.nmwa.org/collection/detail.asp?WorkID=476
The picture above does not do it any kind of justice. Looking at a photo of the painting in 50 Women Artists You Should Know, the colors are rich and the detail and lighting is exquisite. Google her name and a lot of information comes up. It is wonderful to read about a woman who was a successful artist on her own terms and was accepted as such, more or less. It wasn't all smooth sailing, One critic wrote "Mademoiselle Rosa paints almost like a man." (50 Women Artists You Should Know, pg. 63) I mean, really!
The life and work of Rosa Bonheur is well worth checking out.
I will add her name and link to my artists who inspire list for sure.
For those of you in the USA, have a happy and safe Independence Day. And, to our neighbors up north, happy Canada Day.
-Renee

Finished Study Painting!

It has been a couple of weeks since the last post. Summer arrived, well sort of, and all of a sudden things got busy. I was still working in the studio just in odd snatches of time here and there. I finally, FINALLY, finished this still life study. Well, I could continue working on it for a while longer but I decided it was time to stop. I spent a lot of time experimenting with different ways of painting and a couple of mediums. As a result, it isn't a smoothly finished piece of work but that is OK, it wasn't intended to be. Before I continue, here it is:

Not the best photo as I am still working on finding a way that works well, without spending a chunk of money at this time.
One of the mediums I tried was Gamblin's Galkyd. I have to say, I really didn't like it. I didn't like the smell and I am not too sure I like the results either. This was a great learning piece, after all it is only my second painting, but I made it too complicated and it took too long. It was with great relief that I took down the still life set up and cleaned the studio. I will be doing several short color studies, and continue to work on drawing and figure studies. I also plan to start a series of ocean paintings or seascapes. I go out with my easel to do painting en plein air when I get the chance but the weather here is so variable it can be a challenge.
My life study group was canceled the past two weeks but we met today with a model we have drawn before. She is within a couple weeks of delivering her baby. It has been really fun drawing her during her pregnancy. It is amazing to observe how the body changes in every way when pregnant. Here is a 30 minute drawing of her.

Finally, I was trying to decide whether or not to alternate a contemporary female artist with a past female artist for my women artists portion. I had thought to feature Artemisia Gentileschi then I read a wonderful blog post by Terry Strickland. Her link is in my side bar but you should check out her post here. I love this idea and am filing it away to use one of these days when I have built my portrait skills. She has a wiki link about Artemisia as well that is worth checking out. Women had a lot more stacked against them in the past. Things have improved but we still have a long way to go.
It feels good to be moving on and will be posting on the progress next week.
Until then,
-Renee

Eva Gonzales and a Beachscape

This will be the first post of I hope a number of posts about women artists, both past and present. I would like to introduce you, or perhaps reintroduce you, to Eva Gonzales. There should be an accent over the last "e" in Gonzales. Eva Gonzales was a Parisian artist born in 1849 and died at the early age of 34 due to what is believed to be puerperal fever after the birth of her son. Before I continue, here is one of her beautiful paintings,

I have seen two different titles for this one. One is Early Wakening the other is Morning Awakening. Either way it is beautiful. Like so many women artists in the past that I have read about, Eva faced the obstacles of gender bias and just plain not being taken seriously (?!!). She was the only student, after achieving wonderful proficiency as a student of the portraitist Charles Chaplin, of Edouard Manet. She studied with him for three years and, as was often the case, became his model as well as his pupil. She was unfortunately overshadowed by Manet, and was not always taken seriously as an artist. Some of her paintings had stylistic elements of Impressionism but she never really belonged to that group. She had some success and recognition toward the end of her short life. I imagine like so many painters who have had their lives cut short, her work would have continued to grow in recognition and development.*
I admire Manet's paintings but when looking at Eva's next to his, I feel that Eva Gonzales had a more refined and delicate touch that I find much more appealing. That is my personal opinion of course!
Now for my own humble work. We had one incredibly beautiful and warm day on Saturday. I took advantage of it to go down to the beach in the evening to paint Neahkahnie Mountain where it reaches into the sea. This is my favorite area of our beach. Our town is nestled at the foot of this beautiful mountain. The views from the top of it are breathtaking. This is an oil sketch I did in two hours. I was a bit frustrated as I didn't take a small enough brush with me to capture some of the detail I wanted to get but I am not displeased with the sketch.

As I was packing up when the light changed too much, a mist came up and became a fiery haze as the sun set. I want to go back when I have the chance and try to capture those colors and effects. Of course, being on the coast, when the inland area becomes warm it generates mist and fog here at the beach so we don't usually get several days of clear sunny weather here in the summer. I was going after some of the afternoon light effects on the cliffside. I was intrigued by the way the shadows kept changing. I didn't spend a lot of time on the water and sky. I will be painting this mountain many times.
With any luck, I will have another chance at plein air painting this week. Work continues on the still life.
Until next week,
-Renee

*Most of my information on Eva Gonzales comes from the book 50 Women Artists You Should Know by Weidemann, Larass, and Klier. I did a bit of online searching too but found the best info in the book.

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