Web Features : Oil Painting

Building Rich and Full Layers

Brian Riley — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 11:00:00 GMT

Lake Louise Steps
2008, pastel, 24 x 18.
Collection the artist.

By subtly layering pastel, Marlene Wiedenbaum creates a luscious and convincing sense of the world.

by John A. Parks

In her pastel painting Path With Trees to Hidden Pond, Marlene Wiedenbaum presents a resplendent view of a glade whose rich canopy encloses a forest floor buried under a dense carpet of fallen leaves. So natural and convincing is the filtered sunlight and enveloping space of the painting that it takes us a few moments to discover the hint of a pathway through the woods. The artist, it seems, is content to take the world as she finds it and then to mine it for hidden riches and intriguing insights. She has achieved this feeling through masterful use of pastel, working it in numerous layers to create color of surprising subtlety and nuance while keeping her surface supremely tactile and alive.

“I love the immediacy, the color, and the forgiveness of pastel,” says Wiedenbaum, “but I especially enjoy the involvement of my hands. I understand and control my fingers much better than I ever did a brush, and there’s a more direct connectedness to the work.” Wiedenbaum made the change to pastel from oil some years ago. “I was frustrated at having to clean brushes, as well as myself, and having to put everything away each time I wanted to paint,” she recalls. “It was drudgery. I didn’t have the luxury of huge blocks of time back then, and the condition of the work is different each time you return to an oil painting. A very good friend left a box of pastels on the dining room table, and that’s when my relationship with pastels began.” The artist also enjoys the portability of pastel. “It’s so much easier to spontaneously pack up my supplies for working en plein air,” she says.

Like most other pastel artists, Wiedenbaum has also come up against the difficulties imposed by the medium. “The biggest drawback is the dust,” she says. “I sometimes wear a mask in the studio, but I don’t know how much that really helps.” The artist also manages to keep some of the pastel dust off her fingers by wearing finger cots—small rubber sleeves that can be rolled onto individual fingers—which are available in drugstores.

Wiedenbaum focuses on landscape and still life, specializing in images of New York’s Hudson Valley and its environs, in particular those areas that have been spared development. “As a child growing up in the Bronx, I adored the summers we spent at bungalow colonies in the Hudson Valley,” she says. “My love of the area stems from those early experiences, and I’m very grateful to a number of organizations for working to save the appearance and feel of the locale.”

Downriver From Potown
2009, pastel, 19 1/2 x 25.
Collection the artist.

When preparing to start a piece, Wiedenbaum takes a number of different approaches. “I work both from life and from photographs,” she says. “If the weather cooperates and I can find just the right composition with just the right light, I’m very happy to be outside working.” The artist finds that landscape and still life lead to somewhat different approaches when it comes to photography. “I prefer setting up a still life in my studio rather than working from a photo,” she says. When working from a landscape, the artist says that she takes photos in case the weather changes or she cannot get back to the site. “I also have boxes of sorted photos and folders filled with images on my computer to work from,” she says. Settling on a composition is not always an easy task, Wiedenbaum says, and to begin, she sometimes does a small, quick sketch to familiarize herself with the important elements of the scene.

“Often, from that point, I block in the values, noting what needs to be kept clean for lighter values,” she says. “I do always use vine charcoal to sketch the image onto the paper before I actually start working with pastel. I start painting using mostly blacks or dark blues and greens to block in the darkest values.” The artist says that she has no consistent plan after this point and varies her approach based on the demands of the image. “I most often go right into the focal point of the composition, or I start working from the top left until I get to the bottom right, or I work steadily from the darkest values to the lightest throughout,” she says. “I move and blend pigment with my fingers or use a stomp for large areas, and I use the flattened edge of a kneaded eraser for sharp edges, or I use it sideways like a brush, pushing and mixing pigment.”

The artist will continue working in this way until she senses that the painting is starting to come together. “For me, there is a moment in a painting that comes when I know I have turned a corner,” she says. “That knowledge seems to be symbolic of my commitment to the work; I go to sleep with it, wake up in it, and am happy working or looking forward to working. I rarely finish a painting without experiencing this, even when I work en plein air and complete a small piece in three to four hours. Knowing when I’ve reached the end is almost as intuitive, and that can happen within hours, days, or weeks.”

Path With Trees to Hidden Pond
2008, pastel, 24 x 31.
Private collection.

In order to achieve the lush and rich surface of her paintings, Wiedenbaum uses sanded paper and a wide variety of pastels. “I primarily use Sennelier, Schmincke, and Unison soft pastels,” she says. “Through my endless search for colors, I have also been enjoying Great American Art Works and for a slightly harder pastel, Mount Vision. For many years I worked on Sennelier La Carte sanded paper. That product seems to have changed, however, so I use Wallis paper more often. I am also working a lot with UART paper, since they offer a 40-inch sheet and various textures. The 400 and 500 grades have made my fingers bleed, but the layering possibilities make 500 my preferred paper.”

When asked how she would like to think that viewers experience her artwork, the artist says, “I have been told that my work captured loneliness or the essence of a familiar place, that it made viewers feel the summer’s breeze or sense their grandmother and cry, or that they wanted to touch a still life. These are responses that have been shared with me, at least, and they are satisfying in that the viewer is engaged with the work. If the artwork makes viewers feel something they can take with them, like a memory, I am satisfied.”

John A. Parks is an artist who is represented by Allan Stone Gallery, in New York City. He is also a teacher at the School of Visual Arts, in New York City, and is a frequent contributor to American Artist, Drawing, Watercolor, and Workshop magazines.

About the Artist

Marlene Wiedenbaum studied art at Queens College, in New York City, where she was influenced by sculptor Richard McDermott Miller, whom she credits with encouraging her and broadening her knowledge of the art world. Wiedenbaum went on to study oil painting with Harvey Dinnerstein at the Art Students League of New York, also in New York City. She also worked with St. Julien Fishburne and in 2001 went to Italy with a group led by Christine Debrosky. Wiedenbaum is a signature member of Pastel Society of America and has exhibited widely, mounting solo exhibitions at the Teatown Lake Reservation, in Ossining, New York; the Woodstock Artists Association & Museum, in New York; and Mark Gruber Gallery, in New Paltz, New York, among other venues. She lives in the Hudson Valley and teaches pastel workshops at the Barrett Art Center, in Poughkeepsie, New York. She is currently represented by Carrie Haddad Gallery, in Hudson, New York, and Fieldstone Fine Art Gallery, in Ramsey, New Jersey. More of the artist’s work can be viewed at her website, www.wiedenbaum.com.

How to Triumph In Spite of the Odds

Brian Riley — Tue, 26 May 2009 10:00:00 GMT

Emerging artist Daniel James Keys couldn’t enroll at an art school, but he used every other available means to educate himself as an artist, to connect with other painters, and to promote his artwork. His experience proves that with determination, support, and computer savvy, artists can make significant progress.

by M. Stephen Doherty

Tea Still Life
2008, oil, 24 x 30. Collection the artist.

After posting photographs of his still life and landscape paintings in the gallery section of the American Artist website (http://www.artistdaily.com), Daniel James Keys attracted the attention of the magazine’s editors who posted messages indicating they were impressed with the conception and execution of his oil paintings. The members of the New York staff had no idea he was a 23-year-old man living in a rural California community with limited access to galleries, museums, art schools, workshops, or other artists. Somehow he had learned to create an outstanding collection of paintings even though most of the normal paths that aspiring artists follow were unavailable to him.

On his 11th birthday, Keys received enough money to buy his first set of oil paints, the present he most wanted to own. “I hated them at first because all I had ever done was cartooning, and I just couldn’t understand how to apply what I knew about drawing to the techniques of oil painting,” he explains. “I put the set away until I happened upon reproductions of paintings that were so appealing I just had to learn how to paint. Then I discovered magazine articles and library books on Richard Schmid and other gifted teachers who explained their creative process. All that helped me understand the basics.”

Even now after several years of disciplined education, Keys has not taken an art course or participated in a workshop; and the only original paintings he has seen by major historic and contemporary artists are those he viewed during infrequent gallery and museum visits in Fresno, Carmel, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, California. Nevertheless, he carefully studied every article, book, and painting that became available and took to heart all the advice that was provided. For example, he set up a small studio area in his parents’ home that had north-facing windows, and he placed still life objects a short distance from his easel. “I read a lot about the value of being well prepared before I begin painting, of working from life instead of from photographs, and of having a subject illuminated by a cool north light,” he says. “I also followed the advice of choosing things to paint that had personal significance so that there would be a level of expression in my carefully observed representations of the objects.”

Red Geraniums
2008, oil, 16 x 20. Collection the artist.

Keys also learned about the necessity of following the rule of oil painting that one should work from thin to thick applications—that is, thinning his initial strokes of paint with odorless mineral spirits to reduce the percentage of oil and allow the paints to dry more quickly and applying the oil color straight from the tube when adding the lightest and thickest strokes of paint. “I’ll admit to being a bit too impatient to do a lot of preliminary compositional sketching, but I try to follow the advice I’ve read about working from darks to lights, from background to foreground, and from thin darks to thick light values,” he explains. “I have also learned the value of making every stroke count—of carefully considering the color and value mixtures and laying the strokes of paint down and not overworking them. That keeps the colors clean and bright, and it adds some vitality to the look of the painting.”

As the son of a minister, Keys is actively involved in his church and proudly says his faith is a factor in motivating his efforts as a painter. That’s one of the reasons he has gravitated toward other painters who base the subject matter of their paintings on themes of family, faith, and service. “I recently watched a Liliedahl Video Productions DVD of Daniel F. Gerhartz painting in his Wisconsin studio, and I gained a great deal of insight into the personality and process of a man I have admired for a number of years,” he says. “Many of his paintings are of friends and family members, and they explore his devotion to God, community, and family. I really admire that.”

Although Keys does most of his painting in the small studio, he does make an effort to paint landscapes outdoors. “I am fortunate to live near the San Joaquin River and lots of wonderful views for plein air painting,” he says. “I spend from two to three hours developing a painting while the light is consistent, and I do make some minor adjustments later in the studio. Occasionally I work from photographs if the weather makes it impossible to paint outdoors, but I really enjoy the challenge of gathering all the information on-site and keeping a freshness and immediacy in the paintings.

Grey Afternoon
2008, oil, 10 x 10. Collection the artist.

“Quite often I make quick oil sketches when I’m outdoors, never spending more than a half hour on any one study,” Keys explains. “I do the same thing developing quick sketches from photographs. For example, Narcissus Sketch was done in just a few minutes in my studio, and I really enjoyed trying to capture a fleeting impression of the subject. Those kinds of studies are helpful in sharpening my skills of observation, my handling of a paint brush, and my ability to accurately record the colors, shapes, and values in the subjects that catch my attention.”

Whether working indoors or out, Keys uses essentially the same palette of Winsor & Newton, Rembrandt, and Gamblin colors that includes titanium white, cadmium yellow deep, cadmium yellow lemon, cadmium yellow pale, cadmium orange, cadmium red, viridian, transparent oxide red, transparent oxide brown, ultramarine deep, alizarin crimson, yellow ochre pale, terra rosa (for monochromatic under painting), and permanent rose. He prefers to paint on Artfix oil-primed Belgian linen canvas because it is easier to wipe preliminary marks off the smooth surface than it would be if he worked on acrylic-primed cotton duck canvas.

Because he is an artist in his 20s, Keys is adept at using the internet for education, social networking, promotion, and sales. “I rely heavily on the internet to explore images, find articles, learn about other artists, become friendly with other painters, and get feedback about my work,” he says. “I’m actively involved in the forums section of American Artist’s website, in the groups on Facebook, and in watching videos on YouTube. I also have my own website and online newsletter (www.danielkeysfineart.com), so I hear from people who become interested in the drawings and paintings I’ve posted.

Keys is currently in the process of approaching galleries around the country that currently exhibit artwork that has a similar style and range of subjects. For more information on the artist, visit www.danielkeysfineart.com.

William Jameson: The Elements of a Great Workshop

Brian Riley — Fri, 15 May 2009 10:00:00 GMT

During a recent workshop in the Lowcountry of South Carolina, William Jameson provided instruction in plein air oil painting, but he knew it was just as important to offer encouragement and direction to students while they enjoyed the experience.

by M. Stephen Doherty

William Jameson beginning a demonstration
during his recent workshop on Seabrook Island,
South Carolina.

The format and style of workshops can vary greatly depending on the location, weather, amount of time, size of the group, and personalities of the participants and instructor. Some classes are long, intense sessions during which nothing can be heard but the instructor issuing stern criticism of student work; others are social gatherings during which there is lots of laughter, conversation, eating, and very little painting. A few bring together old friends who just want to share a painting experience without instruction, and some are courses that offer a good balance between friendly interchange and solid education. North Carolina artist William Jameson finds that sensitive balance between education and encouragement and strives to make his workshops fun learning experiences for all participants.

“I’ve heard a lot of comments from students about the good and bad things that have happened to them in other workshops, and I try to use that information to improve my classes,” said Jameson after a recent workshop. “After all, my goal is to help the students, not to discourage them. It’s their experience that matters most, not mine.”

Jameson provided that kind of well-balanced program during a recent three-day workshop he conducted in the Lowcountry of South Carolina on Seabrook Island and Wadmalaw Island—two of the most beautiful, charming, and historic spots where artists are inspired to paint. After a get-acquainted party and general discussion during the first evening the group was together, Jameson devoted the next three days to demonstrating techniques for making quick ink and watercolor sketches, as well as small oil studies, and providing individual instruction to students no matter what medium they chose. He also made an effort to bring together students who had little previous experience so that he could offer them instruction in fundamentals. Each day of Jameson’s workshop included six hours of instruction, an opportunity for students to paint and receive individual guidance, and a group critique in the evening.

“On the first full day of the class I discussed the objectives of the workshop, indicated where we would be painting, identified alternative locations if we weren’t able to be outdoors, and asked people to let me know if they had any particular interests or concerns,” Jameson recalled. “When we arrived at the first painting location and set up our easels, I selected the view we would paint. A complete demonstration preceded each painting session, with plenty of time allocated for questions from the participants. The class size varied from eight to 15 because some people were only able to join us for one day, but it was still small enough that we could carpool to the painting locations and gather together for the demonstrations and critiques.

12 Things to Remember About Outdoor
Landscape Painting

The key word in plein air painting is simplify.
That applies to materials, techniques, and
procedures.
Choose your subject, and verbalize why you
want to paint it.
Position yourself with the sun on the left or
right of the subject. Avoid the sun at your
back. Early mornings and late afternoons
provide dramatic lighting.
Establish the horizon line.
Observe atmospheric perspective. Cools
recede, warms come forward.
Identify the center of interest.
Identify the lightest lights and darkest darks to
begin establishing the values involved.
Look at shadows. Identify cast and form
shadows. Look for reflected light.
Make a quick thumbnail sketch of your subject.
Use a limited palette, and put out a lot of paint.
When you begin painting, sketch with a round
brush, and keep painting with the biggest
brush you can.
Work from big shapes to little shapes, dark
values to light values, cool colors to warm
colors.

“I am a big advocate of making sketches, either to plan paintings or to document fleeting subjects, so during the first morning of the class I showed the students how I use a rollerball pen (with either permanent or water-soluble ink) and watercolor to quickly record observations,” Jameson said. “I have about 40 sketchbooks in my studio that document my travels and nearby locations, and sometimes I use that material to develop large studio paintings.”

When he offered painting demonstrations, Jameson worked quickly on 9"-x-12" panels to capture an impression of what he saw. “I keep things simple, use a limited palette, work with big brushes, and never spend more than 45 minutes on any one painting,” he explained. “The point is to be spontaneous and fresh, and it can be successful in the first 10 minutes. I then put that canvas aside and start on another one. I encourage students to do the same thing.”

Jameson also suggests that students limit the number of supplies they work with on location or in the studio. “In most situations, students load themselves down with a lot of paints and supplies for fear of not having something they might need,” the instructor commented. “It’s really a matter of confidence, preparation, and simplicity. Artists can’t concentrate on the most important aspects of painting if they are busy sorting through piles of brushes, paints, canvases, and supplies. The better organized painters are, the more effective they will be as plein air painters.”

Jameson provided students with a list of 12 things they could do to improve their plein air landscape painting (see sidebar), which he reviewed during the course of the workshop. His list was developed to help people focus their attention on what is important, eliminate distractions, use the painting materials to their best advantage, and enjoy the creative process. For example, the instructor recommended starting the painting process by blocking in the big shapes and then moving to the smaller ones; establishing the dark values with thin mixtures of oil color and then adding lighter, thicker strokes of paint; and developing the shapes that are best described with cool colors before painting those that should be indicated with warm colors. “These are not hard-and-fast rules,” Jameson said. “They are suggestions of what is most likely to work for plein air painters. In my experience, it’s always better for students to start with a clear idea of what works well for other artists before they consider other approaches.”

American Artist Cover Competition Winners Announced

Brian Riley — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 11:02:00 GMT

Artists from across the country submitted their work for consideration in the 2009 American Artist Cover Competition. After an extensive selection process Suzanne Eisler’s Still Life With Butterfly was chosen as the winning image. It is presented here, along with artwork from the nine other finalists.

The Winning Work:
Still Life With Butterfly
by Suzanne Eisler, 2007, oil, 13 x 14.Collection the artist.

The Winner: Suzanne Eisler
With her painting, Suzanne Eisler says she is trying to achieve “a quiet simplicity.” Although she enjoys the challenge of complex shapes and textures, she tries to use only the minimal amount of objects needed to ensure balance in a composition. “The key for me is the light,” the artist says. “The lightest object becomes the dominant element. I’m also moved by the beauty of halftones and shadows with their lost and found edges. Perhaps it is this selectivity and the differing degrees of finish between dominant and subordinate objects that give my paintings depth and make my approach work.”

Eisler says she works hard to follow the methods and techniques of the classical tradition, with inspiration coming from such artists as Pieter Claesz, Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, Anne Vallayer-Coster, and Henri Fantin-Latour. She has studied at the Ridgewood Art Institute, in New Jersey, and at the School of Visual Arts, the Arts Students League of New York, the New York Academy of Art, the Aviano Academy of Fine Arts, and the Grand Central Academy of Art, all in New York City. She has also studied privately with Michael Aviano, Jon deMartin, John Osborne, and Ted Seth Jacobs, crediting Aviano and deMartin with having the greatest influence on her.

According to Eisler, Still Life With Butterfly is somewhat allegorical. “It started with the butterfly, and then I began adding and arranging,” she says. “It reflects the idea of change, coming about at a time when I was making life-altering decisions, moving in new directions personally and professionally.”

Born and raised on Long Island, New York, Eisler spent most of her professional life as an illustrator doing fashion, product, and architectural rendering in New York City. She now lives in Poughkeepsie, New York, and devotes herself full time to painting. “I didn’t pick up a brush until I was about 40 years old,” she says. “It was something I never thought I could achieve. But doing it helped me realize that even in times of great change, there are opportunities—to learn, to set new goals, to achieve new heights. It’s important to remember that the idea of reinventing oneself is not just an important tool for coping but also the quintessential American ideal. Maybe this is what it means to be an American artist.”

For more information, e-mail jlowenbraun@hvc.rr.com.

Ambience
by Casey Baugh, 2009, oil on linen,
24 x 16. CourtesyWendt Gallery,
Laguna Beach, California.

Casey Baugh
“I have wanted to paint a dual temperature scene for a while, and this painting gave me the perfect opportunity,” says Casey Baugh. “It also gave me the chance to paint one of my red carpets.” When creating a painting, the Massachusetts artist first comes up with an idea and then spends a day with the model setting up many different scenes. “I usually have something in mind before the model arrives, and I try to start with that idea and work from there,” he says. “I inevitably end up doing something a little different, but the result is always better than what I had originally envisioned.”

Baugh usually paints with Rembrandt oils on white lead-primed linen and always completes one or more practice paintings before executing a finished piece. For Ambience, he made several practice sketches prior to the finished painting and also worked from reference photographs.
Baugh has been painting professionally for more than 10 years. His artwork has appeared on the cover of Drawing, American Art Collector, and The Artist’s Magazine, and one of his pieces won an exceptional merit award in the 2008 Portrait Society of America show.

For more information, visit www.caseybaugh.com, or e-mail studio@caseybaughfineart.com.

Tayler
by David Beal, 2008, oil, 36 x 36.
Collection the artist.

David Beal
David Beal enjoys painting people. “I attempt to capture a moment in time—a glance or look that begins to tell a story,” says this Kansas artist. Beal typically begins with pencil sketches and color notations from a live model. With children, he also takes numerous digital images so he can fully develop the drawing and composition later in his studio. He then prepares his canvas with multiple coats of primer, sanding lightly in between coats.

Beal starts the painting by coating the entire surface with raw umber thinned with turpentine and then uses cheesecloth to remove some paint from the surface. After completing a value study in raw umber, he premixes his colors and lays out his palette. He uses primarily Winsor & Newton and Old Holland oils, adding small amounts of clove and linseed oil to extend the drying time. Once the raw umber value study is dry, he begins laying in the mid-range flesh tones with broad strokes. He then moves to the darks, being careful to keep them thin and transparent. He builds the lights over multiple sittings, re-establishing the drawing each time using raw umber line work.

“With this painting I knew I wanted a study contrasting Tayler’s youthful and subtle skin tones against a bright pattern,” Beal says. “She also has interesting eyes that I knew would be a challenge. Only when I got into my studio did I decide on the white, heavily applied background. I was looking for graphic impact, and I wanted the subject off-center right, with lots of space behind her. I considered adding foliage in the near foreground but decided I liked the simplicity of the figure on white.”

For more information, visit www.davidbealportraits.com, or e-mail bealportraits@gmail.com. The artist’s work can also be found at www.portraitartist.com.

The Teapot
by David A. N. Cheifetz, 2008,
oil on panel, 12 x 9. Courtesy
Foxhall Gallery, Washington, DC.

David A. N. Cheifetz
When choosing subject matter, Washington, DC, artist David A. N. Cheifetz looks for objects that speak of age and hard use, and for sizes, shapes, textures, and colors that can be combined to form a pleasing composition. “My concept is formed while I rummage through potential objects, imagining in my mind’s eye how I could paint and compose them,” Cheifetz says. “I then set up my objects and adjust the light until I’m happy with the composition. I think still-life setups inevitably look boring and ordinary—the trick is to see beyond that and decide where you want to create focus, drama, and mystery.”

For The Teapot, he wanted to create a pleasing and balanced composition with only two objects. “I was excited about the blue detailing of the teapot and the reflected light that was coming off the red cloth,” he explains. Cheifetz likes to use an alla prima approach, and he strives to paint loosely but with precision. He started this painting with a drawing in umber to block in the shadow shapes. He then placed the lightest light and darkest dark. In his first three-hour sitting, he covered the panel. In the second three-hour sitting, he refined the rounded form of the teapot and put in the blue detailing, the delicate handle, and the silver-dollar plant. After darkening the turning shadow on the brown bottle, he considered the painting complete.

For more information, visit www.davidcheifetz.com.

Artist at Work, Taos, New Mexico
by Emily Hirn, 2008, oil, 30 x 40.
Courtesy Frameworks Gallery,
Marietta, Georgia.

Emily Hirn
Georgia artist Emily Hirn painted Artist at Work in her studio from a series of reference photographs she took while on a break during a plein air workshop given by Albert Handell in New Mexico. “Toby, a fellow workshop participant, was utterly lost in concentration, which is what was so attractive to me,” Hirn recalls. “More than a portrait or a representation of an idyllic scene, the painting became a statement about the act of creating.”

Hirn says she relies heavily on accurate drawing and strong compositions for her oil paintings. “I seldom choose a symmetrical composition, preferring to throw the focal point off center and balance it with other elements,” she states. “I find that creating areas of tension and then resolving them results in a more interesting composition and painting.”

She first makes a line drawing of the subject in a combination of ultramarine blue and burnt sienna. Hirn then gets rid of the white by blocking in washes of transparent solvent-thinned oil color with loose brushstrokes. Next, she works on defining a focus area. She goes back and forth, adding and subtracting color, blurring or sharpening edges as needed, laying one color edge next to another in one small area and working out from there. “The overall goal is to keep a fresh and sketchy quality in the finished piece by not saying too much,” she says.

Hirn mainly chooses Sennelier oil paints for their buttery texture but also uses some Old Holland, Holbein, and Winsor & Newton colors. Her preferred brushes are Escoda 4050 Series and Silver Bristlon 1903 Series. She likes Holbein palette knives and uses Gamsol for a solvent.

For more information, visit www.ehirn.com, or e-mail emilyhirn@gmail.com.

Roses on Silk
by Varvara Harmon, 2008–2009,
oil, 24 x 30. Collection the artist.

Varvara Harmon
“I don’t really have to search hard for my subjects,” says Varvara Harmon. “I see beauty everywhere. Any object around my home might become the subject for my next painting.” She gave the roses in this oil painting to her daughter because she was in a musical performance. Harmon works in a variety of media, and the draped silk was a fabric she planned to use as the surface of a painting.

When beginning an oil painting, Harmon always establishes the composition and the direction of the light source first. She then applies a layer of dark and midtone colors. Next, she adds many layers of glazing. “Each painting might have a different number of layers, depending on the effect I’m trying to achieve,” Harmon explains. “For transparent and translucent effects, I usually need many thin layers of glazing. However, for more opaque objects, I use fewer layers but focus on more of the fine details from the outset.” She adds the highlights last. Harmon paints with Winsor & Newton oils mixed with walnut oil and alkyd resin medium on Creative Mark primed and stretched cotton canvas with a paintable edge.

Born in Russia, Harmon immigrated to the United States in 2001 and now lives in Maine. Her painting Roses on Silk was chosen as a finalist for “Salon International 2009,” a juried exhibition of the International Museum of Contemporary Masters of Fine Art, at Greenhouse Gallery of Fine Art, in San Antonio.

For more information, visit www.varvaraharmon.com, www.varvaraharmon.blogspot.com, or e-mail myart@yandex.ru.

The Conjuring
by Timothy W. Jahn, 2008, charcoal,
22 x 19. Private collection.

Timothy W. Jahn
For New Jersey artist Timothy W. Jahn, each drawing presents a unique set of obstacles to overcome. “With The Conjuring, the first hurdle was finding a model that was both powerfully beautiful and innocent,” Jahn says. “I chose Danielle because she had an intoxicating gaze that allowed me to create a powerful heroine who at the same time possessed a youthful innocence.”

Jahn prefers to work mostly from life, but for this drawing he worked from preliminary compositional sketches and photographs because of logistics with the model. “After taking the photos, I used Photoshop to explore multiple variations of the formal elements within the pictorial image,” he says. “In Photoshop each element has an assigned layer that can be adjusted an infinite number of times throughout the development of an idea. This allows me to determine my final composition quickly without wasting time making major changes to the drawing. Then as I execute the piece, all of the information goes through my internal artistic filter once more.”
Jahn created this drawing with General’s charcoal and General’s charcoal white on Canson Mi-Teintes paper. “All of the values were made by mixing the black and white charcoal,” he explains. “The entire surface of the paper was blanketed with the subsequent tones that were created. This allowed for a broad range of values and an even finish.”

For more information, e-mail timothywjahn@yahoo.com.

Girl With Noodle Bowl
by Chung Ae Kim, 2008, oil, 24 x 30.
Collection the artist.

Chung Ae Kim
“I like all manner of subjects: a corner of my house, a garden, people, a street, memories from trips,” says California oil painter Chung Ae Kim, who was born in Korea and came to the United States in 1977. The artist based this painting on a photograph she took while traveling in Lijiang, China, in 2008. “I saw my own childhood memories of 50 years ago in this ancient city,” she recalls. “I used the photograph as the basis of the painting, but the details and my nostalgic feeling were improvised.”

Kim generally works from photos or watercolor sketches made at the scene. She begins a painting by sketching the image on canvas and then drawing over it with Liquitex dark acrylics. Next, she tones the canvas with tinted transparent gesso. After premixing all of her oil colors by value, she applies them in large areas, working from background to foreground. “Detail work is usually a fairly small effort at the end,” the artist says. “I execute 90 percent of the painting very fast, to keep the inspiration I had from the subject. Then I take time to study it before making final improvements. I like my paintings to seem detailed, but without the intense labor of small brushwork.”

Kim is a member of the Fourth Street Studio, in Berkeley, California. Her work is in numerous private collections.

For more information visit www.chungae.com, or e-mail chungaekim@comcast.net.

Rods and Reels
by Rick Kroninger. 2008, oil, 60 x 40.
Courtesy Felder Gallery, Port Aransas,
Texas.

Rick Kroninger
Texas artist Rick Kroninger says he has been visually interested in deep-sea fishing gear for some time. “The beauty of these old rods and reels continually fascinates me, and it’s a subject I’ve never seen painted before,” he says. To make this painting, Kroninger worked from photographs of the still life, which he set up on a portable fold-out table mounted to his easel. “I arranged the rods and reels on the table outside, rotating them toward the natural sunlight to give me the exact light/shadow placement I wanted for the painting,” he says.

Kroninger paints exclusively with Old Holland oils for their richness and brilliance. His medium of choice is Taubes Copal Concentrate, which is no longer available in stores. “This medium gives the paint a jewellike glow,” he says. “Fortunately, I purchased a lot of it in the 1970s.” While painting this large, detailed piece, Kroninger developed a jointed mahlstick with a small palette attached to it that made it easier for him to work close to the surface of the canvas.
Kroninger worked as a commercial photographer for 40 years and has mostly created artwork in the medium of wood sculpture. He is represented by Felder Gallery, in Port Aransas, Texas.

For more information, e-mail rkronin@swbell.net.

In the Stillness…
by Denise LaRue Mahlke, 2008, pastel,
24 x 18. Courtesy InSight Gallery,
Fredericksburg, Texas.

Denise LaRue Mahlke
According to Texas landscape artist Denise LaRue Mahlke, design is key to a painting’s success. Mahlke says she enjoys making many thumbnail sketches and value studies in the process of planning, drawing, and experimenting with different compositions for her pastel paintings. Whether working outdoors or in her studio, she always makes time for this preliminary step. In her studio she might also work from photographs, but she says these are secondary to her sketches and any other reference material she has gathered outdoors.

“My inspiration for In the Stillness… was the warm golden glow of late afternoon light on the grasses and trees and the contrasting cool tones of sky reflecting in the water,” Mahlke says. Working from photos in her studio, she used a soft-leaded pencil to make several thumbnail sketches of the scene in various formats and values before deciding on her design.

Mahlke likes to experiment, using different brands of pastel papers and making her own surfaces, but lately she has been using UART sanded pastel paper, preferring the 500-grit variety. For larger paintings, she has her paper mounted to Gatorfoam board. She starts a painting by indicating the large shapes with a neutral Nupastel stick or charcoal and blocking in her middle- and dark-value shapes with 1-to-½-inch pieces of Nupastels and Rembrandts in warm and cool colors. She then uses a wash of Gamsol odorless mineral spirits to dissolve the pastel and establish the underpainting. When this is dry, she re-establishes the darks and mid-darks with the same pastels and then starts working with other brands, including Art Spectrum, Unison, Schmincke, Sennelier, and Terry Ludwig. She works on all areas simultaneously to develop the painting as a whole before focusing on details, using the sides of her pastel sticks as opposed to the tips.

For more information, visit www.dlaruemahlke.com, or e-mail dlaruem@yahoo.com.

To see the Table of Contents for the June 2009 issue of American Artist, click here.

Respond to What Paintings Need

Brian Riley — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 10:01:00 GMT

Mary Sipp-Green bases her oil landscapes on sketches, memories, and imagination, and she makes careful notations about color combinations that capture her feelings about a particular time and place. Nevertheless, there is a point in the creative process at which she has to “get out of the way” and let the painting suggest the best ways for it to be finished successfully.

by M. Stephen Doherty

Rosy Twilight
2008, oil, 36 x 50. Courtesy
Wally Findlay Galleries,
Palm Beach, Florida.

No matter how much planning goes into the process of starting a painting, there is a point when artists have to put aside their preconceived notions and respond to what is actually happening on the canvas. Sometimes the changes taking place are encouraging, and other times they are not leading to a realization of the artist’s original intentions. When a new direction is called for, artists often say the painting has spoken to them and asserted its own priorities.

After more than 25 years of painting, Massachusetts artist Mary Sipp-Green still finds that each new painting she creates presents a different set of challenges, some of which can only be resolved when she “gets out of the way” and lets the picture speak to her. “I was fortunate to grow up in a family of creative people, and I learned the skills of drawing and painting at an early age,” she explains. “But it wasn’t until I met Bessie Boris (1917–1993) and Leo Garel (1917–1999), two distinguished artists who happened to live nearby, that I really found my own personal, expressive, and individual voice as an artist. One of the many important lessons they taught me was to think of painting as something more than simply reporting on what one observes. Instead, artists have to respond intuitively to the needs of a painting. This means giving up some measure of control and being willing to pursue the unanticipated directions that suggest themselves as the painting’s colors, shapes, spaces, and tensions begin to emerge and acquire a life of their own. This is one way to think of that ‘inner voice’ that an artist must come to trust if he or she wishes to transform, rather than merely record, what he or she witnesses. The end product may well look very different from the artist’s original intention, but the work will have become expressive in an almost organic way. Throughout the years that I have been painting in this manner, this ‘voice’ has become my guiding principle and has led me to develop a style that I feel I can call my own.

Twilight in the Berkshires
2008, oil, 35 x 64. Courtesy
Wally Findlay Galleries, Palm
Beach, Florida.

“I spend a lot of time considering potential subjects, sketching and making notes about what I observe, testing out color combinations, making small oil studies, and evaluating compositional sketches,” Sipp-Green explains. “However, until I experience the process of building layers of oil colors on a large canvas, I don’t know for sure if the composition will work, whether or not the colors and brush marks will create a sense of the mood and atmosphere. My studio is filled with paintings in various stages of development because it helps to put them aside for a while and then go back to them with fresh perspective. That bit of distance is often what allows me to ‘dialogue’ most freely with the painting; the demands of a given composition become clearer, and I am able to proceed with confidence.”

The specific procedure Sipp-Green follows is to start with rough graphite sketches of landscapes she remembers or has observed, most of which are annotated with comments about the name of the town, the date and time, the direction of the light, the topography, the weather conditions, and the color relationships. The drawings are made in spiral sketchbooks of varying sizes, all of which are kept in a wicker basket in her studio. They are identified by the location—Martha’s Vineyard, the Berkshires, Tuscany, and Normandy, for example. Sipp-Green can flip back through the pages and quickly recall where she was and what was most significant about the location. Sometimes a forgotten sketch grabs her attention, and she thinks about using it as the basis of a painting, and other times she goes searching for recorded ideas that might be developed into paintings for a scheduled exhibition.

Hot Summer Day
2008, oil, 35 x 64. Courtesy
Wally Findlay Galleries, Palm
Beach, Florida.

With the sketches laid out on a worktable in her new studio in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, Sipp-Green tests out various color combinations that might help her give form to the image in her mind’s eye. “It’s a little like improvisational music; the ground is the melody—the starting point from which to explore themes, modes, structures, and tones. The instruments are layers of paint, the relationships of color, texture, and form that both arise from and transform the mood set by the ground.”

Sipp-Green evaluates color combinations on scraps of wood provided by the carpenter who makes her painting panels. One panel might be uniformly toned with a warm golden color, and another might be coated with a transparent salmon tone. When those are dry, the artist paints various thin layers of blues, greens, or reds to evaluate the visual interaction between complementary or analogous color combinations. Another swatch of color might later be applied, with each pigment being identified by written notes on the test panel. Most of the color combinations are suggested by the landscapes Sipp-Green has observed, but she is also receptive to appealing color combinations in nature. For example, she was intrigued by the colors inside a seashell and used those in a painting, and she was dazzled by the intense colors in a daylily and worked those into another oil painting. “I’m always observing the patterns, textures, light, colors, and shapes in nature, and I’m just as likely to be inspired by something I pick up on the ground or see out of the corner of my eye as by a vast stretch of land,” she explains.

Once Sipp-Green has decided on the appropriate hues, intensities, and layers of color for a landscape, she tones the surface of a panel coated with several sanded layers of acrylic gesso and blocks in the basic composition with a thin application of paint. “That gives me a quick indication of the composition,” she explains. “Typically, I like to have the color of the sky establish the overall tone of the painting, so I begin at the top of the panel and work my way down. I allow that to dry, and then I go back to further define the buildings, trees, fields, roads, and streams with additional thin layers of color. Sometimes I brush on thick applications of oil color when I need a contrast of densities, but most of the time I allow each of the layers to remain translucent enough to influence the appearance of the others.”

Quiet Dawn at Quitsa
2008, oil, 36 x 50. Courtesy
Wally Findlay Galleries, Palm
Beach, Florida.

Contrast is a word Sipp-Green uses frequently when she talks about painting. “There is a dynamic tension that is, I believe, essential to all art, and this is as true of painting as it is of literature, cinema, or the performing arts,” she explains. “Tension is necessary for the transformation of what might otherwise be a static representation. It’s a way of turning a pleasantly decorative image into a dynamic, vital form of expression. It is also a key element of how visual artists approach composition: Painters balance warm and cool colors, sharp contrasts and subtleties, horizontal and vertical thrusts, near and distant forms, and lost or found edges. Part of the process is determining how to balance those options. If a color is too hot, I make it cool; if an edge is too hard, I make it soft; and if a shape recedes too far into the distance, I bring it forward. Again, that’s part of the dialogue between me and the painting.”

Safety is another issue that concerns Sipp-Green, and she designed her new studio to minimize the potential hazards from solvents, varnish, and mediums. “Like many artists, I became concerned about the potential impact of the materials on my health and the environment,” she explains. “I switched from using turpentine to Gamsol solvent. For my medium I use sun-thickened linseed oil with a small amount of Gamsol. I clean my brushes with baby oil, soap, and water; I built high ceilings in the studio to increase the volume of air, and I designed a separate, ventilated room where I could apply varnish to my finished paintings and leave them there to dry thoroughly without allowing the fumes to enter my workspace.”

Clearly Sipp-Green gains valuable insights about her paintings when she responds to the way they are developing rather than to the way they confirm her original intentions. Her landscapes engage viewers by allowing them to drift into the space, experience the light and atmosphere, become tantalized by the veils of color, and reflect on similar places and times that have punctuated their own lives. Her paintings present what the artist has felt and observed, but they also remind viewers of similar experiences.

To see the Table of Contents for the May 2009 issue of American Artist magazine, click here.