The Oil Painting Blog : Landscape Drawing

Oil Painting: Daniel E. Greene: Gleaning Inspiration From Formative Experiences

American Artist — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 11:29:00 GMT

In the Fall 2007 issue of Workshop magazine, we presented Daniel E. Greene's approach to teaching drawing and painting in art-school classes, short-term workshops, and filmed programs. Here we reproduce the article from the November 2007 issue of American Artist that focused on an exhibition of still-life and figure paintings inspired by the experiences and objects of the artist's childhood.

by M. Stephen Doherty

It’s Thrilling
2007, oil, 44 x 72.
All artwork this article
courtesy Gallery Henoch,
New York, New York,
unless otherwise indicated.

Daniel E. Greene is a master painter of portraits, still lifes, figures, and urban scenes executed in pastel or oil. Many of his noncommissioned pictures are based on personal experiences, including a series of New York City subway paintings that took him back to some of the locations he discovered in the 1950s, when he moved from his hometown of Cincinnati to study art and establish his career. His latest series of paintings is based on an earlier time in his life when, as a child, he was captivated by board games, an amusement park, and organized sports. “I loved competitive games that challenged me physically and mentally,” he remembers. “I did well at those competitions, and I think in many ways they prepared me for the problem-solving aspects of being an artist. Painting can be thought of as a similar process of acquiring knowledge, planning strategies, maintaining stamina, and facing challenges.”

That series of paintings, which is currently on view at Gallery Henoch, in New York City, uses game boards, balloons, toys, stuffed animals, signage, and orchids both for their identities and their visual impact. For example, a game board represents aspects of gamesmanship and also serves as an abstract pattern of shapes and colors that work in concert with the figures and objects painted in front of them. The collection of forms also introduces the theme of contrast that has always interested Greene. He continually juxtaposes objects that are animate and inanimate, new and antique, smooth and textured; but the recent paintings go further in contrasting the emotions of boredom and excitement, disappointment and achievement, risk and security.

Dartboard &
Balloons
2007, oil, 42 x 66.

“I first started using game boards, dolls, and other childhood memorabilia in my paintings about 20 years ago, but I didn’t make them the focus of a series until I began working on these paintings about two years ago,” Greene explains. “I placed orchids in front of game boards within square-format paintings to contrast beautiful, living, flowing plant material against well-worn geometric patterns; and then I expanded the scale of the work with nude figures against boards enlarged way beyond their actual size. Eventually I allowed the pictures to become more autobiographical by pulling in images from my recollections of the Coney Island amusement park near Cincinnati.”

Greene documented the development of several of these paintings, including It’s Thrilling. “I visited an amusement park in Connecticut with my family, and I was struck by the images of garishly colored stuffed animals, crudely painted signage, bored attendants, darts, balloons, and colored lights—all of them associated with games of chance and skill,” the artist explains. “I remembered how exciting all of that was to me as a child, how my daughter was reacting with the same enthusiasm, and how the carnival had remained much the same as when it was depicted in drawings and paintings by such artists as Edward Hopper, Reginald Marsh, and Isabel Bishop. I imagined how I might respond to these scenes of isolated, lonely figures engaged in a business that was intended to be amusing, challenging, and rewarding. I was especially intrigued by a game in which contestants would earn points by rolling balls, with the number of points being used to determine how fast they could race cars occupied by ghosts. The person who won the most points and moved his or her car to the finish line first would win a prize.”

Whack-A-Clown
2007, oil, 54 x 54.

FOCUSING ON THE race of ghosts, Greene made replicas of the moving cars and positioned them on a board, hired a carpenter to construct the players’ booth, and asked one of his daughter’s friends to pose as the attendant. “I was determined to create these new paintings from life, not photographs,” the artist explains. “I searched the internet to locate appropriate stuffed animals, and then by chance I found a bag of them my daughter won at the very same amusement park. It was tedious painting the graphic designs on the booths and the signage above, and it took me a long time to determine where to position the stuffed animals and how to paint portraits of each of them.”

Greene indicates that one of the devices he used to resolve these kinds of compositional issues was to make a quick painted sketch of the objects on sheets of acetate, move them around the canvas, and then decide on the best placement. “It seemed a little curious to be assigning so much importance to toys, but a realist painter has to be willing to paint everything with the same degree of attention and detail,” he says. “They may have been stuffed animals, but they functioned within the pictures as colored shapes that would catch the viewer’s eye and contribute to the context of the ideas being explored.”

Wheel of Fortune
2006, oil, 54 x 54.

It was actually difficult for Greene to replicate the crudely painted signs in the various carnival booths depicted in the series of paintings. “My inclination was to make them more polished and precise, but that would have been inconsistent with the graphic images that are part of a carnival,” he describes. “In most cases, placards were painted decades ago by amateur sign painters to identify the individual booths and to encourage people to compete for prizes.”

The crudeness and harsh colors of the carnival became even more pronounced when Greene developed the paintings Ring-A-Ghoul and Whack-A-Clown. “I actually had to add some unfamiliar paints to my palette to replicate the day-glow orange, iridescent blue, and shocking purple of the bears in Ring-A-Ghoul,” he reveals. “And I spent many hours painting each of the pegs and their cast shadows on the spinning wheel included in Whack-A-Clown. The combination of shapes, textures, and patterns in that painting were unlike any I had ever combined into one picture.”

In recalling the creative process involved in each of these new paintings, Greene points out that for the past 25 years he has documented every aspect of the development of his art. “I keep careful
records of the canvas, board, paper, colors, preparation, mediums, model, preparatory studies, starting and ending dates, and hours of labor involved in each of my paintings,” the artist says. “I
recommend that every artist keep such records for his or her own benefit. I frequently refer to my notes when I want to recall how I achieved certain effects in a painting, where I got the still-life material, who the models were, what medium I used to modify the paints, what varnish I applied once the picture was dry, and where the paintings were exhibited and perhaps sold.”

Ring-A-Ghoul
2007, oil, 54 x 54.

Although some of the detailing of the carnival paintings was tedious, Greene relished the opportunity to paint portraits of the models and to create convincing images of such objects as the balloons in Dartboard & Balloons and the clothing worn by the man in Wheel of Fortune. “I particularly enjoyed painting each of the balloons because several were translucent enough to reveal the numbers underneath, while others reflected the colors and shapes of the nearby balloons,” he explains. “And I decided I wanted to paint a portrait of the young man in Wheel of Fortune as soon as he arrived at my studio in North Salem, New York, to model for one of my summer workshops. He was actually wearing that orange shirt and the decorated jean jacket, and I thought they characterized the kind of rebellious, free-spirited drifter who would take off to join the circus. His pensive gaze also suggested the contradictory emotions of a man who is supposed to be enticing people with a game of fun, excitement, and reward.”

In addition to including a captivating portrait in Wheel of Fortune, Greene used the opportunity to develop an elaborate border along the top of this oil painting. “I have long been fascinated by the decorative elements in Russian icons and gold-leaf decorations,” the artist says. “On some level the antique boards and well-worn signs serve a similar decorative function in the carnival paintings.”

Greene was able to take the carnival artifacts to another level of expression in the painting Dartman by including several menacing images. “On one level, the painting uses a standard portrait device of positioning a figure against a warm, brown background,” he describes. “But when you consider that the man is holding sharply pointed darts used to pop the balloons and penetrate the red-and-white wheel, and that there is a folk-art game in which contestants use a pistol to shoot metal objects extending from a man’s mouth, you recognize that games often involve a level of violence and destruction. I suppose one could extend that recognition to include the current video games that treat violence as a form of entertainment.”

Dartman
2006, oil, 68 x 68.
Private collection.

Greene created the paintings included in this current New York exhibition on single- and double-primed Claessens linen and Fredrix No. 11 single-primed linen using the Daniel E. Greene line of oil colors manufactured by Jack Richeson & Co., as well as a few tubes of paint made by Winsor & Newton and Grumbacher. His standard medium is a mixture of 1/3 stand oil and 2/3 turpentine; but he does occasionally use a gel medium such as Maroger, as well as an oiling-out medium made with a higher percentage of stand oil thinned with turpentine (5 to 1, 4 to 1, or 1 to 1).

About the Artist
Daniel E. Greene is a former instructor of painting at the National Academy and the Art Students League of New York, both in Manhattan. In 1969 he was elected to the National Academy; in 1983 the Pastel Society of America elected him to the Pastel Hall of Fame; in 1995 he received the John Singer Sargent Award from The American Society of Portrait Artists; in 2001 he was awarded the Gold Medal from the Portrait Society of America; and in 2003 he received the Gold Medal from the Salmagundi Art Club, in New York City. Greene is the author of Pastel and The Art of Pastel (Watson-Guptill Publications, New York, New York); he is the subject of six instructional videos and DVDs; and he has endorsed sets of pastel and oil manufactured by Jack Richeson & Co., as well as brushes manufactured by Silver Brush Limited. For more information on Greene or his art supplies, visit his websites at www.danielgreeneartist.com and www.wallstreetart.net. For more information on Gallery Henoch, where Greene’s paintings are on exhibition from October 11 through November 4, visit www.galleryhenoch.com.

M. Stephen Doherty is the editor-in-chief and publisher of American Artist.

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Oil Painting: The Knowlton Gallery Presents Yosemite on Canvas

American Artist — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 11:10:00 GMT

During the spring of 2008, 13 women painters from California, Nevada, and Utah gathered together in the Yosemite Valley to paint the national park for a week.

Yosemite on Canvas: 13 Western Artists Paint the Park
Through November 29
Knowlton Gallery
Lodi, California
(209) 368-5123

During the spring of 2008, 13 women painters from California, Nevada, and Utah gathered together in the Yosemite Valley to paint the national park for a week. The work that resulted from the excursion—both plein air paintings done on-site and studio paintings created later—are on display in this exhibition at the Knowlton Gallery, in Lodi, California. Artists with work on display include Cynthia Britain, who took the lead in organizing the outing for the group of painters, Anita Hampton, Peggi Kroll-Roberts, Camille Przewodek, and Jean LeGassick.


Yosemite Falls—Early Morning by Camille Przewodek, 2008, oil, 11 x 14. Courtesy Knowlton Gallery, Lodi, California.	Yosemite Falls—Wet & Wild by Cynthia Britain, 2008, oil, 36 x 24. Courtesy Knowlton Gallery, Lodi, California.	Reflections in the Merced by Kate Starling, 2008, oil, 12 x 16. Courtesy Knowlton Gallery, Lodi, California.

Oil Painting: Daniel E. Greene: Gleaning Inspiration From Formative Experiences

American Artist — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 16:45:00 GMT

In an exhibition opening this month in New York City, Daniel E. Greene presents still-life and figure paintings inspired by the experiences and objects of his childhood. Those paintings allowed him to explore the themes of challenge, contrast, and competition.

by M. Stephen Doherty

It’s Thrilling
2007, oil, 44 x 72.
All artwork this article
courtesy Gallery Henoch,
New York, New York,
unless otherwise indicated.

Dartboard &
Balloons
2007, oil, 42 x 66.

Whack-A-Clown
2007, oil, 54 x 54.

Wheel of Fortune
2006, oil, 54 x 54.

Ring-A-Ghoul
2007, oil, 54 x 54.

Dartman
2006, oil, 68 x 68.
Private collection.

M. Stephen Doherty is the editor-in-chief and publisher of American Artist.

Oil Painting: Tree's Place Gallery Exhibition: Six Premier Landscape Artists

American Artist — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 10:45:00 GMT

Six top artists combined observation, investigation, and invention to respond to the encompassing reality of the landscape. They will be exhibiting their sketches and studio paintings together for the first time this summer.

by M. Stephen Doherty

The difference between looking at a photograph and a great painting is similar to the difference between seeing a plate of food and eating it. One tells us what we are looking at while the other provides a fulfilling experience. Among landscape painters, there are many who accurately describe the appearance of nature, and some who go beyond that to provide a complete response. The six contemporary artists exhibiting together in August at Tree’s Place Gallery, in Orleans, Massachusetts, all have that extraordinary ability.


Vinalhaven Sunset by Jacob Collins, 2008, oil, 36 x 70. Courtesy Hirschl & Adler Modern, New York, New York.	Detail of Yellow Birch, Kaaterskill Falls, New York by Jacob Collins, 2007, graphite on toned paper, 13½ x 10½. Courtesy Tree’s Place, Orleans, Massachusetts.

Three of the exhibiting artists, Jacob Collins, Travis Schlaht, and Nicholas Hiltner, have extensive academic training in drawing and painting the figure, and they apply those skills to the challenge of understanding and interpreting the landscape. The other artists, Joseph McGurl, Donald Demers, and William R. Davis, grew up sailing in the waters of New England and learned to draw and paint what they were obliged to understand about the forces of nature. Despite the differences in their backgrounds, all six artists approach landscape painting as a process of combining knowledge and observation to form a complete interpretation of the emotional, factual, and personal experience.

Collins, Schlaht, and Hiltner have painted together for a number of years and spent several summers creating pleir air landscapes. However, it wasn’t until the summer of 2007 that they began working together to establish a new direction in landscape painting when they led a group of 30 artists (along with artist Edward Minoff) in the Catskill Mountains district of New York State. During the three-week workshop, the participants applied the same level of understanding and investigation to landscape painting that they were already using to create their figure paintings. The program began with an emphasis on scientific research and careful drawing of the elements of the landscape—clouds, plants, rocks, and land formations—and continued with plein air color studies based on observation. The students and teachers then returned to their home studios to use this collective knowledge and resource material to create imaginative, accurate, and comprehensive views of nature.

The goal of this Hudson River School for Landscape (www.hudsonriverlandscape.com) was to establish “a new movement of American art, modeling itself after the artistic, social, and spiritual values of the Hudson River School painters,” says Collins in reference to the 19th-century artists who established the first indigenous art movement in America. “The Hudson River School painters saw the beauty of nature as a deeply important part of our world, and they believed their job was to faithfully represent that beauty. In their tradition, the beauty of the land was a revelation. This deep reverence for the land and idealism is sometimes missing in the contemporary art world. Those painters also laid the groundwork for what became the American Conservation Movement. My hope is that reuniting the kind of idealism that these artists brought to their art with the reverence for the land that they helped introduce to American culture will make a small contribution to solving current problems.”


View Toward Stonehorse Ledge From the Saco River by William R. Davis, 2007, oil, 8 x 12. Collection the artist.	Washington Valley Creek by William R. Davis, 2007, oil on paper, 8 x 10. Courtesy Tree’s Place, Orleans, Massachusetts.

In a question-and-answer exchange Collins provided for the Plein Air section of the American Artist website, he mentioned being influenced by the writings and artwork of 19th-century American artists. “Last year I read Asher B. Durand’s Letters on Landscape Painting, and I was struck by the advice he gave to aspiring landscape artists to draw the individual pieces of the landscape for as long as it takes to understand them before putting it all together,” Collins wrote. “He recommended perhaps even years of drawing branches of trees and rocks, outcroppings, and clusters of trees with a sharp pencil, seeing them as the alphabet of the landscape. I was impressed with his analogy that trying to paint a landscape without learning this alphabet was like trying to write a novel without learning the letters and words of language.”

Schlaht and Hiltner also mention being influenced by Hudson River School painters, such as Frederic Edwin Church, Thomas Cole, and Asher B. Durand, as well as other important landscape artists whose work has been presented in recent museum exhibitions. “We’re fortunate to have ready access to galleries and museums in the Northeast,” Schlaht says. “For example, the Brooklyn Museum recently mounted two shows simultaneously that offered an interesting comparison between American and European artists. There was a major exhibition of Durand’s work on one floor and a display of French Barbizon and Impressionist painters on a lower floor. It was fascinating to compare the connections between on-site observational work and studio pictures. I’m not a huge fan of the Impressionists, but I learned a great deal from seeing the way they responded directly to nature; and then I walked upstairs to study how Durand composed studio paintings from his sketches and color studies.”


Detail Study of a Rock by Travis Schlaht, 2007, oil on linen, 5 x 5. Courtesy Tree’s Place, Orleans, Massachusetts.	Drawing of Trees by Travis Schlaht, 2007, graphite, 9 x 7. Courtesy Tree’s Place, Orleans, Massachusetts.

Hiltner mentions that he also followed the example of Hudson River School painters by making annotated drawings in a notebook while participating in the summer workshop. “There happened to be several exhibitions of drawings in area museums, and I was impressed with the fact that 19th-century artists filled their sketchbooks with drawings and written commentary,” he explains. “They would draw trees, rocks, valleys, and streams and then write notes about the weather patterns, color relationships, and tree identifications, and that would inform their studio paintings. I followed their example and made a lot of small sketches during the workshop, and now I’m reading some books on woodland plants, species of trees, and cloud formation. All of that is helping me formulate plans for studio paintings that are filled with scientific details and, at the same time, are formulated out of the total sensory experience of being in the landscape. The hope is that the studio paintings will say more about what I felt, saw, and studied.”

Collins recently exhibited a 50"-x-120" panoramic landscape painting and over fifty preparatory drawings, plein air sketches, color studies, and paintings for that picture in a solo exhibition, entitled "Rediscovering the American Landscape: The Eastholm Project," at Hirschl & Adler Modern in New York City. In writing about the experience of using outdoor studies to create a large studio painting, he indicated that he loved “the connection between painting outside—scrupulously observing the details and nuances of nature—and painting in the studio, remembering, inventing, and conceptualizing the landscape. Each time I paint outside, I’m desperately trying to record all that I can, to organize the infinite complexity of nature, but sometimes it is hard to know what to look for and pay attention to. Once I’m back in the studio, I find myself asking a million questions—such as whether the horizon could conceivably be pink at this time of day or the surface of the water could ever be lighter than the sky in a certain context—and wishing that I had noticed more when I was outside. At these moments, I vow that I will pay more attention when I’m outdoors, and when I go outside, I end up working with a renewed intensity because I have so many questions in my mind.”


Rock Study by Nicholas Hiltner, 2007, oil on linen, 8 x 10. Collection the artist.	Rock in Stream by Nicholas Hiltner, 2007, graphite and gouache on paper, 6 x 9. Collection the artist.

The Tree’s Place exhibition will include many new drawings, oil sketches, and studio paintings that Collins, Schlaht, and Hiltner created since the 2007 workshop. “Although I’ve done a lot of landscape paintings in the past, these will be some of the first completed paintings created since I began pursuing this broadly informed approach to the landscape,” Schlaht mentions. All three of the artists (who will once again be joined by Edward Minoff) will be conducting a second workshop this summer through the Hudson River School for Landscape from July 17 through August 22, 2008, and they are developing a series of workshops that will be offered in the future.

Having grown up with a passionate interest in the sea and all forms of boating, McGurl, Demers, and Davis have had a personal connection to nature that goes back to their childhood experiences. “When I was an art student, my work consisted of landscapes, figures, and still lifes,” McGurl recalls. “Unconsciously, my work moved toward landscape as I delved deeper into what gave the most emotional feedback. My struggle then became one of getting beyond the rendering so the paintings were more real in every sense. At this stage, I can pretty much paint what I want and it comes out looking realistic, but I want it to actually be real. I want to paint a tree that exists in three dimensions and also will die in the winter and bloom again in the spring. I want my water to have depth and transparency and movement. I want the sun to be warm and so bright you have to squint, and the sky to extend through the universe. I want the viewer to become part of the painting so that he or she feels totally immersed in the realm I am trying to convey.”


Field Study for Autumn Point by Donald Demers, 2007, oil on linen, 6 x 8. Private collection.	Autumn Point by Donald Demers, 2007, oil on linen, 20 x 30. Private collection. This painting was exhibited at the American Masters show at the Salmagundi Art Club, in New York City, in May 2008.

McGurl goes on to say he understood from an early age that in order to paint an encompassing landscape he had to understand it as well as he did the information that helped him navigate a sailboat. He had to understand the forces that impact the shape and movement of the clouds, waves, branches, and grasses, as well as the physics of light that allows people to understand the texture, shape, density, transparency, and distance of what they see. “Without thoroughly knowing what I am painting, I can’t reach that higher level,” he explains. “Sketching from nature gives me a better familiarity with the elements of nature, not just the plants and animals but all the other parts that make up the world. That allows me to use them in the studio, not so much in a botanical, meteorological, or topographical sense but in terms of how these elements react to light, space, and color. Observation also gives me organic patterns on which to base the forms.

“I lean toward painting what I see, but I still want to understand why the world looks the way it does,” McGurl adds. “Why does the pine grove grow on a particular side of a mountain? Why is one cloud darker than the others? What’s causing the light to take on an amber glow? By understanding this, I can give more truth to my art and better master the scene developing on the canvas.”

Demers also makes sketches that inform his studio paintings. “I make graphite, watercolor, and oil sketches outdoors, often leaving them unfinished so I am not tempted to repeat myself in the studio,” he explains. “Once I have identified a subject worth developing into a larger painting, I close my eyes and think about what the observed scene really meant to me. That understanding becomes my guiding principle as I try to clarify the image on canvas.”


Into the Sun by Joseph McGurl, 2008, oil, 30 x 40. Courtesy Hammer Galleries, New York, New York.	Thumbnail—Composition Study by Joseph McGurl, 2007, graphite, 8 x 10. Courtesy Tree’s Place, Orleans, Massachusetts.

Both Demers and Davis are closely associated with the field of marine art, or paintings that present accurate representations of both historic and contemporary sailing vessels. These artists, like most realist painters, are often negatively criticized for placing an emphasis on the literal content of their pictures. “Every painter balances the physical and emotional aspects of making pictures,” Demers points out. “Whether someone is painting a figure, a bowl of fruit, or a yacht, he or she is connecting to the viewer’s understanding and appreciation of the subject while trying to also express a personal response to it. The challenge is to have the subject be very specific while also offering a personal interpretation or expression. A masterful painting can be a portrait of a specific person, flower, or plot of land that still conveys strong emotions and an informed understanding. The point of this exhibition is to clarify that landscape paintings based on observation, study, and imagination can be both specific and profound.”

About the Artists

Jacob Collins earned a B.A. degree from Columbia College, in New York City, and studied art at the New York Academy of Art, in New York City; Ecole Albert Defois, in Lex Cerqueux, France; and the Art Students League of New York, in Manhattan. He is the founder of The Water Street Atelier, and he a founder and the director of The Grand Central Academy of Art, both in New York City. Collins has had over twenty solo shows and numerous group exhibitions at prominent galleries in North America and Europe. His work is included in several American institutions, including Harvard's Fogg Museum and Amherst's Mead Art Museum as well as a multitude of important private collections. Collins is currently represented by Hirschl & Adler Modern, in New York City; the John Pence Gallery, in San Francisco; and Meredith Long & Co., in Houston. For more information, visit his website at www.jacobcollinspaintings.com.

William R. Davis grew up in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, and in 1987 he was the first artist to mount a solo exhibition at the Maritime Gallery at Mystic Seaport, in Mystic, Connecticut. Since then his landscape and marine paintings have been included in exhibitions organized by the J. Russell Jinishian Gallery, in Fairfield, Connecticut; the Cape Cod Museum of Art, in Dennis, Massachusetts; The Copley Society of Art, in Boston; the American Society of Marine Artists; The Guild of Boston Artists; John Pence Gallery, in San Francisco; Hammer Galleries, in New York City; Tree’s Place, in Orleans, Massachusetts, and others. For more information, visit his website at www.williamrdavis.net.

Donald Demers studied at the School of the Worchester Art Museum and Massachusetts College of Art and Design, in Boston, before launching a career as an illustrator and fine artist. He is a fellow of the American Society of Marine Artists and a signature member of the Plein-Air Painters of America, and his paintings have been included in exhibitions organized by the Haggin Museum, in Stockton, California; the Maritime Gallery at Mystic Seaport, in Mystic, Connecticut; John Pence Gallery, in San Francisco; and Tree’s Place, in Orleans, Massachusetts, among others. For more information, visit his website at www.donalddemers.com.

Nicholas Hiltner studied at The Cleveland Institute of Art and later with Jacob Collins at The Water Street Atelier. He has exhibited his artwork at John Pence Gallery, in San Francisco, and Meredith Long & Company, in Houston, and teaches at The Grand Central Academy of Art, in New York City. For more information on Hiltner, visit his website at www.nhiltner.com.

Joseph McGurl grew up working with his father, James McGurl, who was a muralist and scenic designer, and he studied with Ralph Rosenthal at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and privately with Robert Cormier. He subsequently graduated from Massachusetts College of Art, in Boston, and worked for a few years as a yacht captain. He is represented by Hammer Galleries, in New York City; Robert Wilson Galleries, on Nantucket, Massachusetts; John Pence Gallery, in San Francisco; and Tree’s Place, in Orleans, Massachusetts. For more information, visit his website at www.josephmcgurl.com.

Travis Schlaht earned a B.A. degree from the University of the Pacific, in Stockton, California, and later joined The Water Street Atelier, where he studied with Jacob Collins. He has exhibited his artwork in New York, San Francisco, Washington, DC, and Houston, and he currently teaches at The Water Street Atelier and The Grand Central Academy of Art, both in New York City. For more information on Schlaht, visit his website at www.classicist.org/grandcentralacademy/schlaht.html.

M. Stephen Doherty is the editor-in-chief and publisher of American Artist.

Oil Painting: SPONSORED CONTENT: Artist Behind the Brand: Scott Gellatly

American Artist — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 11:00:00 GMT

Oregon artist Scott Gellatly knows that a broad knowledge of materials and techniques can help painters realize their visions. That’s why he now travels around the country on behalf of Gamblin Artist’s Colors teaching painters how to give form to their ideas using the company’s line of colors and mediums.

by M. Stephen Doherty

Sauvie Field
2007, oil, 12 x 12.
All artwork this article
courtesy Brian Marki Fine Art,
Portland, Oregon.

Like most art students, Scott Gellatly learned more about the aesthetic possibilities of art supplies from his teachers than he did about the nature and performance of those materials. It wasn’t until he worked in an art-supply store after graduating from the University of Oregon that he understood how various grounds, pigments, mediums, and varnishes might help him realize the possibilities his professors described. “Robert Gamblin, founder of Gamblin Artist’s Oil Colors, made a presentation to the store’s staff and customers, and at the end I realized I had learned more about selecting and using painting materials than I had in all my years in art school,” Gellatly recalls. “Robert talked about mineral and modern pigments, selected palettes of color, painting supports, mediums and varnishes, and techniques for developing permanent paintings. I went back to my studio and applied that newly acquired knowledge, and suddenly I knew how to achieve the effects of light, atmosphere, and space I wanted in my oil paintings.”

Now Gellatly is a product manager for Gamblin Artist’s Colors and he travels around the country making the same kinds of presentations about the company’s products in art stores, ateliers, colleges, and art centers. Many of the artists who watch his demonstrations find the information just as helpful as he did a few years ago. Even some experienced artists say they are shocked to discover how little they actually knew about materials and techniques that will allow them to build permanent paintings.

Sunset on the Divide
2007, oil, 12 x 12.

“I spend about two hours offering a formal presentation about color theory, personalized palettes of color, solvents and mediums, varnishes, grounds and supports, etc., and then I talk to artists about their individual concerns,” Gellatly explains. “The information can be useful to artists no matter what style of painting they are pursuing. Some of the questions artists pose are those that come up all the time: ‘What is alkyd medium?’ ‘When and how should I apply a varnish?’ ‘What does it mean to paint fat-over-lean?’; other questions relate to specific concerns, such as what palette is recommended for plein air painting or for emulating the work of the Impressionists.”

The Gamblin company finds there is such a need for responding to artists’ questions and concerns that it posts a great deal of information on its website (www.gamblincolors.com), and hires people to help Gellatly make face-to-face presentations. “The company recently trained seven other people to help me, and we now make more than 100 visits annually to art schools, retail stores, and art centers,” he explains. “In addition, several of us from the Oregon office meet with retailers and artists at trade shows and artists’ conventions, such as the annual conventions of the Portrait Society of America, the College Art Association, and the National Art Materials Trade Association. We also respond to the questions sent by e-mail to our website.”

Sunrise on the Divide
2007, oil, 12 x 12.

Although Gellatly is on the road an average of one week a month, he manages to find time for both plein air painting and studio work, and he has been able to mount at least one solo exhibition a year at Brian Marki Fine Art, in Portland. “The presentation by Robert Gamblin that I referred to earlier caused me to think less about the two-dimensional layers of oil color and more about the potential for creating the illusion of three-dimensional space by manipulating the layers of transparent and opaque color with various pigments and glazes,” Gellatly explains. “Painting has become a conduit to exploring atmosphere and light, particularly the conditions typically found in the Pacific Northwest, where I live with my wife and two-year-old son. I titled my most recent exhibition Northwest Conditions because each of the paintings represented a time, place, and set of conditions specific to Oregon, Washington, Alaska, and other locations where I recently worked.”

Gellatly explains that almost three-quarters of his work is done on site, either near his home or in locations where he travels on business, and the paintings on panels or prepared paper fall into three categories. “The first group are those that have failed miserably and just get tacked to my studio wall, never to be seen by the public,” he says with a laugh. “The second group includes those plein air paintings that are successful enough to stand as finished works of art. Finally, there is the biggest of the three groups, the paintings that serve as studies for larger studio paintings.

Gorge am
2007, oil, 12 x 12.

“I really like the immediacy of working outdoors without any preconceived ideas,” Gellatly says. “As I’m working in the landscape I edit what I see so I can paint the essence of the place. I always want to strike that balance between the specific and the general, or the aspects of the landscape that are associated with one place and those that more universal characteristics of nature. I want viewers of the paintings to sense they are looking at a sky in the Northwest or the Southwest and yet not know exactly where I was painting.”

Some of the plein air sketches that Gellatly takes back to his studio become springboards for larger pictures, usually developed according to a specific set of definitions. “I like to establish a set of rules or parameters, in part to help connect one picture to another and, at the same time, to give me a unified body of work I can exhibit,” he explains. “For example, in 2006 all the studio paintings related to a national wildlife refuge near my home, and in 2007 the pictures all had square formats.”

Clear Horizon
2007, oil, 12 x 12.

Most all of Gellatly’s paintings are created on Ampersand Gessobords sealed with Gamblin’s alkyd Oil Painting Ground, and he modifies his Gamblin oil colors with a medium made from 50% Gamsol solvent and 50% Galkyd alkyd medium. Towards the end of the painting process he mixes the colors with Gamblin’s Neo Meglip, and he later applies a layer of Gamvar picture varnish to protect the surfaces and give the paintings a unified satin finish. The specific palette of Gamblin colors he uses includes titanium white, Indian yellow, quinacridone red, ultramarine blue, transparent earth red, manganese blue, cadmium yellow, chromatic black (for a cool dark), and Van brown (for a warm dark).

Whether working outdoors or in the studio, Gellatly begins by blocking in the elements of a landscape on prepared Ampersand Gessobords using Gamblin’s transparent earth red, and then he paints the local colors over that base. “The great thing about the transparent earth red is that it allows me to suggest a range of values depending on how thick or thin I apply it to the board, I can easily wipe away paint when I want to establish highlights. The overall warm tone serves as a useful foundation for the local colors,” he explains. “When working in the studio, I allow those warm tones to dry, I adjust the composition, and then I move to the wider palette of colors; but on location I just paint right into the wet layers of transparent earth red.”

To learn more about the educational programs offered by Gamblin Artist’s Colors, visit the company’s website at www.gamblincolors.com.

About the Artist
Scott Gellatly earned an Associate of Arts degree from Portland Community College and a B.F.A. degree from the University of Oregon. He taught painting in the Art-Zones/Continuing Education program at Bellevue Community College before accepting his position as Technical Support Representative for Gamblin Artist’s Oil Colors in 2005. His paintings have been exhibited in group and solo shows at Brian Marki Fine Art, in Portland, Oregon and various other venues in the Pacific Northwest. For more information on Gellatly, visit his website at www.scottgellatly.com.

Oil Painting: Doug Higgins: Attracting the Viewer's Eye

American Artist — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 10:10:00 GMT

Santa Fe artist Doug Higgins has many strategies for directing the viewer’s eye toward the center of interest and leading it around the painting.

by Linda S. Price

Painting at Smith Cove
2004, oil, 20 x 24.
All artwork this article
collection the artist.

In composing this painting
the artist was sure to
leave enough water for
the blue boat to sail into.

Call it the focus, the focal point, or the center of interest. For Doug Higgins it’s a crucial part of planning his paintings, a process that begins with a morning drive around his hometown of Santa Fe looking for places to paint. Once a scene strikes him and he has a clear image of the composition in his mind, he sets up his easel. Painting in such a beautiful area of the United States, there is rarely a lack of inspiring scenery, but Higgins says he never accepts nature as she comes. “I know I can change the scene—make things up, eliminate some things, simplify others, move elements, brighten or neutralize colors—to serve the idea of the painting,” he says. “I carefully balance and design the elements. My goal is simplicity. Complexity is easy—anyone can achieve that through thoughtless copying of details. You need intelligent strategies to keep it simple.”

Because Higgins begins with an image of a painting in his mind, he has no need for thumbnail sketches. His first considerations are establishing the focal point, locating the horizon line, and placing the largest masses. “A painting is not a collection of parts, but a construction,” he says. “I establish masses early on, stick to those decisions, and retain those masses by using close values.” Although the arrangement of masses is abstract, it still must be accurate. Squinting allows the artist to see the masses, patterns, and edges of the scene more easily.

Having made these key decisions, Higgins next sketches in the main elements with a small, soft brush. The next step is applying a thin turpentine wash with a big brush using transparent colors—alizarin crimson, burnt sienna, ultramarine blue, and viridian for the shadows and warm local colors in the light areas—to establish the major shapes. With this step done, the artist wipes down his board with a paper towel, creating an interesting variety of colors. Using thicker paints, he begins with the focal point, completing that before moving on to other areas. By establishing his lightest light, darkest dark, and highest level of detail and contrast in the center of interest, he sets standards by which to judge the subordinate parts of the painting. To deal with changing weather conditions Higgins first establishes the elements that are most likely to change, then makes sure the rest of the painting follows those preliminary decisions, in particular the direction and quality of light.

August Afternoon
2006, oil, 20 x 16.

Although he put the figures
in last—based on photos he snapped
of passersby—the artist anticipated
adding people to the scene and
had already balanced them with the
structures on the right.

Because he considers spontaneity essential to the creative process, Higgins initially works rapidly, being what he calls “carelessly careful.” He’d prefer to make mistakes at this stage—mistakes can always be trimmed or scraped out and restated—than lose the vitality of the paint. As he progresses, he starts paying closer attention to drawing, values, edges, and color variations. Only toward the end does his technique become slower and more accurate.

Although the focus of the painting is his most important consideration, Higgins stresses that it can’t be painted in a heavy-handed, obvious way. Because the eye is attracted by contrast, he uses the strongest contrast in values, colors, edges, textures, and degree of detail in his center of interest. Linear elements lead the viewer’s eye toward the focal point. To keep the viewer from being distracted by the foreground he simplifies and abstracts that area. In August Afternoon, for instance, Higgins wanted the viewer’s eye to go to the figures, so he used the most careful drawing and the brightest whites on them, suppressing all other whites in the painting. By softening the edges of the trees he not only created aerial perspective but also made the sharp edges of the figures stand out. The ruts in the road provide the linear element that further directs the eye toward the center of interest.

Sometimes Higgins makes figures the secondary focus, as in Painting at Smith Cove. To move the eye across the water and around the painting, Higgins painted the boat—the actual center of interest—a bright blue, reinforcing it by repeating the color in another ship. The original boat also contains the whitest whites in the painting, further cementing its importance as the focal point. In Oak Creek Village the line of the mountains against the sky, the movement of the river bed, and the poplar trees pointing upward all direct the viewer’s eye toward the focus of the painting: the rock formation in the center left. To attract attention to the secondary center of interest—the little village under the mountains—Higgins darkened the trees to act as a foil to the sunlit village.

House at Arroyo Jacona
2006, oil, 18 x 24.

The artist also uses secondary focal points to balance the painting and avoid weighing down one part of the image. For example, the large house in Niles Beach is nicely balanced by the small figures on the beach; and in Evening Light the rocks in the lower left effectively balance the crashing wave on the right. Consider also the House at Arroyo Jacona; without the mountains on the right, the painting would be too heavily weighted toward the left.

Higgins’ palette is always in transition. At present, it consists of cadmium yellow light, cadmium lemon, nonyellowing white, cadmium red light, burnt sienna (alternatively, Venetian red or English red), alizarin crimson, ultramarine blue, viridian, and sometimes cadmium green. With the exception of the nonyellowing white from Utrecht he tries and uses almost any brand of paint. “I’m always looking for variations,” he says. “I like to break habits, force myself to think instead of making mindless habitual choices.” Sometimes, as an experiment, Higgins uses a limited palette of only four colors—for instance, white, English red, ultramarine blue, and yellow ochre. “With a limited palette you have to adjust color choices,” he explains, “and that makes you think.” When judging colors on-site the artist uses a technique he calls “scanning,” where he looks not at, but near, the object or allows himself just a peripheral glimpse out of the corner of his eye. The color he sees in that moment is the color he paints.

Oak Creek Village
2005, oil, 22 x 30.

“What I exclude in my work is just
as important as what I include,”
the artist says. Here Higgins
excluded a street sign, a trash can,
and roads to keep subordinate
areas as simple as possible.

The artist’s surface of choice is Masonite, which he prepares for use by sanding, gessoing, and adding marble dust. When it comes to brushes Higgins prefers filberts, which, he says, hold more paint and have a nice spring. Recently he’s gone from painting loosely to more detailed descriptions that require smaller brushes. For those he likes Robert Simmons small, soft, pointed brushes. Although he occasionally uses Liquin, his preferred medium is turpentine or mineral spirits. At the end of the day he cleans his brushes with kerosene because it leaves an oily residue, which keeps them more limber. Higgins also likes to use palette knives for, among other things, depicting foreground vegetation, rock formations, and the sharp line of tree trunks.

Higgins works in both oil and acrylic, noting that there are both differences and similarities between the two media. Although he uses the same colors and brushes for both, Higgins says that when working in acrylic he can’t wipe out to create color variations in the underpainting nor can he scrape off paint and restate the way he does in oil. Instead he has to paint over previous layers. Additionally, using a palette knife is more difficult with acrylic, and he must keep in mind that acrylic dries more quickly and to a darker value. To help combat the quicker drying time of acrylic, Higgins uses two big brushes—one light and one dark—for painting large areas, such as skies.

Whether he’s painting in oil or acrylic, Higgins says you must stay open to the unexpected. “No matter how carefully you plan, surprises happen, and the surprise element increases the enjoyment,” he explains. “After all, it’s not painting by numbers. It has the potential for growth or failure. To be in the midst of a painting that’s going well, that is an exhilarating experience.”


Evening Light 2002, oil, 22 x 30.	Niles Beach 2004, oil, 22 x 30.

About the Artist
Doug Higgins was born in New Jersey and was exposed to art at an early age by his mother, who was a trained portrait painter. Later, he studied with renowned artist Frank Reilly and at the Art Students League of New York before turning to an acting career. Since returning to art as a profession he has traveled around the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Europe in search of subject matter for his plein air paintings. His work has appeared in numerous exhibitions, and he is a master and signature member of Oil Painters of America, a Master of Artists of America, a signature member of Plein Air New Mexico, and a member of North Shore Arts Association and the International Society of Marine Painters. He is represented by Doug Higgins Fine Art, in Santa Fe; Sage Creek Gallery, also in Santa Fe; and the Sylvan Gallery, in Charleston, South Carolina. His work can be seen online at www.dhfa.net, along with valuable instruction in landscape and figure painting.

Linda S. Price is an artist, writer, and editor living on Long Island, New York.

Oil Painting: Heavy Paint, Big Brushes, and No Cleanup: The Paintings of Ken Auster

American Artist — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 09:45:00 GMT

This California artist pursues an aggressive, take-no-prisoners approach to plein air painting.

by John A. Parks

Dos Roses
2006, oil, 12 x 9.
Courtesy Red Piano Art Gallery,
Hilton Head Island, South Carolina.

Ken Auster uses loads of thick paint and puts it on fast, building juicy layers with a deft touch to achieve powerful illusions and rich surfaces. His recent work covers a huge variety of subjects including cityscapes, restaurant interiors, beach scenes, landscapes, and still lifes. “If it moves, I paint it,” quips the artist. “I like to say that I have a short attention span. The moment I start to feel that I’m losing interest I look around for something else to paint.” If he’s not painting outside, Auster searches out his subject matter from one of the plastic trash bags filled with slides that lie around his studio. “I never make a painting of a place that I haven’t actually visited,” he says. “Usually if I go out and paint a scene, I’ll also take photos and make some extra sketches so that I have more subject matter to work from back in the studio.” Auster never develops a larger painting strictly from a sketch. “I think you lose the edge of spontaneity when you do that,” he says. “You lose that sense of adventure and searching that you get when you first confront a scene.” Having his slides stored in a completely disorganized fashion means that the artist never knows what images he’s going to come up with when he dives into his collection—something that he feels adds to the general excitement of his day. And excitement is what this artist feeds on. In the paintings themselves, the pure joy of discovery and immediate response is celebrated again and again in brilliantly dashing brushwork that suggests he relishes risk-taking. Colors are dragged over one another, and shapes are pulled and pushed so that the image seems to emerge from an explosive tempest of brushing. Painting, it would seem, is second nature to Auster. So it’s a surprise to discover just how long it took him to take up the art.

Gallery

To view a gallery of additional paintings by Auster, click here.

“When I got out of art school in the late 1960s, I got involved in silk-screen printing,” says the artist. “In those days nobody had ever really done much with silk-screened T-shirts, and I started making them for the surfing crowd.” Auster was, and still is, a committed Californian surfer. His silk-screen business grew quickly, and soon he was designing shirts and images for major surfboard companies, surfing resorts, and other surf-related enterprises.

Even though the business was very commercial, Auster believes that the experience taught him a great deal about art. “In the early years,” he says, “you couldn’t do much with silkscreen on a T-shirt—you’d be limited to one or two colors. So the challenge was to make them do as much as possible.” The artist discovered how to manipulate color overlays to make images richer. He also began to introduce modulated areas by mixing the color with a squeegee so that a color change occurred across a given area when it was printed. “I did some business in Japan,” he says, “and got interested in the way Japanese woodblock printing used limited color to achieve so much in the way of illusion.”

Bridge It
2006, oil, 40 x 40.
Collection the artist.

Eventually Auster began to do fine-art prints of a more complex nature, still focusing on surfing images. “Silk screen is very limiting in a way,” the artist says, “and I found that I’d live for those moments when something just a little unusual happened, when the registration was just slightly different, and some little accident would add something to the print.” Dissatisfied with the demanding technique of silk screen, the artist began to make collages. “I’d just silk-screen color areas, layering the color in all kinds of odd ways, and then I’d tear up the paper.” Working with torn edges and color that was graduated in various ways, Auster began to construct collaged landscapes. “I couldn’t believe how strong an image I could get that way,” says the artist. “It really taught me to think about building an image by massing shapes and relating values instead of worrying about line and contour. I had to make adjustments by simply moving shapes and building them together. In retrospect it was great training for painting, only at the time I didn’t know it.”

Four or five years after he began working in collage, Auster took up painting. “I had always dabbled with painting a bit, and then one day I went out to do some landscape painting with a group of friends,” he recalls. “Everyone seemed to be having a bit of a hard time, but I found that things were going great. It seemed simple to me. I put on the color and moved it around kind of like I did with collage. Since we only had a couple of hours I couldn’t mess with it too much. Everyone was impressed with what I did, and when I got it home and looked at it I was excited. I guess you could say that chance favors the prepared mind.”

Merrie Old Souls
2006, oil, 36 x 48.
Courtesy Thomas Reynolds Gallery,
San Francisco, California.

The artist has never looked back. He soon began to win competitions and quickly secured gallery representation, selling out a number of shows. Today he operates his own gallery and also runs plein air painting workshops several times a year, attended by people from all over the world. Auster, an energetic talker, clearly enjoys this part of his life.

Auster also believes that the plein air movement has been very healthy for artists in a number of different ways. “It’s given a social environment to a lot of artists,” he says. “It’s something painters can enjoy together, as a group. And it’s brought a lot more collectors in. People get it right away—they understand what you are doing and they can get involved in looking at the pictures in a very direct way.”

Whether he is working outdoors or in the studio, Auster uses a technique that stays more or less the same. “In the studio, I use paint from quart jars, and gallon jars for the white,” he says. “When I’m out in the field, I just use the big tubes.” The artist favors a brand of paint called Classic Art Oils, which is made by a small company in the San Francisco area. Auster doesn’t use an underpainting but simply begins work with a “big, angry brush.” His canvas is cotton duck, primed with acrylic gesso, over which he paints a layer of outdoor latex house paint. “It makes the surface less absorbent,” he says, “so the paint just sits on the top and looks luscious.”

Shake It Up Baby
2001, oil, 11 x 14.
Courtesy Howard
Mandville Gallery, Kirkland, Washington.

As he gets going with a painting, Auster is very conscious of looking for a clear abstract design in his subject, and it is this that he paints first. “I say to my students that underneath every great painting is a great abstract painting,” he says. “I’m looking for a bold, clear structure.” Generally the artist will have the whole canvas covered within a half-hour. “The paint is pretty thick even at this stage,” he says, “although I tend to keep the darks a little thinner than the lights.” Auster will then begin to work back on top of the image, dragging and pushing the paint into thick, wet layers. “I never add anything to the paint,” he says. “Sometimes I mix colors with a palette knife, but often I dip my brushes right into the jars and simply mix it on the canvas.” Keeping the paint as it comes out of the tube or jar instead of adding a medium means that the artist always knows what consistency he is dealing with—knowledge that he finds aids his very physical approach. “It’s important to keep down the number of variables,” says the artist, “so that you can concentrate on the important stuff. If I know my paint and know my brushes then all I have to worry about is me.”

Auster will keep building the painting wet-in-wet until the picture is finished, often engaging in spectacular manipulations. “A painting is done when it does what I wanted it to do,” he says. The artist admits that he is very interested in how paintings can appear to be merely paint strokes at one distance and then take on powerful illusory properties from just a little farther away. “I love that back-and-forth between paint and image,” he says. As for studio practice, Auster admits that he’s not much for organization or cleaning up. “Cleanup just isn’t in my vocabulary,” he says. “I never wash my brushes—I just have them sit overnight in a bowl of turpentine and then I start in with them the next day. My studio is covered in paint.” The artist uses sheets of wax paper for palettes, simply discarding them once they are awash in too much paint and starting over. “Some artists will tell you that you’ve got to look after everything and be organized and so on,” he says. “But me? I take the cap off a tube of paint and just forget about it—it’s already lost.”

California Dreamin’
2006, oil, 76 x 56.
Collection the artist.

Auster believes that his years as a silk-screen artist aided his sense of design and his understanding of color, but he believes that painting is a “dance between passion and the intellect.” Both of these qualities must come into play to make a painting succeed. This idea can be seen at work in Cat’s Paws, a street scene in which an enormous shadow divides the canvas on a diagonal, and is supported on either side by illuminated buildings. The powerful perspective leads to a view out over the harbor bathed in soft sunlight. Against all this intellectual order, the brush works as an exciting and challenging force conjuring the metal panels of the vehicles and the heavy asphalt of the road out of the very stuff of the paint itself. A further, poetic touch is added with the brilliant red brake lights of the receding cars—spotted onto the canvas in thick wedges of paint. Again, in California Dreamin’ the artist constructs a very intellectual design in which a huge shadow takes up the front of the scene while a line of buildings recedes in a soft light toward a glimpse of the girders of the Golden Gate Bridge. Here the artist toys with the scale of the small streetcar making its way through the cavern of buildings. Again, the architecture of the painting is infused with a dynamic energy as the brush magically whisks and drags the paint until it takes on a variety of illusions. The glint of the streetcar tracks, the weighty grays of the asphalt, the weathered brick of the buildings, and the moisture-filled veils of the harbor are all brought to life by the action of the brush and the artist’s energetic manipulation of the paint.

I Think Your Wax is Melting
2006, oil, 7 x 12.
Collection the artist.

Auster chooses his subject matter based entirely on whether or not it presents an itch that needs to be scratched. “Generally I like scenes with figures,” he says. “I’m drawn to the human drama in a landscape or an interior.” Auster believes that too many artists start out by painting pretty or pleasing subject matter. “Paintings are much more interesting when they have ugly subject matter that’s beautifully painted,” he says. “Sometimes, driving around a city, I love to stop at a red light and take a photograph of some scene that nobody would ever think could merit a painting.” Not surprisingly, Auster is a great admirer of the Ashcan School—of painters such as John Sloane and George Bellows, who painted vivid and painterly pictures of the nitty-gritty of city life. Among his other influences Auster names the veteran California painter Dan McCaw, who also enjoys manipulating luscious surfaces into dazzling illusions.

As for the future, Auster says that he is going to be painting much bigger. “Bigger really is better,” he laughs. “A larger painting has so much more authority and gets a lot more attention.” It also presents more challenges. “I think that almost anything can work small,” he says. “When you get to a medium size, you have to use a little more intellect. But when you get big, you really have to think about it.” When he first got up to seven or eight feet, Auster was surprised to find how much exercise he was getting walking back and forth to get a good sense of the painting. “It’s not quite as bad now,” he says. “I’m beginning to find out how the painting looks from 15 feet away even while I’m still close-up.” One of the advantages of large paintings, he feels, is that they don’t sell quite so quickly. “They’re hanging up in the gallery longer,” he says, “so more people get time to see them. And I think that’s great.”

About the Artist
Ken Auster grew up in Long Beach, California, and began surfing at an early age. While he was attending Long Beach State University, he built a successful business silk-screening T-shirts for the surfing community, inventing images that would later be considered emblematic of the surfing culture. In 1967 he moved to Hawaii and began making designs for surfing equipment companies, as well as designs for clothing and accessories. In the early 1990s he took up plein air painting and quickly achieved success in the form of prizes and sold-out exhibitions. Today he makes his home in Laguna Beach, California, where he paints, runs an art gallery in nearby Laguna Canyon with his wife, Paulette Martinson, and gives plein air workshops. Known for his thick paint and lavish surfaces, he is currently working on much larger paintings. Auster has finished a DVD on his technique; for more information, e-mail the artist at kauster@kenauster.com.

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.

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Oil Painting: Matthew Mitchell: Applying Rembrandt's Portrait Techniques

American Artist — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 10:00:00 GMT

Oil painter Matthew Mitchell adapts Rembrandt’s working method for his portraits spotlighting Americans serving in civilian or military roles in Iraq and Afghanistan.

by Karen Frankel

Alexander Scott Arredondo
2005, oil on linen,
30 x 26. All artwork
this article collection 100 Faces of War Experience Project.

A few years ago, Massachusetts artist Matthew Mitchell was working as an illustrator and painting alla prima in oil for pleasure when he determined two things: First, that glazing and scumbling offer the opportunity to add more depth to a portrait, and second that “I found I was most happy when I was able to reduce an illustration to essentially just someone’s face.” These two ideas intersected in Mitchell’s current project, the 100 Faces of War Experience, a multiyear undertaking that will eventually encompass 100 portraits of people who have traveled from America into Iraq or Afghanistan to serve in either a civilian or military role during the recent wars. Mitchell conceived the idea for this nonprofit project in 2005, and from the beginning he sought to emphasize the importance of some traditional ideas in portraiture, including the scale of the pieces. “The paintings are done life-size,” says Mitchell. “The whole point of the show is to make a personality present both through the words written by the subjects and through the paintings—each portrait is always to be accompanied by words submitted by the person pictured.”

Mitchell’s portraits are, in large part, based on the techniques of Rembrandt. After spending two years looking at a reproduction of Rembrandt’s 1669 self-portrait, Mitchell realized that he never grew disenchanted with the expression of the sitter or the painting itself. This made him want to discover how the Dutch master worked, and the biggest lesson learned was the importance of layers. Rembrandt’s forms were built using many layers, and Mitchell asserts that the layers themselves were what Rembrandt was focusing on. This idea excited Mitchell because he had been painting wet-in-wet and putting down his colors directly. The layering of glazes offered new challenges. For instance, since the original color may be glazed several times, “conceiving the color becomes really tricky,” Mitchell explains. “I have to think about how it’s going to be influenced by subsequent layers in order to get the color I want in the final stage.” Rembrandt employed both the thin layers of a glaze and the thick layers of the impasto technique, which also strongly affected how he achieved a desired color. Mitchell follows the same process. “Because I scramble up the impasto with the end of my brush so the viewer can see down to the layer below, I have to think about how much color is going to be revealed as well as what color glazes are going to go on top of this thick layer.”

Steve Mumford
2007, oil on linen, 30 x 26.

Mitchell’s palette is based on the suggestions of Michael Wilcox, who has written several books on color. Mitchell uses both a warm and a cool version of the primary colors, specifically cerulean blue and ultramarine blue, quinacridone red and cadmium red, and cadmium yellow medium and Hansa yellow. “I would have never found Hansa yellow without Wilcox,” says Mitchell. “It’s a very good cool mixing yellow.” Burnt sienna, burnt umber, yellow ochre, lamp black, ivory black, and titanium white round out his palette. He works on portrait-grade 26"-x-30" canvases so his depictions can be life-size.

Although Mitchell likes to work from life, his paintings for the 100 Faces project are usually done from photographs. “When I meet the people for the project, we sit down and I just let them talk about who they are and whatever else they like,” he explains. “At the end of the session, I ask them to stand up so I can take a photo. The result is a kind of candor in the photograph, something unusual.” Mitchell prints out the photos immediately so he can add his impressions from the conversation to the images.


Pablo Rodriguez 2005, oil on linen, 30 x 26.	Lyle Phipps 2005, oil on linen, 30 x 26.

He prepares his canvas with gesso and then executes an underpainting. The artist coats the surface with a mixture of a little cerulean blue and a gray, resulting in a medium tone upon which he can draw using a darker blue-gray mixture or an umber. Because the portraits in 100 Faces are very straightforward, he composes them right on the canvas. “The technique I’m using allows for a lot of subtle changes as I build up layers so, if I want, I can rearrange things a little bit,” he says.

Tanya Karst
2005, oil on linen, 30 x 26.

After painting in the basics of the head, Mitchell applies a thick layer of impasto in very bright colors. “These are colors you can usually see in people’s faces,” explains the artist. “There are reds in the cheeks and the nose, and different reds in lips. Yellows around the eye-socket areas and cerulean blues around the forehead are generally visible. Although there are many variations in those colors in different people’s faces, you can count on some of them being in every face.” As he creates the impasto, the thick paint starts to define the forms of the face. Mitchell leaves certain sections, such as the eyes and parts of the cheeks, smooth. He puts a dryer, such as Liquin, Galkyd, or linseed oil that has manganese, in the impasto so he can begin sculpting it the next day. Using a palette knife or the opposite end of a brush, the artist goes back into the impasto, scraping paint off. Mitchell points out that the sculpting creates texture where highlights may stand out—literally. Raised areas in the painting catch the light.

The sculpting also reveals the ground and gives a sense of pores to the skin. “There’s a direction or flow to people’s skin, and I try to create a sense of space by working with that,” he says. When the impasto layer is completely dry, Mitchell glazes the painting with a thin mixture of burnt umber, then he judiciously rubs off the glaze. “The glaze color rests in the pores, in the texture of the paint,” he says. “This is something you see a lot in the work of Rembrandt and his contemporaries—they put a glaze over things and then selectively rubbed down the surface. It results in a subtle sense that those parts are coming forward.”

Scott Palmer
2005, oil on linen, 30 x 26.

For black sitters, Mitchell uses an additional glaze of violet to capture the purple undertones of their complexions. He treats the violet glaze in the same way as the umber glaze—wiping it on, then wiping it off in select places.

When the underpainting is complete, and before he puts on the final colors of the flesh, Mitchell draws in the darker shadows, the dark of the nostrils, and the line of the mouth. “Painting the darks before the final flesh tones is important because the look of the scumble—the dragging of the light paint over the dark paint—is another way to add a sense of layering,” says the artist. “That creates the sense of things coming up from down below that you see in old portraits.”

The artist paints the final flesh tones very lightly. “Usually there’s a little bit more glazing in the fleshtone areas where I might have painted too brightly, in areas that I want to recede a little bit, or where I want to have a little bit of a different color cast,” he says. Mitchell paints in the last highlights—the whitest whites that he can use on the face—when he’s almost finished.

Nicholas B. Chavez
2005, oil on linen, 30 x 26.

While he’s waiting for the paint to dry on the face, the artist will often start working on the rest of the painting; he may use a variation of his layering technique on other sections of a painting as well. In Lyle Phipps, for example, he did a full underpainting of the shirt. “I began the shirt in very light whites and grays,” he explains. “Then I very lightly glazed on top of that with umbers and different colors to bring out the shadows.” Next, he wiped the glaze off so just a little bit of paint rested in parts of the work. Lyle’s shirt was completed in only three layers, as opposed to the nine or 10 layers needed for some parts of the head.

It takes Mitchell about a week to paint a portrait; he is usually working on several at the same time. “I work an hour or so on one and then switch to another,” he explains. The busy schedule is a labor of love. “I always wanted to be an artist,” says Mitchell. “It was the central thing in my mind, always, to draw and paint. To be able to do that seemed like the best thing in the world, for as long as I can remember.”

About the Artist
Matthew Mitchell lives and works in Amherst, Massachusetts. He paints on the second floor of a barn on his property; his wife, illustrator Rebecca Guay-Mitchell, has her studio on the first floor. Originally from Minnesota, Mitchell spent a year studying biology/premedical illustration at Iowa State University, in Ames, before attending Pratt Institute, in New York City. After graduation, he collaborated with artist Perre DiCarlo and local community gardeners to build a stone amphitheater in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. He then worked as a cabinetmaker and a welder, painting in his free time. He then worked as an illustrator for 10 years before choosing to paint portraits in 2004. For more information on Mitchell, contact him through the 100 Faces project website at www.100facesofwarexperience.org.

Karen Frankel is an award-winning writer/producer of corporate videos and a corporate speechwriter living in New York City.

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Oil Painting: Sarah Lamb: Painting the World as a Feast

American Artist — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 09:55:00 GMT

Traditionally trained artist Sarah Lamb uses her passion for the kitchen to bring a new vitality to the art of the still life.

Mousse au Chocolat
2005, oil on linen, 20 x 32.
All artwork
this article private collection
unless otherwise indicated.

by John A. Parks

"I love to cook," admits artist Sarah Lamb as she surveys her sumptuous painting Mousse au Chocolat, in which the ingredients for the famous dish are arranged atop a wooden table. A copper double boiler oozes melted chocolate from its top while a block of butter sits glistening in a saucer. Over to one side a pair of perfectly formed eggs huddle together, and in the center a wooden ladle is positioned so that its chocolate-coated end sits forward over the edge of the table as though to tempt us to take a little taste. The picture is completed by a stack of raw chocolate pieces atop their wrapping paper in the foreground and a bowl of eggs dropping into the shadows in the background. This is indeed a cook’s most pleasant moment, when everything is gathered together in an orderly way and work can begin on the delightful business of creating something absolutely delicious.

Almost as scrumptious as a mouthful of chocolate mousse is the paint that the artist uses to depict these raw materials. Brushing with a generous yet sensitive touch, Lamb uses the pigment to suggest the weight and texture of butter, copper, and chocolate, as well as the fragile, brittle curves of the eggs and the wrinkled wrapping paper of the chocolate. “I enjoy getting the paint to look and feel like the object I’m painting,” says the artist, although she observes that paint far more readily takes on the quality of some objects than others. Even so, Lamb’s ability to summon up the textures and densities of objects through lively manipulation of the paint has an enormous range. In Le Petit Dejeuner she suggests the brittle crust of a French loaf, with its fragile dusting of flour, against the soft and broken interior of the bread—not to mention the subtleties of the glass jar with its sticky contents. In Savons de Provence she conjures the waxy iridescence of blocks of soap, and in Prosciutto she miraculously achieves the dense weight of a prosciutto ham, juxtaposed with the sharp darkness of a metal blade and the gnarled texture of antler handles.

Le Petit Dejeuner
2005, oil on linen, 17 x 24.

Lamb has chosen to take on the very traditional format of still-life painting in which objects are laid out on a tabletop for our observation. In general she conforms to a convention of a single light source and a relatively dark background, so that the objects are clearly silhouetted and rendered with considerable drama. The danger of such an enterprise is that it can easily appear overly conservative, formulaic, and derivative. To take on this well-known task immediately subjects the artist to comparisons with the great still-life painters of the past, from Chardin to Manet. Lamb’s paintings succeed in avoiding the pitfalls because of their obvious delight in observation and their luscious yet lively handling of the paint. She maintains a sensitivity and immediacy of response throughout a work that keep everything alive, and we remain convinced of her passionate interest in the objects she is painting. Furthermore, within her chosen constraints, Lamb deftly plays all the games that still-life painters delight in. She enjoys thrusting the occasional object out toward the viewer, playfully violating the space between viewer and picture plane. She also toys with narrative possibilities, as in Mussels and Le Petit Dejeuner, where it appears that someone has already starting eating the food depicted. Lamb also delights in the compositional games that such painting allows. “I spend a lot of time arranging and rearranging things,” she says. “I’ve learned over the years that it is often more important to take things out than to put things in. I’m realizing that I can usually achieve more by not overloading the painting.” In Prosciutto, for instance, she originally intended to include several more items to balance the composition—then she realized that the meat and cutlery were enough. The absence of other props confers a thoughtful dignity on the subject and an almost masculine weight to the painting. In general, Lamb’s compositions favor a sense of clarity and evenness, with a careful balance of silhouettes and a gentle rhythm of placement. However, in several paintings, such as Hubbard Squash and 1930s Classic Yacht Model, the artist has opted instead for an almost stark centrality, leaving her single subject in unchallenged mastery directly in the middle of the picture.

Savons de Provence
2005, oil on linen, 21 x 36.

Lamb executes all her paintings on quadruple-primed linen. She tones her canvas a midgray, then she begins painting in a raw umber thinned with a little turpentine, sketching the composition. “It becomes a full monochrome painting,” she says. “I not only establish the drawing but also wash in the shadows.” As soon as this is finished, Lamb starts to work in color. “I don’t wait for the underpainting to dry,” she says, “although the umbers dry so quickly that it’s really not very wet as a rule.” The artist uses a variety of sable and synthetic sable brushes to lay on the paint. “I’ve never really worked with bristle brushes,” she says. “I don’t know why but they just don’t seem to suit my touch.” Somehow, even with soft brushes, Lamb manages to build rich passages of lush impasto. She generally works quickly. “I usually finish a painting in two to three days,” she reports, a fact that is somewhat surprising given the richness and fullness of the images she produces. But no doubt it is this very swiftness that gives the paintings their lively warmth and ensures that there is never a sense that they are overworked.

Prosciutto
2005, oil on linen, 19 x 33.

The success of Lamb’s painting hinges not only on her powerfully and clearly conceived compositions but also on her sure and sometimes uncanny judgment of color. She understands perfectly how to turn a form, as in the butter dish in Le Petit Dejeuner, where she carefully follows the cool grays of the shadows, the sudden orange warmth in the transition into the lights, and the cool highlights. Alternating color temperature is a key way of creating light on form. But Lamb matches this formal control with a sharp eye for the quality of local color. Consider how she combines a substantial variety of grays, oranges, and browns to achieve the copper pan in Mussels and gets the exact feel of the reds of the strawberry jam in Le Petit Dejeuner. In Savons de Provence, the ambers and greens of the glowing blocks of soap are highly realistic. The ability to deploy pigment like this is, in part, a result of the artist’s strong attachment to her subject matter. About Savons de Provence, the artist says, “I’ve collected soaps for years, so many that I almost don’t know what to do with them. I spent a long time arranging them for this painting.” The composition she arrived at is complex and almost architectural, tending to symmetry in its balance and its even spatial intervals. As in many of Lamb’s paintings, an almost geometrical organization acts as a framework in which to display her powerful, sensual response to the subject matter.

Mussels
2005, oil on linen, 23 x 34.

In one painting, 1930s Classic Yacht Model, the artist used somewhat more artifice to secure her subject matter. “I saw some wonderful antique model yachts for sale,” she recalls, “but they were far too expensive. Then I found a contemporary model that was much more affordable. I bought it and then ‘antiqued’ it—I stained the sails with tea and discolored the paintwork.” This picture, one of the largest the artist has created, shows the model yacht in outright profile sitting exactly in the middle of the painting on an old wooden chest. The very air around it seems to breathe with dust and age.

The most surprising painting in her recent exhibition at Spanierman Gallery, in New York City, was Hubbard Squash. In this piece, an enormous, curiously milky white squash sits boldly in the center of the canvas, announcing itself to the world in a most uncompromising fashion. “It’s my favorite painting in this exhibition. I’ve still got her in the studio,” says Lamb affectionately of the squash, “only now she’s just beginning to turn orange.” In this painting the centrality of the form, married with the symmetrical placement of the cutting board thrusting its corner out toward the viewer, puts us in an almost confrontational relationship with the squash. It is certainly a magnificent creature, with its heavy folds and gnarled stalk, and it seems to have every right to be allowed a whole painting to itself.

1930s Classic Yacht Model
2005, oil on linen, 48 x 48.

Although Lamb focuses on still-life paintings, she is also an accomplished plein air painter. “I simply love painting,” she says, “and I enjoy painting outside. I finally bought a big umbrella, which makes a huge difference because I can shade the canvas from the sun. I don’t use a French easel—I have a spindly landscape easel, and I attach the palette to it so that it is sloping up toward me.” Lamb usually paints her landscapes on gessoed panels that are toned with an earth-red ground. In Snake River—Late Afternoon she demonstrates what is possible in an hour or two of painting as she evokes a whole world of depth and scope with well-judged variations of greens and blues.

Meanwhile, in Milnes Pub, Edinburgh, Scotland the artist shows herself capable of rendering an interior with great skill. “This was painted while traveling with my husband,” she says. “The owners of the pub kindly let us set up in a corner, and we kept ordering drinks to ‘pay’ for our spot. Everyone seemed to enjoy what we were up to.” The painting shows Lamb’s sure feel for color, which allows her to render to perfection the yellowing walls and soft orange lights of a very typical pub interior with all its simple, much-used furniture and dark paneling. The restraint and evenness of the painting suggest that the artist left most of her drinks untouched.

Hubbard Squash
2005, oil on linen, 22 x 26. Collection the artist.

Whether she is painting landscapes or still lifes, Lamb brings to her work a robustly sensual grasp of the world, a vision that relishes the straightforward glories of food, a vase of fresh flowers, or a day out in the fresh air. The task may be traditional but the artist’s keenness of eye and joyful brush make the whole enterprise feel freshly alive, as she reminds us what the really wonderful things in life are.


Snake River— Late Afternoon 2005, oil on panel, 10 x 7½.	Milnes Pub, Edinburgh, Scotland 2005, oil on panel, 12¾ x 8¾.

About the Artist
Sarah Lamb was born in Petersburg, Virginia, and grew up in Georgia. She received a B.F.A. from Brenau Women’s College, in Gainesville, Georgia, and furthered her studies in Les Cerqueux, France, at L’Ecole Albert Defois, under Ted Seth Jacobs. In 1996 she moved to New York City to study with Jacob Collins at his Water Street Atelier, in Brooklyn. She also attended various courses at the Art Students League of New York, in Manhattan. The artist credits Collins, and his passion for teaching a traditional approach to painting, for much of her success. Lamb has mounted many solo and group exhibitions around the country, including a recent exhibition at Spanierman Gallery, in New York City. She will exhibit her paintings this fall at the John Pence Gallery, in San Francisco. The artist lives with her husband in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania.

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.

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Oil Painting: GALLERY: Marla J. Brenner's Plein Air Oils

American Artist — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 12:00:00 GMT

View more of Marla J. Brenner's plein air paintings in this online exclusive gallery, which expands upon the print feature in the April 2007 issue of American Artist.


Headwaters of the South Fork 2006,oil on linen, 12 x 9. All artwork this gallery collection the artist unless otherwise indicated.	Sunday Morning on Cherokee Lake 2006, oil on linen, 12 x 16.	Passing Storm 2006, oil on linen, 12 x 16.


Evening on Black Earth Creek 2006, oil on linen, 10 x 12.	Queen Anne's Lace 2005, oil on linen, 10 x 12.	Light Story 2005, oil on linen, 12 x 16. Private collection.


Reflection on the Farm 2005, oil on linen, 10 x 12. Private collection.	Summer Bounty 2006, oil on linen, 9 x 12. Private collection.	Spring on Camp Lake 2006, oil on linen, 10 x 12.


Driftless Haze 2006, oil on linen, 12 x 16.	High Noon 2006, oil on linen, 12 x 16. Collection Carol Moretti and Barbara Behling.	Painted Trees 2007, oil on linen, 9 x 12.


Laced With Queen Anne 2005, oil on linen, 12 x 10. Private collection.	Hoepker Farm 2005, oil on linen, 10 x 12. Private collection.

To read the feature article on this artist, check out the April 2007 issue of American Artist.

Oil Painting: GALLERY: More of James Woodside's Remote Landscapes

American Artist — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 11:15:00 GMT

In the February 2007 issue of American Artist, James Woodside discussed how his paintings reflected his experiences in some of the planet's remotest locations. Here, we present more of his plein air paintings in this online exclusive gallery.


Breaker Island 2003, oil on panel, 16 x 16. All artwork this gallery collection the artist.	Harmony Lake 2005, oil on panel, 40 x 30.	Taylor Head 2005, oil on panel, 30 x 20.


Blomidon 2004, oil on panel, 30 x 40.	Spry Bay 2005, oil on panel, 30 x 40.	Dead Spruce 2004, oil on panel, 40 x 30.


Minas Basin 2005, oil on panel, 40 x 30.	Woodhouse 2001, oil on panel, 24 x 24.

To read the feature article on this artist, check out the February 2007 issue of American Artist.