The Oil Painting Blog : Watercolor Painting

Framing Paintings

Carolyn Henderson — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 18:12:00 GMT

In any painting, the biggest expenditure for the artist is the frame that goes around the finished piece. If it's a watercolor painting, there's the matting, the glazing, and the frame holding it all together; for the oil on canvas or acrylic work, it's "just" the frame, but depending upon the size of the finished work, "just" the frame isn't cheap.


In the same way that fine houses are built bit by bit, with craftsmanship, so are businesses. Build the price of the frame into your work and ensure that you receive the profit you need to keep growing. Bayside by Steve Henderson, oil painting.

While for some oil painting and acrylic pieces, gallery framing--keeping the edges deep and painting them black or an extension of the work on the front--is a pleasing and inexpensive option. But not all works or subject matters lend themselves to this treatment. And watercolors on paper can't be dealt with in this way at all.

So what do you do to keep from sinking more money than you want into framing your painting works?

First, what you don't do: buy cheap used frames in second hand stores and "recycle" your works in them. Yes, this can work but not if you're planning to charge more than very little for your paintings. Yes, it's green, but a battered used frame doesn't send the message to the buyer, "This is a classy painting worth the high price I put on it."

Accept that there is no uber cheap option for framing your work. After you've accepted this fact of life,

1) Research online framing establishments for solid, basic frame models (sometimes they're called plein air frames) in black, gold, stained wood, or silver. Skip the cheap but avoid the most expensive.

2) Frames come in standard sizes and custom-made ones, the latter more expensive. Keep your painting canvases in the standard sizes.

3) Build the price of the frame into your work.

4) And when you sell a painting, set aside funds from the sale for the framing of your next piece.

--Carolyn

Oil Painting: John Falato's Oil Paintings

American Artist — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 10:00:00 GMT

In the November 2008 issue of American Artist, we discussed how John Falato enjoys introducing students to the nuts and bolts of watercolor painting. Here, we reproduce additional images of Falato's paintings.


Autumn in Southford 2005, Casein on Masonite, 8 x 17 3/8. Courtesy Fischbach Gallery, New York, New York.	Park Whispers 2007, oil on Masonite, 8 x 16 1/2. Courtesy Fischbach Gallery, New York, New York.	View From Bull's Bridge, Kent 2008, oil on Masonite, 12 1/4 x 33 3/4. Courtesy Fischbach Gallery, New York, New York.


The Clearing, Gayhead 2006, oil on Masonite, 11 1/2 x 30. Courtesy Fischbach Gallery, New York, New York.	Hide and Go Seek 2007, oil on Masonite, 6 7/8 x 12 5/8. Courtesy Fischbach Gallery, New York, New York.	Whitewater 2007, oil on Masonite, 14 1/2 x 33. Courtesy Fischbach Gallery, New York, New York.

Oil Painting: Patrick Gordon: Welcoming Midcareer Challenges

American Artist — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 11:00:00 GMT

After a successful 20-year career as a watercolorist in Tulsa, Patrick Gordon moved to New York to create large, multipanel oil paintings of flowers. “I’ve never worked harder or had more fun than I have in the past few years,” he explains. “I’m still painting things I love that represent my thoughts and experiences, but the pictures are completely new.”

by M. Stephen Doherty

The Studio Table
2007, oil, 60 x 48 (diptych).
All artwork this article
courtesy Fischbach Gallery,
New York, New York.

Looking back at magazine articles, books, and exhibition catalogues from the 1980s that reported on the changing attitude toward watercolor painting, one finds 40"-x-60" paintings of still life objects, interiors, figures, and landscapes by artists such as Sondra Freckelton, Carolyn Brady, John Stuart Ingle, Janet Fish, and a 20-something Oklahoma artist named P.S. Gordon. That young man was mounting gallery and museum shows of his realistic, large-scale still lifes that incorporated antique furniture, heirloom objects, patterned wallpaper, shimmering fabric, and exacting portraits.

Last November, the recently transformed Patrick Gordon created a sensation in the New York art world with an exhibition titled “Patrick Gordon: The Truth and the Beauty” at Fischbach Gallery, in New York City. The show included more than a dozen oil paintings measuring from 36" x 36" up to 76" x 48". Several of the paintings were actually three or four separate canvases either bolted together or hung with a few inches of space between them. In each picture, the symmetrically composed images presented a bouquet of flowers in a vase that rested on a table and against a background of lushly patterned fabrics, moldings, and reflective objects; or the vase is isolated in a nonspecific space. Each of the paintings was created over a two- or three-month period from Gordon’s own photographs, enlarged up to 131/2" x 19" on a Canon I-990 printer.

A Thousand Orchids
2006, oil, 72 x 60 (triptych).

The essay by John Arthur included in the 28-page catalogue for the exhibition alluded to a major life change that brought Gordon to a New York loft from his palatial home in Tulsa and prompted him to use his full name rather than his initials. However, the artist prefers not to dwell on those wrenching changes. Instead, he celebrates the fact that having made it through that period he is able to enjoy life and painting. “Many artists reach the middle of their careers and decide to redirect themselves,” Gordon explains, “either because it’s necessary or because it’s just time to revitalize the work and make it more relevant to the person he or she has become.

“I worked in oil at various times, but I decided to focus on watercolor when I graduated from art school,” the artist continues. “It was an exciting time to be challenging the traditional notion that watercolors were small, decorative, tinted drawings,” Gordon explains. “A few years ago I painted a series of large figurative oils and really loved the feel and immediacy of the medium. That series was rather confrontational, and it was difficult to arrange for them to be exhibited and sold, so I decided to return to what had always been my favorite subject: flowers. They are just so perfect in every stage of their existence, whether they are in bloom or starting to wilt. So many great artists of the past showed that depictions of flowers can represent a simplified, beautiful life; and since that was what I was striving for, it made sense for me to paint them.”

Flowers for Lalla
2007, oil, 60 x 48.

There are times when the artist will visit the home of a friend or will be having dinner in a Manhattan restaurant and he will see an arrangement of flowers he feels compelled to photograph and paint, but most of the time he buys cultivated flowers from Fisher Brothers Nursery, in New York, and photographs them in his studio under natural light. “I never use spotlights because I think flowers look best under natural light,” he explains. “That’s a bit of a challenge in my loft because the nearby buildings block most of the direct sunlight, but I have a great Canon EOS 10D digital camera that takes exceptional photographs, even under poor light. My life has become so much easier with the digital camera because I know instantly whether or not I have what I need, whereas before I had to wait days for film to be developed and printed before I knew whether or not I had the best exposures.”

As previously indicated, Gordon selects the best photographs and makes large prints of one or two images, and then he projects the image onto a smooth canvas and traces the outlines of the major shapes in the image. “I make a quick, rough graphite drawing of the projected image on canvas, and then I seal that with a coat of varnish,” the artist explains. “Once the varnish dries, I paint the image with thin applications of sepia, yellow ochre, burnt umber, or raw umber oil color. The only exception is in areas that need to remain bright, and in those cases I allow the white of the canvas to remain visible.

Cantonese Tea Pot
With Red Tulips
2007, oil, 44 x 60 (diptych).

“I usually work with the canvas turned upside-down as I develop each area of the painting,” Gordon says. “My mother, who was an artist, started me working upside-down and I’ve continued to do that because it’s often better to see the abstract patterns rather than to think about the identity of what I’m painting. I’ll flip the large canvases around on the easel so I can reach the areas I want to paint, but most of the time I don’t consider whether I’m painting a leaf or a petal and just focus on the relative color and value of what I’m painting. The halogen lights over the easel keep the light constant throughout the process.”

Although Gordon is absorbed in the developing patterns on a canvas, he frequently steps back to evaluate the pictures as they gradually reveal the stories that motivated him in the first place. “There is an underlying allegory or autobiographical story line that inspires every painting,” he explains. “Those are important because they help determine what should and should not be in a picture, and they keep me highly motivated during the months of work that it takes to complete each picture. In many ways, the messages and symbolism are the very reason I am compelled to paint the still lifes. If viewers start to see the connections between objects, that’s fine, but it’s really not essential that they understand how something symbolizes an event or a person in my life.”

Two Peonies With Decanter
2007, oil, 60 x 48.

Perhaps the most obvious story told in the recent group of paintings exhibited in New York is contained within the still life The Absence of Red (Self-Portrait). Gordon reveals that the two wrapped bouquets represent his two marriages, the glass of water refers to his long interest in watercolor painting, the reproductions of fish indicate various friends and family members, the spilled water suggests the artist’s own tears, and the fabric was added in recognition of the dealer who gave it to him. “Everything in the painting is there for a reason, and the nearly monochromatic tone of the picture is also significant, but none of that has to matter to people who see the painting,” Gordon says. “I just needed it all to be there in order to create the painting.”

Amusingly, Gordon uses square aluminum pans as palettes and discards them after he finishes working on a painting. “I paint in my living environment, so I try to minimize the use of solvents,” the artist explains. “Instead of scraping off paint and cleaning a palette with mineral spirits, I prefer to just squeeze the paints into square aluminum cooking pans that I discard when the oil colors become dry. In recent months I’ve held on to a few of those pans thinking I might be able to make something fun with them, but so far nothing has occurred to me.”

Bona Fortuna
2007, oil, 60 x 36.

In addition to painting still lifes of flowers, Gordon draws and paints commissioned portraits. “I’ve never gone in search of those commissions, but collectors often approach me about doing a graphite drawing or an oil painting of a family member or business associate,” he explains. “I assume that if they sought me out they are already familiar with my work and want me to create a portrait that is consistent with the pictures I’ve completed. I prefer that because I’m only interested in painting people the way I see them.”

The artist’s commitment to recording the world and its inhabitants as he sees them is elegantly summarized by John Arthur in the catalogue essay. “The act of painting remains at the center of his life, and it remains an unshakable obsession. At midlife he realizes and embraces this fact more clearly, and now knows much more acutely that one must always be alone in the studio.”

The Absence of Red (Self-Portrait)
2007, oil, 60 x 48 (diptych).

About the Artist

Patrick Gordon was born in Claremore, Oklahoma, and earned a bachelor’s and a master’s degree from the University of Tulsa. His paintings have been included in group and solo exhibitions at the Springfield Art Museum, in Missouri; the McNay Art Museum, in Texas; the Flint Institute of Arts, in Michigan; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Philbrook Museum of Art, in Oklahoma; and Fischbach Gallery, in New York City. For more information on Gordon, visit his website at www.psgordon.com.

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

Oil Painting: Ruth L. Beeve: Responding to Chance and Planning Ahead With Water-Soluable Paint

American Artist — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 18:28:00 GMT

While on location at the Forbes Trinchera Ranch, in Colorado, Ruth L. Beeve used watercolor and water-soluble oil to capture a variety of subjects. Back in her California studio, she uses those studies as the basis for more ambitious graphite drawings and oil paintings.

by M. Stephen Doherty

Flowers Among the Rocks
2006, oil, 24 x 18. All artwork this article collection the artist unless otherwise indicated.

Although Ruth L. Beeve has painted confidently in watercolor for more than 20 years, plein air painting still features plenty of chance and uncertainty for her. “When I’m working quickly to capture the fleeting patterns of light and shadow, I have to accept that some paintings will turn out really well and others won’t,” she explains. “But that’s OK, because there will be enough information in each plein air study to help me recall the moment, and I can use that recollection, along with my photographs, to create studio paintings and drawings.”

Beeve took that approach when capturing the landscape of the Forbes Trinchera Ranch. Working from early morning until the end of the day, she painted under the cottonwood trees, along the dirt roads, up in the canyons, and aloft on the deck of a mountain lodge. By the end of the week she had a large collection of drawings and paintings, as well as hundreds of photographs, that she took back to her studio in Concord, California.

Sorting through the records of her Colorado experience, Beeve made decisions about which images she wanted to develop into larger, more complicated studio pictures in either watercolor or water-soluble oil. “After many years of using just transparent watercolor, I started working with water-soluble oil about six years ago,” the artist explains. “My husband was ill at the time, and I didn’t want to use solvents that might bother him. I had painted with solvent-based oil many years before and enjoyed them, but, given the circumstances, using water-soluble oil seemed like the best way for me to get back into working with a thicker, more opaque paint.

Below Columbine at 10,000
2004, watercolor, 15 x 21.

“I love having the freedom to develop an idea with either watercolor or oil, and I have two separate work stations in my studio that both have an easel and painting supplies,” Beeve continues. “I can look at a scene and decide to develop the subject in one medium or the other. For example, I have a very successful technique for painting wildflowers with watercolor, but I haven’t yet figured out how to achieve the same textures with oil. I’ve been experimenting with a palette knife to create special effects with the oil, but I’m still trying to simulate what comes easily with watercolor.

“Obviously there is a difference in thought process when using the transparent or the opaque media,” Beeve says. “I prefer the traditional method of preserving the white of the watercolor paper and gradually building layers of darker and more opaque layers of watercolor paint, but with the water-soluble oil I follow a reverse procedure of building from dark to light values. I use several different brands of oil, but I usually use Winsor & Newton’s Artisan mediums to thin the paint or to increase the amount of gloss in the finished painting. In my experience, the water-soluble oil dries at about the same rate as traditional oil, depending on the thickness of the paint and the relative humidity in the working environment.

Cathedral Canyon
2006, oil, 24 x 18.

“I work with the oils wet-in-wet when I want to blend colors and soften edges—for instance, in a sky,” Beeve explains. “But when I want to paint sharp details, hard edges, or intensely dark values, I wait until the initial layers of oil are dry to apply additional layers with smaller brushes. I usually start with a thin, monochromatic drawing of the subject made with either a warm burnt sienna or a cool blue-gray. Then I build up layers of oil but allow some of the underlying drawing to show through. I start with a thin drawing so I can resolve the composition and not have to make major changes later in the painting process. It’s possible to scrape or wipe off paint to adjust the image, but I prefer to avoid that if possible because the colors can get muddy if they are overworked on the canvas.”

To create a studio oil painting based on her watercolor painting of a grove of Colorado aspen trees, Beeve made a drawing with graphite on paper before starting to work on canvas. “I intended to change the horizontal watercolor into a vertical oil painting, and I wanted to spend time differentiating one aspen from another,” Beeve describes. “Each tree species has its own appearance, and the local environment affects the way they grow, so I try to be sensitive to those differences. I might lean trees in one direction or another, and I will articulate the shapes and direction of the branches. I try to divine the character of the trees in the drawing before I begin working with color.”

Aspen No. 5
1997, watercolor,
28 x 20.

After completing the preliminary drawing, Beeve redrew the major lines with a thin mixture of burnt sienna and used thicker brushstrokes to apply water-soluble oil to the background and the strong dark shadow forms. “I punched in the darks in the trees along the top of the painting and brought the lights down from the purple color in the sky to establish the sense of mist in the atmosphere,” the artist explains. “The background in the watercolor sketch was predominantly brown, but I didn’t like that as much as the purple hue I noticed in photographs I took on the ranch. I shifted the oil colors toward that bluish purple.”

When Beeve began to develop a studio oil painting from her watercolor paintings of the rock canyon in the Trinchera Ranch, she relied more on photographs than watercolor sketches. “We traveled up a rocky road to get into the canyon and, just as I had my easel set up and my palette prepared, it started to rain,” Beeve remembers. “There was a momentary stream of light, so I took a lot of photographs, knowing I would never be able to complete a decent watercolor with the rain increasing.

Aspens in the Rain
2006, oil, 18 x 24.

“When I was back in my California studio, I relied on the photographs to sketch the scene directly on the canvas using a warm, reddish brown that defined the outlines of the basic shapes,” Beeve continues. “I then filled in the masses, put the photographs aside, and changed the scene based on what I thought would best convey my memory of the location. I titled the painting Cathedral Canyon. I really enjoyed articulating the rocks in this painting because rocks have always been among my favorite painting subjects. My mother was a bit of a rock hound, and I still have some of the ones she collected.”

Beeve used a slightly different technique to create a studio painting based on a small oil study of cottonwood trees. Because she wanted a broad, uninterrupted expanse of sky behind the trees, she painted the upper portion of the canvas first with water-soluble oils mixed with Winsor & Newton Artisan fast-drying medium, waited a day for that to dry, and then superimposed the trees over the clouds and sky. “I wanted to have a sense of movement in the sky, so I needed to paint it first with a wet-in-wet technique,” she explains. “Then I used a smaller brush and thicker mixtures of paint to place the cottonwood trees in the foreground.”

Small Meadow
2006, oil, 14 x 11.

The paintings Beeve created in response to her experiences in Colorado are typical of the landscapes she paints near her home in California—especially in the high country of the Sierra Nevada mountains—and during trips around the country. Inspired by the versatility she’s enjoyed in developing pictures either in watercolor or water-soluble oil, she plans to further expand the variety of painting media in which she works. “I’ve taken several workshops with Stephen Quiller and have watched him work with casein, and I’m planning to try my hand at using those water-soluble paints,” she says. “I like discovering and employing the unique characteristics of water-soluble paints for different types of subjects.”

About the Artist
Ruth L. Beeve studied art at the University of California, Berkeley; Ohlone College, in Fremont, California; Pacific Union College, in Angwin, California; and in numerous workshops with Dale Laitinen, Robert Reynolds, and Stephen Quiller. She is a signature member of the California Watercolor Association and exhibits her paintings in California with Valley Art Gallery, in Walnut Creek; Pacific Wildlife Galleries, in Lafayette; and Gallery Concord, in Concord. She maintains a studio in Concord, California.

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

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