First plein air of autumn!

Happy Friday everyone. Here's a little plein air piece I did this week when the kiddo was in preschool. This was done at one of my fav local spots, Bryan Park. The weather has been gorgeous lately so I was thrilled to finally get back to some good old field painting at last! There were several really good views that I noted, but I settled on this lakeside view with its nice reflections and early autumn foliage. This is totally alla prima, with just a bit of tweaking to the wet paint edges when I returned to the studio. I started it at about 9 a.m.:

"Early Color, Autumn" Oil on Linen, 12x9" For more information, click here!

I haven't mentioned plein air painting gear in a while, but it occurred to me on this outing how much I appreciate the simple shopper that I use to cart around my Soltek easel and all of the rest of my gear. Longtime readers may recall that I have a history with the Soltek that goes back about 7 or 8 years. Well, since the one "tune-up" I had, it is still going strong, though my dilemma about an adequately appointed backpack still exists. However, I picked up this little number several years ago on a whim at Burlington Coat Factory (of all places). It has a front and side outer pocket, and  fits my easel, panel carrier, and the rest of my painting gear (as well as a few personal items) perfectly. Most importantly it is on wheels, which, when used in the appropriate setting, is much easier on my back.

Now this bag won't help much trekking through the mountains or hopping over river rocks. But for city painting (which I do most often now due to time constraints and family obligations) it works great. It does have short straps on the top to carry up stairs, etc., but the bag is so long that with my 5' 4 1/2" frame they are used pretty minimally.  I have to admit that I have dragged this bag on its wheels through a field or two on a number of occasions, as well as a good many cobblestones. Remarkably it has held up great! The money I spent for this bag ($19.99) has served me well.  This I cannot say for the $70 beach cart I attempted to drag over the dunes last summer. After only traversing 10 feet on its virgin expedition, the cart's two front wheels promptly went "kerplunk" in the sand!

Independence Day

It was hot and humid and overcast. Our baby had been sick part of the week prior and through the long weekend with a 102 degree fever and hand, foot and mouth virus. And to top it all off, we woke up on July 4th sticky and without power from a tremendous summer storm the night before. But believe it or not, I had a great morning, as I was allowed the privilege of escaping getting outside early to do this little plein air painting.

  "Pond Reflections" Oil on board, 12"x9" Click here for more info, or just contact me to purchase.

The location is Young's Pond in nearby Bryan Park. I've painted this location before a number of times, and this approximate scene once before, which you can see here. There were a number of nearby spots I could have chosen, but on an overcast day it's nice to paint a water effect, as then you have some luminosity built in, when the light is otherwise fairly flat.

I spent about 3 hours on site working on this piece, which was longer than I normally would do on location. But I think the combination of fairly steady light conditions, and my private glee at having the entire morning completely to myself kept me lingering longer than I would have otherwise.

Here's a shot of my setup right before I started.

Next time I would like to get out even earlier than I did, to try and capture that wonderful atmosphere (aka humidity) before it settles into just plain old hot heavy air. But with a baby, you gotta do what you gotta do, and I was happy to get out at all. My setup has remained pretty consistent over the years, with my Soltek easel still being my go to plein air easel due to the ease of use and quick setup time.

The sun made its appearance often enough that shading myself, my painting, and my palette was a concern. I brought my umbrella with me, but it is a pain to set up and doesn't really work that great with the Soltek (one of the easel's down-sides...I've yet to find a really compatible umbrella that can attach to it without falling over.) So If I can get away without, I usually do. This often means avoiding standing in the blazing sun, even if it means forgoing a preferred view. Otherwise my painting ultimately suffers (not to mention my skin.)

In this photo I've set up my painting panel so that the sun (when it peeks out) is behind it, making it shaded. I am relatively shaded by tree branches overhead. Since I am right-handed, my subject is to my left, so that I am not having to reach across my painting when I look/paint. Often times I can shade my palette simply by wedging another panel between it and my painting. In this case I am using a flat wet panel carrier called the Art Cocoon.

This is actually a pretty neat concept for a wet panel carrier, which I read about some time ago on another artist's blog (when I still had time to read them) owned by Ed Terpening . The advantage is that you can use the carrier for different sized paintings with the provided inserts, and it is nice and lightweight and not bulky. But the down side for me is that it is made out of cardboard, which eventually warps (especially in our hot Virginia climate) and when that happens it stops protecting the painting effectively.

For that reason, my go-to wet panel carrier is still the RayMar. It's a little more expensive, and bulkier, but still lightweight. And its coroplast construction means that while it won't last forever, it lasts a good long time and doesn't warp.

Postcards from the Outer Banks

This past week we stole away to the North Carolina Outer Banks for a glorious week on Hatteras Island. I had hoped to post while we were away, but I couldn't get my technology straight to do any mobile blogging. But here are two plein air pieces I completed in the early morning hours, just as the sun was coming up over the dunes. The hubby even took on full babysitting duties so that I could paint the view from our deck. What a guy!

"Hatteras Island Dunes I" Oil on Linen, 12"x8"

"Hatteras Island Dunes II" Oil on Linen, 8x10"

Top ten reasons to paint your back yard garden

1. You can paint it better than it actually looks (a few more roses here, a few less weeds there...)
2. Unlike a public garden, you likely won't get taken unawares by the sprinkler system.
3. You are intimately familiar with how the light travels through the garden at different times of the day.
4. You are intimately familiar with the location of the latrine (and more than likely it will be free and fairly clean.)
5. You can leave all of your gear set up during breaks (and probably won't need to get someone to watch your stuff as you break for the above mentioned latrine.)
6. You can do your part to reduce the carbon footprint (no need to drive anywhere.)
7. Forgetting to pack an important supply is easily remedied.
8. Plenty of opportunity to take weeding and pruning breaks (okay, this might not be such a good thing for your painting, but your garden will love it.)
9. You won't look like a crazy lady wandering through the park staring at trees, with luggage, a big floppy hat, and a compass. (You'll just look like a crazy neighbor wandering around her yard with luggage, a big floppy hat, and a compass.)
10. The reception to the wireless baby monitor extends just to the edge of your yard!

"Under the Limelight" Oil on board, 8x6" Contact me to purchase.

This little painting is kind of a cross between a still life and a plein air painting. The Japanese lantern sits at the corner of my garden under the limelight hydrangea (hence the title.) Since the hydrangea isn't yet in bloom, I've punched up the corner with some potted geraniums.

Venice W.I.P.

"Start by doing what is necessary, then what is possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible." -St. Francis of Assisi

My husband presented me with this quote at breakfast one morning recently, and I think I would do well to have it become my mantra. Even with part-time childcare, I can't seem to get more than a few hours of weekly studio time right now. With a little baby at home, tending to the necessities of my daugther comes first, and that is as it should be.

Perhaps as I hit my stride as a mother, doing more as an artist will also become possilble. At present, though, what used to come easily in the studio now feels like a real struggle. This painting is kind of crawling along in fits and starts. Here's what I have so far:

Given that I am only getting about 2 hours of painting time in at any given session (which unfortunately still doesn't occur all that often) I can't really work alla prima (wet-into-wet) which has always been what I prefer.  The canvas size is 30"x24", and each time I return to the easel, the paint has dried pretty much completely. I feel like I am doing extra work at each session just to try and open it back up again. 

It's not as if every other painting I have ever done has been completed in one session, but for some reason, this multi-sessioned piece feels like more of a struggle. Maybe it is just the lack of continuity that has me stumped. Or maybe it's the lack of decent sleep! But whatever it is, I feel a bit like an inattentive reader, who keeps having to read the same page over and over again because her mind keeps wandering.

Still, in spite of my difficulties, I do feel grateful that it's possible to have a little time to paint again. Just starting something new and moving the paint around a bit feels good, even if finishing anything still sometimes feels like an impossibility!

Winter Solstice reception Friday at Glave Kocen Gallery

This is a cross-posting with my newsletter so I hope that the readers of both will forgive the repetition. If you are in the Richmond area, I will be participating in a group invitational this Friday night at Glave Kocen Gallery. I will be one of ten artists featured for this one night event exhibiting winter themed art. But this is not just an art show. It's also a fundraiser for a great cause. Spearheaded by The 1000 Strong Project, proceeds from the sale of the show will benefit Comfort Zone Camp (CZC). CZC offers free camps for kids nationwide who have experienced the death of a parent, sibling or primary caregiver. The 1000 Strong Project has also produced some great art calendars (in which my art will also be featured) that will be sold at the reception to benefit the charity. So if you are in Richmond, come out for some fun, see some great winter-themed art, pick up some calendars for holiday gifts, and support a great cause. Here are the details:

What: "Winter Solstice" Art Reception for The 1000 Strong Project and Comfort Zone Camp Where: Glave Kocen Gallery, 1620 W. Main Street, Richmond, VA 23220 When: Friday, November 12, 2010, 6-9 PM Hope to see you there!

Summer's End

The Paint Annapolis plein air exhibition ended on Sunday, so on Monday I drove up to Annapolis to pick up unsold work from the competition. It would have been nice to do some more painting up there while I was at it, but I had to get back home so it was rather a whirlwind trip. I rather like this little skipjack, patiently waiting for some action as it sits in a drive just behind a veggie garden. It's probably my favorite piece from the event.

"Summer's End" Oil on board, 9x12"

October Maples

When I woke up the other morning it was so stunning outside that I decided to leave the studio for a bit and do some plein air painting in my Bellevue neighborhood. Dave and I passed these gorgeous maples on Newport Drive during our walk in the 'hood the previous evening and I made a mental note to check them out again in the morning :

"October Maples" Oil on Linen, 9x12" For more information, contact me!

This is not the greatest of photos, so I will try and re-shoot this tomorrow morning when the lighting is better.  There are some areas where I might've wanted more refinement, but I am going to sit with this a bit and see how I feel about it when I can look at it with fresh eyes.

One thing I realized from the timed exercise I mentioned in my previous post was just how long my plein air paintings look like absolutely nothing. In fact, a common occurrence with me lately is the feeling of a sinking heart as I look at the confusing mess that is my painting and wonder if I might be better off just scrapping the whole thing. Bleh!

But then I'll think something like, "Just work on it a little more and then you can quit if you want to." Only a few strokes later (if they are good strokes) I find myself excited again and some logic begins to emerge.  It's almost as if something switches in my brain (on or off? I don't know.)  Maybe I just let go of the outcome and relax enough that somehow I can see the scene before me not as an overload of "things", but as a rhythmic pattern of lights and darks, colors and shapes.

This is not to say that there aren't areas for inprovement in this painting. But at least I managed to get the impression of place down, which, based on how the painting progressed in the earlier stage, was quite a surpise to me.  I guess the moral of that story is not to give up too soon. Some paintings are indeed "false starts" and probably just doomed to fail. But then there are those that have potential and a solid start and just require more patience and relaxed focus. Bargain with yourself to just stick it out a little longer and see what happens. By doing so, you often have little to lose and much to gain.

Small works invitational

There's been a lot happening around here so unfortunately the blog neglect has continued! I do hope to ramp up to more regular posting (and painting!) by early next week. Meanwhile, here are two new little Key West pieces I've done for a small works holiday invitational that opens at the Miller Gallery on November 20th in Cincinnati.

"The Shady Side" Oil on Canvas, 6x8"

"Towering Bougainvilla" Oil on Canvas, 6x8"

I am so honored to show my work in such a lovely looking gallery alongside artists of such fine caliber. Check them out!

Coexistence

I'll be traveling the next couple of weeks and I have a million things to do to get ready. But the weather has been so beautiful that in spite of my chores, I can't resist going outside. I returned to the James River site near Tredegar to do another piece under the railroad bridge, this time in early morning:

"Coexistence" Oil on Linen, 12x12"

Unlike the painting posted the other day, there were no "bathers" this time (none of the human variety, at least). But there's still something about this place that really appeals to me. I think it's the contrast I enjoy --this juxtaposition of the urban structures and natural forms, coexisting, at least for that moment, peacefully and rather beautifully.

I'll be leaving this weekend for our annual beach trip to the OBX (Hatteras Island) then home for a couple of days, and off again to Paint Annapolis. I'll bring my laptop with me and certainly I plan to paint throughout that time. IÂdo hope to keep posting here and there, at least during the beach portion. With travel, I never know what kind of resources I'll be dealing with though, so we will see. Oh, and there is this thing called "relaxing", which I've heard is a rather nice past-time. I just might give that a try at the beach too!

Gold Rush

I mentioned the other day that I'd made a couple of sequential painting visits down at the James River near Belle Isle. This is the painting from the second visit. Just a view of nature this time, which shows the diversity that this one site allows:

"Gold Rush" Oil on Linen, 11x14" Contact me for purchasing info!

 I've painted this scene before, but I haven't gotten enough of it so I've experimented with a slightly different angle and format. I also pushed the color and handled the brushwork somewhat broader and more impressionistically; probably in part because I decided on a whim to return and once I set up and changed my mind, and set up again in a different spot (this happened a few times) I didn't have much time to capture the light that I wanted. I started right around rush hour, but the golden glow came closer to the end of my session, hence the title.

Bathers on the James

I've taken two more two more plein air trips down to the James River of late, and this piece, done near Belle Isle is the result of the first. This is a study done alongside a painting buddy of mine, from the vantage point of the Civil War museum park, looking up at the CSX railway tracks.

 

 "Bathers on the James" (study) Oil on Panel, 9x12"

With angle of the light and the architecture of the bridge, I didn't get much further than a study. But I feel that this scene is destined to become a larger, more developed piece at some point soon. Initially I was attracted to light of early evening as it slanted across the track footings and bounced in the water's reflections. But as we were setting up, groups of  bathers descended on the scene. What luck. I knew there were lots of swimmers in the evenings nearby on Belle Isle, but I didn't realize how many people have come to use this part of the park (right across from the Civil War Museum) after work. Even though in this painting I merely suggest just a few of the figures (and they are barely there- only about an inch and a half high) in life they had a much greater presence and gave a very dreamlike quality to the scene before me. Everything happened so fast, so I just did what I could to try and catch the light and overall structure of scene, not getting caught up in the details but committing them to my memory. It seemed like just as soon as the bathers appeared, they disappeared into the ethers (right along with the fading light.)  I've already returned to the same spot at the same time in order to take photos in hopes that I can do these bathers justice in a larger work.

Richmond Skyline

I went out to the James River with a painter friend the other day, to Rockett's Landing,  to be exact. We were hoping to catch a peek at the marina and maybe do some painting around there alongside the water. Rockett's Landing is a fancy new urban condo development in Richmond that has been under construction for some time. My friend has a son who is a tenant there, so when I was invited to visit, my curiosity was piqued. The vision of the development is supposed to include not only condos but restaurants, shops, private slips and a public marina. The condos are up, and a couple of restaurants are emerging, but still there seems to be no sign of any kind of public marina that was proposed by the city to be developed some time ago, alongside the development of the private slips.  There were a scant few private slips that looked occupied, and they were gated off, of course, so no painting down by the harborside for me. The grounds between the condos and the river are still very much a construction site. I had heard that a lot of the promised tenants of the condominimums vaporized with the failing economy and it's been much slower going than originally planned. Construction hasn't stopped, but it looks to have slowed considerably. In any event,  dashing my hopes for a marina painting, I settled on this view, looking approximately west up the James river towards Richmond's skyline:

 

"Richmond Skyline" Oil on Canvas, 9x12"

It was all haze and big puffy clouds, the shimmering water rarely disturbed, and then only by intermittent flocks of Canadian geese. Being made to stand for a while and contemplate this very familiar view, I realized once again the incredible gift we have in the James, and the vast amount of nature and wildlife that pulses right through the heart of  our downtown. So the river actually has plenty of tenants already, who seeminlgly have no awareness of any shortage. I just hope we can remember to serve them well.

Ahh, oops, ah-ha, and ouch!

I have one more work to share today from the group I'll be taking to North Carolina for the "All Things French" show next week. This was done alla prima. More fun with light and shadow, and lots of paint! Ah, it's been such fun revisiting these lovely places through the act of painting them.

"Coleurs dus Sud" Oil on linen, 20x24"

For this painting and the last one I posted, I experimented with an interesting double primary palette- Titanium white, Cad Yellow Pale, Golden Ochre (Rembrandt) , Organic Vermillion (Daniel Smith), Quinacridone Rose, Ultramarine Blue, and Manganese Blue (Old Holland).  I must say it was a lot of fun playing with these different colors. The gold ochre is dangerously lovely, and the organic vermillion was nice change up from cad. red light. In fact, it's similar, but the tinting strength isn't quite as strong so in some ways it was easier to use.

I went with this palette for a couple of reasons, but the key word is "economy". First it's an economy of time. The increasing pain in my arms was making it difficult to spend an inordinate amount of time mixing certain colors, even though I've learned enough about color mixing to know how to acheive most of what I need. I almost never use any color directly from the tube any way, but it helped to have a premixed earth, for the buildings for instance, and when such warmth in the scene predominates.

Second, it's an economy of money. I mentioned before that I have a lot of art supplies that kind of fell by the wayside once I discovered some preferred methods and materials, but now I'm starting to revisit those supplies to try and economize where I can. All of the paints and substrates are archival, quality materials, but I do have some far-out tubes of colors--some dating back to before I started painting landscapes!

The paint department at the Lowe's hardware store near our house has something they call the "oops bin". These are mixed paints of specialty colors that presumably didn't come out as expected. I guess you could say that I have my own "oops bins".  After limiting myself to nothing much larger than a double primary palette for years (without much variation), I think it's time to mine some of these strange old friends. Maybe the "oops" will even lead to some ah-ha's along the way!

p.s. I think I'm narrowing down what the problem in my arms might be. Unfortunately it's not limited to just my arms and hands, but radiates from my neck and shoulders all the way down both sides. It's taken a couple of days to write this post, so suffice it to say that my blogging will slow down a bit for a while. (I know I said that before but I really mean it this time!)  Sadly, I will probably have to take a brief rest from painting too. And gardening. I'm typically not too good at "resting" so let's hope I don't go nuts in the interim!

Another big one

I thought I'd continue my studio work in larger format with another three by four-footer from my trip last year to France. Still at the block-in stage, but things are starting to take shape. I think the little fishing dude at the tip of the "peninsula" will help to give a sense of scale to the line of towering poplars. :

Hopefully this WIP will progress a little more quickly than the last one I posted of Beynac. I am finding that the breaks in continuity of my time in the studio also breaks the continuity of the painting for me. I'm not using any medium, but still the paint sets up pretty quickly. Once that happens, it is a lot more work to open things back up again. I haven't been able to manage an alla prima application for larger works like this, and sometimes an interruption in studio time can't really be avoided. But as long as I can work at it on consecutive days, I can work more wet-into-wet; which makes it easier for me to keep it "fresh". So that's my goal for this one--maintaining a continuous flow from start to finish.

Alla prima outdoors; plein air at the park

Keeping to the topic of alla prima painting, here is a morning plein air landscape I did this week on a visit to Bryan Park:

"A Bend in the Pond" Oil on Board, 9x12" Click here for more info.

Young's Pond is actually the name of this pond (though there's no relation to yours truly, and that's not what drew me to the location to paint it!) It wasn't until I was researching online that I even knew this pond's name or history (part of a former 18th century gristmill).

Bryan Park is a neighborhood park with lovely old azaleas that put on a great show earlier in the spring. It's a good "go to" spot for me when I need an easy-access opportunity to paint outdoors, as it's very close to my home (a hefty walk with all my plein air gear, but definitely within cycling distance). Even so, it's taken me a little while to warm up to it as a painting site. I find that sometimes with certain locations I need to visit them several times before I can hit it at the right time/place/day to inspire a painting. I've gone there a couple of times already in the early spring when the azaleas were in bloom, and even though the flowers were pretty, I just could not find anything I wanted to compose. I must have looked like a strange and suspicious character, just walking around with a big floppy hat and shabby backpack, staring at trees and bushes in a half-trance, (except for the times when I'd peer through the square formed with my hands)--All to no apparent end. The things we do for art!

This time since the season is over, I wasn't lured to the azelea gardens and instead went directly to the pond. I got there early enough so that the light in the distance was still soft, though the shadows and highlights of the middle distance held enough contrast to interest me. I also liked the little pond "islands", the flowering shrubs growing wild on the bank, and the curved retaining walls. Now that I know how the sun travels over this spot, I've also noted an adjacent site that I think will provide a nice back-lit scene in the later afternoon/early evening. I will return again soon when the time is right, and have another go at Young's Pond. Who knows, maybe it will become a favorite plein air location after all?

p.s. I haven't uploaded this painting to my website yet, so for now, please contact me directly if you'd like purchasing information.

p.p.s. For those who may be unfamiliar with the term "alla prima" that I've bandied about in these last few posts, it's an Italian phrase that literally means "at first". In art terms it refers to a painting done with a direct approach, usually completed in one sitting (wet-into-wet).

More alla prima portraits

Following up on my previous post about the Rob Liberace's portrait workshop, I thought I'd start this entry by posting my painting from day 2 of the class. This was a very different model from the one who sat for us on the first day:

Portrait study- "The Captain", Oil, 20x16"

I heard quite a few people calling this gentleman the Captain, but I'm not sure if they were doing so because he actually was a captain, or just looked like one! In any event, he was a riot and really seemed to get a kick out of sitting for us. He was an excellent model, able to stay still for an extraordinary amount of time (which he attributed to the fact that he was a long-time turkey hunter.)

I got a little further along with this portrait than I had done on the first day, though I think I had a bit of a handicap to overcome. I had toned this canvas rather too dark. Prior to the class we were sent instructions to tone our canvases in acrylic to a middle value gray. I'm ususally pretty good with my value judgements, but I'd not used acrylics in a long time and they seemed to dry darker than I had expected them to.

This ground had me feeling like I had to do a good deal of extra work to get rid of it so that I could acheive the fair complexion and hair of this gentleman. Normally the middle value gray would be a nice gauge  for judging mid tones, but with this model's coloration especially, the darker than mid gray tone was just not helpful.

This next portrait below was actually not done in the workshop, but comes from a session last week after I returned back home. I met up with a local portrait group that meets weekly here in Richmond. I have actually wanted to meet up with this group for quite a while but for some reason the mid-week evening sessions have not jived with my schedule. Any way, this is Joey:

"Joey" (portrait study), 16x12, oil on linen

Since I knew we'd only have this model for a 3 hour segment of time, I thought I'd make it a little easier on myself by choosing a smaller canvas (toned in a light wash of burnt umber, on the spot). As it turned out, I didn't get much farther with my level of finish; which is too bad because Joey had on a great oversized black leather jacket and was holding a guitar.

Nevertheless, I think this is my favorite alla prima portrait so far, as I was very happy with the likeness I was able to acheive. I went about it in the same manner as the two previous studies, using same palette as I'd used in the portrait workshop. But this one just seemed to "click" a little better. Even though that electric blue could use some toning down around his jawline, I like what's happening with the color sense and the brushwork.

I'm missing the portrait group's meeting this week because I'm going to the Shins concert (woo hoo!) but I intend to keep up with them on as regular a basis as I am able. Whether or not I ever "do anything" formally with portraiture, I've made it my goal because I'm convinced that the challenge of working from the live model will improve my abilities to render and to see light and color more accurately overall.

Alla prima portrait study

In my previous post I mentioned an out of town trip last weekend. I was over in Colonial Beach VA pursuing one of my main 2009 goals (exploring the figure) by taking another class with painter/portrait artist Robert Liberace. This class was a 2 day workshop on alla prima portrait painting. Since this is the way I am accustomed to painting with my landscapes (particularly smaller works and those done en plein air) I was really drawn to the class. Rob is as enthusiastic and energetic as I remember him to be from my first class with him in figure drawing last semester at the Art League School. I am continually enthralled by his masterful demos, and I found it interesting that the process he set forth for this style of portraiture was very similar to the method I use to paint my landscapes.

The palette we used, however, was quite a bit different and more expansive than what I typically use for my landscapes; burnt umber, cad yellow light, followed by several reds, several blues, two violets and a couple of greens. He also used two different kinds of white, Titanium (a very strong, bright white) and Lead White (the most opaque of the whites.)

Rob began with an imprimatura (toning) in burnt umber on Ampersand panel, and a very quick and sketchy (though amazingly accurate) grisaile. From there he then built his way to layers of color from shadow to midtone, halftone and finally highlights. Of course he made it look so easy, but I soon found out otherwise!

The model I painted on this first day was a very stunning young lady who looked to be about 15 or 16. Turns out she was actually only 12. I think for her age and energy level she did exceedly well sitting for us, and it was a real visual treat to paint her. By the luck of the draw, I found myself setting up in a spot that put the model in complete profile. I'm not normally overly excited with profile views. In fact I find them boring. But the model had a great hairdo and a nice twist to her torso that actually enlivened my view and made it fun to paint:

She was wearing a great red satin dress in the Asian style, which went well with her beautiful golden skintone and almond shaped eyes. Unfortunately in the remaining time we had left to work (after Rob's excellent demo) I got none of the dress, save for a brief outline. I did take a photo of her though, in case I decide to work more on the painting. But most times I leave my workshop studies as is, to serve as a reminder of what I learned and in what areas I still need to grow.

In any case, I  learned a lot from this first sitting. First of all, just as in plein air painting, it's important to get your drawing down accurately and commit to your big idea as soon as possible. While the lighting in a portrait studio doesn't change the way the natural light does en plein air, what does change incrementally is the model. It's really hard for a model to get the exact same pose and facial expression after a break. And it's also really hard to hold a pose for any length of time (especially if you happen to be 12 years old!) So while it's tempting to jump right in to color, Rob wanted us to spend a good deal of time first developing a strong grisaille and really fleshing out the portrait in it's proper porportion, placement, light, shadow, and halftone-- BEFORE putting down the first dab of color.

Another very important thing I learned once I moved beyond the grisaille had to do with painting children. As in landscape painting, it is oh so very easy to overdo it by getting lost in details. It's an interesting dance; because while you want to accurately record what you see, too much unnecessary detail can detract from the character of the subject and weaken the overall painting. At about an hour into my painting I was well into color, painting in every shadow I could possibly see on the model's face. I knew the likeness in her profile was pretty accurate, but still  I wasn't getting her character--her "glow".

Then Rob came by and said, "You're aging her." Taking my brush, with literally two sweeping strokes he pulled some of the middle skintone I had put down on her upper cheek and quickly swept it downward, blending away almost all of the shadow work I'd done around her mouth and nose, leaving only part of the cheekbone shadow and the shadow work I'd done under her jaw. I just stood there and chuckled. It was like one of those "miracle line eraser" wrinkle ads you see on the Internet.

"You just took 10 years off of her, " I said. Ah, if only it were that easy in real life!

p.s. The above 20x16" study was after about 2 to 2 1/2 hrs. of work. The sketch in the upper right corner of the canvas was a hands-on instructive from Rob early on, because the initial lines of my grisaille around the eyes were too juicy and lacked definition.