Alien terrain at Storefront Ten Eyck

Guest contributor Peggy Cyphers / “New Narratives,” a large group show of recent representational painting at Storefront Ten Eyck, includes KK Kozik’s Orion’s Belt, an image of a traditional farmhouse, covered in snow and illuminated by a deliciously starry blue-black sky. Kozik is known for creating quasi-surreal scenarios, full of sardonic humor and mystical imagery. I first saw her paintings two decades ago at Bill Maynes in Soho and was struck by the range of subject matter – suspiciously silly groupings of objects, scenes and figures. Her stories, although often indecipherable, continue to verge on the mystical, stirring up peculiar childhood memories and nostalgia.

The Asymmetric Armory Show

Guest contributor Jonathan Stevenson / The Modern section of the Armory Show was like an unruly museum-quality exhibition, showcasing one anointed (and usually dead) artist after another, but in no particular order. If that dispensation fell short of framing the artists’ work as respectfully or systematically as some might have liked, it did make for a gratifying kind of treasure hunt.

After (or before) beholding a wall of Picasso etchings and prints or a couple of big Jim Dines (who got a lot of love this year), turn a corner and find a solitary little Morandi gem (pictured above), a brace of serene Lee Krasner gouaches and watercolors, a titanic Georg Baselitz, a Diebenkorn and a Frankenthaler on angled facades, an array of Imi Knoebels, a tandem of cool Lewitt aquatints, several opaque Milton Avery landscapes, Doves and Hartleys. Pause in the middle aisle and pick a vector, then point and walk to a pair of signature Stella paintings or a magnetically odd 1959 Alfred Leslie canvas that insists on perusal. The Modern section is such a pleasure, it's no wonder Frieze New York, which takes up residence on Randall's Island in May, has announced the introduction of "Spotlight," a section dedicated to work made in the 20th century. At "Spotlight" Frieze promises a series of solo shows that offer a "fresh look" at works by under-appreciated artists.

Starting with the Modern stuff, though, set up the Contemporary section to disappoint – at least as far as painting was concerned. This year – except, it seemed, for Alex Katz’s work – there was not much interesting painting. Conceptually overloaded work trying too hard to capture the world’s celebrated complexity crowded it out. Perhaps fittingly, most of those paintings that were on view seemed besieged, lurching between dispirited and desperate. The dearth of prepossessing painting, of course, also made it relatively easy to zone in on the paintings that were truly outstanding – another Baselitz, and enterprising but neatly contained work by artists like Mark Francis, Anne Nieukamp, and Janaina Tschape.

Painting is a prayer

Contributed by Katelynn Mills / One can never hide who they are in their work - I’ve always known and felt that painting is a direct extension of the artist’s soul. Be the individual a shallow, fabulous Warholian, or a deep and tortured Rothkoan, or anyone in between, a (wo)man’s capacity is marked by their expression. Painting is a meditative diffusion of the ego, which allows something outside the artist, something much greater, to enter. It’s a white-hot focus of energy that cannot afford distraction. But mostly what painting is, is a yearning for the impossible union of spirit and physical matter – an insatiable prayer. A union is to be had in the completion of a picture, a provisional answer to our prayer. A form which demands the viewer to believe the illusion and content. But because time will not afford us the solace of everlasting perfection, the artist is thrown right back into the search for meaning. In lustful agony, our Greek ancestor, Diogenes asked “would to heaven that it were enough to rub one’s stomach in order to allay one’s hunger?” No. As long as there are people, painting, in all its decadence, will serve as essential means to meaning and truth for those who desire. One such artist who can be noted by his passion in his spiritual quest is Bill Jensen.

He plays with the idea of indeterminacy by allowing marks from used cups of paint to stain his canvas in Message and shows evidence of human touch with his finger smudges which pull across he surface. Jensen’s black on black compositions, such as End of the Ordinary Realm, are highly sensitive pieces that say something about the immensity and intimacy of the human experience. The air in these dark paintings is thick, more like water – affecting an engulfing experience. One cannot help but feel alone yet surrounded in this piece.

Lost and found

Joan Nelson's delicate landscape paintings feature images that seem familiar: spindly trees, sparkling waterfalls, vivid blue skies. Indeed, for three decades she has borrowed details from the majestic landscapes of painters such as Albrecht Altdorfer, Albert Bierstadt, and Edward Hicks. In this recent series of paintings, on view at Adams and Ollman through July 11, Nelson references an Oregon road trip she took several years ago. Inadvertently getting lost, Nelson found herself driving through the Columbia River Gorge, the rolling hills of Mount Hood, and the foothills of the Three Sisters mountain range. She was so taken by the views that she didn't turn back.

Her use of color and value (warm deep browns in the foreground, faint blue-green-purples in the background) afford the images a great sense of distance while the little plant or spit of land she mentions in the interview appear at the bottom of each painting to pull the viewer into the picture. Nelson is close to the land--she lives in upstate New York and walks everyday, making mental note of each plant that falls within her view. Her paintings convey that physical presence, in terms of both image and process. Much like old hand-painted postcards, they embody a personal memory and evoke a sense of nostalgia.

Albert Oehlen's genius

If paintings were guests at a dinner party, Albert Oehlen’s would be the most popular raconteurs. Everyone would clamor to sit next to them, leaving the rest of the paintings sulking at the end of the table by themselves. His current exhibition at the New Museum, “Home and Garden,” curated by Massimiliano Gioni, with Gary Carrion-Murayari and Natalie Bell, seems too intimate – I would have preferred a bigger party with twice as many guests. Nevertheless, the show is a tour de force, full of robust irony, dynamic observation, art-historical allusions, and painterly brio. One installation and twenty-seven canvases, spanning his 35-year career, embody manic duels of line, shape, color, texture, and image. The paintings don’t necessarily fit together in some larger plan; their impact and significance lies in the process each reveals, the energy it emits, and its unfettered wit.


At 60, Oehlen isn’t a worrier. For him painting isn’t about developing a distinctive style or thinking too deeply about a particular shape or line; to the contrary, it’s about creating something unexpected and taking painting somewhere new. He works with simple guidelines, such as “paint slower,” and then he teases them out, making choices based on that idea. "Originally my pictures were very impulsive...I used to think, the easiest thing is to paint fast, and the appropriate result will automatically follow," he told Jorg Heiser and Jan Verwoert in a 2003 Frieze Magazine interview. "Then it occurred to me: why not paint slowly? [laughs] It sounds awfully banal but it had a great many consequences."

 Walking through the New Museum exhibition, I imagined how he worked each canvas, patiently layering element after element, until something surprising happened. For all their flamboyance, Oehlen’s paintings are disciplined and authoritative. He knows when to quit and move on to a different canvas and address a new problem, or perhaps to approach the same problem from a different direction. He stops while the painting is still fresh, before it loses the force of spontaneity and becomes agonizingly chewed-over. 

Karla Wozniak at Gregory Lind

Karla Wozniak paints the American landscape, from fast food joints and strip malls to car dealerships and roadside scenery. While she was an assistant professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, elements from east Tennessee's verdant landscape began appearing in Wozniak's work. In vibrant newer paintings, on view in a solo show that opens at Gregory Lind on September 10, her focus turned decisively to the foothills of the Smoky Mountains.

Like Charles Burchfield, Georgia O'Keeffe, and Arthur Dove, the landscape provides a starting point for Wozniak's fervid imagination. Rendered in saturated, unnatural color, the landscape forms teem with pattern, tangled and energetic. For Wozniak, the natural world is a template into which she pours abundant emotional content.

Peter Saul at the Hall Art Foundation

Guest Contributor Joshua Sevits / The Hall Art Foundation in bucolic Reading, Vermont, is located in a faithfully restored stone farmhouse with three large barns, each of which has been turned into exhibition space. The barns now incongruously house a retrospective of Peter Saul's Day-Glo paintings of giant combustive genitalia, serpentine poop, and uncompromisingly violent characterizations of western civilization. This attentively organized exhibition spans fifty-three years and comprises thirty-seven works--ranging from meticulously nuanced compositions to crude political caricatures--that vividly reflect many of the painting sensibilities that prevail today. 

At his best, Saul is a bitterly sardonic painter who applies precise craft and the jaw-dropping use of color to intuitively arranged compositions. Above all, Saul is a driven storyteller whose work is never boring. A sense of frustration permeates Saul’s early paintings from the late fifties through the mid-sixties. These pieces were made before Saul discovered acrylic mediums and before he began addressing political and social issues--the American war machine, the systematic brutalization of women, victimization of minorities, the plight of poor and indigenous peoples, and the overall shallowness of everyday life. The small oil paintings reveal him as a young artist beginning just after the tumult of Abstract Expressionism. But while the works on paper may owe their seemingly haphazard mark-making to Gorky and de Kooning, Saul also developed a penchant for surreal representational and figurative imagery, often interjecting, in line with Pop Art innovations, something commercial or industrial: a hat, a cigarette, a glove, a submarine. This practice helped ground his work in the provocative social critique that distinguished the Chicago Imagist group with which he is closely associated.

Two Coats of Paint September Resident

This week, Nancy Morrow, an associate professor in the Department of Art at Kansas State University, Manhattan, will be participating in the Two Coats of Paint Residency Program.

Working in watercolor, Morrow creates a rich brew of references from Freudian psychology, fairytales, junk science, popular culture, and experiences from everyday life.

Morrow's academic credentials include an MFA from the University of Washington in Seattle and a stint at Skowhegan in the 1990s. In 2009, Morrow's work was included in the West edition of New American Paintings.

Two Coats of Paint is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution - Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. To use content beyond the scope of this license, permission is required.

Got My Eye on You

I've had this big orange pig sitting around my studio for a while, and I'm pretty sure I've only painted him once before. What a shame!

I had a friend painting with me in my studio for a few days last week. I was telling her about my 10-minute apple exercise and we decided to do it together for practice. I started with an apple and then moved on to a bottle. And even though I've painted hundreds of each, I still learned stuff.

What did I learn? Well ... shadows might be even lighter than I thought. Edges are really important. Lost edges on glass makes it look more realistic. But most importantly, I just got into the hang of painting these things. I am tempted to start each day with an exercise like this. I recommend it.

Sunset in the City

I took the photo reference(s) for this when I was teaching in San Francisco last year. My class had been taking pictures in the downtown area and I decided to walk back to my airbnb apartment rather than catch a ride. Along the way the sun went down and I got a whole series of wonderful shots. I could never capture the nice light on the buildings and the sky in the same shot, so I used several photos to create this scene. My goal is to do this one again bigger, at some point.

Painting and Appearance in the 20th Century

                 

John A. Parks examined the art of Giorgio Morandi in the December issue of American Artist. In one section, he asserted, “[His] paintings are a testimony to the act of something deeply contemplated. It is a kind of painting that has nothing to do with simply recording appearances.” We asked Parks to expound upon this bold statement, and he responded with the following essay.

One of the most fascinating features of art is its ability to use subject matter from the real world to illuminate the sensibility of the artist. A painting doesn’t have to reconstitute the appearance of its ostensible subject—say, a view of hills or a bowl of oranges—in order to engage us. It might instead draw our attention to what is happening between the artist and his subject. Even a superficial glance at more or less any still life by Morandi will reveal that the work doesn’t really give a full account of how light and color move around various forms. Rather, the painting seems to be the result of a reverie about the objects conducted in paint. The artist makes numerous little nudges and shifts of the paint as he looks at his subject, endlessly simplifying and restating as his mind and eye coalesce around the various simple pots and jars. In other words, the painting is a record of an extended act of looking and thinking rather than an attempt to render the appearance of the subject.

Obviously the success of such a painting depends on how captivating and entrancing this process is for the viewer and how attractive the quality of the mind that it reveals. In the case of Morandi the process seems to release a sense of quiet poetry, as though we have been drawn into the artist’s state of reverie. Given the busy and noisy world that most of us inhabit, this is a pleasurable sensation, and it no doubt accounts for the enormous fame and wide popularity of the artist’s paintings.

The idea that the subject of a painting might be the workings of the artist’s sensibility rather than the objects or figures represented in the work is largely a modern phenomenon. Almost all painting from the Renaissance until the late 19th century presented a window into an illusion of real space. Whether it was a Dutch interior by Vermeer with its carefully organized and restrained realism, or a ceiling by Tiepolo with its spiraling angels and clouds, or even a Rococo pleasure-fest like Boucher’s Toilet of Venus with its sensuous artificiality, the viewer was presented with a coherent space in which he might conceivably imagine himself entering and moving around. This applied even when the visions presented bore only a tenuous relationship to the normal world. A landscape by Poussin, for instance, is more ordered and organized than anything we ever come across in nature, just as Watteau’s Embarkation to Cythera transforms a landscape into something just short of the fantastic. Nonetheless, the space is coherent and we are invited to enter it, to enjoy its qualities and to consider its subject matter. Even when the Impressionists showed up and began to explore a radically different means of recreating natural light on a canvas, they were careful to present a coherent and unitary visual world.

All of this changed with the work of Paul Cézanne (1839–1906). Originally an Impressionist who studied with Camille Pissaro, Cézanne came to be obsessed with the very nature of perception. His work began to concentrate on the process of looking at a subject, and he started to use carefully placed marks arranged into shallow planes as he tried to record his experience of perceiving and locating objects in space. Moreover he tried to bring to his shifting perceptions the idea that nature might be broken down into a number of simple geometric forms, announcing that he intended to “treat nature by the cylinder, square, and the cone.” As he proceeded, his work also began to incorporate the experience of binocular vision so that he sometimes showed the position of the same object from the differing points of view of his right and left eye. The paintings, rather than being composed beforehand in the traditional manner, instead grew out of this searching process of looking, as the artist struggled to understand and relate his perceptual experience in front of the object. If we look at a painting like Quarry and Mont Sainte Victoire (1898), now in the Baltimore Museum of Art, we get a clear sense of the results. Unlike Impressionist painting, which is greatly concerned with color relationships, we can see that here the artist is content to allow the same set of color values appear all over the painting. The dark blue line with which planes are defined remains the same in the foreground as in the far distance. The same green-to-yellow color run is repeated through most of the trees. This results in a radical flattening of the space and the reduction of the scene to a motif. Within this we can see that individual elements, rather than being rendered, are merely hinted at with tentative and shifting strokes of the paint. The artist is literally figuring out where everything is right in front of our eyes. The result is that we enter the uncertainty of his state of mind and share the joys and woes of his struggle to reconstitute his experience of seeing. A strange new sense of clarity and resolution emerges as we feel the power of his mind at work and his ability to bring order to his world in a wholly new way.

The work of Cézanne was among the first modern art that Morandi saw when he went to Florence in 1910. It clearly remained a strong influence. Cézanne, with his creation of a shallow space and multiple viewpoints, is generally heralded as a precursor of the Cubists. But his liberation of painting from its task of rendering also gave rise to other ventures. The very thoughtful and quiet paintings of the English artist Gwen John (1876–1939), while less radical than the later work of Morandi, share an approach in which the painting is built around the artist’s sensibility in front of the subject. This is much in evidence in a painting like Young Nun of 1915, now in the National Gallery in Scotland. Here a closely worked palette and thoughtful painterly brushwork function much the same way as Morandi’s approach. The same could be said of the later paintings of Eduard Vuillard (1868–1940), whose delicate and inventive paintings of interiors share a delight in understatement, suggestion and quietude.

The idea that a work of art might grow out of the following of a perceptual process is also greatly in evidence in the work of the Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti (1901–1966). Giacometti began his professional career by making surrealist sculptures but became increasingly interested in what happened to his figurative images when he continued to try to define his experience of seeing. In his drawing and painting we can see him making endless attempts to locate his subject matter in space using a spindly, moving line. His works are full of partial erasures, second guesses, and sometimes heavy overworking. Rather than the quiet and beautiful ordering of Cezanne’s world, however, Giacometti’s endeavors resulted in a strangely distorted space in which figures and objects often seem to diminish bizarrely under the weight and pressure of the surrounding space. When it came to making sculptures, this process often resulted in figures or busts that are whittled down into grotesquely thin objects. The artist, overtaken by a quest that he continually experienced as impossible, would often go on to destroy his work in the process. He generally regarded all his efforts as unfinished and unsuccessful.

Some later 20th-century art took up the notion that art might be made by displaying a process rather than simply presenting a finished product. More usually, however, these were processes undertaken without the intense perceptual involvement of artists like Cezanne, Giacometti or Morandi. The mature work of Jackson Pollock (1912–1956) for instance, depends on the display of a mechanical means of swinging and dripping paint, but seems to connect with us as a powerful and highly theatrical statement. The influence of Pollock was in part responsible for the emergence of the Process Art Movement, first recognizable in the work of Robert Morris (1931–). In an essay for an exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum in 1968 he called for an art that grew out of process and time rather than involve itself in the production of what he called ‘static icons’. A whole generation of artists, including Robert Smithson, Eva Hesse, Bruce Naumann, and Richard Serra became interested in incorporating natural forces of rusting, staining, dripping, decay, natural growth, and weathering into their work. But at this point we have moved immeasurably far from the quiet poetry and carefully contained world of Giorgio Morandi. 

What I Get From Other Artists

                   

 Like all artists, I draw inspiration from other artists, and this can be especially meaningful if the artist is my contemporary. One of my favorite artists to watch is Will Wilson. Wilson works in San Francisco, in a studio upstairs from his long-time gallery, John Pence. Will studied at the Schuler School of Fine Arts, and at my alma mater, The New York Academy of Art.

Will has been making amazingly consistent, exemplary and individualistic work for about 30 years. He has always been a “guiding light” of mine in the classical tradition of the figure and portrait painting. One of the things I admire in his work is his clear sense of “voice” and individuality. When I look at his painting, I think, “Will and I are barking up the same tree.”

I recently received a card from John Pence Gallery featuring a fantastic recent oil painting portrait of Wilson’s, Mary. The painting is a quiet revolution. I wanted to share the image because it stands in sharp contrast to the predominant style of much figure painting out there today. The alla-prima brushstrokes and dash of impasto that are usually praised as good oil painting techniques are nowhere to be found. Instead, the paint handling is careful, the drawing precise, and the surface is relatively smooth with delicately modeled form.

Wilson isn’t dwelling on the surface of the painting's canvas. Art, for him, is more than that–he’s trying to draw you into the world of the image. He wants you to depart into his painted realm, inside the picture plane, and consider what the world is like from that view. He is implying narrative, but in ways that invites the viewer’s opinion. He uses subtle embellishments in the composition, like the pansies in the girl's hair and the key around her neck, to remove the image from the everyday.

The painting is also very sweet. Do you know how hard it is to make a sweet painting that is not trite, saccharine, or stereotyped? And where is the irony, the mortification, the fashionable disaffection, or the socio-political commentary that critics so often look for? Sweet is not cool, right? But painting a young woman, pretty, yet individual, is a challenge. Wilson goes his own way, not with the maddening crowd, and sticks to his singular vision.

3 Ways to Assure You Are Always Growing as an Artist

 After participating in a panel discussion about career goals for artists at this year’s Portrait Society of America Conference I wanted to share a few more tips that I use to keep my art growing and evolving every day. Or at least, that’s what I’m striving for.

Believe: You’ve got to have faith in something bigger than what is on your canvas. Art is how you express it, but the idea has to be bigger than yourself. One of my favorite spiritual quotes is, “I know not where He leadeth, but I know who is my guide.” You cannot make good oil painting art for the long term without a constantly renewable source of inspiration and support. So believe in something that will give you a foundation no matter what successes and failures, triumph and heartache land at your door.

Eyes on the horizon: Don’t chase previous moments of inspiration—Go to the Source. Great art happens when inspiration meets effort. And inspiration has to come from the source and not by trying to repeat previous conditions of inspiration. So, this also requires continued growth and development and forward thinking. Inspiration is the opposite of doing something by rote. It is by nature original every time. Inspiration happens most readily when you are working at the edge of your comfort level, at the moment between competence and risk. Now, art galleries always want you to do the same thing, and to give them consistently marketable material. However, the best art gallery dealers also know that genuine feeling cannot be faked. So, try to find a balance between consistency, integrity and growth.

Always improving: Never stop trying to improve your work through study. My friend John Morra, a well-known still life painter, recently spent a few months working on Bargue plates because he wanted to sharpen his drawing skills. The best artists are never too proud to go back to square one. Take a year and copy old masters, brush up on your oil painting techniques, draw the figure from life, learn cast drawing. It’s never too late. Long term career planning includes taking stock of your abilities, and taking time for acquiring the skills you need to succeed.

Reflections on Creating an Artistic Body of Work

                         

I have been blogging this past year about preparing for my exhibit, "Myths and Individuals." Now, it's time for the opening at The Forbes Galleries in New York City. I can't believe the show is here at last. I have been working on paintings, and planning this show for almost three years, so needless to say, I am just a little bit excited that the big moment has arrived.

I had the "out of town opening" in St. Louis, at the St. Louis University Museum of Art, in the fall. I am including one new figure painting, "Venus Awakes," and a few new drawings to the list of works in the St. Louis show. I will have over 30 oil paintings and 6 drawings on view, from February 17th to June 9th.

In reflecting on what I have learned through this journey, there are two takeaways that I want to share with you.

First: "If you build it, they will come." This reflects the principle that in working toward a goal, sometimes you have to build it first, and then the opportunity will fall into place. I have been envisioning my goal of a large show in a New York venue for a long time. Three years ago, that goal seemed elusive, but I began to create the work anyway and trusted that the road would rise up to meet me. When the opportunity came, last year, I was already well underway to having the body of work I needed to have the exhibit at Forbes. In the words of Dorothea Brande, "Act boldly and unseen forces will come to your aid."

 The second lesson: Consider your artwork as a whole—what are the large themes, the connections, and the persistent vision you are expressing? My work is almost all figurative, but sometimes it is mythological, sometimes there are portraits, and sometimes simple figures. I needed to reflect on the whole group and see what common themes they shared. I had to think back to the very first ideas I had in creating a composition, and consider what the original motivations were. Then I began to see similarities and connections in intent and philosophy between paintings, and see the common threads that had been there all the time.

Oftentimes young artists are given the impression that the artist must start with a vision, the grand theme, and then you find the tools to express your big idea. I've come to another conclusion through my personal journey. The artist excavates the vision out of one's body of work, out of the long process of becoming the artist and creating the work. Like a refiner's fire, the artistic process clarifies the vision, and shapes the artist.

So, take a group of your paintings or drawings, and consider them all together to see the underlying themes in your own work. Make notes of your strongest impressions, or even write a couple sentences about each picture, asking yourself "Why did I make this painting?" and "What am I trying to express?" Even if your notes are more word association than sentences, you will see themes emerge. You could also gather a few trusted artist friends, and do this together.

Next, you can ask yourself, "Is this what I wanted to do?" And, moving forward with your artwork, you will have more ability to consider how you shape the underlying themes you express in your work.

Is It Ever Too Late to Start Painting?

                

Not if artist Claudia Seymour has anything to say about it. Recently I had the pleasure of meeting Seymour at the Salmagundi Club in New York City to create two three-hour DVDs with her, including this year's The Art of Painting Flowers in Oil.

 Meeting Claudia initially was a daunting proposition. Before we met I did my research to discover that she paints a fantastic array of floral still lifes using both oils and pastels. I called her office, and was told to meet her in the lobby of the prestigious Salmagundi Club, where she is currently the president. It was an honor to meet her at such a lauded organization. The 141-year-old club has been a meeting place for artist-members such as Childe Hassam, William Merritt Chase, and Howard Pyle. If you're ever in New York it is worth a visit to see their many ongoing, and free, art exhibitions.

As Claudia entered the club I found myself getting quite nervous. What made things worse was as she welcomed me into the club, she immediately tripped over a piece of my equipment. "Now," I thought,"I'm done for." But aside from me tripping such a distinguished woman, she had the grace to give me a warm welcome with a bright smile, and we hit it off immediately from there. After we spoke for a bit on her painting instruction workshop, she told me something I was shocked to find out. Seymour's work is exhibited in numerous galleries around the country but she didn't pick up a brush until she was in her 40s!

 I was shocked that such a well trained artist could have been painting for only…well, I won't say as a gentleman never reveals a lady's age. But it just proves that at any age, with a little time and commitment, you can really dive deep into your craft. Claudia certainly has.

We've just finished filming The Art of Painting Flowers in Oil, in which Claudia takes you into her painting practice and shows you how to compose a still life painting, light your still life art, and really think about everything you need in order to create a really beautiful artwork. I can't wait for her next workshop dealing with floral arrangements in pastel. But most of all, working with Claudia has made me think about whether it really is ever too late to start painting. What do you think? When did you start painting, and do you think it has made a difference concerning where you are now with your artwork?

Silver Bullets and Miracle Pills

                                  

Different people attend painting workshops with varying expectations, but the ones who get the most out of the experience are those who recognize that workshops are not:

 1)Silver bullets – They won't slay the werewolves of everything you've been doing wrong, allowing you to kick aside your canvas and walk forward, free of all doubts and insecurities.

2)Miracle pills – Swallowing every word the oil painting instructor says and slavishly copying his or her technique will not turn you, or your art, into this person.

3)The route to a doctoral dissertation – This is a one to five day class, and it can't exhaustively cover everything.

4)A panacea – Nothing is a one size fits all magic potion.

These are what workshops are not. Here are some things that they can be:

1)Jumping cables – Have you been stuck in the driveway with a dead battery and don't know where to go with your art? A workshop can give you ideas, new direction, and energy to get moving again.

2)A Thai restaurant dinner – A good instructor  has great ingredients that he or she stir fries into a hot, spicy, complex entrée that you inhale, with ice water, because there's a lot to absorb in a little time.

3)An afternoon with PlayDoh – Punch it, pummel it, shape it, let yourself go and try out the techniques that the instructor is demonstrating. The goal is not to produce a finished painting that you can sell, but to try and learn something new and different, especially while the person who knows more about it than you do is right there in front of you to give you feedback.

Excited? That's a great attitude to walk into the room with.  

Painting on Autopilot

I can't think of a single parent who lolls in the passenger seat of the car, detached while observing their teenaged driver's inaugural foray into the city streets.

t's an understatement to say that, when I'm sitting on the right of an inexperienced driver, I'm alert, engaged, observant, and aware of my surroundings. (I'm also gripping the door handle and shoving my foot on an imaginary break, but that's extra.)

While oil painting in your studio doesn't reach the stress level of driving with a novice, the alert, engaged, observant, and aware of your surroundings part is something to keep in mind.

Experienced drivers, though they may look relaxed behind the wheel, aren't operating on autopilot. They're constantly scanning, checking their mirrors, observing traffic, anticipating both their next move and that of the drivers around them. If they don't, and they zone out, they're not driving well.

In the same way, when you're standing behind your easel, dab dabbing paint here while you go over in your mind the various witty remarks you could have launched at the loud, obnoxious woman ahead of you in the coffee shop, you're probably not working at your best.

"You don't have to stand ramrod straight in front of the easel and focus 100 percent on the tip of your paintbrush," my Norwegian Artist, Steve Henderson, tells his students. "But you do need to be engaged. For this reason, after an hour of two of this type of concentration, you'll find that you're tired.

"Not only is this normal, it shows that you've been using mental energy in a meaningful way. Take a break. Rest. Come back to it when you can concentrate and you'll find that, consistently, you are more in control of your work."

Good driving and good painting have a lot in common after all. Have you found this to be true, too? Leave a comment and let me know.

Finding Your Space

                                    

If you do not have an official, proper, "real" painting studio, don't feel bad. Your studio can be in a corner of your dining room. Many people's are. Or it can be a section of the garage where you make your oil painting art; a spare bedroom (people still raising kids won't know what one of those look like); or part of the laundry room.

If you're lucky, like my Norwegian Artist Steve Henderson, it's a separate building, but these things evolve. The barn studio he's commandeered now used to house six of us while we took two years to build our house, and before that it was, well, a barn.

 The important thing is to create a designated space, preferably somewhere you don't have to set up and take down each time, and for that reason, the dining room table itself is less than ideal for creating fine art oil paintings or other works. But if that's all you've got, then go with it. You can always eat on the coffee table.

The other important thing is to realize that just because you do not have a designated studio does not mean:

1) You're not a real painter

2) This is not the time of your life to paint

Most of us live in a large enough space that part of it, somewhere, is not really being used. Find this place. Clean it out, take it over, barricade it with chairs if necessary.

My own office, where I run Steve Henderson Fine Art and my freelance writing career, is in the 10 x 10 piano room, much of which is filled with, you guessed it, the piano. My desk, a small filing cabinet, table for the printer, and a Mission style dresser hold my computer, the business records, and mailing supplies.

It's a small space, but in it we do big things. What kind of space do you work in? How have you made it work for you? Leave a comment and let us know.

Framing Paintings

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.

 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.

The Self Taught Artist Who Isnt?

Some artists make a big deal out of being self taught, but truth of the matter is, all artists are self taught.

The difference between the two is encapsulated in two questions:

Are you learning oil painting for example only from yourself, just from what you can dredge up from "the artist within"?

 Or are you learning from other people–teachers, writers, other artists both dead and alive, magazine resources, workshops for oil painting techniques, books, the successes of others, the mistakes of others, comments and critiques–basically external sources that you read, analyze, review, try out, and experiment with, internalizing what works and shaping it into that "artist within"?

While art is a talent, it does not grow by itself in a vacuum, and for an artist to reach his or her potential, they need a grasp of the basics, a grounding in fundamentals, and training.

This makes total sense when we're talking about an engineer or a mathematician, but for some reason, when we talk oil painting art, our right brain supersedes the left to the point that instruction gives way to feelings, skill to emotion, proficiency to passion.

One of the key ways of recognizing whether you need work in an area is to determine if you are compensating for your lack of training in it. Ask yourself:

Do I paint noses this way because I want to, or because I don't know any other way of doing it?

If the answer is the latter, bring your skill level up so that you can paint a nose the way you want it to look.

Passion, emotion, and feelings–yes, these are important. But they are not enough without proficiency, skill, and instruction, and the best artists–who are self-motivated, self-disciplined, and truly self-taught, incorporate all six elements, seamlessly, into their work and their being.

Do I Have to Be a Fulltime Artist to Be a Real Artist?

Given what we've discussed in the last two articles, Am I an Artist? and Am I a Real Artist? Not to mention Part-Time Artists Are Artists, Too–you probably have a pretty good idea of what my answer to this one will be, but let's talk about it.

For some reason, people have the idea that if we do something part-time, or if we don't make a killing selling our oil painting work or charcoal drawings, then we're not really whatever it is that we're doing. By this definition, the volunteer firefighters in many rural communities who put their lives on the line protecting people and property aren't really firefighters.

Or substitute teachers–what would school systems do without these people?–aren't really teachers. Our nuclear physicist–who works part-time because of family obligations–isn't a real nuclear physicist.

A bit absurd, isn't it? But it's understandable, since an artist doesn't depend upon a degree, certification, title, or job description to be an artist. He or she can have those things, or not; and having them doesn't ensure that they are artists.

Artists make art. They don't talk about making art; they don't emote about making art; they don't wax eloquent about making art–people who do that, and stop there, are artistes not artists.

True artists spend a lot of time creating. My own Norwegian Artist paints; others sculpt, work with wood, brass, clay, and beyond the visual arts we have dancers, writers, actors…if I miss one please don't yell at me. But what they all have in common is that they create new things from whatever materials they have on hand, and they're pretty serious about doing it well.

The sign of being a real artist has less to do with how much money you make at it than it has with how much time and effort you spend getting better at it. At least that is where I stand. What about you? Leave a comment and let me know.

What a Website Is, and What It Isn't

First and foremost, a website is an online portfolio of you, your background, and your fine art painting or other artwork.

Years ago, artists spent copious time and bundles of money making slides of their work and 8 x 10 prints that they tucked into a leather portfolio case and lugged around with them from gallery to gallery. Those who spent more time and money made multiple portfolios that they sent to locations as opposed to flying themselves and their portfolios of painting works there.

 Now, it's all online, available for anyone to view who has the website address. This address you can send to gallery owners, show organizers, fellow painting artists, museums, educational institutions–anyplace or anyone you are approaching about viewing your art. That's the beauty of it.

And here is a reality of it that many people overlook: As beautiful and handy as websites are, they are not self-marketing. Just because you have a website does not mean that people will easily find it, as one artist I chatted with sadly did not realize.

"I'm putting the finishing touches on the website, and once it's up, people will be calling me to buy my art!"

Truth is, there are millions of websites out there, and just because yours exists does not mean that it will show up at the top of the first page of a search engine. That requires additional, ongoing work, which goes to show a basic premise of being an artist who markets your own work. You need to spend as much time marketing as you do creating. Not everyone, like my Norwegian Artist, is married to his or her marketer, but in one way or another, you will be married to your marketing plan.

Be persistent, keep at it, don't get discouraged, and do a little each day. Sounds a lot like living a healthy life, doesn't it?

What Not to Do with It

Your website can be a terrific online portfolio. But there are definitely ways to not use your website when marketing art. An initial temptation for many artists is to find as many gallery e-mail addresses as they can and send out their website information out to all of them via e-mail. Sounds great! Easy, fast, convenient, free–they write an innocuous little note along the lines of "Dear Gallery Director, attached please find the address to my website," and just wait for the responses to roll in.

t's a long wait. Steve and I have always joked that by the time we figure out a way to do something, millions of people have already been doing it, and they're on their way to doing something else. That's why you don't find on us on the floors of the New York Stock Exchange.

On face value, sending your web address of your oil paintings or drawings to a series of unknown gallery directors does sound easy, fast, convenient, and free. But how many other artists do you think are doing this as well? Galleries and art business representatives get a lot of unsolicited submissions, via e-mail, mail, phone, or in person, and there is only so much room on their walls. They can also spot a "mass mailing" and like it about as much as you do in your own e-mail inbox.

Before you waste your time, or theirs, look up the gallery's website and see if they have a submission process. If there is no Submissions or For Artists section, look under Contact or Frequently Asked Questions. It is highly likely that somewhere they will address this issue, if only to say, "We are not accepting submissions at this time."

If this little sentence is there, have a cup of tea and a cookie with the time you save by not contacting the gallery. If it isn't, and there is a gallery submission process, then it is probably a good idea to follow it exactly.

What Following It Exactly Means

My kids accuse me of saying obvious things, along the lines of, "The car won't get you there if you don't put gas in it," or "Your clothes won't be ready to wear tomorrow if you keep them in the washing machine." But I wouldn't need to say this kind of stuff if the needle wasn't stuck on empty or shirts weren't wet, clammy, and wrinkled when someone is getting ready for work.

 In the same way, I have talked with artists about their submissions to galleries and have heard comments along these lines: "They said they didn't want any calls, but I wanted to make sure that the submission arrived okay so I just called real quick."

"They asked for a CD disc with images of my oil paintings, but that's too much trouble, so I attached a bunch of images of my oil painting art to an e-mail and sent it to them that way."

"They wanted a prose biography, but all I had was my résumé, and I figured that was just as good."

Art galleries receive lots and lots of submissions–especially in today's economy–and specific submission requirements enable staff members to process portfolios more quickly and efficiently. If they want images on a disc but not e-mail, that's because they don't want their e-mail inbox inundated. If they want e-mail images but not discs, then they don't want to spend time going through discs. If they don't want slides (and nowadays, who does?), they're not going to hold the slides up against the light and peer to see your work. There are plenty of other submissions, on their desk, that do fit the criteria they asked for.

The easier you make it for the gallery staff–and one of the crucial ways of doing this is adhering to their guidelines–then the better your chances for not having all the hard work you put into setting up your submission tossed to the side.

Beware of Falling in Love

Painting is an act of creativity and intention, but it sometimes, many times, includes acts of destruction large and small. It may be that the one skill that separates the dedicated professional artist from the amateur is the willingness to destroy, obliterate or remove those beautifully painted parts of a painting that, in the artist's judgement, must be changed in order to make the painting work as a whole. The temptation to fall in love with a beautifully painted passage and then hang on to it even when it interferes with the success of the work is completely understandable. Discovering how to paint well is hard work, and going backward to move forward is perhaps not a natural inclination for many of us. 

John Singer Sargent used to scrape out areas that he was not happy with and repaint them in order to get his famous bravura brushstrokes in the finish. It's all about doing whatever is necessary in order to work at the highest level. This is a tough lesson for most of us to learn, but a valuable one. In an interview with Thomas Paquette for The Artist's Road, Thomas made the observation that he also goes through extensive revisions of his paintings as he develops them, a process he calls the "phoenix effect," which he states adds immeasurably to the richness and the look of the finished work.

The other skill that many artists employ is the development of multiple preparatory sketches, drawings and paintings before they begin work on what will be the finished work. However, no amount of prep work can guarantee that everything will go as planned in the larger piece, and knowing that, embracing that, is an attitude which can ultimately lead to better paintings. It is wonderful to love what we do, but dangerous to love everything we do.

How to Let Flashes of Inspiration Come

Swimming in the ocean of life, so to speak, it sometimes feels as though we must use every bit of energy to keep our heads above the waves. Over many years we have developed some techniques that help us to shed the heavy seaweed and barnacles of the daily thoughts that occupy our minds, and step onto the shore where our creative minds can play.

I imagine that to most people, artists are able to simply tap into their creativity as one would turn on a tap for water–always available at a moment's notice.  Anyone in the creative field knows that artistry must be cultivated, practiced, and exercised regularly if it is to thrive and prosper, much like an athlete must slowly build up ability in order to reach the Olympics. Art needs space and time to grow, and so, many of us have created spaces, little corners in the house or full-fledged studios where we can shut out the traffic of life and give voice to our inner worlds. We have found that these physical spaces, whether large or small, are absolutely essential to the practice of art-making.

Inspiration can come from simply diving into our work–whether pencil sketch drawing, writing or shaping clay. Many times, it is this intensely occupied conscious mind that allows the creative insights of the subconscious to bubble up to the surface. When that happens, it is often described as a "flash" of inspiration, but in reality is the natural result of creating the proper environment, both physically and mentally, for our creative minds to do their job.

So how does one make the mind quit worrying about bills or family and turn to peaceful, creative thoughts, just like that? Much like the practice of meditation, it takes a disciplined regular schedule and lots of practice. There are so many distractions and details of living to attend to that the mind can get overwhelmed by the clamoring thoughts that can easily drown out the quiet messages from deep within. We must develop a positive mental attitude towards ourselves and our work, and shut out those nagging thoughts of inadequacy or public indifference, maintaining at the same time, the ability to see our work clearly and objectively in order to grow as artists. As in all good things, balance seems to be the key.

Reconnect with Your Passion

The loss of an artist and teacher from childhood has caused me to reflect upon not only her life and work, but also those lessons that she taught me. The myriad distractions of daily life, from the constant need to earn money for survival to the many mundane chores and tasks required to keep it all going can combine at times to make us temporarily lose our focus in art-making. Remembering the passion a teacher found in fine art painting and how she worked to instill that passion in her students has helped to reconnect me with the roots of my own passion for art-making.

 Here is a favorite quote from a well-known book she first introduced me to, The Art Spirit, by Robert Henri:

"There are moments in our lives, there are moments in a day, when we seem to see beyond the usual. Such are the moments of our greatest happiness. Such are the moments of our greatest wisdom. If one could but recall his vision by some sort of sign. It was in this hope that the arts were invented. Sign-posts on the way to what may be. Sign-posts toward greater knowledge."

Henri was a wonderfully skilled artist and teacher, and The Art Spirit is filled with inspiring quotes that reach out to us today with words of encouragement and focus.

"Art cannot be separated from life. It is the expression of the greatest need of which life is capable, and we value art not because of the skilled product, but because of its revelation of a life's experience." –Robert Henri

We are thankful to have had good teachers and we are reminded now that the greatest lessons they taught us have the power to instruct and encourage us throughout our lives. We believe that Henri was correct in pointing out that our lives as artists are our art. As such, we must keep in mind that the road toward greater knowledge is a life-long one, and we must remember to look for those sign-posts left for us by our teachers and other artists which help to keep us on our artistic path.

Frustration Isn't Always a Bad Thing

 One of the most satisfying things I do is teaching another person how to knit. And every time I do so, I conclude the lesson with this encouragement: "You've just learned. While knitting is fairly simple consisting of basically two stitches, until you practice and do it over and over and over, you will not get good.

"And in the process of practicing, and learning how to be good, you will find that you forget some things, or that your knitting looks uneven, or that you drop stitches and you don't know how to get back. And you will get frustrated.

Not only is this normal, but this is good, and if you're not getting frustrated, then you're probably not pushing yourself beyond your existing skill. You are not stupid. You are not unusual. You are not weird. You are normal. You are above normal when you accept the challenge, fight it, and win. Now, go and knit."

This same advice applies in anything you do, including and especially including creating a fine art painting or sculpture. You won't get better if you don't practice those oil painting techniques and push yourself with new painting instruction; and if you do it a lot and push yourself outside your existing painting skills, you can expect to get frustrated because you are getting somewhere.

Money and Fame May Not Be Enough

 Maybe it's because I've raised four kids. Maybe it's because I homeschooled them. I don't know, but what I do know is that when it comes to your children, your primary goal is that they turn out to be decent, kind, sympathetic, understanding people, and you hope that they'll be happy.

And then you look around you, and you see scores of famous, wealthy people, some of whom seem decent, kind, sympathetic, and understanding and many others who do not, and you think, money and fame must not be enough. And they're not.

We know that deep down because didn't all of our mothers tell us so? Yet, we persist in defining our success by our name (Do people know us by one like Shakespeare, Lincoln, Napoleon, Madonna, Renoir are?), our sales, or our bank account.

If we want to be successful oil painting artists or top watercolorists or stellar acrylic painters, then let's start with what people often pay attention to least when it comes to the idea of success in the fine art painting world: the quality of our art. Get good. Get really really good. Work hard, struggle through, yell with triumph over your latest oil painting, and then go kiss the dog. That's success.

Creativity and Apple Pie

Like his father, our Son and Heir likes to bicycle around the countryside, and during the autumn he never returns without panniers full of wild apples, picked from abandoned fruit trees.

 Every afternoon found a new pile of fruit product piled somewhere on my kitchen counters; when I mentioned that the apples were getting in my way, the Heir moved them from one counter to the next, but then filled up the released space with a newly discovered variety from yet another forsaken tree.

I had apples on top of the microwave, behind the toaster, in the breadbox, and tumbling out of the refrigerator; when kitchen counter space became scarce the laundry room was the new landing page for these refugee fruits.

Yep, I could make applesauce; I'm sure that's a great suggestion, but I really hate canning. I also hate wasting good food — especially unsprayed, organic food — so I did adjust our meal plan to incorporate apples in all forms, for all meals. You can make a really quick healthy apple concoction on the stove with water, a little sugar, cinnamon, lemon juice, butter, and — what else — apples, and I shortly found that this was a fast, cheap, easy breakfast option. We ate it day after day, and the pile of apples grew noticeably smaller (it helped that the weather grew colder and there were no more afternoon harvest sessions).

So what do apples have to do with painting, aside from being a still life painting subject?

Just this: as you work around a potentially overwhelming situation or circumstance — in this case, it was apples everywhere; in your case, it could be trying to create oil paintings on the side while working a day job, or making do with limited financial resources to purchase painting materials, or not having the art studio of your dreams (who does?). You get pretty creative with what you have, and the solution you find to your problem changes how you do everything else.

A Dreadful Flood of the Unexpected

While it was a lousy summer for tomatoes, something in the air made the pumpkins and winter squash particularly prolific, and we find ourselves with a workshop full of the stuff.

 Like most people of my generation, my primary experience with winter squash is baked, smashed, and slathered with butter and brown sugar, and while I've become remarkably adaptable in my grown-up years, my inner child simply refuses to eat, or make, this stuff, which means that I have to get really creative, and I am, thinking, dreaming, cooking, and even writing all things squash (Awash with Squash).

In the process of dealing with this abundance of unusual, unlooked for, and unrequested bounty, I came to realize that this is the story of our lives as artists and painters, because if we don't realize what we have, then we will 1) miss out on our ability to advance as artists and hone our oil painting techniques and 2) possibly squander or let rot valuable painting resources in ourselves.

Maybe you, like me, have been presented with a lot of something that you're not familiar with and don't want to use. How much better, you think, to have buckets of strawberries, or chocolate, or asparagus.

But you don't have those things. You have squash — and if you forget about feeling bad because you don't have strawberries or chocolate or asparagus, and concentrate, instead, on using what you do have to the best of your ability, you will 1) advance in your oil painting skills and 2) learn to paint using those valuable resources that are inside you ready to be tapped.

Are you not a dynamic, exciting person who does ad lib demos and wows audiences to the point that they snatch up everything in your art booth? Strawberries.

Then talk to people, quietly, and get to know them, and share sincerely about yourself and your oil painting art. Squash.

Do you get cold easily, shudder in the wind, and squint at outside light during a plein air painting session? Chocolate.

Then brew a cup of tea and enjoy the cozy atmosphere of your studio. Squash.

Look around you with your painter's eye. See what you have a lot of, and use it. It won't be the same as what your neighbor or another artist has, but if you worry about what you don't have, you won't focus on using what you do.

The One and Only You

The Norwegian Artist and I walk 3-5 miles every day, broken up in two or three sessions. It gets the dog out, me off the chair in front of the computer, and the Norwegian from behind his oil painting easel. During the break, we propound to one another correct solutions to national, international, and domestic problems.

 Unless it's raining. At that point, I stay in, regardless of the Norwegian's exasperated sigh or the dog's pleading look.

It's not so much that I'm inordinately difficult as that I wear glasses, and I really, really hate droplets spattered all over the lenses because then my whole world looks blotchy. While I subconsciously realized this, it took me years before I thought to communicate my reasons to the Norwegian, who, now that he wears reading glasses and understands the irritation of fingerprints or dust on the lenses, nodded and said, "I can see that. Why don't you wear a hat?"

Well, at least we achieved partial understanding. The Norwegian is content to accept that this is the way I am, and on rainy days he and the dog share special time together.

What about you? Do you do something a certain way because of something unique about you?

Do you find it more comfortable to sit when you are oil painting, but everybody you know says that you should stand while putting oil on canvas? Or do you stand closer to your easel than many people do because that's how your eyes focus best? How about light? Maybe you prefer it coming from one side or another or even behind you — possibly because you wear glasses and they catch a reflection. Or maybe you paint very very quickly, and other artists say that you should slow down.

Before you hang your head and mumble that everyone else is probably right, and you're wrong, as usual, think about me and my glasses. You may have an excellent reason for doing what you do and how you do it and that reason is intimately tied in with something distinctive about you. Take some time and think it through — not so that you have to answer the people critiquing you, but so that you can answer yourself about what is right for your oil painting art. It'll be the best painting lesson you give yourself.

Investing in Art

I love my Honda Fit. And while that may seem to have nothing to do with art, actually, it does.

You see, I drive my Honda Fit everywhere and in the process of its being used it gets dusty, the tires see wear, the interior windows next to where my Toddler sits get coated with whatever sticky stuff she's got on her hands and smears onto the glass.

 Honestly, if I kept my Honda Fit inside the garage and never drove it for, say, 10 years, it would look exactly the way it did the day I bought it and I could resell it — maybe at a profit — because it would be such a great investment!

But you know, people don't buy cars to keep as investments. They buy them to drive in them, and when it's the right car, like my cute, sassy, blazing barbecue orange Honda Fit, they enjoy the process.

If more people thought about making art this way, more people would own and enjoy painting art. But all of a sudden, when people look at a painting, they go into this "I Must Make a Profit on This" investment mode — even if the artwork they're looking at is a limited edition print for $80. Somehow, they tell themselves, if they purchase this, they need to be able to resell it, ten years down the road, for $200, because that's what you do with art — you buy it as an investment.

As an artist — you've heard this before, haven't you?

What a sad, limited world view, one that keeps people from enhancing their aesthetic lives and their home's walls. The best reason to buy painting art-or any kind of art for that matter — is because you like it, because when you see the oil painting or the print on your wall it makes you happy, because you want to have it in your life, because — like my Honda Fit — it's smart, sassy, sophisticated, and fun — in short, that painting is You.

That's most likely what you want people to say about your own painting art, and that's why you buy the work of other artists yourself. Let's be bold about this and counteract this pervasive investment message and, one by one, we'll let people know that great art is a great investment because it pays off, instantly, in happiness dividends.

Being Human, and All That

Painting materials aren't free and time is precious — that being said, if more artists would worry less about creating the perfect painting and more about experimenting as a painting artist and getting better at what they do and the painting techniques they employ, then they would sooner reach a consistency of quality as a painting artist and create artworks with which they are delighted, time after time.

 But if you skip that stage — the one where you practice and try and say, "Oh, what the heck; if I don't like it, I'm out a little paint, the canvas, some time — but I've gained in experience and wisdom" — then you'll find that you're so worried about perfection, that you never achieve it.

There are enough people in our lives expecting unrealistic things of us that we don't have to be one of them. Falling down isn't failure. Trying and not getting it quite right isn't tragedy. Doing something completely different, just because, isn't a waste of time.

Go for it. Grab a different painting brush. Use a color you usually avoid. Shake around your subject matter. Play with your paint and see where it takes you on the next step of your journey.

What's Sfumato with You?

Each day, people from all over the globe travel to Paris to visit the most famous oil painting in the world, the Mona Lisa. Many are just curious, and want to see the real thing for themselves. Some admire the famous enigmatic smile, the perfect proportions and ideal composition of the piece. Still others seek to explore some of the fantastical and mysterious claims about the fine art oil painting. Unfortunately, the painting is behind thick glass and a wooden railing keeps everyone a good distance away. The huge crowds create additional obstacles to close inspection. It's too bad, for Leonardo was the most prominent practitioner of a painting technique known as "sfumato," which translates literally as, "gone up in smoke."

 Leonardo himself described the sfumato technique as "without lines or borders, in the manner of smoke or beyond the picture plane." During the Renaissance, oil painting underwent radical changes as artists learned to manipulate the new theories of linear perspective to create ever greater depth of space and lifelike images. So, in one sense, the quest to eliminate the flatness of the painting surface, and indeed the picture plane itself, from an image could be considered a natural outgrowth of those investigations. However, taken in the context of the time, it was still a rather radical idea, if it could be achieved at all. Leonardo came closer than anyone else with his Mona Lisa.

It has been discovered that he applied very thin, nearly transparent layers of oil paint with his fingers over many months to slowly build up the glowing, softly focused image of Mona Lisa: from 20 to as many as 40 layers of paint.  This technique allowed him to not only realistically duplicate the translucency of skin, but also to create such a lifelike presence that she appeared to actually be in the room, as if she were sitting in a window.

To paint on a flat surface a vision of someone not confined to that surface required the artist to hold two paradoxical thoughts in mind simultaneously–flatness, but with the illusion of realistic three-dimensional form. Leonardo had the genius of his vision and sfumato technique gave him the means to get there. Today, we build easily on the pioneering artistic advances he invented, and for that we owe him a debt of gratitude.

Abandoning Our Values

What makes an object look three-dimensional in a painting or a drawing?

We use a variety of cues to give us this information: light and shadow, contrast, pattern, color, texture, scale, temperature and value, usually in combinations. Our ability to measure these different parameters and make a decision about the dimensionality and location of something in our field of vision is automatic and immediate–a product of millions of years of evolving visual sophistication. Most people do not have to think much about visual perception, but as artists, it is useful to investigate.

When we learn to draw, we practice creating the illusion of form with value changes (light to dark), or chiaroscuro, using all the subtle changes in tone from black to the white of the paper. Having gained proficiency at chiaroscuro work, we quite naturally adapt our knowledge of values to our color work. But the world of colors is not just value-driven, it has an equal partner in color temperature. Temperature (warm to cool) can and does affect our perception of form. As the shape of any object rotates away from the light source, it undergoes a temperature change. It may also display a value change, but not in every case. In the landscape, as an object gets further away, it undergoes a value change and a temperature change as well.

As artists, we can employ temperature changes to our advantage. The Impressionists loved to exploit this effect. Temperature changes in their fine art oil paintings were an essential ingredient in their ability to create scintillating, light-filled canvasses. They thoroughly understood the power of temperature changes within a limited value range in reproducing the effects of sunlight. Cezanne and Monet, especially triumphed at these kinds of techniques, so much so that most people aren't aware of the missing values. See how this black and white of Cezanne's painting above reveals his mastery of temperature within a restricted value range.

In still-life and figurative painting, we can also exploit this concept and make our paintings more effective, and our work easier. The best way to understand and learn how to use temperature instead of value to create the illusion of three dimensions is to set up a simple still life. Join us on The Artist's Road for a more in-depth article and step-by-step demonstrations on how to paint objects using only color temperature changes. If you haven't tried this yourself, you'll be amazed at how effective and fast it is to paint with temperature instead of value changes.

The Nature of Painting

Ann and I have been reading Marc Simpson's 2008 book, Like Breath on Glass: Whistler, Inness and the Art of Painting Softly, published on the occasion of the exhibition of the same name at the Clark Art Institute. It has provoked lively studio discussions about the late work of James Abbott McNeill Whistler.

 Dissatisfied with what he had learned from his teacher, Gustave Courbet, Whistler set out in 1867 to unlearn all he knew about oil painting and set himself on a new path of experimentation. In a letter to his friend Henri Fantin-Latour, he wrote, "That damned Realism made an immediate appeal to my vanity as a painter! . . .and then people went to see it! . . . canvases produced by a nobody puffed up with pride at showing off his splendid gifts to other painters . . ."

Whistler's contemporaries included the French Impressionists. Unlike them, however,  Whistler did not seek to express the bravado action of his fine art oil painting brushstrokes while recording nature directly.

He was more concerned with the "nature of painting than the painting of nature". Thus, he would form an image of the painting in his mind to the fullest extent possible, and then would create an evocative, suggestive masterwork in the studio. This was the period during which he completed many of his famous Nocturnes.

"The difficulty of appreciating much of Whistler's work is our tendency to try and translate all art into words. 'What is it all about – what does it mean?' But we do not ask such questions about a delicious scent . . . nor of one of Chopin's nocturnes . . . Why, then, may not a painter blend color as a musician blends sound, to express something which cannot be adequately put into words, and call it, for lack of a better term, 'a symphony in color'? or veil his colors in that mysterious luminous shade night flings over nature and call it a nocturne?  We enjoy the fragrance of a scent without putting it into words – why may not our sense of sight be delighted by abstract colors?"–Attributed to C. H. Caffin, Harper's Weekly, 1898.

Getting Into Shape

When it comes to painting portraits, it helps to think big. This train of thought not only applies to setting goals but also to applying paint. A direct approach of applying simplified, accurate shapes at the beginning of a painting can often lead to a strongly stated portrait which captures the unique personality and character of your sitter from the very start.

The "shapes" that I'm referring to are seen as a result of the way that light falls across your portraiture subject. By themselves, each one of these shapes has a specific value (how light or how dark it appears), color (warm or cool), and series of edges (hard, soft, broken, etc.) that accompany it. When put together side by side, these shapes create a bigger picture. Although void of any major detail, this visual shorthand carries with it the weight and strength of the entire painting. It's the foundation on which all detail work is built. Without this framework of solidity first established, you may find yourself frustrated at the results, often focusing your attention on areas that are better left for a later stage, such as getting an exact likeness or paying too much attention to unnecessary details in a painted portrait.

My early introduction into this broad approach to painting portraits came as a result of studying the work of the great portrait painter, John Singer Sargent, particularly his portrait of Edward Wertheimer. What makes this painting so rare and valuable to an artist is that it's one of the very few unfinished portrait commissions that have been left by Sargent, due to the sitter's untimely death. This canvas contains some of the greatest insights into the working methods of Sargent and his initial approach to painting a portrait by using large shapes to quickly define the figure, while achieving a sense of volume in the planes of the head. The importance of this broad approach of shaping the entire painting as a whole cannot be overstated, as it's at this stage that Sargent chose to end the sitting, leaving behind a solid structural foundation for future work.

So, the next time you're looking for ways to strengthen your latest portrait painting, remember to get into shape by exercising your artistic skills to see the big picture.