Big Weekend Coming Up!

Memorial Day Weekend kicks off the summer season

 in a big way around here. 

The North River Arts holds their annual
Festival of the Arts beginning with a gala opening Friday night. 

I'm excited that the two paintings below
will be included in the Juried show.

Bound and Determined

8 x 8 

acrylic

Scarlet Jacket 

10 x 8

oil 

All day Saturday and Sunday the festivities continue with 

music, craft booths, face painting, 

demos, and lots and lots of great

ART! 

Come on by! 

Forced Purge

We are renovating the 200 year old farm house
that our family of four has lived in for 20 years.
Every thing we've accumulated
now has to be stored (or thrown away)! 

It's a"forced purge"
and it's a HUGE undertaking.

It's all good, but while any chance of painting is on hold,
 I thought I'd share some older paintings
I ran across while "dismantling"!

"No, You Go First" 

 8 x 10 

2002

My son and his two pals on either side,

(from a photo when they were in 6th grade.)

"Grier's Dresser"

2002

I gave this to our daughter when she went off to college.

"Shopping in my own closet"

and finding great treasures.
How fun!

"Painting from Photos" Exercise

We are discussing the "ins and outs"
of painting from photos in class.
 I used this image for my demo today.

(Delray Beach, Fla.)

The "story" is the red bathing suit.

I did my map using techniques from Peggi Kroll Robert's  

"Simple Proportions of the Figure" DVD

"Daily Swim"

 quick demo 

 It's all about taking the image and
"making it your own".

NOTE:
Goodbye American Idol.
Hello The Voice!

Phew!

I feel like the semester is over and I just handed in a term paper.  

Eighteen paintings completed, signed, and off to the framer

to be delivered to the Cove Gallery next week.

(Details of opening reception 

 May 25 to follow) 

I am honored to be represented by this prestigious gallery on Cape Cod. 

My work will be showing in both galleries this summer 

(Chatham and Wellfleet) 

as well as Atlantic Workshop on Main Street in Chatham.

More about that later. 

Now I'm off to celebrate Mother's Day with a visit to the 

Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum 

to see the Andre Zorn show! 

Bring on summer break! 

Term Papering

I'm "term papering" this week

 for my upcoming show at the 

Cove Gallery 

opening Memorial Day Weekend!  

Nothing to post as it seems I'm either 

having a breakdown or a breakthrough. 

Hope it's the latter. 

However, I must thank my friend Michael Chamberlain 

(whose work is amazing and I admire tremendously) 

for walking me through his process and materials,

and sharing his time with me 

via e-mail and cellphone!
What a cool and generous guy.  

  

20 x 16 by

  Michael Chamberlain

Now that is inspiring! 

Back at it tomorrow. 

"Oils Over Acrylic" and a new class!

Remember this large acrylic painting 

I did a few weeks ago? 

24 x 30 

I kept walking by it in the studio, thinking it looked "awkward".

so yesterday I went at it with oils.  

High Noon 

24 x 30

(I took the image late in the day 

so it looks a lot cooler than it really it is)  

Painting over acrylic with oils is a great tool! 

You can work out the composition and value shifts,

changing things as much as you need to, 

then adding the oil is like 

icing the cake!   

Still experimenting with acrylics, 

but as of now, oils remain my medium of choice! 

NOTE: 

I will be teaching a new class at 

North River Art Society this June! 

Tuesdays 9:30 - 12:30

Three classes inside, three classes out side,  

covering the One Hour Approach 

with still life, photos, landscape and the figure in sunlight.

Get ready to throw some paint around!  

Three Value to Color Exercise

During our first class last week, 

I discovered the thing the students wanted to learn the most 

was how to translate value into color. 

So today I combined a few lessons and tried something new.  

I gave them each an 11 x 15 middle grey toned piece of watercolor paper,

and set up a simple primary color still life in strong light. 

I had them prepare a five value, black to white, scale

leaving the middle square blank. (middle grey) 

They then did two "maps" next to each other. 

In the first box, they were to choose two values for everything in light

 and one for everything in shadow.

The second box, they were to choose one value for everything in light 

and two for everything in shadow. 

The challenge was to mix a color, then make a mark next to the value

 you want to compare it to, 

checking it by looking through a red transparency.

You have to make decisions about the colors,

 and assign them one of the three values you chose!    

This was pretty advanced,

and I was impressed by how they jumped right in.

We made some amazing discoveries!

Did you know that cad red light 

is the same value as cad yellow light?   

 Unbelievable! 

Some of them have only recently started painting! 

NOTE:

We played around a lot with the I phone App,

Value Viewer! 

An invaluable tool that I am getting very fond of!  

I strongly urge you to try it out!