Compose everything! Happy 2010!

Most of us are probably not working in our studios

or on our art just now. I trust you are all enjoying

the season of sharing time and love with family

and friends. And perhaps you too have composed

something lovely for them to enjoy, letting the artist

that you are create something wonderful.

I wish you and yours the most delightful and

fulfilling year to come. Compose it beautifully!

Transferring a drawing to canvas is done by placing the drawing face to the glass of a window (in the daytime!). Then you go over the lines with charcoal, taking care to make the coverage a bit wider than the actual line in the drawing. For complex areas (here it is the hair) just cover it all with charcoal.

Now place the drawing face up on the canvas. Adjust it to fit as you want it placed. Then with a blunt pencil (a sharp one will poke holes through the paper), go over all the lines of your drawing. Do tape it in place so you can lift it occasionally to see if you got it all transferred.












Here you can see the tape holding the drawing in place, and also the blunt-tipped pencil.


















In this last photo you see the drawing which is about to be lifted off. Note that the placement of the drawing over top of the canvas is slightly tipped. This is because the student wanted to place it that way. Doing drawing transfers this way gives you that flexibility of placement.

Even though there is no photograph here of the drawing on the canvas, understand that after you have it done, you will need to touch it up with any corrections or adjustments you want to make. Also you may need to make some of the lines darker so they don't disappear under the first thin layer of paint. DO SPRAY IT before you begin painting!

Using a rag while painting

Here you see a student of mine painting

with a rag in her hand. It is not a paper

towel, but is a soft cotton absorbent rag.

Good sources for such rags are soft cotton

things such as old t-shirts and nightwear

that has been laundered so often that there

is hardly any lint or fuzz that will come off

on your brushes. Also you don't want

rags that are so thin (like old sheets) that

you get paint all over your hands.

Use of Paper Towels

Basically, I use paper towels for cleaning

my brushes. I don't hold them in my hand

while I am painting the way I hold a rag

in my hand while painting. I have them

on my easel's shelf that is just below the

painting. Or I have a stack of paper towels

set aside and I use them just before I dip

them in the mineral spirits

to wipe off the excess.

Use of rags

But rags are for use while I work on a painting

and am doing things like blending areas of different

colors or tones. What happens is that the brush

will pick up a tone and if you don't wipe the brush

with the rag, the tone (or color) you don't want to

end up in a particular place will end up there!

So just hold a rag in your hand and wipe off the little

bit of paint so you can keep blending without dragging

a color into an area where you don't want it.

I also use a rag for another purpose. When you have

a brush that is a very small size and you have cleaned it in

the thinner, it will have the thinner run down the handle

and not only get your hands yucky (hi-tech word), but

when you go to pick up new paint, it will run down and

dilute what you just picked up. SO! I have a rag on

my easel shelf and always use it to absorb that thinner.

Rags are way more absorbent than paper towels.

How long to use a rag?

First of all, have a good supply of them and when they

get loaded with paint get rid of them. Do not wash them

as it's not worth it. Also, don't keep oily rags around as

it is a safety issue. I put them in the trash in a plastic bag.

Taking photos to paint from

The main point of this post is to tell you to take lots of photos

of any scene you may want to paint. Take a long shot, take

close up shots, take pictures of what is around the main subject.

You may want to paint something that is essentially a long

shot in a photograph, but if you don't shoot up close, you may

not have enough data.

I didn't post all the photos I took of this wonderful stone

barn, but I hope you get the idea.

The other thing about close up and far away shots is that

sometimes you can't see what is in the shadow areas if you

have a shot with a lot of light colored area like sky. That closes

down your lens (if you are shooting on automatic) and then

the shadow areas will look practically black. If you shoot some

close ups, then the camera lens opens up and allows you to see

what is in those shadow areas.

I hope this helps!

Getting started

This student work is a great example to show
how to get started with any subject. This is
a challenging one, but the beginning is the
same.

Mix three piles of paint. A middle tone, a dark
tone (not the pure paint out of the tube) and
a light tone (again, not the pure white).

Then put on an overall tone (thin paint, not
thick)that is somewhere between the darkest
and lightest tones you see. You can even use just
a thin coat of raw umber all over with no white
added to it. Take a rag and rub it to look even
all over.

Next put in all the dark areas, then do the light
ones. Keep the shapes VERY simple. You will
do the more complex shapes and blending later
later later!

Most beginning artists go for the details way too
soon!

Signatures

Signing one's name is a act unto itself! Where to place it for best effect, but not to have it take over the painting!
Does one paint it darker or lighter than the surroundings? Does one block print it or do it in script or find some special symbol? Whistler used a butterfly for his signature and you will often find the old masters have signed their works in an upper corner.

Here's my take on it ~ Sign it where it feels right to you. I don't always sign in the same position, but often use the lower right as in this case. Use a tone that is just somewhat lighter or darker than the surrounding area. As for color, stay in the palette of the piece. You want folks to be able to read your name, but not hit them over the head with it. Sometimes, in very small pieces, I just use only one of my names.

How to do it? Use a very small brush. You may have to rub it out and do it over several times. I did this one about 8 times till I was happy with it!

Great tip for cleaining brushes

I asked an artist friend I have met via

the internet for help on keeping the

sticky handles of my bristle brushes

clean. (www.carolmarine.blogspot.com)

She generously gave me this fabulous

tip regarding Murphy's oil soap!

I had an ancient bottle of it in my garage

and so put some of it in a small, tall

jar and put in a few brushes AND some

icky palette knives. Voila! Fantastic

results 24 hours later. You can read

the Murphy's label in the gorgeous

clean palette knife.

You'll see the "before" condition of

one I haven't yet cleaned on the right.

I have been painting for many years,

but you can always learn something new.

Also, Carol says she uses it to clean her

brushes on a daily basis. I use Ivory soap

bars...but more on that later.

This was a great help and I thank Carol!

The joy of sketchbooking

This is a brush and ink sketch out of one of my Mother's

sketchbooks. My Mom did a great deal of sketching

as she was on vacation, or just on a beach outing when

we were young.

I cannot emphasize enough the value of doing this.

It teaches you to SEE!

Putting in order

Most beginning artists will quickly realize that in

order to work efficiently and effectively, one must

develop a good physical system for one's materials.

Grouping one's colors is an obvious way to work.

Here is a shot of a friend's colored pencils. Paint

tubes can be stored by colors in separate containers

which is what I do. Pastels present a unique challenge

because of their 'dusty' nature. I always have kept

mine in order in the box I have which has something

like 72 colors in it.

The goal is to be able to locate visually what you want

and quickly.

If you have your materials all over the place while working

which I often do, be sure to discipline yourself to put them

all back where they can be easily found for the next time.

Scribbling!

When you first start a painting, especially one that is

rather large (larger than 12 x 16) it is a good idea to

scribble! Get your tones worked out by just scribbling

in an area to start to give you the idea of how it will

look. Use very thin paint to do this. Don't be all

careful about it, just general areas scribbled in in the

tones and slightly stated color for that area.

Note: This painting will not have much strong color

in it, so the scribbled areas are pretty muted.

More on edges

This is a lower area of a recent painting

where arms cross each other. There are

no sharp distinct edges. Sharp edges

draw attention. Here, I am

subduing the edges because this is not

the focal point of the painting. So be

careful where you place hard edges.

Edges

For me there is an almost instinctive choosing of

what edges I make soft and which ones are painted

with a crisp edge, a sharp demarkation.

Here you see the edges of the arm are soft and the

edges of the fabrics are mostly crisp and sharp. Flesh

is soft and so soft edges make sense in order to convey

this quality. The fabric elements seen here, are rather

flat and are one layer over another, so sharpness of each

edge helps convey that.

Often I will paint an edge 'hard' and then I will use a sable

brush to blend it and soften it up almost imperceptibly.

Sable brushes are mainly for such blending and softening

because the bristles are not stiff and will not move the paint

around much ~ just enough to blend things.

Storing my colors so I can find them!

There are a number of reasons why I have so much

paint! Of course I purchased a great deal of it myself.

But then I have also inherited some. A friend was

moving and gave me her supply, a neighbor's mother

passed away and she gave me that supply, a former

student's wife gave me his paint supplies after he

died. So now I have somewhere between 100 and

150 tubes of paint!

In order to find what I am looking for, I first did

a color chart which is posted earlier in this blog.

Then I separated the color families and here are

photographs of how they are stored.

It is important not to have too many different

tubes of color on your palette as it is too confusing.

So when I am going to start a new piece, I select what

I want and can find them easily.

I hope you find this helpful!

Warms and cools in the same color

Each color, as you look around the color wheel,

has a tendency toward warm or cool. Here are

some reds as well as an orange on the left. Cool

reds move toward blue on the wheel. Warm reds

move toward yellow on the wheel. Alizarin crimson

and quinacradone red are cool reds. Cadmium red

light is a warm red. In choosing paint colors for

a painting, look to see if it the colors you choose

are more warm or cool. Sometimes you will need

both. Often you do.

Photographing your set up

If you have to take down your set-up due to this

or that reason, photograph it from exactly the

same position from which you are painting it.

AND photograph it from above as well. How things

look when only viewed from the front can be

deceiving.

This is the set-up of one of my students. It is

quite the interesting challenge to do a painting

when everything in it is in the same color family.

Well except for the orange marble!

More on Tube Tops

This is not my original idea, but it sure is a great

one. I got it from an art magazine years ago and

only wish I could acknowledge the clever artist

who shared it.

These are called 'eye hooks'. They are a great

solution for caps that have disappeared. But better

still, they are a great solution for the way the necks

of paint tubes get all loaded with paint and it is

impossible to screw on the caps because the screw

threads are full of dried paint.

You will notice that there are different sized screws.

Different brands of paint have different sized holes.

So experiment by buying several sizes. Even if the

size you have doesn't fill the hole completely, it will

keep a channel open for you to get the paint out

easily.

I have found that I almost never bought a size big

enough when I started doing this years ago.

The artist who wrote about this did this with all

his paint tubes and then hung them from something

he made so he could easily find his paints. I never

did that. Just doing this was a great help.

Paint tube tops

After an artist has been using tube paints for a while,

the caps can become more difficult to get off. This is

true for all paint mediums that come in tubes, even

watercolor. The two tried and true methods of getting

off stuck caps are plyers and then using a lit match

to soften the hardened paint around the edges of the

cap.

There is still another way to handle this, but that is a

post for another day!

Bottle tops

When one is doing a still life and there are various

things in it, most of us work to get the shapes and

proportions right. But that is not where it should

end.

After getting all that down in the best way you can,

take care to focus in on the details and really confront

what is there. I have seen many students just sort of

toss on a suggestion a bottle top.

So really confront the contours of it - the perspective

of the cylindrical opening and what part of the back

ring comes around into the curves in the front.

And if the bottle top is below your eye level, as in

this photograph, really get the curves right so it looks

three-dimensional!

Make a personal color chart

I have so many tubes of oil paint that I finally decided to make the chart you see here.

I got out all my tubes of paint (of course now I have even more!) and laid them out in color groups. I then arranged them in the color order I wanted.

Next I counted them and decided on the size canvas I needed to fit them all in.

This is an 18 x 24 inch canvas and the sections are 2 x 2.

Then I used a small oval shaped painting knife to apply the paint.

There is first the mass tone (the paint straight out of the tube) followed by a middle tone and then a very pale tone of the color. I used Titanium white.

If you have way too many colors to really know what they look like,

do this for reference.

There are about 6 difference brands here, but mostly Winsor and Newton.

I have a key in the lower right hand corner, so do allow for that.

Browns and greys are on a separate canvas.

Painting in one color

A while ago I decided to set myself a

painting challenge. Paint a set up that

had objects and background of all one

color.

This was the result of that endeavor.

I found that it was more important than

ever to have the tones or values correct.

And then I just couldn't resist little touches

of other colors in adding the marbles.

What do you think?

What to do if you can't leave a set-up up!

#1 is a front shot of the set-up.

#2 is a shot of the set-up with where the light is.

#3 is an overhead shot of the set-up.

If you can't leave a set-up in place, take these

photos. I do this for my students because they

have to take down their arrangements in between

lessons.

TIPS: Do NOT use a flash. You want to get the

lighting correct in terms of how the set-up

is actually lit.

Put pieces of tape on the floor for each item

(the light, easel and table). You may have to

move them around in between painting sessions.

This way you can mark the positions for easy

re-locating of their original positions. If you need

to, write on the tape which pieces of tape are

for what item!

Do shoot a photo from above so you can see the

distances that things are from each other. It is

difficult to tell when only having made a front

photo shot. When setting up the arrangement

again, lay that photo on the table and make your

things match what you see in the photo!

Remember that these are reference photos, and

are never the same as looking at the real things

with its actual lighting and color. So don't paint

from the photos you took of such a set-up. Paint

from life!

And last of all, know that as carefully as you do this,

the painting gremlins will conspire to have something

not quite as it was, no matter what you do!

Tubes of Paint

First I have to admit that these are not my paints,

even though I have this many and probably more!

I have amassed quite a large collection and finally

had to do something to help me see what I actually

had so I could use them more effectively. It's a little

like having clothes at the back of your closet that

you never see, and so you never wear them!

I did two things to help me. One is that I made a

big color chart, adding white to each color so I could

really see it's true color. And then I divided each of

6 main color groups up so I could FIND what I was

looking for! (The 3 primaries and the 3 secondary

colors = 6!)

I will speak more on this later. By the way, these

paints belong to one of my students who bought many

of them, if not all, from Ebay for a GREAT price!

Fan Brushes

Fan brushes have their special uses. You will see from

this photo that there are not only various sizes, but they

are made from different things. The top one is a bristle

brush and because it is stiff (hog bristles are definitely

sturdy and stiff), it will drag more paint. The bottom one

is badger hair and is soft and is great for blending. The one

in the middle is a tiny thing that is just right for small

works. It has synthetic hair and is very soft.

Fan brushes are a sort of novelty when you see them in

the bins at the art store. But what you don't want to see

in your paintings is the tell tale strokes that say 'look,

I used a fan brush!'.

I suggest experimenting with the various types. Get a

stiff bristle one and a soft-haired one. Try out some

things with it. You can get really good effects with just

dabbing the tips, or you can pull paint in a direction that

contributes to making that cloth look as though it is falling

over the table edge.

Brushes - Oil Painting

Some years ago I attended a master class in portrait painting given by an excellent artist who had painted many famous and wealthy people. She was nearly 80 years old at that time and had been a working artist since her early twenties.

A class member asked her about the oil painting brushes she would recommend to us. At this moment she became very agitated and told us her experience with 'new' brushes. 'I will buy new brushes and then begin to use one and it is just worthless. I get so mad I just break it over my knee and throw it on the floor of my studio.'

I can relate. I own many brushes and there have been some that I love at first use which do not hold up. And I know how to care for them. Many simply do not hold their shape, even with the careful dressing I do with my fingers after cleaning them with non-detergent soap. One artist whose blog I have read will actually clip the brush so that its shape is pressed with stiff paper overnight. That didn't used to be necessary.

What can one do? I have sent disappointing brushes recently purchased back to the manufacturer (a very old and well known company) and they replaced them and also told me that the brushes I returned were, in fact, defective. They also sent me some other goodies I could use in my studio. But they did respond and so if you can take the time, don't break your new brush over your knee, return it. I think it is important to speak up and get the excellence we need to ply our craft!

See the colors of life!

Most color in the world is really pretty neutral. Lots of

greys and browns. If we took a percentage of how much

color we see that is really pure and bright, it would probably

be quite small.

Every artist is attracted to color. And certainly most people

are. Perhaps that is because it is such a small percentage of

all that is out there. Consider roads, winter landscapes, most

house exteriors, and the sky on an overcast day. These are

just a few examples of vast stretches of space that are not

brightly colored.

So look for the pops of color, but know that when you make a

piece of artwork, the neutral colors are what set off the purity

of a strong spot of red, yellow, blue, etc. If it weren't for the

neutrals, would we notice and appreciate pure color so much?

Palettes for oil painters

There are basically two choices of location for a palette: one you hold as in this photograph of one of my students at work, or on a taboret or table top. While it is certainly a matter of personal preference, there are reasons for having one that you hold. When an artist is new at his craft, he will tend not to stand back and take a look at what he has got going on the easel. And so when you have a palette in your hand, you are not so tied to the table next to your easel and can move back and forth, painting a bit, then stepping back and taking a look. Long handles on oil painting brushes are also helpful in getting a bit of distance on what you are doing IF you hold it the right way and don't 'choke' the brush up too close to the bristles.

I like using a table next to where I work and as I get older it is more comfortable than using a palette resting on my arm with fingers gripping the hole. But try out both and see what you like.