Hands and Feet

Last week I began a pastels class featuring the nude form. I'd only done pastel portrait work in the past, never the figure. I chose it because I prefer to work from life and it's a good option as the weather gets colder.

The class is at the new Workhouse Art Center and the instructor is a Floridian relatively new to this area. She was an instructor at Ringling and is the perfect clown herself.

Her means of painting is different than I'd previously encountered and it is unique to her teaching. Doing landscapes en plein air, I use sanded paper and soft pastels of varying degrees of hardness, using one on top of the other to blend them. Ginger White Hertgenroeder (see another example) recommends hard pastels, like NuPastel, or medium ones, like Rembrandt, to dither out a form onto flat drawing paper, layering these more resistant pastels and blending them with each other. She uses the side, particularly the corner of square ones, to gradually etch out the figure. This method makes finding the proper angle a desirable process which causes the entire figure seem to shimmer with movement.

Here's my example from class, a study from a larger portrait of the model's bent leg.



The next day, as I was stuck waiting for routine car maintenance, I painted my foot and hand several times.

This example is like the first, which only used shades of brown, beginning light to dark. Unlike the first which used pastels from my very, very hard set of square Van Goghs, these below are with Rembrandts.



The next two go beyond the brown palette and inch toward Ginger's palette for the fair skinned. Begin with your lightest of three browns and work to your darkest. Work in pink and progress to blue, which blends together to create purple in places. Work in green sparingly and get shadows and definition with browns. Keep the pinks and greens apart, as they'll make mud. Scrub in a layer of white over all of it to further blend the other colors and begin again to further define as needed.






This example uses three values of blue along with white.

It's a fun method and I especially like chiseling out the form instead of drawing, erasing, and refining.

In summation, however, I want to make two points. First, I must admit that it is hilarious to me to paint the hand or foot of a nude person. Second, I did not find a need to be nude when I painted my own hand and foot.

You'd better be laughing.

Stroke Limit Exercise

Okay, first get a feel for the day.

Then watch your instructor paint and be in awe of the atmospheric results.

Start her recommended exercise: simplify and record the colors and values of the scene in 20 strokes. Work small. This is a 4x6 white Pastelboard.

Think about doing the same exercise in the 50 stroke option, but choose instead to tackle that sky on your own. This is 8x10 Pastelboard, probably gray.

Art on the Go

In addition to my FAQ in Back, I will periodically share methods to my madness. Today, it's a few painting supplies for outdoors. My version is specific to a few items. Check out Jennifer Young for the whole scoop.

To the left is my pastel set up, which I discuss below. It's placed here because it is so pretty.

The first order of business today is oils. I covet would like a fancy outdoor pochade, essentially a wooden cigar box on a tripod. There are a couple that I'd be interested in purchasing and I'll compare them for you.

The 10x12 Bitterroot Lite by Alla Prima is $239 and 4lbs. The 10x12 Butterroot is $289 and 6lb4oz, with an integrated carrier and optional extender. The 11x14 Yellowstone is 7lb and $310. I have not seen these babies in action, but the website has great videos. They don't look made, they look engineered.

I have seen the Easyl brand in action, though, particularly in classes and workshops with Sara Linda Poly; both she and some of her students use them. I believe she uses their Lite, which is 10x12, 3lb6oz, and $229, to include the tripod, or their 11x14 , 4lb9oz Pro at $249. It carries two paintings in the lid and she uses Raymar for most of her wet carrying needs. Easyl has sizes from 8x10 all the way up to 12x16 and, like those from Alla Prima, they can hold much larger pieces while painting.

Along with her finished product, here are a couple videos of Sara with her Easyl in use.



In the mean time, before I take the dive because there's always a new and better system on the horizon, I have used a French easel for several years; it was a very thoughtful gift. However, it is now verging on defunct, wood cracking, losing too many screws and thumbscrews. If you saw Paul Reuther's well-loved easel, for which he brings wood glue and clamps to the field each time to nurse it, you'd consider me prissy in my evaluation of my easel.

This is my easel in full regalia. Because I am a MacGuyver type, I jimmied with cable ties and did everything I could to keep that umbrella in place. A gust tumbled it all over, so it is now spattered with oil and grass stains. Umbrellas are trying to attach and to keep positioned. It's best to have the canvas and the paints in the shade, but it's tough to get those, plus the artist, evenly shaded for long.

Hmm, maybe that tumble is when my easel cracked?

The picture to the right is Tanner's Ridge and my limping easel. Because of the crack and a loose screw, it collapsing the next day made me have to do some touch ups on a painting victim. I want to move on to avoid that risk again.

As you can see, I was bunjied down this day; it was the worst gusts I had encountered. See how I like to use the rear of the car as an umbrella? A car is merely an expensive umbrella and painting carrier. Setting up like this is a good way to start the day, although it never stays that way long. Funny thing, that sun moving.

I use a Masterson tray for my palette. Add to that disposable palette paper. Tres gauche. But the space! The Masterson tray is 12x16 and I use nearly every inch, plus it doubles as a brush rest. How on earth could I go down to the 10x12 surface of a pochade? Thoughts?

Since the Disaster at Tanner's Ridge (News at 11), I pulled out a Mabef easel I'd purchased and rejected. Well, when you finally put the thing together correctly, you'll like it. Just sayin'. I got mine from Dakota and they call it a Tripod Field Easel. Not only is it lovely wood and hardware, it is light. I've seen it accompanying a folding chair together inside the same bag, very portable, but I do want to rig a shoulder strap to it somehow.

In the past for pastels plein air and for classes, I used an ArtComber from Jerry's to haul supplies and to sit on once there. It's essentially a canvas granny shopping cart. Painting from my car, I haven't needed it lately, but I may pull it out for my class beginning next week, because I'll bring several sets of pastels in addition to my plein air monster set, which began as that lovely color-coordinated French Companion pictured. My Companion is now a good bit fuller, a lot more disheveled, and very much loved. In this and the first photo, notice the Koh-I-Noor Giaconda Pastel Pencil Set of 48 on the right. It stores perfectly in the French Companion's lid.

If you get an ArtComber, take good care of the wheels. It's not built for the Baha. I was quite gentle for some time, until I yanked it out the front door and down the step on the way to Poly's workshop this summer. Coincidentally, another artist there had one, asked me how I liked it (Great!), then mentioned that her wheels are wonky, won't stay on. Lo and behold, I'd broken the interior wheel supports that morning and mine is now wonky, too, but still usable with adjustments. [ETA: my version and this artist's were from a few years ago. I recently saw a new acquisition and it looked to have different wheels that wouldn't do this.]

When I go out in a simple fashion, I'll grab my French Companion, my tripod stool with a shoulder strap, and a KOOOL Binder to go light. Enlarge the easel and ArtComber picture, above, to see a KOOOL Binder. I sit with the French Companion on my lap and hold the binder. I do not use easels for pastels when I am using a binder, because they provide a hard backing and are easy to manipulate. I think they add speed.

This Saturday from 11 to 5 or so (depending on how my son holds up), I'll be painting with NOVAL in Historic Leesburg with Fall Into the Arts. We'll be set up across from Gallery 222 on the Town Green. Here's hoping for no rain and some angle on a big sky.

Barrett House Meadow

The hurricane sky called and I had to paint. A jumble of clouds provide the background story with a penetrating shaft of light as the star.

The historic Barrett House is on the DC Federal Prison grounds near the Workhouse Arts Center and these mounds are between it and the one lane bridge on Furnace Road.

As so often happens, this painting looks incredible from a short distance. The depth is distinctive and exciting. Tis a keeper.

Barrett House Meadow
8x11
Pastel on Wallis
SOLD


Third Place Winner in Landscapes at Infinity Art Gallery, January, 2010.

Sounds of Wolf Trap

Lorrie Herman is a sweetheart and she has an uncanny ability to carve extra hours out of the day. Because of her, I joined Northern Virginia Artists League, a group with a plein air emphasis for which she serves as President. My first jaunt out with them was to the International Children's Festival at Wolf Trap, per their invitation by the Arts Council of Fairfax County. Although I tried a different location first, I settled into the coolness behind the main meadow next to the gurgling stream.

This painting was almost finished on site, then I worked on further definition in my studio.


Pastel on Wallis, 5x7
SOLD

Aden Stand

It was getting late on Sunday and I needed to paint before getting my son back. I headed over to near where he was, so I could swing by and get him after painting.

That led me to Aden, a small area, not a town even, which I'd driven through once before. It was this day that I realized I was a sucker for a stand of trees in front of a treeline. The inclination is so natural that I never put thought into it.

This painting was particularly fun, because I use a knife on the stand to differentiate it from the line.


Aden Stand
Oil on Gessoboard
9x12
SOLD

Riverbend Shadows

My fixation with rocks and water continued with this foray to Riverbend Park. With my son next door in a Great Falls camp, I could spend the day painting.

Even though it is of rocks, I find it delicate and sweet. It shows some Poly influence for sure.

I find oils difficult to photograph; I was spoiled by pastels. I'll give this another go on another painting photography day, as it is much prettier, flatter, and more unified than it photographed.


Oil on canvas, 12x6
(Private Collection)

Sounds of Shenandoah

Camping and painting go hand in hand. Camping along the Shenandoah is inspiring.

This was the view from my campsite. And the sounds lulled me to blissful sleep at night.


Oil on cotton canvas, 8x10

Oine Road

I wasn't supposed to be here this day, but I made the best of it.

Facing and painting a sunset while using a canvas, which conveys the light and is very distracting, made me a firm believer in the use of canvas panels and Gessoboard.

Oine Road, a country locale, was actually a hopping strip. I routinely held on to my hat and easel as large chicken trucks thundered by. The drivers were so considerate, slowing down and even using the opposite lane.

One thing I like about this painting is how it transforms at a distance. Step away and the values take over to provide contours and depth. In fact, for a while this painting was called, "Best at at Distance."


(photo being corrected)
Oil on cotton canvas, 11x14

Natural Bridge Morning

As we returned from my son's week of camp, I wanted to take the long way home. We stayed at Natural Bridge, a lovely and gracious facility. We also went to the nearby Natural Bridge Zoo, the best petting zoo we'd ever been to. There are some silly things to see, too, as well as caverns. We did most of them.

The first night there we went to the evening program, a light and music show about Creation, which is included in the regular ticket. I got to scope the lay of the land and returned the next morning to paint the scene. Although I'd been doing oils exclusively for a few weeks, I decided to do a pastel: less gear to haul and less time to complete. My 10yo son brought his harmonica along, so we charmed the crowds for a couple hours.


11x14
Pastel on Wallis