Sherrie McGraw Demo At The Salmagundi Club

Last week I was lucky enough to see Sherrie McGraw do a portrait demo at the Salmagundi Club here in New York City.  I've seen Sherrie demo many times out in Taos, but it was great to have an event close to home.

It was a packed house and I was about half way back so the pics I was able to get are not great, but I know I have many Sherrie and David fans here, so I decided to post them as I thought you guys would like to see the demo.

The Art Renewal Center exhibition was also hanging, so it was great to see that.  I had seen many of the paintings online, but it is so different seeing them in person.

Tim Newton, Chairman of the Salmagundi Club, introduced Sherrie to the audience.

Sherrie told us a bit about what she was going to do, and then got to work.

The block in.

There were screens set up so everyone could see exactly what was happening.

On the model breaks we were able to check out the exhibit.  There were so many beautiful pieces hanging.

The model, Henry, during a break.  Such a great costume!

Here is the finished demo.  Sherrie is amazing.  This was done in less than two hours while answering questions.  It would have taken me that long just to do the block in.

I'm so glad I got to see this, especially as I am headed out to Taos to take a workshop with David, Sherrie and Jackie Kamin very soon.

Next up at the Club is the American Masters Show.  David and Sherrie, as well as many other great artists, have work in the show.  Check it out if you are in the area, but if not, I will have a post here soon.

International Museum Day

Since today's hashtag is #InternationalMuseumDay, I thought I'd show you some of my favorite paintings from my local museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.  I'm incredibly lucky to be a subway ride away from The Met.  I can easily pop in any time and get a dose of great art, something I really needed when I hit a creative wall last year.

You could spend a month in the building and not see everything, so I picked out a few of the pieces that I'm sure to see every time I visit.

This is my all time favorite painting in The Met, Woman With A Pink, by Rembrandt.

Being a floral painter, I always stop to see the Fantin-Latour's.  Above is Summer Flowers, the painting below is Roses In A Bowl.

The Dance Class

Love all of Degas Dancer paintings and sculptures.

The Dancing Class

Of course, I always visit the VanGogh's.  This is one of my favorites of the Sunflowers.  One of these days I'm going to try doing a copy of it.

Roses, Vincent Van Gogh

I can't pass by the most famous woman in The Met, Sargent's Madame X.

The Pink Dress, Berthe Morisot

I always visit the Monet's.  Years ago while visiting France, I trekked to Rouen just to see the Cathedral.  It was pretty amazing to see the building that I knew so well from the paintings.

Garden At Sainte Adresse

Morning On The Seine Near Giverny

I hope you enjoyed seeing a few of my favorite paintings from The Met.  By the way, these and thousands more of their works are now in the public domain, so if anything catches your eye, you can download the images for yourself.  Have a good weekend and enjoy the Royal Wedding!

Happy New Year And Scottsdale Painting Updates

Happy New Year!  I hope everyone is enjoying the start to 2017.  Unfortunately, I started out the new year with a major technical difficulty.  Some of you may have tried to access this blog and were redirected somewhere else.  It took a bit of doing, but I finally got things back to normal.  Thanks for your patience.

Last week, I did a bit of updating to the paintings that I shipped home from Scottsdale.  Since I had very limited time with the poses, I didn't bother too much with the backgrounds, figuring that I could take care of them later.

This was the painting of Kyla when I took it out of the box.  While in class, I just threw some alizarin on the background to get it in, but I spent the rest of the time on the model.  I knew I would need to add more color once the painting arrived home.  I also had to fix the spots on the four corners of the canvas.  In order to mail the painting home, I rolled up balls of blue tape and put one in each of the four corners, then I place another canvas of the same size on top.  The tape keeps the canvases separated for the trip home.  

The background on this painting needed a few coats as alizarin is a very transparent color, but after applying the first and then letting it sit a few days, I was able to apply enough color to get the background into shape. 

The photo above is the first coat on the background and below is the finished piece.

Next up, my painting of Dani.  This painting consisted of two three hour poses, so again, I mostly ignored the background.  

Since this painting had my familiar green background, the color mix was french ultramarine, transparent red oxide, and cadmium yellow light.  No transparent colors were used, so I just needed one coat to finish up the painting. 

Having a finished background really makes a difference.  It can be hard to finish up a painting after a workshop, but luckily in this case it worked out.  

I'm currently in the middle of two still life paintings.  I hope to have at least one of them to show you soon.  

Gregg Kreutz Workshop At The Scottsdale Artists' School

Hey Everyone.  I'm back from a great still life/figure workshop at the Scottsdale Artists' School.  My teacher, Gregg Kreutz, was the instructor for the workshop and we all had a great time.

The week long class was a mix of still life and figure.  Since I do still life all the time, I decided to concentrate on painting the models.

We started the first day with Gregg doing a demo of our beautiful model, Dani.

This is the finished demo.  Just beautiful and done in two and a half hours while answering questions from the students.  (Sorry for the glare in the photo.  We had overhead light, which is not great for photos).

Then it was time for us to begin painting.  It's been quite some time since I have painted a figure so I was a little rusty, but got back into it in no time.

This was my view of the lovely Dani.  Side views are so hard for me to do.  It's much easier to paint a model who is facing you, but in a workshop that will probably not be the case.

This is my block in.  That was the easy part.  The hard part is getting the flesh color right and of course, the features on the face have to be correct.  With a model or figure, the viewer can tell immediately if something is out of place, so it's really important to take the time to get it right.

This was the end of the first three hour session.

And this was the end of the second three hour painting session.  My regular readers know that what I really needed was a full week (or more) on this pose.  I'm a very slow painter, and I'm happy with what I got done, but I would have loved to bring home a finished portrait.

Luckily for me, the next pose was for two full days.  Here we had the lovely Kyla posing for us.

For this pose, I was looking at a three quarter view, so as Gregg explained, the face is no longer an oval.

Here is the block in.  This painting was actually a bit easier since I was using a larger canvas.

This is where I left off at the end of day one.  The canvas was covered and the most important part, her face, was in good shape.

Here is the finished painting.  Of course, I wouldn't have minded an extra day or two on this, but I'm happy with it.

We had three models while we were there, and they were all beautiful, professional and could hold a pose.  It was really a pleasure to paint these women.

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And... here is my painting of Kyla the last time I saw it!  There was a bit of a delay in the UPS pick up, so I'm hoping it arrives soon and all in one piece.  As I said on Instagram, say a prayer to the art gods for me that the painting arrives intact.

Scottsdale Artists' School was a great place for a workshop.  I'll have pics of the school and Scottsdale in my next post.

New Paintings

Hello All,

I'm dropping in to let everybody know that some new paintings have been added to the drop down menus.  The stars aligned and I was able to varnish and photograph over the last few days.

Hope you like them!

Ariel, 16x20, oil

Pink Hydrangeas, 11x14, oil

Dahlias In A Ginger Jar, 16x12, oil

Copper Pot With Oranges, 12x16, oil

Lupines In A Blue and White Vase, 16x20, oil

Let me know what you guys think.  I'd love to hear your thoughts on the new paintings.  As always, thanks for reading!!