It Takes A Village To Make A Painting

Today I am talking about the new painting that I mentioned in my last post.  It felt like this painting took forever, but when I started gathering my images, I realized that I started it on March 4th.  That was only two months ago, but it felt much longer.  This painting was very difficult, and without the help of some good friends, I would not have been able to finish it.

This was the original set up.  I've never painted a square vase like this, and it was a bit of a challenge.

As always, I started out by getting the set up blocked in.  This required a lot of quality time with my new BFF, the T-square.

It took hours to get the correct dimensions of the vase on to the canvas.  Every time I thought I had it, I would find something that was off.  Very frustrating to say the least.

Finally, it was time to get started on the background and the rest of the painting.  Things were not quite perfect, but I felt I just had to move on and start on the painting as a whole.

This isn't bad, but if you look closely, the vase seems a bit off.  I went nuts measuring and trying to figure out what was wrong, but I had no luck.  I just kept moving along.

I put in the blue pattern and put the shadows onto the white cloth.  I was still not happy, but could not figure out the cause of the problem.

When the background was completely dry, I put in the flowers and finished up the white cloth.  After sitting on it for a few days, I woke up at five am and decided to just wipe the whole thing down and forget it.  Luckily, my hubs was not having it.  When we walked into my studio building that day, he announced to my studio mates that I was going to wipe down the painting.  They vehemently objected and practically ran into my studio and threw themselves in front of it!  I'm so glad that they did, because it all worked out in the end and now I love the painting.

We all stood in my studio looking at the painting and they gave me some good advice on how to fix up a few areas.  Most important, the right side of the vase needed to be lighter, and the shadows on the bottom were way too dark. Shadows should not be in a jagged line, and the too dark bottom of the vase was taking away from the shadow on the left hand side.

I put those suggestions into action right away and they definitely helped, but things were still not quite right so I decided it was time to call in the big guns.  I packed the painting up and brought it over to Gregg's studio*.  Schlepping on the subway with a large, wet painting was not an easy task, but I'm so glad I did it because Gregg took one look at the painting and immediately saw the problem.

The reason my perspective was off no matter how much I measured and checked my lines is because I had no top plane on the vase!!  I had absolutely no idea that I was missing it because the vase is large and I am short so from my vantage point I could not see the top of it.  Gregg suggested drawing a line across the top of the vase.  I did and like magic, the perspective was correct.

The other problem that Gregg pointed out was my white cloth.  If you look at the photo above, you can see that I laid in the color using the shadow, mid tone, light formula.  However, this was not how the cloth was reading.  The shadows in the folds were the darkest part of the cloth.  Once I got that in, the rest of it flowed pretty easily.

I brought the painting back home and after looking at it for awhile, decided it needed something on the lower half to tie into the flowers on top.  I had bought the original bouquet in a florist shop near my studio and did not think I would be able to get another, but I got very lucky when I stopped into Trader Joe's to do some food shopping.  I always check out the bouquets for sale and buried deep in the back was one bouquet of the flowers I needed.  I grabbed it up and got to work integrating the colors of the flowers on the top half of the canvas to the rest of the painting.

This is where I left off yesterday, but after looking at it today, I decided it needed a little bit more debris, as David Leffel calls it.

I added a few more flower buds to the shelf and the white cloth as well as adding some of the floral color to the shelf.    I'm sure no one would have noticed either way, but being obsessive about these little details are what makes a painting truly finished.

This is the finished painting.  I'm so happy that I did not wipe it down so THANK YOU to everyone who made sure that did not happen!

*PS - if you don't mind a plug for a friend, Gregg Kreutz's new book, Oil Painting Essentials, is coming out on May 24th.  I learned everything I know from him, so if you are interested in my style of painting, hop over to Amazon and take a look!
 

New Paintings Added To The Site

Hey Everyone.  I'm back.  After a less than pleasant few weeks I am back in my studio.  I finished one painting today and another is well on the way.  I will have a post up tomorrow about the finished painting, but for now, here are some paintings that I have added to my drop down menus.

Orange And Yellow Roses, 9x12, oil

Valentine's Day Roses, 16x20, oil

Peonies In A Blue And White Pot, 12x16, oil

Brass Pot With Peaches, 16x20, oil

Orchids, 18x24, oil

See you next time with the new painting.  Happy to be back!

Back Soon!

Hi Everyone.  I've been a bit under the weather, but I'll be back next week with some new posts.

See you then!
Frances

Starting A Painting

I started a new painting the other day, and it is the first one in quite awhile that was not done for a show.  It was nice to just be able to play around with my props until I found something I liked.  I had an idea of what I wanted to paint.  I wanted to do a still life using a silver dish filled with fruit.  As you will see, that is not what I ended up with at all.

The first thing I did was stop by the store to grab a bag of fruit.  I always buy way more than I think I'll need.  You never really know what you will need until you are actually setting up, so you should always have extra.  Whatever you have left you can eat!

For this set up, I got a bag of red grapes, oranges, plums and pears.  Next, I went about setting up the still life.  I tried many configurations, but the silver plate was just not working.  After pulling a bunch of my props and trying many different set ups, I realized the silver plate would have to wait for another day.

Once I gave up on my original idea, I quickly got a set up that I liked.

Now it was time to start the painting.  Years ago when I started painting, I did not have a clue what I was doing.  I had no idea how to start a painting or how to proceed once I did.  It really held me back.  Then one day I got very lucky.  After being on the wait list for quite awhile, I finally got into Gregg Kreutz's class at the Art Students League.  The very first thing he taught me was how to begin a painting.  Gregg's formula is this:  placement, background, shadow, light.  Having a formula to follow was life changing for me.  I no longer sat looking at my blank canvas wondering what to do.

As you can see, I painted in the outline of the objects in the still life.  I could not decide if I wanted to go vertical or horizontal so I tried both.  Horizontal won out in the end.  This is not a step that should be rushed.  It is a lot easier to correct mistakes at the beginning than later on in the painting.

Once I was satisfied with my composition, I painted in the background.  After the background, I painted in the shadows.  It's so helpful to know from the beginning where your darks are going to be.
Next comes the light.  My goal is always to get the canvas covered on the first run through.  This way when you come back to the painting you can just get started working on the whole thing.

I have worked on the painting twice since the initial block in, just letting the paint build up.  I took a day off today as I wanted it to dry up a little bit, but I'll be back at it next week.

I've done a lot of still life set ups in my day, so here are a few tricks that I use.  To fill up a bowl of fruit, you don't need to use fruit for the whole thing.  I stuff a dish towel into the pot and let the fruit rest on top of that.  Grapes are notorious for falling all over the studio, so if I can't get them to stay in place, I use a push pin in between the stems and that helps keep them where they are suppose to be.  There will be wine in the glass decanter, but instead of opening a bottle of wine and wasting it, I use grape juice as a substitute.  It looks exactly the same.

I hope you enjoyed this little peek into my process of setting up a still life.  Soon I hope to show you the finished painting.  Spring has finally arrived here in New York.  Hope the weather is great wherever you are!

Paint It Black

I have a new painting to show you today and it's a bit different from my normal routine.  I have a completely black background without any shadow.  I've never done anything like that before, but I have to say, it was a lot of fun to change things up and do something different.

This was the set up.  As usual, I started by blocking in the objects and then got to work on the background.

For the background I used straight Ivory Black with a little bit of Burnt Umber mixed in.  As you can see, there are no shadows in the background, which is very different way of working for me.  After the background was finished, I continued on with the painting by getting the color and shadows on the rest of the canvas.

This was day two.  I was still concentrating on building up the colors on the canvas.  I also considerably lightened up the inside of the pewter bowl.  Without the light against dark, it looked flat as opposed to round and the light added some much needed depth.

I think this was my fourth session with the painting.  This is always a happy time - when the painting starts to look like it will actually be successful.  To be honest, up until this point I was very uncertain about this one.  Two things made the difference:  Darkening up the shadows on the white cloth and the vase and using straight black for the black pattern on the vase.  In real life, it is kind of a blue/black mix, but the blue was just not working with the black background.  Once I changed to straight black, the vase really popped.

On the very last day, I put in the patterns on the vase and the white cloth.

This is the finished painting.  I apologize for the very poor quality of this photo.  Unfortunately, no matter how many times I photographed it, I had terrible results.  We've had terrible weather here in New York the last few weeks and I just did not have the light for a decent photo.  In frustration, I just turned on the lights in my studio and took the photo.  Soon I will be able to varnish the painting and I hope I will be able to do some outdoor shooting soon.  When I do, I will repost the photo.

Though there was some frustration, it is good to step out of your comfort zone occasionally.  I will experiment a bit more with different backgrounds and fabrics in the future.  

Two New Shows

Hi Everyone.  I thought I would have two new paintings to show you today, but my plan didn't quite work out.  I finished up a new still life on Monday, but I have found it impossible to get a decent photo of the completed painting.  I used a black background for the first time and it is just not photographing well.  If I can't get a good one today, I'll show you the painting with a less than perfect photo :).  I've also been working very hard on a second still life, but I have made the difficult decision that this one is just not going to work and needs to be wiped out.  I've been working on it for a few weeks so it is hard to do that, but after having a dream about the whole situation the other night I know that is what has to be done.

However, there is some good news to report.  My pink roses were chosen for the "A Rose By Any Other Name" show at the Huntington Arts Council.  I drove myself (and everyone else) nuts with this painting, so I was thrilled when it was entered into the show.  And... I got a lovely surprise when the publicity card was emailed to me.  My roses were chosen as one of the paintings for the card!  This is the first time one of my works has been used for publicity and I couldn't be more thrilled.

Valentine's Day Roses, 16x20, oil

The reception is tonight from 6-8pm.  If you are in the Huntington (LI) area, please come by and check out all the roses!

The other big news is that two of my paintings were chosen for the Richeson75 Still Life and Floral online show.  It just went live a few hours ago, and my painting,  Blue And White Vase With Fruit, was chosen as a finalist! My Sunflowers were also selected to be in the exhibit.   You can click on the link to see the entire show, but I'll post my two paintings here.

Sunflowers And Apples, 14x18, oil

Blue And White Vase With Fruit, 12x16, oil

After a less than optimal few weeks, I'm so happy and excited to be in these shows.  I'll be back with my new still life soon.  Have a great weekend!

Visiting Cuba

President Obama's historic trip to Cuba yesterday had me and my travel buddies thinking about our trip there last year and how much we enjoyed visiting the island.  We all hope to go back someday.  I hope things open up enough between the US and Cuba that we can just go there on vacation whenever we want to.  Cuba is a beautiful country.  Though much of it is crumbling, you can still see the beauty of the buildings and the landscape.  I've written a few posts about my painting trip, but I thought you might like to see some of the photos that I have not previously posted.

We spent our first few days in the older part of Havana.  The buildings were beautiful and the old square was a lovely place to paint.

The architecture reminds me of the French Quarter in New Orleans, but there is a strong European influence as well.

I love book stalls on the street.  We found them when we were searching for the art supply store.

After the first two days in Havana, I spent the rest of my time on the Paseo de Marti, a grand boulevard in the city.  Painting there was so much fun.  People stopped to talk to us all day long, and so many of them were artists.  I got the impression that the art scene was a bit on the DL, but they were still working and doing the best that they could with the limited supplies available.  Everyone that I spoke with was so happy that we were there and seemed particularly happy to have artists coming to visit.  We asked some people what they thought about relations opening up between the US and Cuba and everyone responded positively.  I don't think politics had much to do with it, it was more that they were hoping for money and visitors to be coming into the country.  As a person who lives in New York City and can have just about anything I want, any time I want it, I was shocked at the inability to buy even basic goods in Cuba.  I could see a clear difference in the residents who had relatives in Florida to bring them necessities and the people who did not.  I have no idea how they are surviving, but they do.

There were chess players out every day.  They made chess boards by drawing the squares on pieces of material.

This was my favorite building on the street.  I spent two days painting it.  Even though it is a bit dilapidated, you can still see the beauty in it.

This is getting to be a bit long.  I did not realize how many photos I had.  I will save the rest for another post, but I hope you enjoyed this glimpse into Cuba.  I'm having a great time going through my photos and remembering the trip.  If you would like to read my earlier posts, the links are here, here and here.

As always, thanks for reading!