2019 Painting Classes

 We covered a lot of territory this winter in the Painting Class:
we explored different under painting ideas, negative painting, and also things more concrete - like how to paint glass, metal and flowers.
The top 2 photos, painted from the same reference show one on a black under painting, the other on Magenta.  Changing up an under painting is an easy way to give a piece just a little bit different vibe.


The Pear and the Cardinal were both exercises in Negative painting. Notice the LARGE dark and light shapes in both pieces. This is where negative painting, or painting around shapes, creates detail by breaking up the shapes in a way that is often more sophisticated than layering paint on top of paint in a positive or additive way.
This is a technique used a lot by the best watercolor painters.


The bottom photo shows our study of glass
and things massed together using both positive and negative painting.
Flowers are great practice for painting things that are grouped,
and that have a lot of detail.
My goal is to create a sense of massing and detail with out actually painting that detail but by allowing it to appear in the eye of the viewer by using negative painting to break up the large and small shapes.
Click on any of the photos to view them larger.

Birds with Words

Over the last months, my classes have studied, painted, examined and - gotten inspired by animals and birds in the landscape.
This went beyond a general look at reference material, we have spent several months looking at anatomy, how feathers grow, how the feet/talons work.
That's the great thing about pursuing something specific to study - you also get
 inspired by it.
Birds got me excited: songbirds, raptors, birds I have never even looked at before.
In a previous post I included photos of Magpies we did in class;  - back at my studio I tried to add more character to my sketches.  Magpies are full of personality and I wanted to push that idea a little bit.
Each bird I sketched seemed to have something to say and the conversation became even more fun when I put several birds together.
. . . . . and it all started with taking a look at something new - in this case birds.
Of course, many of the students did more realistic birds- and I did a few of those too. Either way,  we are all looking at birds with new eyes.