Optical Mixing Project - Shoe and Cardboard Box

This most recent project at the Academy was an exercise to demonstrate how to "mix" colors by painting dots of the underlying colors next to one another in the painting, allowing the viewer's eyes to mix them to create another color, rather than mixing the colors on the palette before applying them to the painting.  I learned a lot from this project.  The end result is a more colorful painting than if done by mixing on the palette first.  I doubt that I will ever do another "pointelist" application of the process, such as in the project, again.  However, I'm sure I will find a way to optically mix colors on the canvas to create a more vibrant result.

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The process starts with a monochromatic underpainting in which the relative values are correctThe first painting above is painted only in sap green mixed with white.

Initial application of dots of color.  Red and orange dots mixed with the green in the background, applied in the same value as the background green color, creates a muted brown.  The blue and orange and red dots in the shoe, in different proportions than in the background, create the grayed-down blue of the shoe.

Finished Painting

If the colors don't completely mix on your screen, squint!  You'll see it.

Detail of the Box

Recent Value Paintings at the Academy

Plush Bear Toy

Donald Duck Toy
The above are the most recent painting projects I've done in black and white value for the academy.

Jeff is letting me move on to actual color! My next project is to paint the exact same image (in this case, a ceramic cup and rubber ball) three times in three different color combinations but with exactly the same value so that when they are photographed in black and white they will look the same. I have a feeling that, as with all of my other assignments, this is going to be much harder than it sounds. Additionally, I am not allowed to photograph the paintings in black and white to check my progress along the way, but instead must wait until I'm ready for Jeff to check it himself. This is the kind of torture I'm subjecting myself to at this academy.
Jeff has been kind enough to let me move on to color without actually certifying that I'm ready to leave black and white because he knows that I must leave the academy at the end of April to allow me to accompany my husband on an extended trip. By leaving on my schedule and not Jeff's, I am acknowledging that I will most likely not have achieved the degree of perfection or professionalim, technically, that Jeff requires of his graduates, but I know that my skills will be dramatically increased from where they were before.

Recent Painting

Along the Avalanche Trail, Glacier NP

Despite the fact that I'm only painting in black and white at the academy, I nevertheless did this small painting (9" X 12"), started on site at Glacier National Park in Aug. and finished up using photos at home. Next spring my husband and I are taking off on a 5-month odyssey in our motorhome with a plan to visit several national parks around the country. I plan to leave the academy by then, finished or not with the full curriculum, and to use my new skills doing small plein air landscapes at each park. Still lifes, which I consider my primary interest, will be impossible to pursue while we're travelling. So, I'm dipping into landscapes. I do enjoy them very much, but there are so many great landscape artists, particularly in Utah, that I've always felt it was just too competitive a field for me. Regardless, I will do them and see how good I can get at them in those five months. I'm looking forward to it!

Value Exercise

This is the first value exercise Jeff allowed me to do in paint. Moving along.

Recent Value Drawings at the Academy

Tennis Shoes - Value Drawing, Feb. 2010

"Art News" - Value Drawing, Nov. 2009

Above are two recent value drawings done at the Jeff Hein Academy. These were done with vine charcoal on Arches 90-lb. cold press watercolor paper.

I feel I'm learning a lot in my days at the academy. I spend five days a week there, 5-6 hours per day, and each piece takes many weeks to complete, mainly due to Jeff being very demanding. His standards: perfection. That's not tongue-in-cheek. It can be frustrating, but also what I (and most of us) need. The biggest weakness for most of us, working on our own, is not to demand enough of ourselves and to settle for less than we're actually capable of. Maybe that's the whole purpose of formal training, to have someone telling us - and demanding of us - that we can do better than we think we can. I'm regretting that I didn't do something like this academy earlier in my life.

I am giving myself about one more year at the academy. With the shortness of my time in mind, Jeff has given me permission to complete my value studies portion of the training in paint. I must complete five value studies to his standard with virtually no help from him. After that, I can move into color. I am getting very eager to move on to color. Still working on my first value piece in paint. Unfortunately, I picked a tough subject which is taking me a long time, but, as always I'm learning a lot. I hope to complete it in the next three weeks.

Here's a recommended book for painters who may read this blog: Harold Speed's "Oil Painting Techniques and Materials". As Speed says in his book - to paraphrase - all that can be taught is craft, not art. But that's big.... Most artists nowadays have not mastered craft, but we wade quickly into concept, some with greater success than others. However, craft alone can carry all of us a long ways. What's more, I think that, for many of us, it's really the craft that we've fallen in love with, as artists. Maybe that's why I'm having such a good time being an art student.

Value Drawing, Cone, Ball and Hexagon

Here is a recently completed value study done at the Hein Academy, where I've been attending since Oct. 2008. I'm getting virtually no painting done these days, spending 4-6 hours per day, five days a week at the academy.

Mount Timpanogos Painting Update

Mount Timpangogosm as seen from Heber

8" X 18", oil on board

For the past 11 months, I have been enrolled in an art Academy in Salt Lake City, the Jeff Hein Academy. During this whole period I have only done drawing and, more recently, value, at the academy. There has been little time to paint. Still, I have had the opportunity to sit in on one of Jeff's painting workshops, and also listened to critiques and conversations he had with other artists, who are farther ahead in the curriculum than I, about painting. Just from these conversations and observations (as well as my own value studies in black and white) I have already learned a lot that seems to have helped me with my painting. This weekend I went back into the painting above to apply some of what I feel I've learned, albeit somewhat as an aside to my daily studies at the academy. I think it is much improved.

Below is the original version of the painting right after coming home from a plein air painting session with a friend. It is not refined and the photograph isn't a good one. Still, I think one can see the increased sensitivity to color and value that I've already developed. It is exciting to see that the hours I've already put in at the academy (approximately 20-24 hours per week) are having an impact.

Hand Drawings

It's been a long time since I've posted new work. I've been spending 4-6 hours per day at the art academy (Jeff Hein Academy) where I've been enrolled since Oct. 2008. During that time, I've been drawing, mainly from plaster casts. I will post some of those drawings soon, as an illustration of the kind of work I'm doing there. These drawings, however, are of hands (my own), small exercises I've been doing at home to prepare for a new painting which will involve not only normal still life but also some images of hands.

Sieve

This is the last of a tryptich (see last two entries for the other two).

Can Opener

Corkscrew

Finally back to painting. Oct. 1st I became a student at the Hein Academy of Art, where I will finally get some formal art training, something I've always wanted to do. It looks like it's going to be a great experience. Jeff Hein (you can look him up on the internet) is a very fine young Utah artist whose work is contemporary realism. I expect to become better at drawing and to refine my painting skills, without fundamentally changing my style. In the meantime, I am painting three or four mornings a week to keep my hand fresh, while my afternoons at the academy focus primarily on drawing at the moment.

Even the Little Brown Bird......Final

Here is my solution as to how to display this multi-panel painting. It was accepted into the Utah Arts Council tri-annual show, "Utah '08: Painting & Sculpture". The panels are mounted on a wood grid, made by me. When you use a non-conventional format like a multi-panel painting, you have to be creative as to how to display it. It's asking a lot of the organizers of a show to place nails in the wall in just the right configuration to satisfy your design! Best to do it for them.

Even the Little Brown Bird......

Finally, this is the multi-panel painting I've been working on for so long. Submitted it for a Utah-wide show. We'll see whether it gets in the show.

Total dimensions: 36"H X 42"W

Shoulders and Necklace

8" X 8"

Another installment for my nine-panel painting. Within a few days I'll be able to publish the whole thing.

Black Cropped Pants

Another panel for my multi-panel painting almost done. I'm feeling obliged to post paintings to my blog, even though I'm no longer on a schedule to produce daily paintings. This one reflects a second day of work on the painting. It, again, may undergo some adjustments later. I found it very hard to work with black (or, dark darks). It wasn't so much finding the variations on black that worked, but the application of the paint itself. It was very hard to paint the darkest darks into the painting without accidentally lightening them too much with the surrounding lighter shades. Every painting is another lesson learned.