Terry Strickland Portrait Workshop at The Florence Studio, Fall of 2018!

I'm so pleased to announce that I'll be teaching again in Florence, Italy this fall. Here's a video created from a few clips one of the students took, (thank you Leslie) and other miscellaneous shenanigans from our trip last year.

I didn't have room to include pictures of the delicious gelato, so much great art, picture-postcard sunsets, our wonderful hosts, and the food, oh the food. You'll have to experience those for yourself.

Dates: Oct 1-5, 2018 - 
The Florence Studio

What: Oil Painting Portrait Workshop
5 days instruction Mon-Fri 10am-3:30pm

Price: 875 Euros, 50% non-refundable deposit due at time of registration. That price includes model fees. Students are responsible for their own airfare and accommodations. Register through The Florence Studio or Email me for more info at terrystr@terrystricklandart.com

About the workshop: This is a back to basics, oil painting, portrait class working from a live model. All skill levels are welcome from beginning to advanced. We will spend the first two days working on drawing, value and color mixing. The last three days we will put it all together in a painting of a single pose. I will give step-by-step demonstrations and individual easel to easel critiques. Most of all it's going to be fun!

Have you seen my TEDx Birmingham talk about empathy and realism?

ABC 33/40 in the Studio

A few weeks back I had a fun visit in the studio from ABC 33/40 TV anchorman Dave Baird and cameraman Johnny Rockett.

The Incognito Project exhibit and book had come to his attention and he wanted to do a TV segment for the Focus at Four show.

The books are on sale worldwide for 9 days only, April 22-30, 2013, at the special Portrait Society of America Conference price of $55, on Amazon or with PayPal through my website.

Below is the video. He did a great job editing out my nerves and eloquently summarizing The Incognito Project in two minutes, something I've never been able to do. I loved the Wizard idea for his alter ego, totally!


The book is available through Amazon, or through my website, or blog.

It will also be available at the Portrait Society of America's, Art of the Portrait Conference, Atlanta, GA, Artist's Book Table or at the Artist's Book Signing, Friday, April 27, 2013, 12:30 PM. Stop by and see me!

Steampunk Professor Rattus and Lois Lane

Tomorrow may be my birthday but today held a big, happy surprise.

My painting Professor Rattus and Her Royal Court, The Incognito Project, is featured in an ad for Principle Gallery in the American Art Collector's March 2013 issue.

And in the same issue, my painting, Fast Lane, is in the article about collecting art in the Washington, DC & Mid-Atlantic States area. Thank you Principle Gallery and American Art Collector!

Just for fun here's a video of the rat wrangling it took to get photo reference for Professor Rattus.

 
And here is a video of in progress shots and details of Fast Lane.



You may find a blog post with Professor Rattus and details here, and details of Lois Lane in Fast Lane and the companion piece Call of Duty, here.

All three of these paintings are featured in The Incognito Project book, which is available at Principle Gallery, through Matter Deep Publishing or from my website.

Alabama Shakes, Lilly Ledbetter and The Incognito Project

The Incognito Project seems to have sparked people's imagination much as it has mine. I'm honored that this month it is written about in B Metro : The Magazine of Metro Birmingham Living.

The article, written by Phillip Ratliff, is about the painting project, the show and the book. It is in their January 2013 feature, The A-List.

From the magazine:
Our annual list of people who fascinate, inspire, and make this city a great place to live.

Each year we put together a list of people (and this year we added an event) that we think have had really exceptional years and are poised or equally great things in the year to come. This year our list includes a comedian, a potter, rock and roll stars, equal-pay advocate, two artists, a convention center executive, a marine general turned college president, and the Dia de los Muertos festival. It’s a compendium of achievement we are proud to have associated with our magazine and our city.

Other people on the list this year are the amazing musical group Alabama Shakes, (their debut album is my new favorite music), Roam Project visionary-Greg Wingo, and Equal Pay Advocate-Lilly Ledbetter.

I had a total fan girl moment and got a secret thrill to see Lilly and President Obama on the page before The Incognito Project since I'm such a huge fan of both!

The magazine is in bookstores and news stands locally till mid-February and you may read it online here.

The Huffington Post Goes Incognito

I was thrilled to see an article and slideshow about The Incognito Project by artist/art writer Daniel Maidman on the Huffington Post!

I love the article. Daniel really gets my work. 

~"To me, it says that she chose the hard skill of strict mimesis, (strict imitation of the appearance of things), because she likes the people she knows; she likes them an awful lot. She likes them so much, in fact, that she wants to enjoy a specific kind of playing with them: that necessary dress-up that makes us meaningful to ourselves. This form of play is her invitation to her friends, and her skill as a painter is devoted to communicating to them, and to us, her affection, both for the person as they are, and as they understand themselves." 

AND "It characterizes Strickland's work as a whole, an overlay of the mythical self onto the recognizably real self."

AND He discusses realism in the context of the greater art world, and answers the question,"Why paint something so convincing?"

Aren't you intrigued? Now go read it!

After you do that, you can check out Daniel's show, Blue Leah at Dacia Gallery, opening Thursday, October 18, 6-10pm.

Artists For The New Century Opening

At The Bennington Center for the Arts in Bennington, VT. The opening was last night. Thanks to Mario A. Robinson for sharing these pictures.
From the Bennington's website:
"Artwork from around the world, created by North American artists, will be exhibited in this event. Many of the country's finest artists will be included in what has become one of our patrons' favorite exhibitions. Should you be interested in purchasing artwork, contact Shirley by clicking here or call 802-442-7158."

Mario with his beautiful painting, Windswept, 30x24, oil on panel

Work by Julio Reyes and my painting Fast Lane 

JB Boyd, Camille Engel, Charles Williams, Sadie Valeri

Roger Dale Brown, Shannon Runquist, Curt Hanson

Colleen Barry, Aaron Westerberg, Michael Lynn Adams

Vincent Giarrano

Aaron Westerburg

Amy Lind

David Gray

Charles Williams

David Hettinger 

Jennifer Balkan

Maria Kreyn

Mario Robinson

Julio Reyes

Kate Savage

Sadie Valeri

Robert Limler

Joshua LaRock

Timothy Jahn

Vincent Giarrano

Kate Sammons

And mine,  Fast Lane, 47x32, oil on canvas over panel

The show is up through July 15, 2012.

Happy Holidays! December Newsletter

Paintings, a magazine feature and a free story at Terry Strickland Art. Is this email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser. Happy Holidays! December 2011 Issue Thanks for signing up to receive my monthly newsletter. Here's a bit of news from our corner of the art world. My work is featured in this month's Poets and Artists Magazine, Issue #30! Poets and Artists is a gorgeous and very cool print-on-demand and digital publication, self described as Publishing as an Art Form. The print version will be available only until the next issue is out in Jan, the digital version will remain available indefinitely. I'm thrilled to have my work shown alongside some very awesome artists and poets. This magazine is an exciting example of the current dynamic changes in the world of publishing. You can see more about it on a blog post I did featuring the work of some of the other artists featured this month. A Holiday Sale - Oil Sketches From the Studio Amy Reading, 12x9, oil on linen, $450 I'm offering small alla prima oil sketches for the first time this holiday season. These paintings are priced $400-$450, framed and shipped, sales tax will be applied within the state of Alabama, US. Magnolia Gardens-Charleston, 8x10, oil on panel, $400 See all 11 oil sketches with information about prices and sizes here. Holiday Small Works Show at Principle Gallery I have two paintings in this Holiday Show at Principle Gallery, this one is Fire Dance. The show opened Dec. 4 and runs through the end of the month in Alexandria, VA. Holiday Show at Peterson-Cody Gallery The Bribe, 11x14, oil on panel Check out the gallery's small works show if you're in Santa Fe, NM or on-line. In Cincinnati, OH, see my work at Miller Gallery See you in the New Year! Forward to a Friend Teaching Spotlight AVOID WHITE AND BLACK LIKE IT’S THE PLAGUE! Well not really, but I do use white and black as a last resort.  Try this for more luminous and less chalky oil paintings. Start with your most transparent paints and mix up a BIG puddle of mid to dark tones. Take part of that puddle of pure color and modify it lighter. Instead of adding white, try this: 1. Add a lighter color from the same color family. Add an orange, for instance, if you want to mix a lighter red. 2. Add a lighter color from a different color family. Ask yourself “Is the color I’m after also warmer?” if so then add an opaque yellow like Yellow Ochre or Cad Yellow, “Is the color I’m after also cooler?” in that case use Cerulean or Chromium Oxide Green. Once you do that NEVER try to get the color back to the original color. The color is forever polluted by the white and will result in chalky mid-tones and shadows. INSTEAD go back to your original puddle, take part of that puddle and modify it darker. Instead of adding black, try this: 1. Add a darker color from the same color family. Need a darker blue? add a Thalo blue. Something darker red? add Alizarin or Red Madder Deep 2. Add a darker color from a different color family. Need a darker red that also needs to be less intense add a Thalo Green. 3. Add a dark brown earth tone such as Burnt Umber. This keeps your painting’s shadows and mid-tones more transparent which results in more luminous paintings. Here's a blog post about my Inspiration Quotient for a recent painting. Feel free to email me with topics you’d like to read about here! Ongoing Oil Painting Class at Forstall Art Center Birmingham, AL, Tuesdays, 9:30-12:30, to register email terrystr@terrystricklandart.com Class size limited to 10 students. Strickland Family Biz News A Creative and Independent Company The Stricklands at Matter Deep Publishing invite you to enjoy a FREE story on us for the holidays. Kyle's story about working retail at Christmas will make you smile for sure, so take a moment for yourself and enjoy Smile and Greet the Customer in ePub, Kindle or PDF formats. Sunshine's Night Out is on SALE through Amazon for $9.35 (down from $12.99) and free shipping with a $25 purchase. And here's another great Sunshine review and giveaway. Contact Terry Email (205) 664-5331 Website Blog forward to a friend  Copyright © *|CURRENT_YEAR|* *|LIST:COMPANY|*, All rights reserved. *|IFNOT:ARCHIVE_PAGE|* *|LIST:DESCRIPTION|* Our mailing address is: *|HTML:LIST_ADDRESS_HTML|**|END:IF|* *|IF:REWARDS|* *|HTML:REWARDS|* *|END:IF|*  unsubscribe from this list | update subscription preferences

"The Lion Tamer" in the Spotlight

Well almost the spotlight... 

I'm happy to announce that my painting "The Lion Tamer, The Incognito Project" has been named a finalist in The Artist's Magazine's 28th Annual Competition, figure and portrait category.

They say that the model is half the success of a figure painting and I think Peggy proves that true. She was willing to play along and share her fierce side with me, a side that not many people see. She also has a great energy that was a joy to try and capture.

Here are a couple more posts about this painting, they include details of the painting and a painting I did of this model 8 years ago.

Here's the first Incognito Project announcement, a portrait series I've been working on since June 2010.

 Here are all the posts about this Project. 

 You may see the paintings that are finished thus far on my website's Incognito Project Gallery.

Also...I'm launching a new email Terry Strickland Art Newsletter using mail chimp, if you didn't notice it on the sidebar you can subscribe here. The newsletter will be monthly, not too long but chock full of news about up-coming shows, new paintings in the works or fresh off the easel, workshops, possible teaching tips, art world musings and lots of pretty pictures :D

Romantic Realist, Really?

My work was featured on the ArtistADay website on July 16. It's been fun reading the comments by various viewers. A couple have mentioned Romantic Realism as a genre for my work. Curiosity piqued I turned to Google and Wiki for a quick definition. 

Ann Rand defined romantic realism as a portrayal of life "as it could be and should be." She wrote: "The method of romantic realism is to make life more beautiful and interesting than it actually is, yet give it all the reality, and even a more convincing reality than that of our everyday existence."

Today's realists have many modifiers attached as we and others try to categorize our work. Contemporary, Traditional, Social, Political, Hyper, Photo... If Romantic Realism means a love of beauty and discipline of technical skills then I'm fine with the label. Does it also include work of a conceptual and symbolic nature like my work? 

Considering the piece that is on my easel at the moment they may very well be right. This piece is in progress, 30x40, as yet untitled and is for my two-person show with Forrest Solis at Peterson-Cody Gallery in Santa Fe, NM, in November 2011.

I invite you to visit the ArtistADay website and rate my work by clicking on one of the boxes 1-5, five being the highest, You can also share that page with your facebook friends by clicking the like button under Share.

ArtistADay is available as a Google gadget for your Google home page. I have it on mine and enjoy seeing a new artist each day from all over the world.