"Our Dancing Days"

"Our Dancing Days", 30x40, oil on panel

 A hall, a hall, give room! And foot it, girls!

More light, you knaves, and turn the tables up;

And quench the fire, the room is grown too hot.

Ah, sirrah, this unlook'd-for sport comes well.

Nay, sit, nay, sit, good cousin Capulet,

For you and I are past our dancing days.

How long is't now since last yourself and I

Were in a mask? 

Romeo and Juliet 

As with most of my paintings the title comes well after the painting is underway. I have a vision in mind as I'm designing the painting and working on it, then brainstorm during the process and after it's done to come up with an appropriate title.

In this case Shakespeare won out again. Dancing and masks are hallmarks of mystery, enchantment and dream-like experiences, romance is in the air.

The mythology of the Roma was on my mind as well as an idea of the Halcyon Days, happy and carefree times.

I could site many song lyrics and am surprised how often the word Gypsy came up in music I regularly listen to. The romantic appeal of that nomadic life style is strong, and while not many of us have the actual desire to chuck it all and join a band of merry mysterious travelers, it's mesmerizing to fantasize about for a short while.

I've done a couple other paintings on this theme, The Clearing, and If Music Be the Food of Love, Play On.

Our Dancing Days will be in my two person show with Forrest Solis opening November 4, 2011 at Peterson-Cody Gallery in Santa Fe, NM.

"Ay, There's the Rub"

I could not resist this title for my post about this week's oil painting class, and my quick demo using a rub-out underpainting technique.

The phrase is Shakespeare’s. It comes from Hamlet’s famous “To be or not to be” soliloquy: 

To die — to sleep.
To sleep — perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub!
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. 

By rub, Hamlet means a difficulty, obstacle or objection.

How fitting a reference for this task we have chosen for ourselves. mastering the craft of painting, living the life of an artist. It can be the stuff of dreams or nightmares, it's the dream times that keeps us coming back for more.

When things are going well in the studio we seem to float on the current, lose track of time in a deep focus, it does seem rather dream like; yet when we are struggling against the current, reaching for the next level for our work, we are still learning, we will come out the other side (unlike Hamlet) and our work will be stronger for it.

I consistently remind my students struggle is learning, each new failure is a stepping stone to the next, better, painting.

All that said my students did great with this exercise and seemed to enjoy it! Using only Burnt Umber they covered the canvas with paint thinned only a bit with a mixture of linseed oil and OMS.

Then rubbed out the lighter values and highlights, using value to create volume.

This is the third in a value series I've had my students working on. You can see those and other teaching posts here.

Shakespeare continues to inspire, here is a link to a few of my paintings exploring some of his themes in a contemporary way.

Value of Practice

Last week I did a second value poster study with my class. We are attempting to solidify this concept before moving on to color temperature. Here is the very quick demo I did for them.

They all worked hard the first week to understand what they were seeing and get it down, judging one value against another as they painted from the background to the foreground and from darkest to lightest.

We used raw umber and ivory black to mix our darkest value, then mixed a middle value.

Using mixtures of the middle value with our homemade black we mixed two additional dark values.

Then we used the middle value with titanium white to mix two additional light values.

This resulted in a string of color puddles that gave us 7 values to work with. They should eventually work toward seeing 9 or 10 values.

This gave them experience simplifying basic forms into values without the complication of color or temperature.

It also gave them experience mixing paint into color strings, a great way to work and the method I teach.

Next week we will continue with this two steps forward and one step back journey learning these color theory concepts.

I will have them do a rub out painting using burnt umber which is a standard under painting practice and one my students love once they give it a try.

Patience my lovely students, remember practice while reaching is learning! Linger in the uncomfortable zone.

This is one of my 9x12 figure sketches using this technique. I painted it in Charleston last fall while on the Women Painting Women on Expedition painting retreat. 

Here is a link to a few of my other posts about teaching including one about the rub out technique. I'll post the demo after class next week.

Miller Gallery - CONTEMPORARY REALISM: Invitational

I'm thrilled to have been invited to participate in this show!

Opening Friday, September 30, 2011, 6-8 pm
About the show from Miller Gallery's Website:

This group show brings together many of the finest, renowned realists in the United States, including Daniel E. Greene, Jonathan Queen, Glennray Tutor, Cesar Santander, Karen Hollingsworth, Helen Crispino, Timothy Jahn, Ron Monsma and many more.


My paintings "Flight Plan" and "Enlightenment" are on their way to Cincinnati.

"Flight Plan", 23x32, oil

"Flight Plan", Detail

"Enlightenment", 24x24, oil on panel

"Enlightenment", Detail

I've written about this painting before in my post "Enlightenment Ponderings"

The gallery is located at:
2715 Erie Avenue - Hyde Park Square
Cincinnati, Ohio 45208
phone-(513) 871-4420
Hours: Tuesday-Wednesday 10-5:30 / Thursday-Friday 10-8 / Saturday 10-5:30 / Sunday 10-2 
Miller Gallery 

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.

Two Steps Forward - One Step Back

This week I had my oil painting class do quick poster studies of a silver mug and an egg. This is my demo piece. I call this The Value of Back to Basics. (I apologize for that but I love puns.)

I've had several students  quiz me about the difference between the color properties of value and temperature. Since experience is the best way to learn I designed this simple exercise to take them back to a basics lesson. Back to basics is a great way to freshen up and invigorate even the most experienced painter.

We used raw umber and ivory black to mix our darkest value, then mixed a middle value.

Using mixtures of the middle value with our homemade black we mixed two additional dark values.

Then we used the middle value with titanium white to mix two additional light values.

This resulted in a string of color puddles that gave us 7 values to work with. They should eventually work toward seeing 9 values.

This gave them experience breaking down simple forms into values without the complication of color or temperature.

It also gave them experience mixing paint into color strings, a great way to work and the method I teach.

We will be continuing with this for a few weeks in my class working on these color theory concepts, taking small steps backward and forward.  Learning to paint is that kind of meandering journey!

Here is a link to a few of my other post about teaching.

Art Renewal Center's International Salon Awards

The Art Renewal Center's 2010-2011 International Salon honors have been announced. My paintings "Fast Lane" and "Voice of the Tiger" have been named finalists in the figure category, and my drawing "Mage" is a finalist in the drawing category. I'm honored to have my work included with such wonderful company!

"Fast Lane" can be seen at Peterson-Cody Gallery in Santa FE, NM, you can see my previous posts about this painting, here.

"Mage" can be seen at Principle Gallery in Alexandria, VA, my previous post about this painting may be viewed here.



"Voice of the Tiger" was sold through Robert Lange Studios in Charleston, SC, last year in association with the Women Painting Women show. 

Here's a short video of the painting in progress and details.

I have several previous posts about the WPW show.

Many thanks to the people at the Art Renewal Center for encouraging and celebrating realist art in the contemporary art scene.

Farewell San Francisco!

The last few days were spent exploring the city's delicious art and painting in it's garden's.

Jacob Pfeiffer at John Pence Gallery.

Will Wilson at John Pence Gallery.

John Pence Gallery.

We found this Banksy on Howard and 9th,

Went in search of a reported Banksy on Haight Street and all that's left is the small dribble of red. We were stunned that it had been painted over!

Yarn Bomb, another type of pretty cool street art.

My daughter and I painting at the Japanese Tea Garden in the Golden Gate Park.  9x12, oil on panel

A small plein air oil sketch I did at the Golden Gate Park. "Water Lilies", 9x12, oil on panel

On our way home from San Francisco, we just happened to run in to Nowell and Sadie Valeri, who we had had the privilege of house-sitting for for the past two weeks. Destiny had intervened once again to cross our paths and it was a wonderful end to our trip.

If you are still looking for inspiration San Francisco style check out Sadie Valeri's artwork here. She will be posting work on from her five weeks spent in France soon!