How To Get Your Work Into A Gallery Part Two

              In part one I discussed how I was able to get a gallery to exhibit my work. There are a lot of books out there that will give you the formula for how to go about doing this.  These books sell very well, I've bought a few of them myself. The problem is that the methods they give don't really work. If there's one rule in life that always seems to hold true it's that the squeaky wheel always gets the grease. Not the cleanest wheel, or best made wheel, or most unique wheel, THE SQUEAKIEST! So you have to throw away the rule book and get your stuff seen by any means possible. One key ingredient that the books don't mention is chutzpah, it's an old Yiddish word for having a lot of nerve. I'm sure I would be a lot further along in my career if I had more of this essential ingredient. Of course it goes without saying that you have to believe that you are doing good work that is worth being seen and that's saleable. In the first mailing that I sent out I mentioned to the gallery owners that if they put my work on their walls that it wouldn't be there for very long, the stuff would be flying out the door. That got their attention. That's a little bit of chutzpah, I certainly could of been a bit bolder and told them that in person, but I chickened out!
            Anytime I hear or read a gallery interview they always say that the biggest no-no is to walk in with your work unannounced. Yet I have read on more than a few occasions of artists walking in and doing just that, and the gallery taking them on. The bottom line is that if your work blows them away they are not going to reject you just because you barged in! They are looking for the next big moneymaker! Sure they don't want it to become a common practice, but it has occasionally happened and worked out for the artist. I have practiced a few sneaky introductions myself. One year I took a letter box at a post office in Soho so that the galleries would think I was a New York City artist. It almost worked. I can remember retrieving my mail and opening a letter from the OK Harris Gallery that started with the line "Congratulations", I almost passed out. But then it went on to say that my work was really first rate and deserving of a gallery, just not his. He went on to list galleries that he thought might like my work but said that he didn't want me to say that he recommended me. "Say what?" Wahh-wahh! Being the naïve do-gooder kid that I was, I didn't use his name and I got nowhere fast. In hindsight I probably should have copied that letter and included it with every packet that I sent. Why not, I worked hard and deserved it. Another method that I tried was in the days of sending slide sheets. Instead of sending slide sheets, I sent a slide sheet folder filled with miniature hand painted versions of twenty of my paintings which I had encased in a slide negative cardboard holder so that at first glance it looked like a sheet of slides. The gallery owner wrote me back a very encouraging letter, I could tell he was impressed, but he didn't commit. Always a brides maid never a bride. I supposed if I didn't have a life that I could have nurtured that relationship like one of those potato plants in middle school science, hoping that it would one day turn into a beautiful flower. Instead, I moved on, and didn't quit. You have to be in this for the long game, and you have to have a thick skin! I have enough rejection letters to insulate my house. I'm a bit like that psychotic rabbit boiler played by Glenn Close " I will not be ignored".
         Most of these so called experts also recommend that you have a signature style or theme. Yes, there are artists who paint variations on the same idea over and over again, and do very well for themselves. That could possibly work, but it just sounds so boring!! I had one gallery that was interested in my work tell me that they really loved my painting of a jawbone placed on a book, and could I possibly paint twenty more just like it. Yeah, maybe if I was suicidal and wanted to spend the next year or so contemplating the folly of human existence. Here's the bottom line; do your thing, whatever that is, don't try to figure out what the "next big thing" is. There's an audience and a market out there for good, honest work, finding them is the hard part, but it's also part of the game. Whenever I run a marathon or long race people always ask me "How was it?". I always shrug my shoulders and say "eh", because to me the training leading up to it was the best part, the race itself was kind of anti-climactic. So stop kvetching, get your work out there and enjoy the "hunt".

How To Get Your Work Into A Gallery With Zero Connections

"How to Get Into A Gallery Without Any Connections Whatsoever!"

 

 

                                                  "Solo Act" 2016, 16" x 20", oil on panel
                                  I have this feeling that many artists are out there waiting to be discovered. Like Marilyn Monroe sipping a coke in a drugstore, they are waiting for someone to swoop in and give them the artist's life that they have always dreamed of. Galleries and the people connected with them seem out of reach. Everything they read about the do's and don'ts of getting a gallery make it seem impossible without having some kind of inside track. Well I'm hear to tell you, brother's and sister's, it just ain't so. Sure having someone to recommend you would be nice, but what do you do if you're making great work out somewhere in the hinterlands where nobody knows the difference between you and a cold sweat?
                             I currently have work for sale in four galleries. Some of them I have a consignment deal with, and some of them have added me to their roster. In terms of sales one way doesn't necessarily work better than the other. The bottom line is you want your stuff to sell before your painting in a tiny little corner of your studio with all of your paintings lumbering over you like the ghost of Christmas past. So how did I get these galleries to show my work, without anyone, and I mean no one, not even a sixth degree of Kevin Bacon recommending me? I use the skeet shooting method. Sure it looks real impressive when you see these guys aiming for these clay pigeons and hitting them mid air, until you realize that they are shooting buckshot (scattered pellets) and not hitting them with a single shot. All of the books that I've read say you should choose just a couple of galleries that your interested in and find out everything that you can about them. Go to the gallery, talk with the owners, go to openings, throw dinner parties etc; PLEASE, is that the way AMAZON works? Not according to the barrage of emails I get every day.
          I got into my first real gallery about ten years ago. My approach was so low-tech that it amazes me to think about it, even still. At this time artists were still using slides (remember that unholy nightmare), and I found this place that was reasonably priced for getting your work photographed, and the slides were good quality. I then had the slides printed as 5 by 7's and scanned them into my computer. I used the Windows photo printing program, no Photoshop for this buckaroo, and printed a sheet with six of my paintings equally spaced. This is all true I swear! I next printed out labels and a heading for the sheet of paintings and re-scanned the image. I took it to Kinkos (now FedEx) and had a hundred copies made on glossy card stock. I then went through every art magazine I could find (most of them piled up in the bathroom for fine reading) and put together a list of a hundred galleries that I thought I might have the slimmest possible chance of connecting with. I mailed out a packet with my homemade giant postcard, printed resume, and cover letter. I sent them out hoping for the best, but expecting the worst. Like that old commercial used to say "Set it and forget it!". I didn't do any of the things that the "art advisors" recommend. I didn't wait a week and place a follow up call, I didn't email that the packet was sent. I really didn't do anything but wait. Eventually I started to get responses. I heard from six galleries that were somewhat interested. That may not sound like a lot, but remember I was only really looking for one. What happened next? Be sure to learn more in How To Get A Gallery, Part Two. If you like this blog, please follow me and share with your friends. Thanks for reading!

"Admiration" Process and Progress Shots

                Recently I read an article by an artist who was wondering if it's a mistake for artists to post work in progress shots of their artwork. His feeling was that it was somehow taking away some of the mystery of the work and possibly devaluing it by too much exposure. I'm not necessarily the biggest fan of the social media age, but one of the best things to come of all of this, is the glimpse into the studios and working habits of artists that I admire but will never get a chance to meet. I was able to introduce my work and get accepted into a new gallery, and this came about entirely through social media. So here's a look into the creation of one of my latest, "Admiration", oil on panel, 16" x 20".
               My initial concept for this painting was to show how our vision and perceptions of the world around us has been filtered through technology and how eventually we have to bring it back to looking at nature if we want to remove the scales from our eyes. How many times will a realist painter have to hear the compliment that it looks just like a photograph, when what they should be hearing is that it looks perfectly natural! I wanted to paint this one using daylight to add another "natural" element to my concept. Once I had set up the vase of flowers with the wooden bowl, I began to look for other circular forms and shapes to add to the composition. I had recently been talking with some students about the apocryphal story of how Giotto submitted a drawing of a circle to the Pope when he asked for a sample of his work, and how Rembrandt included two circles in the background of his self portrait, as if to say "I'm twice as good as Giotto". Once I added the wooden pulley, and silver bowl, the painting really began to take on a mind of it's own (yes sometimes that really does happen, it's not just artist b.s.) I start my making a careful drawing on paper, sized to the canvas, which I transfer using conte crayon on the back of the drawing. I used to save every drawing that I made, thinking I would need them for the eventual retrospective I was going to have, but my studio is small and I just can't store them, so now I use the originals and don't have to deal with the idiots at the copy center. Here's a shot of the transfer with a wipeout using thinned down raw umber. My wipeouts are kept fairly simple; two values. My theory is that if the painting doesn't grab me with a two value structure, it's not going to grab me with twenty.

                My next step is to make a color wash. Most artists thin their paint way down so that it appears almost like a watercolor. I put my paint on thin, but more opaque than a watercolor. I try to get it as much "like" in the color wash pass as I can, so that I can get it even more "like" in the finishing pass. I got this idea from reading Solomon J. Solomon and a workshop I took with Douglas Flynt. I used to make color studies for each painting, and I probably still should, but I've got a lot of ideas in my head, and I'm no "spring chicken" if you get my drift. I paint the color wash very carefully moving from form to form, usually starting with the center of interest and fanning out form there. Here's a shot of the color wash in progress.

          Once the color wash is dry it's time for deja-vu all over again (thanks Yogi Berra). I repaint every part of the painting exactly as I did it the first time, except now I'm noticing some things I didn't pick up on before, and I'm thickening up the lights a bit. My goal is to stay with each form, in a Zen like manner, until I'm completely satisfied, working wet into wet. I don't leave myself a back door option of fixing it later. I will occasionally repaint an area, but I never find it to be as satisfying as getting it right the first time. It loses some of the freshness and snappy brush work! I've always worked this way, even before studying at an atelier, and just assumed I was doing it wrong. Now I  don't care, this is how I paint, take it or leave it. Below is a shot of the final painting. This is one of those rare instances where the painting comes close to my initial concept. Let's face it, no painting is ever going to be as vivid as that initial bolt of lightning when an idea just pops into your head and you see it clear as day for one fleeting second. I guess that's the windmill that keeps me coming back.

The Other Side of the Fence

           Recently, I was asked to be the sole juror for a local art club's annual members competition. I somewhat reluctantly accepted because I  have had a somewhat contentious history with thirty years of submitting work to juried shows, and I didn't want anyone to be having those same evil thoughts about me! I do have some experience. I've been on the jurying committee of a well known art organization for some time, and I've done a few smaller shows on my own. The good thing about this show was that I could judge from actual work. The awards were to be given out immediately following my jurying so it was a little bit stressful, as all of the artists were there, and I was expected to explain my selections and also to give out some critiques if asked. The work was all pretty good which made choosing the better pieces even more complicated.
        The art club had a form that they wanted me to fill out for the award winners that asked me to expand on things like the use of the elements and principles of art, technique, and expression. After emphasizing the elements and principles of art to high school students for over thirty years I can't tell you how many times I was pleasantly surprised when students would come up with their own solutions. I've come to realize that there are things that go into the creation of a successful work of art besides the standard "rules". I explained to the club members that to my way of thinking all art is essentially abstract and good underlying design structure is important no matter what your means of expression is. What makes a good design is somewhat debatable I guess but it seems to be something that's obvious even to "untrained" eyes. I have occasionally had something pointed out to me as a problem in my painting by a casual stranger, and son of a gun, most of the time they're right. (I really hate that!)
      One of the judging categories was "expression" and I have to say that I find that to be the least important element. In my undergraduate and graduate studies in painting expression was the God before which we all knelt. As I got older and began to re-train myself, I stopped worrying about whether or not I was expressing myself and just tried to make good paintings. I remember bringing some paintings to a gallery owner at the recommendation of one of my instructors. The owner asked me how I would describe my "style". I told her that I was working very hard not to have one. I guess she thought I was a little crazy but eventually she got the idea. More important than "expression" is harmony. Does the work hold together? We've all had those pieces where we love one little section of passage in a work at the expense of the other 70% of surface area. Each art work is a specific entity with it's own rules and logic. What worked in your last painting won't necessarily work in this one, you have to problem solve on a case by case basis. That's one of the things that I love about the process, it never gets boring. It can also make critiquing work somewhat problematic. I told the artists in the club that rather than me pointing out what I think might be "wrong" in their painting or drawing, it would be better if they asked me for advice on how to problem solve something that was troubling them. As I explained, what might be wrong in this work, could be right in the next.
     At the end of the evening we got into a discussion about submitting work digitally to competitions. The biggest problem with digital submissions is that you are using one art form, photography, to stand in for another art form, painting, drawing, sculpture, etc; All of the things that work well in photographs, value contrasts, flattening, perspective exaggerations, can be murder on an image of a painting. As someone who has been judging work digitally, I am often amazed  at the difference between the image and the real thing. One thing that will come through, even in a digital image, is a strong design (going back to my first point). I explained that if you're going to submit work to online competitions sometimes you have to go with the work that looks the best digitally, not necessarily what you see as the best in your studio. I use to pay photographers to photograph my work, but I was never completely satisfied with the results. They were seeing things from the photographers point of view. Once I learned to take my own photos I was able to limit the shortcomings from actual image to digital version as much as I could. The internet has opened up a whole new world for artists, but it's far from perfect. I often think of the Impressionists and their dealings with the official salon juries and wonder what they would have made of today's world of electronic jurying. Perhaps they would have revolted, maybe we should too.

"Behind the Scenes" oil on panel

Necessary Roughness

"Beholden" oil on panel, 16" x 20". This painting is another one in my series that combines cameras with some element of a traditional still life. I have imagined myself as a "crazed" artist who's sole mission in life is to educate the public about the difference between painting from life and painting with the aid of technology; cameras, computers, projectors, etc;. The title refers to the fact that all representational painters are beholden to nature. The camera is beholden to nature. Without light there is no image. The difference between perceptual observation and technical observation seems to be one that not too many artists care about these days. Everyone is bending over backwards to be politically correct and say that it's the end result that counts. I don't think it is. I don't think that an artists process and intent are unimportant. I believe that ultimately it affects the look of the work. Not online of course, but when the work is viewed in person. I honestly don't care that Vermeer supposedly used a projector. The paintings of his that have those white photo droplets and distorted perspectives are my least favorite. I'll take Rembrandt over Vermeer any day.
    When the market for hand drawn illustrations dried up many illustrators found themselves trained for a career that no longer existed. Concurrently a new wave of artists began to appear that were classically trained and working representationally. At first, galleries were eager to embrace these new "traditionalists" but soon found that they worked too slow and were not willing to push their work into slicker looking, more marketable formulas. Illustrators have no such reticence. Part of their training is to crib from any available source and to produce work quickly with an emphasis on high style and facile brushwork. The end result is a kind of strange hybrid of modernist sampled abstract/realism. A typical painting will have a tightly (photographically) rendered face with gradually dissolving brushstrokes, some neon colors thrown in for good measure, and a Clifford Still or Rothko like background. It looks good in glossy magazines and the higher end galleries seem to be eating it up. But really, what's the point? Wasn't the renewed interest in classical realism supposed to be a reaction against the fact that the art world has deemed representational art to be kitsch and not worthy of any attention whatsoever? Someone with an illustration background wouldn't know that. They wouldn't have noticed that in art school they received no training whatsoever, because an illustration major would have received some traditional training because illustrations couldn't ever become fully conceptual and non-objective. How could you sell a product if the viewer couldn't relate?
    I titled this post "necessary roughness" because I am reminded of Harold Speed's admonition in his book on painting that the artist should beware of making work that is too perfect. That a certain amount of "dither" gives character to a work. Many realists that are working from life have decided to combat the problem of the "illustrators takeover" by either rendering work that is so detailed that it seems "hyper real" or by re-inventing cubism with fractured images. In my own work I want to make paintings that look like what they're supposed to represent, but also look like they're painted. Some artists take it as a compliment when someone says their art looks like a photograph, "even better than the real thing". When someone says that to me I want to hit them. If realism is to survive into the future it can not follow the illustrators down the path of impressionism to expressionism to surrealism to abstract expressionism to neo-expressionism. That was not the point of the return to classicism. It wasn't to re-boot modern art history. Realists need to take a deep breath and look to Chardin, and Corot, and Luis Melendez. Perceptual realism will never be a "big hit", it will never be a "fad", it won't ever be accepted by the cognoscenti. Who cares? I'll just keep looking hard and slow and painting away, while ignoring the siren-song "the end justifies the means".

"True North"

These are what's currently on my easel. As I stated in my last post I've begun to make enlarged versions of smaller paintings. Both of these paintings "True North" 8"x10" and 16" x 20", are shown in progress. They started with transfer drawings (thank God for FedEx), and then I did a raw umber wipeout, a detailed color wash, and I've given a final finish to the bread and the canoe and glass. It might seem strange that I'm painting simultaneously what might seem like a study and a larger version, but both are painted directly from life and the perishable bread has to be completed before it rots. I'm really enjoying this process and I'm thinking of going even larger with the next one. FedEx told me they can enlarge up to 48". Woohoo!

Pallete Changes

                  Recently, I've started to make some changes to my basic pallete. I have for many years used titanium white. Titanium white is a good, strong, opaque white that easily lightens any color. It does however have some drawbacks. For one thing, it seems to push most colors towards the blue spectrum, even earth colors. I would compensate by loading in yellow ochre when I wanted to bring the color back towards orange or yellow. Another problem is that it dries somewhat unevenly so that you lose some of the more subtle mixtures that you're seeing while the paint is still wet. When I was studying cast painting I was instructed to use lead white (cremnitz). I enjoyed using it but I was reluctant to make it a permanent part of my palette because I believed that eventually it would be banned. Well, it wasn't banned but it has gone way up in price. At any rate, I decided to go ahead and start using it, I really don't use all that much white in my mixtures anyway. It is a bit more transparent then the titanium but it also gives some very subtle value changes that don't go away when the paint dries. The other change that I've made is to start using hand ground earth colors. They're a bit more expensive, a few dollars really, but the pigment load seems much stronger. Since I use a lot of umbers and ochres the stronger pigments combined with the flake white have changed the appearance of my paintings. I'm finding that I have less dead zones and the overall color harmonies and tonalities seem improved. I am generally of the opinion that when one is looking to improve their work that the fault doesn't usually lie in the technical area; brushes, paints, canvas, etc;. Usually improvements are made by spending more time on the setup, drawing, color mixing, etc;. In this case though, I feel like making the changes that I made was the right way to go. Here's a new piece that you can judge for yourself.

                                         "Captain's Table" oil on panel, 12" x 16"

More Poms

 I've gotten a bit further on the small painting "Pomegranate, Canoe, and Box" oil on panel, 8"x10". My usual method when painting fruit is to do a raw umber wipeout and then do a color wash underpainting (ebauche) focusing on the fruit because that's the perishable. I use Liquin for the ebauche, it gives the paint a nice semi glossy transparency and it dries quickly. The photo below shows the completion of the next stage. I start the finishing pass by first laying a couche (thin coating) of my medium (Gamblin Neo-Megilp), which is a modern substitute for Maroger medium (black oil). I mix up my neutral string of colors and my color specific strings and I begin to lay in my block-in adding medium as I go. I usually pick one area that includes a large range of hue, value, and chroma and bring it to completion in order to key the painting. Once I've blocked in that area I'll go back in with "bridge" values and colors so that the larger areas will have smoother transitions, and yet still show some brush strokes, what Ted Seth Jacobs calls "shaping the light". Even though I have a string of colors mixed I'm still doing a lot of improvising with my brush, it's not "paint by numbers" by any means.
       I'm teaching an art class at the Brooklyn Museum of Art to teenagers, which is fun, because they want you to focus on a current exhibit along with your art project. Even though my work could be classified as "academic" that doesn't mean I'm not open to other types of art, as they say "variety is the spice of life". Occasionally I'll get to incorporate some of my own methodologies into what I'm teaching. I'm also starting to teach an adult still life class this Monday at the National Art League nationalartleague.org . I've got seven students signed up so far, so I'm excited. It's a lot of work preparing, I have to construct seven shadow boxes, and lighting setups. I want to focus on working from life because I feel that that's the best way to learn.

  You can see in this snap with my phone that I've painted the pomegranate and canoe up to a finish. I usually do a bit of the background because I want to work the edges while the paint is still wet, and it also makes it easier to judge your value relationships.

Pomegranates

I love painting pomegranates, but I haven't done one in quite some time. There's something about the grittiness and those dusky sunset reds that I find very appealing. The two pics below show the start. I transferred a carefully made pencil drawing to gessoboard and then I did a wipe out using raw umber. The next day I began a thin color wash underpainting starting with the pomegranate. I always enjoy painting something that requires me to use several hues of the same color. In this case I used permanent alizarin crimson, cadmium red deep, cadmium red medium, and cadmium red light. I generally mix out several strings of color, including a neutral string, before I start to paint. This is a pretty small painting, 8" x 10", I'm hoping that the pomegranate will keep it's glorious color long enough for me to paint it. If it doesn't I'll just go out and get another one and use the colors to paint it from memory.

Some New Directions

Lately, I've been incorporating some elements into my paintings that are made up from my imagination. I've been looking at some of the artists that I admire, Chardin, Vallayer-Acosta, and the Dutch masters. I started to realize that Chardin probably didn't live in a castle with stone walls and Neolithic looking table tops. A lot of that had to be made up. I don't know it for a fact, but it seems to be true. It seems to be part of a tradition that maybe has been lost, where paintings are either pretty straight forward realism or so expressive that they border on Surrealism. I want the imaginative parts of my paintings to be in harmony with the observed parts and to seem as if they could be real. It's been a lot of fun so far, and it's been opening up some new ideas that I hadn't considered before. Here's a couple that feature some imaginative elements.

"Silent Partners" oil on panel, 9"x12", "Texas Rose, and Lemons" oil on panel, 9"x12".

New Process Shots

Here are a few shots of what I've been working on lately. I'm a bit behind in my scheduled postings because I started a new job and I'm a little overwhelmed.

 The top picture is a portrait in progress "Ashley with Lures" oil on panel, 16"x20". What you're seeing at this stage is the colored underpainting (ebauche) and the eyes painted in up to a finish. It seems like this one is taking forever, but I'm trying not too rush. Ashley is a great model so I can't wait to see it finished.       "Camera with Apples" oil on panel, 8"x10" is finished. I'm doing two small paintings for a small works show. I decided to have some fun and try different lighting, so the two small paintings are lit directly from above, and I'm working with a small spotlight attached to my easel. I almost don't know what the paintings look like until I'm finished, but so far I'm happy with the results and I'll probably do a few more with the same setup.    "Red Onions and Canoe" oil on panel, 8"x10", is the other small painting. It's shown in the underpainting stage except for the onions which are finished. I always paint the perishables first because you don't want them to lose the fresh appearance. It's a risk because you haven't got all of your colors in but it's really the only way to do it.         "Carved Bird, Lion Mask and Bowl" oil on panel, 12"x16", is in the halfway stage. Everything is finished except part of the lion and the background and tablecloth. I had to stop this one to do the small paintings so I can't wait to get back to it because I'm really enjoying painting these animal figurines.

Finishing A Portrait

This shows all of the progress shots of "Phoebe" 9"x12", oil on panel, including the finished painting. It's always hard to know exactly when a portrait is finished. In the way that I work, wet in wet, re-touching areas becomes a very tricky business. The idea is to proceed slowly and carefully enough that very little touching up is necessary. What happens very often when you re-touch is that the new brushwork doesn't quite mate with the old, even if you oil out. I did do a little retouching on the face. I wasn't quite happy with the highlights around the cheek and the lower lip was too prominent. So in spite of my apprehension I went ahead and re-worked those areas. What usually happens when you add paint over an alla prima style painting is that you have to pretty much repaint all of the adjacent areas until the new areas seem to harmonize with the old. There's no way of telling how far that will take you, sometimes it can mean repainting the entire picture. Anyways, I'm very happy (for now) with this portrait done entirely from life. Phoebe and I got to talking about what a portrait might communicate about the model and she asked what did I see when I looked at the portrait? I said that overall the impression I get is of a young woman who is very earnest, serious about what's to come in life, but still very much a young woman caught up in the things that young woman are caught up in. Hopefully that comes across to others as well.

Some New Things and Progress Shots

I've got a few things going simultaneously, always a lot easier when I'm of from my day job. I'm still working on a portrait once a week and I'm continuing to work in daylight on some of my still lifes.

"Strawberries, Canoe, and Oranges" oil on panel, 16" x 20". The fruit is completed. Not my usual method but when painting fruit, you can't wait around for the rest of the painting to catch up. You only have a few days before you lose that initial "bloom" that captured your eye in the first place. I've been looking a lot at Chardin (yet again), and I've decided that I kind of like the idea that my paintings clearly spring from that tradition but have a little bit of "magic realism " in them. I always think of that great Chardin painting that's in the met with the cat and the huge orange balanced precariously on top of a silver urn.

"Reveille" oil on panel. 16"x12". I set this one up thinking how great it would be to paint all of these metallic textures, Then a theme suggested itself, that of a wandering soldier ( I have to stop reading "Game of Thrones") Anyway this shows an umber wash in with the beginning of a color pass.

A little more progress on "Phoebe" oil on panel, 9"x12". I hope I'm coming close to capturing the beautiful copper toned quality of her skin. I have to watch that I don't let the paint film get too thin. I have a tendency when I'm really trying hard to capture a subtle turn of not using enough paint so I may have to repaint parts of the cheek and forehead. If this painting goes well I have it in mind to expand the original drawing into a larger painting that incorporates more background. I hope Phoebe is up for it!

More "Phoebe"

I'm making good progress on the finishing pass for "Phoebe" oil on linen panel, 9"x12". I'm finding a lot more color in her skin tones now, so I'm breaking out the cad orange, and alizarin crimson. She's on vacation in Jamaica so hopefully she won't come back with too dark of a tan or I'll have to go by what's already painted.

More "Phoebe", and progress on a new still life

"Phoebe" oil on panel, 9"x12", in progress, "Cherry Tomatoes, and Books" oil on panel, 9"x12". I'm making good progress on the portrait. I started off with a raw umber underpainting over which I painted a color wash underpainting. Today I spent about three hours putting a finishing pass on the eyes. The still life is a new small painting, 9"x12", which I'm painting using daylight. It's taking a little getting used to but I'm enjoying the process.

More Squash

At this point everything has been painted in using a finishing pass. I'll go back in and tweek a few things in a week or so. I switched to using slightly larger brushes and I'm trying to hold off on the details, putting in only what's absolutely necessary to create form and surface. I want there to be a little bit of painterliness to the work, more Sarah Lamb than Edouard Manet.

Squash and Block-In

I've started a new portrait, the model that I had for the last portrait can't or doesn't want to do it anymore. I wish she'd told me before I transferred the drawing to a canvas! Oh well, I'll have to reprime it now which will cause it to lose some of the tooth. My daughter volunteered (with pay of course) to step in. I tried to graft her head onto the painting but it wasn't working out. With what I know about the way that everything in the figure links up organically, I'm not surprised. She was supposed to pose for me today but I guess she had a little too much St. Pat's fun, so that gave me a chance to finish up both squash. That's good because I think they're starting to smell (or maybe it's me!) Anyways, I plan to do another session refining the drawing and getting itready for transfer. As they say measure twice, cut once!

Mask Complete and New One

"Flowers, Mask, and Beads" oil on linen, 9"x12", "Spaghetti and Butternut Squash" 11"x14". I managed to finish up "Flowers.." just in time , I'm putting it in a show next weekend. This was another still life set up next to a window. I really enjoyed painting the flowers and I think I'll do a few more. The squash are left over from a demo I gave on Friday, doing the demo painting kind of wet my appetite so I set something up in my studio. I'm playing with the light set up a bit, I hope it works. I have the window blacked out except for the top six inches, where the light comes through onto my canvas and the setup. I wanted the light to look more directional and angling down from above. It's a little bit harder to see but I think the trade off will be worth it.

Lily and Flowers

"Lily Painting a Cast" pencil and white charcoal on paper, 16"x20". "Mask, Flowers, and Beads" oil on linen, 9"x12". I just about have the drawing of Lily ready to transfer to a canvas. I need to do a little more work on the cast. I should have it ready when she comes next week. I'll also prepare a little poster study which I'll concentrate on at the next sitting, to get the color and tonal scheme worked out. I'm having so much fun with this one that I wish I could afford to hire her for a week straight and get it out of my system. I decided to do a re-load on the flower painting. I wasn't happy with the way that I painted the white flowers and I didn't like the way that they went with the red background. These colored roses sem to work better and their red fringes help to merge with the background. I'm on vacation this week and my version of a great vacation is to paint until my fingers bleed!

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