“Luscious” Accepted in Red & Gold Exhibition
Posted on November 23, 2007
I am proud to announce that my painting, "Luscious", was accepted in the Red & Gold Exhibition with the Federation of Canadian Artists and will be displayed in their Granville Island gallery between January 29 – February 10, 2008.
The gallery address is: 1241 Cartwright Street, Vancouver, BC Canada V6H 4B7.
Filed Under Federation of Canadian Artist, Gallery, apples, candy apple, painting, pastels | Leave a Comment
Ponting Workshop
Posted on October 29, 2007
I have been waiting patiently for the end of October, not for Halloween but for a Dianna Ponting workshop in Nanaimo over on Vancouver Island. I headed over on Friday evening so I could wake up and be fresh at the start of the session instead of rushing to get an early ferry over and stressing over the time schedule. The plan worked well. Saturday morning came and I arrived with time to spare, set up my easel and laid out everything I was going to need. Believe it or not the first thing we were shown was how to tape your pastel paper to the support board. "Ingenious" was the first thought that came to mind. The secret? Since sanded paper doesn’t hold tape too well, she demonstrated that you should place a piece of tape on the back side of the paper overlapping the edge 50:50. Do this for both the top and bottom edges. Now flip your paper over so the sanded surface is up and lay it in position on your board. Now apply tape to the exposed overlapping tape and the board. Not only is your paper secure, but you can paint right to the edge of the paper with no border!! After all this it was revealed to us what our demo piece was going to be… a salt shaker, an egg in a cup and a spoon placed upon a checkered tea towel that overhand the edge of a table. (Sorry for the bad picture)
Great piece now that I think of it, as it has a simple background, glass, reflections, subtle tones, a subtle colour reflecting (on the egg and spoon) and a patterned fabric.
We started by transferring the drawing onto the sanded paper by chalking the back of the sketch (done a a different piece of paper) and tracing over the front of the sketch.
Next we moved to the background by laying in three different colours, a light blue, a dark blue and a black. I have never seen someone put so much pastel on before. It really opened my eyes on how much is needed to really fill in an area.
The three colours were blended together, trying to keep the silhouette of the objects untouched. If we did happen to get pastel into the silhouette we carefully erased as much as we could without disturbing the background.
As you can see, my dark blue was eaten by the black. :) Lesson learnt.
Moving onto the salt shaker was exciting as it was my first time attempting glass. During her demo all I could think was, "Oh, how easy is that." And really, it is.
The egg and cup were next with the subtle gradations and reflecting deep orange colour. Surprisingly, it provided more of a challenge than the salt shaker did. Dianna came over and used her magic finger to blend the bright left edge and the dark core together to alleviated a stark edge I had. She was also able to touch up the shape of the egg as I had widened it a little to much.
That was it for the Saturday portion of the workshop… Phew, my mind was tired.
Sunday we dove right into it, finished the egg, cup and added in the spoon. The spoon was the easiest of all the element. Chrome was the easiest element to do - just black and white.
As you can see in the image below it was time to tackle the checkered cloth. Dianna demonstrated the cloth in one fell swoop with all of us eagerly watching and reviewing. It took her a full hour to finish most of the cloth, but it felt like only 10 minutes. After we all went to our perspective easels and got to work. My initial result is below.
My intention with the cloth was to use it as an experience so I completed it in earnest as I wanted to move onto a study of a candy apple that I brought.
The finished piece is below and for all intended purposes I think it turned out well. Sure, if I did it again I would do a few things different, but you know, I am ready to move on and learn more from a new painting experience.
The following are detail, close up shots of Dianna’s finished work. Something to aspire to.
And finally, her completed painting…
Turner’s Slave Ship
Posted on September 17, 2007
Not exactly a pastel painting, this piece was an instant favourite to me because it brought to light a subject that was not considered appropriate in his day and age. Bold, blunt and full of expression, it tells nothing but the truth. One can not hide from it nor should one ignore it.
Filed Under Simon Schama, Turner, art, oil painter, painting | Leave a Comment
Harley Brown’s Eternal Truths for Every Artist
Posted on August 18, 2007
Phew, long title to spew out but in all honesty it has been one of the best book purchases I have ever made.
It has a wealth of information ranging from drawing to composition. I have learnt more from this one book than any of the other 6 other art books I have at my disposal. I cannot recommend it enough.
Speaking of recommending, my good friend Robin Morley recommended this book to me. I searched high and low for it but since it has been out of print for so long it took me a long while to find a new copy that wasn’t over priced.
Then as fate would have it I found it at a price I was willing to pay over at Alibris.com. Someone over at the Wetcanvas forums points to Dakota Art Pastels site where the book is readily available and it is only $24.99USD. Needless to say I had a sinking feeling as I could have bought it for much less. Ugg… After I received the book, though, that sinking feeling disappeared as the book is worth what I paid. Looks like it has been confirmed that Dakota Art Pastels no long have the book available for sale.
(Some of the points that have made the most impact to me were his statements that:
- “Accuracy is not a dirty word”. In other words, you have to plan the painting out first. Measure twice, then paint. As he says, “Painting becomes much, much easier, more fun, when you’re right on the money from the start, and because you’ll no longer be reworking, your paintings can become as spontaneous and vital [as it can be].”
- Value is the most important aspect of a painting. “When values are right, it doesn’t matter what the colour you put in!”
- Colour! I really like his approach to using the Munsell System for colour over the traditional colour wheel. I am going to have to try this and see what the results are. Basically the Munsell system has 5 primary colours, not just tree. Along with that, the colours change as it move toward the centre, changing chroma, depending where on the value scale the pigment is. Now, due to the 5 primary colours both complimentary and triad (discord colours as he calls them) colours change. Blue’s complimentary is no long orange, it is yellow-red. Reds is blue-green. The triad of blue is not yellow and red it is red-purple and green-yellow. The whole idea is that the Munsell system will improve your results over the traditional primary model. Test will tell.
Beyond those ideas I have listed the book is filled with a lot more great information no matter what your medium. His medium of choice in the book is pastel which makes it ideal for us pastelist!
Overall I cannot recommend this book enough. I hope you have my luck in finding it at a reasonable price!
Filed Under Harley Brown, books, painting, pastels, portrait | Leave a Comment
Lighweight Tripod Easel - LT Easel
Posted on July 11, 2007
I have taken the time to design a Plein Air easel with the intention of having it extremely lightweight and portable.
The easel is made from aluminum, weighs 1.5 lbs (0.68kg) and is 24" long. It attaches to any standard tripod. It will accommodate surfaces from 6" up to 24” high. The advantages of attaching it to a tripod are that the entire unit is extremely lightweight, the easel can be positioned at any angle from flat to tilting forward and the height is easily adjusted via the tripod so any painter will be comfortable working on it. Add a ‘rock bag’ to the cross posts of the tripod and you have added stability on softer ground or windy days.
I have had some initial interest so I sent design drawings off to a few manufacturers and am currently waiting to here back from them regarding the cost. When I have a final price I will post it here (price will not include cost of tripod, applicable taxes or shipping). Any shipping will be from British Columbia, Canada.
If interested in purchasing one, please contact me.
