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Category: learn to paint

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Then there’s that matter of inspiration

Deer in my brother’s yard, an exercise done several years ago

This Sunday, I was doodling in church when a painting dropped full-blown into my head. That isn’t common, but is always exciting. And in this case, it was fortuitous since I just finished several weeks of flailing around on the previous piece.

Where does a fully-realized idea spring from? First, a thought: in this case, a dilemma that has bedeviled me for almost a year. Then, visual input that is usually jumbling around in one’s cranium solidifies into a concept. In this case:

  1. An email sent by my pal Garrett about how big wolves really are;
  2. A painting I did several years ago as an exercise for my class on how to paint the traps between trees;
  3. A photo taken by my friend Jamie of a waterfalls near her house;
  4. William Holman Hunt’s “Our English Coasts (Strayed Sheep),” which set the light tone for the uplands.

Bold

My sketch done in church last Sunday.

When I’m painting observationally, I follow the traditional rules of alla prima painting: dark before light, big masses divided into small masses, fat over lean. When I’m painting from an interior vision, I paint indirectly, starting with a color map, and then modulating with opaque paints.

My color map.

As far as I got today. Tomorrow, I’ll start looking at real reference.

BTW, this is my current easel setup—electronic reference to the left, paper reference to the left.


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What is talent?

“Bras,” oil on canvas, Kamillah Ramos, 2012. This was painted after five months of study.

Every year I seem to get one kid who draws wonderfully. Sometimes, this kid has managed to decode the rules of drawing on his own. More typically, he has studied outside of school. But however he does it, to the casual observer, he appears to have “spontaneously” learned to draw.

In turn, his teachers identify him as talented, and he is a star of his public school art program. Meanwhile, the majority of kids are vaguely encouraged toward self-expression but never challenged to learn the craft of making art. Nobody considers them particularly talented.

A drawing by this year’s star pupil, Sam Horowitz. Of course he can draw this vacuum cleaner—he’s studied not only with me but with the wonderful Sari Gaby.

As an educational model, that’s bizarre. If we taught math like that, we’d have only one kid a year who mastered calculus. If we taught English like that, we’d be a nation of illiterates.

There is no more a “genius” for art than there is one for math, and it’s a terrible disservice to both students and society to not teach the craft of drawing to all young people.

When I was in school, art instruction was undergoing a sea change. There were some teachers who still taught the technical skill of drawing, but they were being replaced by a generation who emphasized emotional intensity and ideas rather than the nuts and bolts of observation and description. I was fortunate in having superlative draftsmen as teachers, but I’m among the last generation for whom that was a given.

Almost no kids come to my private studio with any experience in observational drawing. They don’t even know there’s a difference between observational drawing and copying photographs. They have never learned the systems of perspective, measurement, and proportion that were drilled into us in an earlier time.

The painting at the top of this page was done by a high school senior. She started studying with me in August, 2011, having had no prior instruction. She is not someone who could teach herself to draw, and hence she wasn’t identified as “talented.” However, she is extremely bright and hardworking. Moreover, she has a story she’s anxious to tell. In five months time, she has gone from not being able to draw at all to being able to paint at this level: not by concentrating on self-expression but by practicing the core disciplines of drawing and painting.

I’m not worried about her future, but she isn’t going to art school because she didn’t have time to develop the chops needed to put together a mature portfolio. But what if she had been taught to draw in elementary school, as I was? How might her life be different?

And what about all the people who never have the chance to learn the skill of drawing? How many potential Manets or VelĂĄzquezes have we squandered?

“Annabel,” graphite on paper, Gwendolyn Linn

This drawing was done by an adult student. She has been hampered by her lack of drawing chops, so I taught her to measure and check angles. This is her first drawing with that skill set, and shows just how quickly one can progress with a little practical instruction.
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Sketchy

In church

This is the second year I’ve bought into the Sketchbook Project and then felt my muse desert me as soon as the package arrived in the mail. It’s ironic, because I carry a sketchbook everywhere I go, a habit that started in elementary school.

My school notekeeping was a total fail from an academic standpoint—full of drawings, with notes occupying a very minor role. My current sketchbooks look exactly the same.

I now realize that drawing in school allowed me to cope with undiagnosed ADHD at a time when school was extremely regimented and bad behaviour still punishable with a ruler to the knuckles. And I received my share of thwacks for drawing in class, believe me. But as a parent and painting teacher, I encourage both my children and students to do the same thing. Unfortunately, most teachers are still opposed to it.

I know it works (as long as the information being presented is verbal and not visual). For some reason, it’s perfectly possible for the mind to listen, learn and retain a lecture while drawing something entirely unrelated.

For me, drawing takes the place of the anxious fidgeting that is part of ADHD. Educators have begun to recognize that allowing such kids to move paradoxically makes concentration easier. But they don’t generally recognize that drawing can achieve the same goal.

I bring my sketchbook to church, to appointments, on errands—in short, anywhere there’s a possibility I will cool my heels. I make no pretence to style, and don’t think about content or composition. (To do otherwise would interfere with my listening.) My goal is simply to record what I see. It’s totally process-based; I never think of the sketches as anything other than practice strokes or visual notes. Which may be why the Sketchbook Project never works for me: it can’t help but turn process into product.














(L-R) In a pinch, you can always draw your own jacket thrown over a chair; couple in church; gesture drawing of horse at Walnut Hill.







(L-R) Or, you can draw your non-dominant hand; people almost always have a few ears hanging around; patient at the neurologist’s office.












(L-R) Quick value study of a path (I could paint it from this); man in church; my son’s big foot, at the pediatrician’s office.















(L-R) I’ve pretty much mined my dentist’s office for subject matter, but there’s always the woodwork; poofy gown from a shopping excursion; man in church.
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Urban painting/Queensboro Bridge

Usually, when we say “field sketch,” people think of pastorals, but the term can apply equally to urban landscapes. I went on a tear painting the Queensboro (or 59th Street) Bridge with my friend Kristin. Here are a few examples.

Construction on the Queensboro Bridge, oil on board, 12X9

Just as urban plein air painters complain about the “endless green” of the woods, pastoral painters are overwhelmed by the grey of the city. But just as there are many different greens, there are many different greys. The trick is to find them, and to find the accidental notes in either landscape.


Queensboro Bridge approach, oil on canvasboard, 16X20

How do you avoid dreary, dull greys? First, avoid using black as a base. I was taught that this was because of the large grains in carbon-based blacks, which may or may not be true. But for whatever reason, black has a way of making cool colors look muddy and warm colors look more opaque, and that’s a bad basis for greys.

Under the Queensboro Bridge, oil on canvasboard, 12X16

I normally paint foliage using a matrix of nine mixed greens plus one from a tube (chromium oxide). There are at least that many greys present in the urban landscape. I prefer to mix them not in matrices, but in threads, so that every permutation is easily available.

Some of my favorite grey threads, from left to right:

Cadmium orange and Prussian blue;

Raw sienna and Prussian blue;

Yellow ochre and quinacridone violet;

Burnt sienna and ultramarine blue.

Remember, every manufacturer’s paint handles somewhat differently, and unless you’re using RGH paint, you’re unlikely to duplicate my results exactly. But the principle is simple: just choose two colors from opposite sides of the color wheel and add white.

In addition, I think it’s very helpful to use a warm-toned canvas or canvas board.

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Today’s little exercise, a one hour sketch after my class.


West breakwall at Irondequoit Bay, some smallish size or another, oil on canvasboard

Kamillah Ramos was game to paint another hour with me after class so I did a quick study. The problem I’m finding is that the paint hasn’t the gamut for the water color. (It’s rare in WNY to have that insane saturated aquamarine, but we’re having strangely clear skies). On top of that, my camera hasn’t the range to record the color in the painting very accurately, but I’ve given it my best shot. Ahem.

I see this scene as a Maxfield Parrish kind of thing, in unearthly light. I think it’s worth repainting in a more studied format; do you?

Here’s the set-up… again for benefit of my students. Laid down darks first, then midtones, then lights; then refined the shapes.

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How to set up a field sketch, for my students’ edification

Cottage at Sea Breeze, 12X16″ oil sketch
This is for my students… a primer in setting up a painting. This is not a finished painting, and it’s probably a bit on the “tight” side since I was doing it solely to demonstrate how I want them to work tomorrow, but so be it.

My goal was to finish this in three hours, including set-up and tear down, since that’s what I expect of them.

  1. I did a sketch in watercolour pencil; then followed that by blocking in the darks.

  2. Then I blocked in the major shapes, working from dark to light, in the right values and hues.

  3. Then I added such details as I was able to finish in the time allotted.
Done in 2 hours, 45 minutes, actually. Would have put the fence details in with a rigger brush but I forgot to bring it. And it was time to go canoeing with my kids.
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Five plein air sketches by a student and friend

Students do wonderful things. Here are five landscape paintings recently entered by Marilyn Feinberg in the GVPAP show at Barnes & Noble—all five were accepted.
Expressway entrance at South Winton Road, about 12.5X10, oil. (These are not titles, but descriptions, since I don’t know the titles.)
My backyard when the roses were in bloom, about 12X12, oil.

Adirondack swamp, about 8X8, oil.

Marilyn’s backyard, about 8X10, oil.

Our grill, about 8X10, oil.

These paintings will be on display in the community room at Barnes & Noble, 3349 Monroe Avenue, Rochester, through January 27. The reception and awards ceremony will be on Saturday, January 8 from 4 – 6 pm.

Marilyn is certainly talented—no doubt about that. But she brings to mind that famous Thomas Edison quote: “Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine per cent perspiration. Accordingly, a ‘genius’ is often merely a talented person who has done all of his or her homework.”

And on that note, I’m getting to work.

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New classes starting this weekend

Studio in Art and portfolio preparation—starting Oct. 2, 2010

Saturday, 11 AM-2 PM

(Oil, pastel, acrylic, watercolor)
This class focuses on still life as a fundamental tool for developing drawing and painting technique. It is appropriate for both beginning and advanced students. Instruction emphasizes direct painting, where paint is applied solidly rather than through glazing. For watercolor and acrylic, the emphasis is on alla prima techniques.

Tuition—$100/month

Uninstructed Figure Workshop—starting October 8, 2010

Friday, 1-4 PM

Model fee. Please contact me if you’re interested.

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Paint Way Down East July 11-18, 2009

Following up on last year’s highly successful workshop, I am offering a painting adventure next summer to the moody, rock-bound coast of Down East, Maine.
This workshop will be based at the lovely and historic West Quoddy Coast Guard Station in Lubec, ME. This early 20th century station is located on the edge of Quoddy Head State Park. The station was recently renovated and opened as a guesthouse by Bill Clark, who developed Randall’s Ordinary Inn in North Stonington, CT.
Your fee of $1150 includes instruction, all meals and seven days of double accommodations. (Other packages are available from $1050.) Non-participating spouses are always welcome; please contact us here for more information and pricing.

See a brochure here.
Book by Feb. 1, 2009 and save $100 off the cost of your workshop!

Among the attractions to paint are:

West Quoddy Head Light (c. 1858)
Passamaquoddy Bay
Historic Lubec waterfront and harbor
Grand Manan Channel
West Quoddy Peat Bog
Sail Rock
Carrying Place Cove
Mulholland Light
Lubec Channel Light

Area attractions include:

St. Andrews, NB, and the Bay of Fundy
Historic whaling community of Eastport, ME
FDR historic site at Campobello Island
Whale-watching

For more information, email me here, or call Carol L. Douglas Studios at 585-201-1558.

Looking forward to seeing you in Maine!

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So you want to go to art school?

You wouldn’t consider applying to music school without taking private lessons, so why would you apply to art school that way? Carol L. Douglas is an experienced painting and drawing teacher who can help you create a portfolio tailored to the school you want.

“Ms. Douglas helped me develop my portfolio to meet colleges’ expectations and taught me the fundamentals of painting and pastel. I was offered scholarships to several art programs including RIT and Pratt. She is an excellent teacher for the student willing to work hard to develop potential.”

— Zeyuan Chen, Brighton HS ‘08, Stony Brook University ‘12
“I visited Pratt and realized my portfolio would not get me in. Ms. Douglas worked with me intensively to fill the gaps, and I am now at Pratt with a Presidential Scholarship. I would not have gotten in without her help.”
— Sandy Quang, MCC ‘08, Pratt Art Institute ‘10
Carol L. Douglas Studio
410 Oakdale Drive, Rochester, NY 14618
585-201-1558
email: [email protected]
www.watchmepaint.blogspot.com
www.goaway-letmepaint.com