Category Archives: oil painting

The White Mountains of New Hampshire

Posted by Aline on

New Hampshire has a Seacoast region, a Lakes region, and countless quaint farms and towns, but to the rest of the world, New Hampshire means but one thing:  the White Mountains.  They do rather stand out, compared to all those other things.  I believe “white” comes from the glimpse that early seafarers got of them, when covered by snow.  Or perhaps it was the sun glinting off the granite.

In any event, they became the subject of many 19th century paintings.  Champney, Bierstadt, and dozens of others explored and painted the Whites.  For a complete rundown, go to White Mountain Art.   Right now there are two major exhibits of White Mountain paintings, one in Jackson and another in Plymouth.  The former we have visited twice before.  The latter is housed in a brand new Museum of the White Mountains on the campus of Plymouth State College.  We stopped there to check it out on our way to Bartlett last Thursday.  We came away with a map showing the coordinates of several locations, that is, the coordinates to the spot where the painter stood to paint or make his sketch (probably not many of the paintings were painted outdoors).  My painting buddy, Sharon, aspires to paint like the Old Masters, and her enthusiasm led her to download a GPS app to her smartphone, and led both of us over hill and dale in search of the right spots.  It was fun.  Unfortunately, progress or tree growth interfered with many replications.

My plein air painting No. 1 is a covered bridge not far from Plymouth.

Smith Millenium Bridge

Smith Millenium Bridge

Friday, we got in two painting segments:  the first was in the strawberry fields below Cathedral Ledge.

Strawberry Fields (Cathedral Ledge)

Strawberry Fields (Cathedral Ledge) (No.2)

Usually, my first painting is my best, I think because the inspirational tug is strongest with the first try.  If you don’t count the covered bridge–it was on the way into the mountains, not quite there yet–this is the first.  And it could be the best.  But there are four more, and you might like one of them better.

Friday afternoon we went on our first expedition in search of Old Master painting spot:  Mt. Adams as captured by Champney.  The actual spot was right in the middle of the Auto Road up Mt. Washington, but we found a better one off to the side.

Mt. Adams

Mt. Adams (No. 3)

Mount-Adams-Benjamin-Champney-1852-24-x-30-inches-Private-collection

Mount-Adams-Benjamin-Champney-1852-24-x-30-inches

The snow-streaked mountain in the background of my painting is Mt. Jefferson, and on the far left is the beginning of Mt. Washington, which is a sprawling kind of mountain, lumping its way to the highest point in the Northeast.  (Last January I had painted a view of this lumpy part of Mt. Washington  on that misery-filled plein air weekend.)

Saturday we found our own spots.  The day before, on our way back to the Bartlett Inn from the Mt. Adams spot, a stream near the highway had caught our eye and so the next morning we went in search of it.  Sharon sometimes ends up in my paintings, and I was particularly glad of the added interest her hat brought to the scene.

Roadside Painter

Roadside Painter (No. 4)

After a while, the noise of the traffic hurtling by next to us faded from consciousness and all we heard was the gurgling water.

In the afternoon, Sharon introduced me to Echo Lake, at the foot of White Horse Ledge.  It was an idyllic spot.  Sandy beach, picnic benched (excellent to paint from–you can really spread out your stuff), lively visitors (and I don’t mean the black flies)–one of whom demonstrated the echo for the rest of us.

White Horse Ledge over Echo Lake

White Horse Ledge over Echo Lake (No. 5)

My painting had at one point a much more literal depiction of the ledge, but its very literalness bothered me, so I loaded up my palette knife and spread paint liberally.  Perhaps something in between would have worked better.  Supposedly there is an image of a horse, whitish maybe, delineated in the cracks of this ledge, but I sure couldn’t see it and I wasn’t about to fake it either.

Sunday was a travel day, but we did get in one painting late in the day before heading back South.  It was the product of another Champney search, this time in Sugar Hill.  Mt. Lafayette is on the left and Cannon is on the right.  Personally, I would call it another view of Franconia Notch.

DSC_0001

I’d say this is about half done.  The dark clouds arrived, threatening rain, before I even touched the sky.   The sky had been a dull gray before that anyway.  Cannon is a ski mountain, and I’m not sure I want to put the ski trails in.  But why not?  I don’t know.  View is from Lovers Lane, in Sugar Hill.

All of my paintings on this trip were 9×12, except Roadside Painter which was 10×12.  I figured I was out of plein air practice, and the smaller format would help me finish paintings.  That was correct.  Perhaps smaller will mean more salable too.  Eventually, I plan to take them back to hang in Bartlett Inn.

Or I may take them to the Beacon Hill Art Walk on June 2.  I am trying to decide whether to take only figurative works, only landscapes, or the best of both.  I’m sharing a tent with Bruce Jones, who does beautiful work in the style of Don Stone.  I’m not sure I want mine compared to his.

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

at the Hatfield Gallery in Manchester (Langer Place, 55 S. Commercial St., Manchester, NH); at the Bartlett Inn in Bartlett; at the Red Jacket Inn in North Conway;  at Stella Blu , an American Tapas restaurant in Nashua; at her law offices at 41 Brook St in Manchester; at the Norris Cotton Cancer Center in Manchester (part of the Healing with Art program) and at her studio by appointment.  Through May 30, nine of her Boston Arboretum paintings will be displayed at the Leach Library in Londonderry, NH.  On Sunday, June 2, she will be participating in the Beacon Hill Art Walk, in Boston.

Art in Action

Posted by Aline on

Today, I am still wiped out by the effort of participating in a two-day event called “Art in Action.”  The Londonderry Arts Council puts it on twice a year.  They were also responsible for the Art in t he Common show last fall which bravely welcomed my nude paintings.  They also set up the arrangement with the Leach Library whereby nine of my paintings are displayed there.  The Londonderry Arts Council is quite an admirable organization of many artists.  Since we have nothing comparable in Manchester, I am grateful that they allow all regional artists to benefit.

Participation entails setting up an area to display your artwork — a mobile gallery of sorts– and space where you demonstrate your art-making–a mobile studio.  I kept it simple by displaying only 10 framed paintings, a few giclee prints and two cards.  Cards (note cards) seem to be the one thing everyone else had lots of.  I sold one of my two, which made for a pretty good percentage of cards sold!  For my Day One demonstrating, I continued on my single-minded quest to capture a likeness of Margaret, and once again failed.  Everyone else thought it was a wonderful painting, but they don’t realize how woeful the likeness is.

Image

This is actually Margaret.  After painting her from life last Tuesday, I tried two more times, using the photo in black and white, to draw her features in black and white.

DSC_0003

And here is the painting from the photo:

DSC_0002

Margaret herself has advised me that if I put in the moles, that would make her recognizable, but whether I am drawing her with paint or charcoal, I truthfully do not see the moles at all.

My frustration leads me to understand why many artists resort to the projecting an image onto the canvas, instead of drawing it freehand.  Hmmm.  Should I try that?  To do so would certainly not help me improve my drawing skills, but I suppose if I had a photograph in front of me and a commission to paint from it, the projector would be a valuable shortcut, almost irresistible.    I’ll wait for the day when I have a commissioned portrait to paint and the subject cannot for some reason sit for it, and then decide whether to succumb to the projector.

For Day Two, my daughter graciously agreed to sit for her live portrait, which  included an accessory–her miniature Pomeranian sitting on her lap.  I’m happy with the Pomeranian, less so with my daughter–their portraits, that is.

DSC_0001

The weekend ended on a high note:  I had to part ownership with my Girl in the Red Headdress, as a  young woman fell in love with it on Day One, and even though she felt she could not afford to buy it, came back on Day Two after having dreamt about it.  It reminded me so much of my first big art purchase.  I fell in love on Day One and came back on Day Two to take the plunge.  The artist, Roger Graham, became a client and a friend, and by the time he died, I owned probably ten (whose counting?) of his paintings, some hanging at my law office and some at my home/studio.  I never regretted a single purchase.  If you buy what you love (not what you think will be a good investment), you will never regret it.  I was happy for her and for The Girl, who has found, in animal rescue parlance, her new forever home.

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

at the Hatfield Gallery in Manchester (Langer Place, 55 S. Commercial St., Manchester, NH); at the Bartlett Inn in Bartlett; at the Red Jacket Inn in North Conway;  at Stella Blu , an American Tapas restaurant in Nashua; at her law offices at 41 Brook St in Manchester; and at her studio by appointment.  Beginning May 1 through May 30, nine of her Boston Arboretum paintings will be displayed at the Leach Library in Londonderry, NH.

The Joy of Completion

Posted by Aline on
Detail from Portrait of Grace

Detail from Portrait of Grace

The “Joy of Finishing” was my first thought for the title to this posting, but “Completion” is  better.  And not just because “completion” brings with it  fewer double entendres.   You could “finish” or come to an end of a project without being satisfied with it.  “Completion” connotes a goal achieved.  I could go further in this amusing wordplay by comparing “accomplished” as in “mission accomplished”, but that could get raw.

This week, therefore, I celebrate three completions.  Last week you saw the intermediate stages of two of them, so you have some idea of what to expect.  Above is the detail from the bigger one.  I said I wanted to make the background from the colors of the headscarf and whaddya know–I did!

Portrait of Grace

Portrait of Grace

Grace did not realize we wanted to repeat the pose from last week, so she arrived with a different scarf, wearing different earrings, and carrying a different drape.  Just as well–three elements were thus eliminated that I might have spent valuable time on.

This is a pretty good likeness of Grace, but of course, profiles are so much easier than 3/4 or full facial views.  Have I mentioned that before?  I hate to repeat myself, especially when the point is obvious when you think about it:  matching up eyes, eyebrows, lids, etc., etc., especially in the 3/4 view where the shadows make them look different, is really, really tricky.  Also, faces are not symmetrical, so too much matchy-matchy would be wrong.  Given all that, trying to figure out where the eye on the left should be higher or the one on the right should be lower can give me headache sometimes.  No, all the time.

The other just-short-of-finished figure from last week came out OK.  I think I messed around a little with the face, to no good purpose, but the main focus was the hand.  Now shorter, narrower, and with a hint of finger structure, this hand no longer detracts from the painting as a whole.

Figure Study (M on BLS)

Figure Study (M on BLS)

However, the face is not that of Margaret, so I moved in closer, metaphorically, on a second sheet of canvas:

Portrait of Margaret

Portrait of Margaret

Still not Margaret.  If I had had more time, I would have lengthened the nose perhaps.  Or shortened it.  But it’s hard to say what exactly is wrong.  Peter Clive said, “Margaret is elusive.”  I called her “sneaky”.  (Which I think she appreciated.)  Likeness or not, this painting came out well.  What do you think of the background?  I was thinking of light through thick green glass, but chose not to take that concept all the way–it was just my inspiration.

You might notice that the head is tilted differently in the second attempt.  It’s just impossible to keep a head from moving.  If I were alone, and were painting a portrait, I could keep telling the model how to adjust her attitude, but when painting the entire figure, there is so much to keep aligned that you tend not to trust  your opinion about where the head should be–especially if changing it might decimate a colleague who thought he had it right.  (I apologize for the long sentence but couldn’t find a spot to break it up.)  Still and all, frustrating as it is, I would not trade it for drawing from a plaster cast of a head, illuminated by a steady, never varying spotlight.  The harder it is, the more ways we learn.  I hope.  I sure hope so.

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

at the Hatfield Gallery in Manchester (Langer Place, 55 S. Commercial St., Manchester, NH); at the Bartlett Inn in Bartlett; at the Red Jacket Inn in North Conway;  at Stella Blu , an American Tapas restaurant in Nashua; at her law offices at 41 Brook St in Manchester; and at her studio by appointment.  Beginning May 1 through May 30, nine of her Boston Arboretum paintings will be displayed at the Leach Library in Londonderry, NH.  On Saturday and Sunday May 4-5, she will be exhibiting and demonstrating at the Londonderry annual event “Art in Action”; the location of Art in Action will be the large farmstand operated by Mack’s Apples, 230 Mammoth Road in Londonderry.

Race up Mount Washington

Posted by Aline on

I’m sharing with you this week a magnum opus WIP (work in progress) that has been in progress for over a year now.  It’s not that I’m lazy, at least I don’t think so.  Or that I have too many other projects going.    I just stopped working on it for many months, waiting for my desire to finish it to return.  I explained this in my blog of a few weeks ago, here if you want to read it.

Usually, I am fast to paint and perhaps too fast to declare my painting done.  I don’t have time to get bored or the scope to get intimidated.  But I almost always have one big painting in the works, and it usually takes me a month or two to work out the problems and declare it finished.  This one has been a totally different experience.  It has intimidated me with its scope, size and complexity.  I now have barely got all the canvas covered, and am only beginning to try to pull it all together as a whole.

Mt. Washington Phase 4

Mt. Washington Phase 4

No smart aleck mountaineer (my son) has yet asked, but perhaps I should make it clear that I am not going for accuracy in the configuration of the mountain ranges depicted.  The people are, however, based on real people whom I observed at the 2011 Race to the top of Mount Washington.  From the hundreds of photos that I took while waiting for my son to finish (33d–that’s really good!), I picked out some vignettes to incorporate in this panoramic scene.  I have drawn and/or painted most of them before I started on the present mammoth.  (OK, it’s 30×40, not really mammoth, but quite big for me.)  Here are my studies, in no particular order:

Fans

Fans

Awaiting the Stragglers

Awaiting the Stragglers (3-legged dog)

View of race with vista

View of race with vista

Whew!

Whew! (a top female finisher)

Andy with bike

A Very Special Guy

Bike Race spectator on Mt. Washington

Bike Race spectator on Mt. Washington (Find him in the magnum opus)

These small paintings are more faithful portraits of the mountains and the infrastructure at the finish line.  The two portraits are of my favorite cyclists, the ones I was there to cheer on.

Mount Washington is often referred to, fondly and respectfully, as “the Rockpile”;  if nothing else, my painting does give the viewer a sense of why that is.   Despite all my practice paintings, I’m still not satisfied with my technique for depicting rock piles.   I also intend to enliven my landscape with many more spectators and cyclists.  If you examine the distant road, you will see, you might see–some indistinct blobs of color;  they are supposed to suggest more cyclists on their way up with spectators along the route.

I would not want to leave you without a nude this week. For the past month or so, I had been sticking to 8×10 and 9×12 canvases for the Tuesday and Friday sessions with live models.  Last Tuesday, counting on having my model in her pose for two straight weeks, I brought a larger canvas to work on–16×20.   I was using a piece of oil-primed linen from a Centurion pad.  If I don’t like all of it when I am finished, I can always cut it down.  So I started large.

Figure in Turban and red drape WIP

Figure in Turban and red drape WIP

So far, so good.  I have high hopes for this one, but am a bit perplexed by the color of the background.  I think I would prefer something that more closely echoed the colors in the turban.  Or perhaps a much darker background to set off the figure and the turban.  Stay tuned!

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

at the Hatfield Gallery in Manchester (Langer Place, 55 S. Commercial St., Manchester, NH); at the Bartlett Inn in Bartlett; at the Red Jacket Inn in North Conway;  at Stella Blu American Tapas restaurant in Nashua; at her law offices at 41 Brook St in Manchester; and at her studio by appointment.

A Milestone Reached

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Last week, without really thinking about it yet fully conscious of it, I produced something, finally, that I have been aspiring to for many years now.  Here it is:

Jon, supine pose

Jon, supine pose

This aspiration started with a class that I took with Patrick McCay at the Institute–a course called Explore, Express, Exploit.  At that time, what I had in mind was achieving a style that was loose as opposed to tight.  Following Patrick’s course, I took Painting the Contemporary Portrait with Cameron Bennett.  Cameron gave us a list of portrait artists, “portrait” being loosely defined and the artists being avant garde, and suggested we look them all up to find one who could inspire our own modern and unique take on portraiture (again, loosely defined).  I glomed onto Carolyn Anderson, American artist living in Montana, somewhat obscurely.  She seems to be an artists’ artist–known to and collected by fellow artists but not yet collected by museums.

Since then, her work has always been in the back of my mind, even when I am producing the hard-edged, detailed works that seem to come out of me unbidden.

You’ve seen a few nudes from me.  Here is the only one I found on Anderson’s website:

Anderson nude

Anderson nude

And here is one of her portraits, lovely beyond words to describe:

Anderson portrait

Anderson portrait

By comparison, I know, my big breakthrough seems heavy-handed. But it occurred–bloomed– quite naturally that Tuesday morning, without a trace of the manipulation that I felt I was guilty of when painting loosely for effect.  “Loosely” implies something casual, effortless, airy–not something forced or faked.  Here is one of my earliest efforts, and it’s not horrible, but still you can feel the strain it put on me:

Translation into Oil

Translation of life drawing into Oil

I know from past experience that this reaching a new level, slightly closer to the high level occupied by my hero, does not mean I am permanently raised on that new level.  On Friday I tried not to slip back too far.  I worry about being too self conscious about it.  A Catch-22.  You can only succeed by not trying so damn hard.

So here is Margaret, the model with whose limbs I have recently struggled in vain to organize*.  I got a break when we posed her with her hair covering up one of her shoulders.

M on brown recliner, WIP

M on brown recliner, WIP

*”organize” is the word used by Robert Liberace to describe the first stages of a drawing or painting, which the parts are sized and fitted together–the jigsaw puzzle stage.  It’s so the right word that I am adopting it.

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

at the Hatfield Gallery in Manchester (Langer Place, 55 S. Commercial St., Manchester, NH); at the Bartlett Inn in Bartlett; at the Red Jacket Inn in North Conway;  at Stella Blu American Tapas restaurant in Nashua; at her law offices at 41 Brook St in Manchester; and at her studio by appointment.

Aging

Posted by Aline on

Well, it happened again.  I forgot to post Monday’s blog.  I was so pleased with myself Sunday for taking the photographs and uploading them to WordPress, that I must have subconsicously given myself credit for completing the job.  Or it’s age.  Twice in three weeks–not good!  Good thing I am wrapping up my law practice.

Yes, it’s official.  I will not be renewing my license to practice law in the state of New Hampshire at the end of our fiscal year.  As of July 1, my status will become “inactive”.  Of course it may take weeks after that to tend to my clients and sort through and dispose of the accumulations of 29 years.  Some of my clients I will continue to be able to serve (e.g., by preparing tax returns) but for those requiring the services of a member of the Bar, I will try to place them with new lawyers.  The tax clients will be the hardest to place–not many lawyers want to represent taxpayers in trouble with the IRS.  That’s because usually the trouble originated in some fault of the taxpayer–well, not “fault” exactly, but behavior.  When people get smacked down or just depressed, they can’t cope with taxes, and of course, to the IRS, it’s just another same old story.  Our system of income taxation confers upon the taxpayers great responsibility and great trust.  Alleviating that burden on the taxpayer is, in my opinion, the only decent argument in favor of a sales  or value added tax.  Thank God I won’t have to even think about this stuff in a few months (except, as I said before, a few tax return preparations).

So this week’s original topic was going to WIPs (works in progress),  WIP and RIP (rest in peace) are two possibilities existing simultaneously in a half-finished painting, like alternate universes.  RIP means I never return to finish the painting.  WIP is a hopeful designation.  Two unfinished paintings this week are, I hope, WIP and not RIP.

But let me show you first–three completed charcoal drawings from our Saturday Life Group.  I’m pretty psyched about them.  Our couple was back, and all of us were a little more at ease with each other and the whole concept of two entwined naked bodies.  For one 2-minute gesture pose, they even struck a kissing pose.  It dawned on me that I could not get more appropriate pieces for the McGowan Gallery‘s annual Valentine’s show,  “Love, Lust and Desire“, than these drawings.   And pieces in the show are limited in size to 8.5 by 11,  so when I decided to bring my 9×12 high-quality pastel paper to SLG that morning, Fate was with me.

I don’t quite remember (age again?) which poses were what length, but the range was 20 minutes to 50 minutes.

LL&D No. 1

LL&D No. 1

LL&D No. 2

LL&D No. 2

LL&D No. 3

LL&D No. 3

I started all three by smearing the paper with soft charcoal.  Then I deployed the kneaded eraser to bring out the lights.  The paper was not white, so I could have increased  the contrast by using white pastel, but for some reason, I felt that much contrast would be too intrusive.  Does that make any sense at all?

WIPs I have several, but the most important is my Mt. Washington Oeuvre.  I slapped some more paint on it, and it’s beginning to take shape.  I’m getting excited about it again,  as the background gets covered with paint.

Phase 3--Biking on Mt. Washington

Phase 3–Biking on Mt. Washington

I have to keep reminding myself that I conceptualized the mountains as semi-abstract.  I cannot allow myself to get hung up on painting realistic rocks.  For the figures, I need to resize them–the ones farther from the viewer need to shrink a bit.  I plan to refer to the original photo references for each figure, on my iPad if I can get it to stop  going to sleep.  Consistency in the direction of sunlight also needs some work.

The next work was a WIP yesterday, when I should have posted this entry, but when I got to Tuesday life group this morning, everyone else wanted to move on with a new pose.  So although I may need to tinker with shapes and values here and there, this is essentially a done deal.

Jon seated on stand wip

Jon seated on stand wip

By the way, I made up the background at home, thinking to get a head start on today’s session.  Head start, finish line, same thing almost.  One of my cohorts today commented that I had a nice touch with interiors, suggesting I should consider that as a specialty.  So watch out for that as a new theme, possibly.  I’m pretty opportunistic, like a leaf in a stream of water, just letting it carry me wherever.  So far, no interiors have presented themselves as likely candidates for painting subjects.  George Nick did some interiors that I admired greatly (many shown in his gallery of 2008-2010 paintings here), and Paul Ingbretson, just one floor below our studio, has an interior that would knock your socks off (see it here–called Warm and Cool).  And Van Gogh was very much into interiors.  Can you think of other examples?  Seems to me to be a pretty untapped seam.  Hope I’m not mixing metaphors there.

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

at the Hatfield Gallery in Manchester (Langer Place, 55 S. Commercial St., Manchester, NH); at the Bartlett Inn in Bartlett; at the Red Jacket Inn in North Conway;  at Stella Blu American Tapas restaurant in Nashua; at her law offices at 41 Brook St in Manchester; and at her studio by appointment.

Hello, Again

Posted by Aline on

To those of you who noticed and cared that I did not post anything last week, I apologize.  To those who never noticed or cared, I don’t know what to say.  Really?  Your lives did not seem emptier?  Mine seemed peculiar.  I am so used to the follow up discussion among my friends that it was as if we had lost a piece of our conversation template.  Perhaps I have gotten spoiled, so it was a good thing to experience a little deprivation for a short time.  I have no excuse for missing a week, if that’s what you are waiting to hear.  I suddenly realized on Tuesday that I had never posted the Monday blog, or indeed even taken the photographs with which to illustrate it.  Instead of bending myself into a pretzel getting a late entry out, I decided to lie back and wait for complaints, if any.  Too few complaints were received.  Oh, well.

The upside is all the extra material I have for this week.  The headline news is progress on the painting that I started a year ago of bikers racing to the top of Mount Washington.  Here is a link to what it looked like last  year.  I brought it out to work on March 23 because of Peter Granucci.  He invited us to his studio in Gilsum (where?–middle of nowhere but close to Vermont) for a workshop on stalled projects.  I had the perfect candidate in the Mt. Washington painting.  He forced me to do exercises of value studies for the painting, six of them, and claimed that each was better than the one before, and only then was I allowed to apply those principles to my big canvas.  So annoying to have to apply real rules when all you want to do is follow your instinct.  But my instinct had dried up, I guess, and that’s why the canvas had seen stashed away for a whole year.  So now Phase 2, which will I hope lead to 3 sooner than a year from now:

Phase 2 of Mt Painting

Phase 2 of Mt Painting

Another feature from Figure Fridays with Peter Clive is this 2-session study of Fletch reclining on the ubiquitous brown leather sofa.   I had two hours remaining when I finished the figure study, so I started a portrait too.

Reclining Male on Brown Sofa

Reclining Male on Brown Sofa

Portrait Fletch Mar 2013

Portrait Fletch Mar 2013

Compare the new portrait to this one from last month.  Am I getting better?

Fletch portrait on darker bkgrd

Fletch portrait on darker bkgrd

The Saturday group is back in business after two weeks off.  Here is the pick of that session.

Reading from back

Reading (Nook) from back

Finally perhaps my favorite of the group is this portrait of Grace.  I think I am finally getting the hang of something–the color of the skin, the modeling of the shoulder, and the light touch for the mouth.  I’m really fond of this one!

Portrait Grace Mar 2013

Portrait Grace Mar 2013

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

at the Hatfield Gallery in Manchester (Langer Place, 55 S. Commercial St., Manchester, NH); at the Bartlett Inn in Bartlett; at the Red Jacket Inn in North Conway;  at Stella Blu American Tapas restaurant in Nashua; at her law offices at 41 Brook St in Manchester; and at her studio by appointment.

Portraits, by Zorn

Posted by Aline on

Just one painting to talk about this week.  It’s a portrait.  One of my colleagues opined that it was the best thing she had seen me do.  She has a fine critical eye, so I was happy to hear that.  But later in the week, I was able to take in the special exhibit (titled, A European Artist Seduces America) at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. The European artist was the Swede, Anders Zorn.  The exhibit includes many of his portraits.  Seeing them reminded me of how far I am from achieving the quality that I admire in Zorn’s work.  Reminded?  No, that word is way too mild.  It whacked me over the head!

First, for context, the result of my effort this week:

Face and Hand

Face and Hand

One of Zorn’s:

Martha Dana

Martha Dana

Many artists avoid dealing with the open mouth because depicting the teeth can look ridiculous.  Not a problem for Zorn, of course.  Look at that bow!  I would have labored over the thing; he just swipes a loaded brush, right, left, right and done.

Many of my nonartist friends, when I told them about the Zorn exhibit, said they had never heard of Zorn, which is completely understandable since I hadn’t either until I started painting back in 2005.  At that time, I was working on landscapes only, and Zorn’s name came up in the context of the limited palette that he had espoused.  “Limited palette” means just a few colors (hues), and the limited palette for which he was known consisted of cadmium red, ivory black, white and  yellow ocher.  Using those hues, he could even make gray look blue.  But while he did some spectacular impressionist landscapes, mostly as backdrops for nudes, his principal claim to fame is his portraits.  He rivaled Sargent, literally.  One of the portraits in the Gardner exhibit, according to the story accompanying it, was created in response to a challenge by the sitter’s husband to make a portrait of her that was better than the one Sargent had done.  I think it was this one.  Mrs--Bacon-small  White gown, overhead view–both to mimic Sargent’s version.  I also think he probably met the challenge, but in the world of art, such comparisons are invidious.

So what is so great about Zorn?  In a word, his deftness.  He could describe a hand, a nose, a cheekbone with a few strokes, and when they was done, he let them be.  Or not–in one painting (the next one shown) large, rough strokes surround the figure, but the figure itself is soft and blended.  images

His nudes all tend to be smooth and soft, and are usually surrounded by an impressionistic landscape including water.  His water was much admired too.  Here’s a taste:

Opal

Opal

Here, in The Omnibus, is another example of his deft strokes–look at the hands:

1799

I think I may try to copy this painting.

The ability to convey much with very little definition is something I have admired in a contemporary artist, Carolyn Anderson (see descriptions of my struggles here and again here), and I wonder how much she has been influenced by Zorn.  His portrait of Gardner herself, in Venice, is considered a major tour de force, because of its liveliness, resulting in no small measure from the looseness and blurriness that also characterizes Anderson’s works:

DSC_0002 - Version 2

Her mouth is open, but you can hardly tell.  DSC_0002  This painting should be an inspiration for all figure artists who desire to capture movement and spirit in a gesture.  I wonder if there is anything written anywhere about how Zorn put this painting together.  Clearly Isabella did not pose for more than a minute or two.

If you want to see more, here are two links that I found useful.  The Gardner Museum website.  The Complete Works of Anders Zorn.  I also found a review of the Gardner exhibit here, and an exposition of the Zorn limited palette here.

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

at the Hatfield Gallery in Manchester (Langer Place, 55 S. Commercial St., Manchester, NH); at the Bartlett Inn in Bartlett; at the Red Jacket Inn in North Conway;  at her law offices at 41 Brook St in Manchester; and at her studio by appointment.

Through March 29, you can also view (and purchase–of course!) my 6×6’s at the Artstream Gallery in Rochester, NH.

Viewer Discretion Advised

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The weather has been crazy up here in New Hampshire.  One day last week everything had to stop for a snow storm, and the next day Spring seemed to arrive.  Because of the snow day, what was supposed to be three successive sessions with Becky as our model were interrupted, and as a result, many fine artworks have gone unfinished.  Quelle tragique!  (Obviously I am referring to the fine artworks in progress by my cohorts, as well as my own.)  Here are my almost-finished works from Friday and Tuesday.

Becky on the Green Chair

Becky on the Green Chair

This one may be finished.  I need a critique from Peter to be sure.  Since I was working on a 9×12 support, the face was quite small, which frustrated me because it was really beautiful.  I decided to quit the one above and start up a portrait, which was going to be finished the next Friday, weather permitting.  Which it didn’t.

Half-finished portrait of Becky

Half-finished portrait of Becky

And no Sunday sessions, possibly due to a mix up involving Daylight Savings Time.  But I still have extra material to show you this week, thanks to the Saturday Life Group.  Two Saturdays’ worth, in fact.  Not only two Saturdays, but two models on one day–a rare event!  But so hard for us as artists to pull off.

I’ll start with the earlier Saturday.  Pretty normal stuff, not shooting for the moon, just charcoal on the Mi Tientes pastel paper.  I don’t care for that exaggerated texture but I have a lot of it to use up, and it might be growing on me.

Becky, left side view

Becky, left side view

Becky, right side view--another imitation of Ingres' Grande Odalisque

Becky, right side view–another imitation of Ingres’ Grande Odalisque (see my prior discussion here)

Becky, front view

Becky, front view

For the second Saturday, we had two models, both new to us, a couple.  We found that posing them in a tableau where they seemed to be interacting with each other made for better results.  Here is our first longish (20 minutes) pose.

Duo Jamie and Catherine, No. 1, 20 minutes

Duo Jamie and Catherine, No. 1, 20 minutes

The second pose was our longest, about 45 minutes I believe, and as you will see, the models were side by side but not really interacting.

Duo Jamie and Catherine--No. 2, 45 minutes

Duo Jamie and Catherine–No. 2, 45 minutes

We had intended that second pose to last the rest of our session, but as a group, we were so disappointed by it, that we abandoned it for another intertwined pose.  However, I did enjoy my drawing, which was basically just of the guy, with the girl in the background.  The light was interesting.  (That studio at the Institute has an overhead skylight, which distinguishes our Saturday drawings from all others in the Langer Place studio.)

Duo Jamie and Catherine--No. 3, 25 minutes

Duo Jamie and Catherine–No. 3, 25 minutes

It was hard to account for all the limbs and still keep their positions believable.  When a body disappears behind something, it has to come out the other side looking as if it belonged there.  If you examine my drawings closely, you can find much fault, but overall, the effect is pleasing, I hope.

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

at the Hatfield Gallery in Manchester (Langer Place, 55 S. Commercial St., Manchester, NH); at the Bartlett Inn in Bartlett; at the Red Jacket Inn in North Conway;  at her law offices at 41 Brook St in Manchester; and at her studio by appointment.

Through March 29, you can also view (and purchase–of course!) my 6×6’s at the Artstream Gallery in Rochester, NH.

Marco Island Paintings Part Two

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Each painting has a story, but 14 stories is a bit much to ask my followers to, um, follow, so I am just adding a few comments underneath, same as I did for Mary’s paintings in my prior post.  Super-short stories, in effect.  Unlike the spread of Mary’s paintings, I organized mine in chronological order to the best of my memory.

DSC_0036

We were huddled behind some shrubbery seeking shelter from stiff winds on a relatively chilly day (for the tropics), so the subject was not selected by inspiration but forced by necessity.   Usually my first painting turns out to be the best, or at least one of the best, in a series of outdoor paintings.  As I was working on this one, I thought it was going to be an exception to that “rule”, but now I am liking it better. . .probably because I am far enough away from the scene to be able to forget reality.

Island Woman

Island Woman.  It becomes a scene of intense frolicness (frolicity?) on the weekends, but we wouldn’t have been able to park anywhere close then, much less find a place to set up easels.

Lanai Sunset

Lanai Sunset.  Strictly speaking, not plein air, but inspired by sight, memory and assisted by iPad photo.  Perhaps still a work in progress.

Waterfront Home

Waterfront Home.  The boats are up in the air on hoists, and I worried about how it would read.  But not important now, I think.  The water looks liquid, don’t you agree?

Frangepani Tree

Frangepani Tree.  Economy of effort:–beautiful bark, few leaves, and blossoms rationed to bloom at the ends of branches for short time.  This one had buds but no blooms yet.

Farmers Market Musician

Farmers Market Musician.  We were chased out of the grounds proper and forced to set up behind the “band”.  Lucky for us!

Octagonal house

Octagonal house.  Occasionally, we can’t resist recording the unusual.

MarGood Park View from the Gazebo

MarGood Park View from the Gazebo.  Our 2d visit to this spot.  Behind me was the skiff that I painted two days before.  It was while I was working on this scene that I got skiff-owner’s request to purchase my painting of his boat and his dog.  I posted that news here.  Pelican landed just in time to get included in the painting.

Dinner!

Dinner!  These are six of the 2 dozen blue crabs that I received in partial payment for the skiff-dog painting.  Don’t they look delicious?  (I think they were blue before being steamed.)

Fishing under the Jolley Bridge

Fishing under the Jolley Bridge.  Had highest hopes for this one, but now worry it has missed the mark.  There is a slight curve in the bridge, so don’t get on my case about perspective!

Waterfront Dining

Waterside Dining.  That’s how they characterize it.  I left out the blue dolphin that Mary chose to feature.  Dolphins all over the city, like moose sculptures in NH.  Cows in Chicago.  Gnus in New London.  (look it up)

Two Visitors to Residents Beach

Two Tiny Visitors to Residents Beach.  What?  You don’t see them?  I thought they were warblers, but the bird book suggests they are more likely wrens.  Also met my first Red Knots and Brewer’s Blackbirds in the course of making this painting.  (Beach is to the right, past the vegetation barrier.)

Plein Air Still Life

Plein Air Still Life?  I’m  always saying:  I don’t “do” still lifes.  This not really “still” because the light keeps moving!

Last Day: San Marco Church

Morning of my Travel Day: San Marco R.C. Church.  Foreground, what foreground?  What can you do with a parking lot? Had to pack up and catch plane in afternoon, so I forgot to get photo of Mary’s version, which was excellent.

I hope that adds up to fourteen.  I wish I had a better photo of number 15, which I had to leave in Florida with its happy new owner.  I took a photo of Stephen holding his painting, but it turned out horrible.  Here instead is a photo of my collector, which I lifted from the Naples Daily News, online edition.

Crabby Stephen

He may look like he only knows about collecting (and cooking) crabs, but he is also experienced in matting and framing, so the painting is in the best of hands.  I asked him to send photo of painting when and as framed.

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

at the Hatfield Gallery in Manchester (Langer Place, 55 S. Commercial St., Manchester, NH); at the Bartlett Inn in Bartlett; at the Red Jacket Inn in North Conway;  at her law offices at 41 Brook St in Manchester; and at her studio by appointment.

Through March 29, you can also view (and purchase–of course!) my 6×6’s at the Artstream Gallery in Rochester, NH.

If you happen to be near Tampa, Florida on March 7, 8, and 9, you could (and should) catch Nude Nite, happening with music and other entertainment at 3606 E. 4th Ave., in Tampa.  Hours are 6 pm to midnight.  (Nude NITE, after all)

Marco Island Paintings Part One: M.C. Reining

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I returned from my two-week painting vacation on Marco Island with 14 paintings, and the next two days was back to painting and drawing nudes.  Too much for one blogpost anyway, so I am deferring for a few days the pleasure of showing my art in favor of first displaying the artworks created by my Marco Island hostess, Mary Crawford Reining.

On most occasions, we were looking in the roughly  same direction to paint if not the same scene, neighboring scenes.  You will be able to identify a few exceptions (most prominently the boat featured in my previous posting).   You might find it interesting to compare our different treatments of the same subjects.  But it would be like comparing apples to oranges, which I understand is not a good thing to do.  Mary is a watercolorist (she claims to switch from medium to medium, but I have only seen her painting with watercolors in the five  years that I have been plein air painting with her) and her style is looser than mine.  I have noticed that the more experienced an artist is, the more successfully they attain looseness.  Mary is very experienced, having studied art and having taught art, and, most importantly, having never in all those years ceased to think and behave like an artist.

You will enjoy her paintings:

Within a shelter created by natural canopy

Within a shelter created by natural canopy.  Destined to be a study for a much larger version of the same scene.

Bank of newspaper dispensers in Goodland, in front of "Island Woman"

Bank of newspaper dispensers in Goodland, in front of “Island Woman”.  My version contains only three of the kiosks.

Blue Dolphin sculpture in front of Mangoes

Blue Dolphin sculpture in front of Mangoes.  Celebrating kitsch.

Musicians and crowds at the Farmers Market

Musicians and crowds at the Farmers Market.  That very blue man in the center is the main actor in my version.

Octagonal house in Goodland

Octagonal lemon-green house in Goodland.  Why not?

View found in leeward side of the Jolley Bridge

View found in leeward side of the Jolley Bridge, Day 1 of my visit, very windy!

View found from under the other side of the Jolley Bridge

Another watery residence.  Outboard motor included.

Home in Goodland, from gazebo at MarGood park

Home in Goodland, from gazebo at MarGood park.  (Isn’t that orange reflection just brilliant?)

Yellow Sailboat with Black Sail

Yellow Sailboat with Black Sail.  I actually didn’t get to this scene, but we had it on our agenda.

Study of palm trees in stiff wind

Study of palm trees in stiff wind, at Residents’ Beach.

Plein air still life, French style picnic

Plein air still life, French style picnic  (Bread  looks awfully good–you’d never know it was hard as a rock)

I wish I could send you to a wider online presence of Mary’s, but she keeps a low profile, electronically speaking.  In fact, NO profile at all online.  I know. . . shocking.  But if you were of a mind to purchase any of her artworks, I would be glad to act as intermediary.

P.S. Heather’s from Tuesday

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This is a kind of postscript to my blog entry from yesterday. After publishing yesterday, feeling pretty satisfied that I had used my time in Cleveland well, I continued on to Fort Myers. Then I got to wondering why Heather’s painting was not uploaded. Today, hooked back uo to the Internet, I discovered that the photo of her painting had never left my phone. Oh, boy! I had to learn a new thing–how to get photo from phone to WordPress with help from my computer. My iPad would have to rise to the occasion.

Well, some hours later, I give up on amending original blog and settle for this special edition. Heather deserves a page of her own anyway, because she got me thinking in terms of long-pose painting in the first place, and because she and I have been progressing together, taking the same classes for several years now.

Your Last Nudes for a While–A collection from the Circle

Posted by Aline on

Still a work in progress

Still a work in progress


That photo is a product of my cell phone. While in the throes of packing my gear for Florida last night (I’m writing this from Cleveland airport during a long layover), just for the sake of comparison, I snapped this image of the same painting with my Nikon.
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Yes, my hand shook a little ( couldn’t afford the time to set up properly with tripod), but the colors are truer. Bearing that in mind, here are the cell-phone-pix of my fellow artists:
The Front by Nancy H.

The Front by Nancy H.

The Back by Nancy C

The Back by Nancy C


 
Nita's Portrait

Nita’s Portrait


In the course of packing for Florida, I came across a forgotten painting, forgotten only a matter of weeks, perhaps. It’s interesting for the uncharacteristic brownish flesh tone. It reminds me of Rembrandt’s palette.
brownie

brownie

I recognize that beach chair, but can’t remember the last time I’ve seen it. So this painting may be months older than I originally thought. I found it in the framing studio so it seems likely that it predates that great framing effort for the Londonderry show in September.

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

at the Hatfield Gallery in Manchester (Langer Place, 55 S. Commercial St., Manchester, NH); at the Bartlett Inn in Bartlett; at the Red Jacket Inn in North Conway;  at her law offices at 41 Brook St in Manchester; and at her studio by appointment.

In February, you can also view (and purchase–of course!) my 6×6’s at the Artstream Gallery in Rochester, NH.

If you happen to be near Tampa, Florida on March 7, 8, and 9, you could (and should) catch Nude Nite, happening with music and other entertainment at 3606 E. 4th Ave., in Tampa.  Hours are 6 pm to midnight.  (Nude NITE, after all)

 

Potpourri–Nudes, Landscapes, Almost Abstract

Posted by Aline on
Sideways

Sideways (12×9)

Once again I lead off with a nude.  I love my nudes.  This was today’s.  You probably recognize the model.  Our Saturday group got cancelled by the snowstorm and my painting from Tuesday is not finished, so it’s the only nude I have for you today.  (We have Tuesday’s model again this week, so I will finish that one up and post it before I leave for Florida for two weeks.)  I am not sure that I will be able to keep to my Monday blogging schedule while I am down in Florida, but I should be able to post photos of the paintings from time to time.

Today I finally noticed why I sometimes see shadows as orange.  When it’s cold in the studio, we used a space heater to keep our model comfortable.  The heater glows orange.  Her breast looked as if it were on fire yesterday.  That was the clue.  But it doesn’t explain other orange shadows, the ones on the other side from the heater.  Maybe it’s simply what I see, after having one cataract removed.  Can’t wait for the other one to go.

I also loves me some landscapes.  Without a Saturday Life Group session, I was unleashed to paint a landscape.  Ever since the Eric Aho exhibit, I’ve had this notion that I too could paint an abstract landscape if I simply gave myself permission .  Turns out, it’s not that easy.  I have, in the past, made paintings that look abstract–well, only two, to be exact.   One happened in a magical state of unconscious creativity (as seen in hindsight, of course), and the other’s subject matter was inherently abstract.  “Spirit Lake” is the former; the name I gave it may be a subconscious bow to the process that created it.  Click here to go to my web page showing Spirit Lake.

The inherently abstract one was a close up view of the mangrove swamp in the Ding Darling National Wildlife Preserve.

Mangroves, Ding Darling

Mangroves, Ding Darling

So Saturday I taped up a 16×20 piece of oil primed linen on a drawing board, and got out a volume of spectacular photographs by Tim Palmer, of some of the most spectacular scenery in existence.  I met Tim some years ago at a Sierra Club meeting, and told him I wanted to use his photographs as inspiration for paintings, and he gladly gave me permission to do so.  His book, titled “Luminous Mountains: The Sierra Nevada of California”, had been waiting patiently in my studio all these  years to be put into service.  I opened the book and did not get further than the frontispiece, a magical scene titled “Volunteer Mountain, Yosemite, at Sunset.”  I tried valiantly not to paint the photograph, but I’m sorry to report, my product is not very abstract.  Not abstract at all.

California Landscape

California Landscape

It’s also earthier, less magical, than the photograph.  Isn’t that strange?  I may try again, next time limiting my palette–no blues or greens allowed.

I also took the Saturday opportunity to modify, perhaps improve,  the frigid plein air paintings of a few weeks ago.  I actually made something of that first effort in the windy, subzero meadow off Route 302.

Mt. Washington from 302, No. 4

Mt. Washington from 302, No. 4

The scene of the Jackson church needed some cleaning up, and fresh whites (actually not pure white, but white with a tiny bit of yellow).  Compare:

Jackson Community Church, looking west, BEFORE

Jackson Community Church, looking west, BEFORE

Jackson, AFTER

Jackson, AFTER

The differences are perhaps too subtle to show up in this medium, same as a photograph can never do justice to a painting, unless it is printed as a giclee and there is nothing between you and the giclee print.  (No digital interface, e.g.)

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

at the Hatfield Gallery in Manchester (Langer Place, 55 S. Commercial St., Manchester, NH); at the Bartlett Inn in Bartlett; at the Red Jacket Inn in North Conway;  at her law offices at 41 Brook St in Manchester; and at her studio by appointment.

In February, you can also view (and purchase–of course!) some of my paintings and drawings at the McGowan Gallery in Concord, NH, (“Love, Lust and Desire” is the theme) and my 6×6’s at the Artstream Gallery in Rochester, NH.

If you happen to be near Orlando, Florida on February 14, 15 or 16, or Tampa, Florida on March 7, 8, and 9, you could (and should) catch Nude Nite, happening with music and other entertainment at these locations, respectively: 639 W. Church St. (blue freestanding warehouse just East of I-4) in Orlando; and 3606 E. 4th Ave., in Tampa.  Hours are 6 pm to midnight.  (Nude NITE, after all)

Welcome, Groundhogs*

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Skin Colors

Skin Colors

Yesterday’s quasi portrait is my pick of this week.  It could be improved, for sure.  But overall I am pleased–with the gesture, the drawing, the colors, the modeling.  I wanted to leave the background unpainted,  to show off the fact that I made no changes in the outside contour of the figure.  But now I do need to make some changes, so I will try to match the color of the paper I was painting on to eliminate that dark edge atop her left arm, and to carve away at the neck and jaw on her left side.  I would also like to point that I snuck in a tiny glimmer of teeth showing between her open lips.  Even more so than hands and feet, teeth are the painter’s nemesis.

This brown card stock, which I have been using a lot lately, is called “carton board” and is made by Judson’s (Guerrilla Painter).  It looks like stiffened brown Kraft paper but is  sized to accept oil paints without absorbing them.  It does kind of absorb the Gamsol, but dries out quickly.  It leaves a spot.  You can see a spot near her left jaw, where I was trying to carve away at it without deploying paint.

Other things I want to change about this piece: the eyes–too heavy with the dark line, I think; the transitions between colors in skin tones–too abrupt in certain places;  the hair:  too restrained–she has quite a mop, and showing that would add interest to the painting.

In my stories about the Circle of Six (or Seven), I showed you several examples of what my colleagues were doing with the same poses, but somehow I missed capturing this one by Steve:

Steve's Best

Steve’s Best

Steven thinks this is his best drawing of Becky.  For the blog that showed more takes on this pose, go here.

I have heart-warming news in abundance today.  One of my little 6×6 paintings was selected by one of the sponsors for the Notecard project of the Women’s Caucus for Art.  OK, that requires an awful lot of explanation.  The WCA pulls together an annual exhibit to showcase members’ 6×6 pieces, which are sold for $66.  Artists purchase the 6×6 blank panels  from WCA and the money we raise from these sales of blank panels to artists goes into the scholarship fund.  (We award a $1,000 each year to a NH woman attending art school in NH.)  The sale of the finished panels generates revenue for the artists and the gallery, not the WCA.  So this year, for the first time, our beloved leader (Suzanne Whittaker) developed the Notecard Project:  ten sponsors donate a largish sum of money in exchange for the credit that goes with the publication of sets of ten note cards, each set containing reproductions of all  ten 6x6s chosen by  sponsors for such honor, to be sold throughout the year in various retail locations.  The money raised from the sales of the notecards goes to the scholarship fund.  The money raised from the sponsorships pays for the printing of the notecards, and a little bit goes back to the artists chosen to be in the notecard pack.

That takes so long to explain because there are so many interlocking elements.  I was intending to show you my oown 6×6’s eventually, but had so much content on other subjects that I never got around to it.  Here they are:

A Walk in the Woods, 1

A Walk in the Woods, 1

A Walk in the Woods, 2

A Walk in the Woods, 2

A View of the Bay

A View of the Bay

A View of the Forest

A View of the Forest

Barrington Editions, a business that creates giclee reproductions of artists’ paintings, is the sponsor who chose one of mine for the notecards.  They chose the one I call A Walk in the Woods 1.  To create these pieces, I cut up old watercolors to the correct size and mounted them onto the 6×6 panels.  I enhanced them with black and brown ink,  then I covered them with an acrylic gel, which protects the watercolor paper and adds a nice shine.  Inspired by the shine, I decided to construct wires simulating windows.  This turned out to be much more difficult than I had imagined, and I became worried that the wires were too fussy, especially for the first two, which seemed to stand well on their own.  So in the end, I added the window wires only to the last two above, then forgot to photograph them in their little cages.

Other big news, which cannot wait:  Nude Nite Tampa invited BOTH of my pieces.  These two.

DSC_0006

Artists and Model

Artists and Model

I’m not quite ready to part with Artists and Models, but now I have to.  Am wondering if it will be any cheaper to ship two smaller pieces than the one large one that went down to Orlando last week, at a cost of $122.  (I do hope it sells, but in case it doesn’t, the trip back home is already paid for.)

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

at the Hatfield Gallery in Manchester (Langer Place, 55 S. Commercial St., Manchester, NH); at the Bartlett Inn in Bartlett; at the Red Jacket Inn in North Conway;  at her law offices at 41 Brook St in Manchester; and at her studio by appointment.

In February, you can also view (and purchase–of course!) some of my paintings and drawings at the McGowan Gallery in Concord, NH, (“Love, Lust and Desire” is the theme) and my 6×6’s at the Artstream Gallery in Rochester, NH.

If you happen to be near Orlando, Florida on February 14, 15 or 16, or Tampa, Florida on March 7, 8, and 9, you could (and should) catch Nude Nite, happening with music and other entertainment at these locations, respectively: 639 W. Church St. (blue freestanding warehouse just East of I-4) in Orlando; and 3606 E. 4th Ave., in Tampa.  Hours are 6 pm to midnight.  (Nude NITE, after all)

*I really have nothing to say to groundhogs, but am so grateful that Phil has ordained an early spring for us that I just had to call out.

Studies, Ending, Beginning

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This is the last study for my large Mt. Washington Bike Race painting.  I numbered it “4” but in fact it is 5 if you count the two portraits in the series.  I have started on the big canvas, but the drawing is so rudimentary that I am saving it for a future post, when I hope I will have something of interest to display.

Meanwhile I would like to share with you a minor triumph–well, sort of a triumph and certainly a very minor one.  Last Summer (can’t believe it has been that long ago) in the Portraits course I was taking with Cameron Bennett, he crushed me with the observation that an eye was too low on a copy of a Serov portrait that he had assigned us as homework.  Here is a link to my report on that last effort.  Last week I finally got around to correcting that flaw.  I used a ruler.  I laid the ruler under the eyes of the original, then under the eyes of my copy.  I couldn’t find any discrepancy, yet I had to agree the there was something fishy about my eye.  Of course, the color was wrong, but could that obvious flaw have create the misimpression that the eye was too high or low?

Original, by Valentin Serov      

My copy of Serov portrait (A)

My copy, after retouching eye

Original Portrait by Valentin Serov

Finally, one more workshop piece, from our (NH Plein Air artists) most recent meeting of the Peter Granucci workshop series, which ironically, requires indoor practice from photographs.  The subject this month was snow.

 

Snow Shadows

Improvements

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DSC_3049

Above is a new and improved version of the Rockport Harbor painting from last week.  I’m hoping you might be curious to see what can happen to a plein air painting after the artist gets to stare at it in the studio for a while.  It all started when I decided that the shape of the red fish house was not quite right.  Perspective errors are the worst–they haunt me forever unless I fix them.  And once I dive into a painting to make one correction, chances are pretty good that I will find other ways to improve on a painting, even a painting that started out not so bad.   (With a bad painting, I’m like a dog with a bone–I won’t give it up.)  So, after correcting the shape of the fish house, I made the following changes:

Sky:  horizon color–greener

Red fish house: adjusted values of lighted and shaded sides

Blue fish house: changed color of  roof

Boats:  added clean whites to sun-struck surfaces

Water:  brought up reflections of boats, toned down reflection of red fish house

Stone abutments:  eliminated highlights, contrast

Rockport Harbor WIP

After making those changes, I submitted the painting to Patrick McCay’s critical gaze in my EEE class, and, following his advice:

Foreground shrub: added darker shadows, to better compete with the dark in the middle boat

Middle boat:  inserted lighter shadows into the deck , so that the boat stopped attracting the eye

Red fish house: grayed down the red on the fish house–to comport with aerial perspective rules.

I think it’s done now.  Unless something else starts to bother me about it. But I am deep into more studies for the Mount Washington bike race painting and unlikely to give Rockport Harbor another going over.

Here are two Mt. Washington studies, one finished (maybe) and the other, not quite finished–hope you like them!

View of race with vista

At the Finish (WIP)

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

at the Gallery at 100 Market Street in Portsmouth; at the Sage Gallery in Manchester; at the Hatfield Gallery in Manchester; at the Bartlett Inn in Bartlett; at the Red Jacket Inn in North Conway; and at her studio by appointment.

Link to website:  www.paintingsbyaline.com

Boats

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Rockport Harbor, November 2011

Last Monday, I took the day off to go painting, making a gift out of the  chore of picking up an unsold painting at the Rockport Art Association in Massachusetts.  Accompanying me were my friends, Jackie and Clint.  We explored the entire downtown area before settling on a location across from the T Wharf where Clint and I had painting a month ago.  It was a magnificent day, at least until the sun disappeared behind the buildings.

Drawn again by the fish house known as Motif No. 1, I also had Van Gogh in mind in my depiction of the drying shrub.  At the start, the boats were necessary to the scene, but not necessarily the focus of the painting.  But boats have a way of stealing your attention, of grabbing the eye.  So I give up, and let it become a painting about the boats and not at all about the now-annoying drying shrub in the foreground.

A few days ago, I read another blog exhorting artists to keep all their older work so that they can see and appreciate the progress they are making.   I keep pictures of most of my paintings, and the rendering of boats is particularly difficult.  I searched everywhere to find the first boats I remember having painted; the only images I could find were embedded in an Excel file.  (I used to keep track of all my paintings in an Excel file, but after 100, it got to be too cumbersome.)  The struggle to find a way to include these two proofs of my early ineptitude has taken me all morning.  I finally figured out that if I transfer each image from the Excel file to a Word file, then save the Word file as a web page, the images get converted to jpg images that I can import into iPhoto.  Then I export the images from iPhoto to my desktop, from whence I can upload them into WordPress.  Whew!  Not sure the effort was worth it.

These two paintings were plein air, on Monhegan Island, during a workshop with Stan Moeller:

Monhegan Harbor from Fish Beach

Lobster boats, lobster pound          

Kind of clunky, right?  But not bad as a start.  Bear in mind the damn things are constantly moving and changing their orientation as the tides move under them.

In my search through the archives, I stumbled upon three paintings from another Moeller workshop that also contained boats, earlier than the Monhegan boats by about two weeks:

   

These three are views from La Napoule on the Mediterranean coast of France.  The boats in these three paintings are too distant, too small to  qualify as boat paintings, but I thought they were worth including since they are the very first boats to appear in any painting by me.

Apparently, I went without boats of any kind for two years after that.  The next grouping is two Rhode Island paintings, again plein air, that I painted in the summer of 2009:

Working Boats at Rest 8×10          

Marina at Allen Harbor, Rhode Island  12×16

I was very pleased with these two paintings, which were done in the same afternoon from virtually the same spot.  The conditions were uncomfortable–very windy, cold, I think, yet sunny.  I just remember being miserable during the first painting  and rushing to finish it.   It’s not hard to see progress between the Monhegan boats and the Rhode Island boats.

Most of my boats are plein air experiences, but there is one prominent exception.  I painted a large (for me, then) portrait of a waterfront in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and toward the end, stuck in a boat to break up the waterline and add interest:

Portsmouth Waterfront 16×20

That is a real boat–it belongs to someone who lives in one of those buildings. This boat “portrait”, painted from a photo reference, undoubtedly helped me in depicting my favorite plein air boat, “High and Dry”, from 2011 below.

My Rhode Island successes had given me the courage to go for boats on my next trip to  Florida; in 2010 I choose this orange catamaran.

Catamaran

The double hulls made this a complicated project. I was not  thrilled with the resulting portrait.  So I tried again with this one, looking for the magic I seemed to have found in Rhode Island:

Boat Slip

This painting is not about the boat in the background, but about the reflections in the water of the pilings.  But it’s still a boat so it has to count for something.  The boat is certainly better than the Monhegan boats–not as clunky.  But I don’t love it the way I love my Rhode Island boats.  Perhaps I have a bias in favor of working boats.

That Fall (2010) I painted my first New Hampshire boats, but in a way that the painting cannot be assigned a place the scale of good, better or best boats.  These were impressions of boats from a distance, much like my La Napoule boats:

Sunset over Massabesic Lake

The point of this painting, obviously I guess, was the sunset.  The boats are mere window dressing, silhouettes against the light.  Around about the same time, I painted from a photograph taken in Ogunquit, Maine, the following scene:

Reflections

Another case of the boat being window dressing.

This brings me to the most recent predecessors of Rockport Harbor:  two paintings from Florida in March of this year; and one from Wells Harbor in June.

One-story home with Boat

High and Dry (but still perky)

Wells Harbor

Of these three, only “High and Dry” is all about the boat.  “High and Dry” is, in my opinion,  my best boat ever, but it should be:– unlike all other boats, my model for this painting was perfectly stationary.  It’s hard enough drawing or painting a moving object, much less one that demands a level of accuracy approaching portraiture.

Finally, Rockport:

Rockport Harbor, November 2011

Three boats of diminishing size to show perspective, of diminishing detail to show distance, a scene so perfectly matched to the beginning (Monhegan boats) that a comparison is easy.  There has been progress!  But wait–what about progress since Rhode Island boats?  That is far from certain, to me at least.

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

at the Gallery at 100 Market Street in Portsmouth; at the Sage Gallery in Manchester; at the Hatfield Gallery in Manchester; at the Bartlett Inn in Bartlett; at the Red Jacket Inn in North Conway; and at her studio by appointment.

Link to website:  www.paintingsbyaline.com

A Best Week

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Some weeks are so full of reportable stuff that I have trouble choosing my topic.  Other weeks, I have trouble scaring up a single decent topic.  I could save up half of the good-week stuff for a dull week, but who wants to plan for dull weeks?  Not me.  On the other hand, I don’t want to bore you either, and really now, wouldn’t  you rather hear about struggles?  This week I can report on a bit of a struggle and its accompanying triumph so that’s what I lead with.

Part I.  Alpaca Love.  You remember the alpaca farm/ranch from last month?

Alpaca Farm v.1

Alpaca Farm in North Conway

This was the plein air painting from the Bartlett weekend, to which, I announced, I would be adding an alpaca closeup.  I had one good alpaca closeup, so I went with that, even though I’d have preferred the animal to be facing more towards the viewer.  My closeup did not include the legs either, so I was winging it with regard to the posture and thickness and general shape of the legs.

Alpaca Farm v.2

Alpaca Farm v.2

Pretty awful, right?.  I wouldn’t even show it to you before–I couldn’t let it sit out there as if finished when I was going to have to repaint the red alpaca closeup.  First, I had to find a better reference photograph.

As it turned out, when I got around to searching my own photographs, I had plenty of good alpaca poses.   Thanks to my powerful Nikon SLR camera, alpacas photographed in the way distance still gave me enough enlarged detail to paint a loveable blond alpaca in just the right pose, in just the right spot.

Alpaca Farm, v.3 (Final)

Part II:  Supercyclists. Earlier this evening, I delivered two paintings to my son in celebration of his birthday.  One of them  you have seen already.

Andy as Supercyclist

It depicts him right after finishing the race up to the top of the Rockpile (Mt. Washington).  Paint still wet on the second one delivered, is my painting of his friend Kori, from the same time, same place.

Whew!

I love the foreground in Kori’s painting.  Strange that where the focus of the painting is the figure of the cyclist, what I love most is how I painted the ground.  I would have liked to paint the face more expressively, but I didn’t really have room for that.  The two paintings are each 12×9, so the faces are quite small.  I wanted to get the likenesses as close as possible, so I had to be careful.  Andy’s worked out better because I had only light and shadow anyway, but Kori’s nose, mouth, eyebrows had to fall in the exact correct places, and no smearing please.

My major painting plan, for which these two 12x9s have served as studies, is still on, but the faces in the big one are not going to get any bigger since the plan is to encompass the entire rockpile.  I think I need to reuse this scene in a longer painting so as to include more of the shadow, and larger overall, so as to allow more of a slapdash face.

Part II:  Lovely Nudes.  Finally, for a change of pace, how about a collection of lovely nudes from Saturday Life Group?  My best from two weeks ago, and all three from this week:

Arrangement of elbow and knee   

Leg on Blue Draped Pillow

Right Side with bent elbow

The back from a left angle

I am wondering if I am getting too heavy-handed with the charcoal.  The “Leg on Blue Draped Pillow” has more charm to it, I think, because I had the pose for only 20 minutes and had to keep a light touch.  I would like to know if you agree.  Or disagree.  Either way, it was a good week.  Here’s hoping for another one coming up!

Tomorrow (Monday) I pick up my painting from The Rockport (Mass.) Art Association.  Unsold.  They invited me to apply for membership, and I thought I would if my painting sold, but it didn’t, so I didn’t.  A bit far to go for the sheer joy of exhibiting.  Although I do hope to get in a plein air painting day tomorrow, which makes a trip worthwhile.  Also tomorrow, paintings are being changed out at the Sage Gallery in Manchester, 70 Lowell Street.   Please visit this new gallery.

My old website, with multiple painting galleries yet to be transferred to this WordPress location, can be accessed at this address:  www.paintingsbyaline.com.  Also there are  all the images attached to earlier blog entries.  Eventually I will move everything here, but it takes a lot of time.

Tale of Woe

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. . . Snow woe?  Weather woe?  Maybe lack-of-power woe.  “Power.”  Have you ever thought about the usages of the word “power”.  We use it to describe an attribute of people who attain positions where they can control the lives of others.  Power is also an attribute of an individual who can control his/her own life.  So why does  “Power” also refer to  electrical current to run lights, furnace, phone, internet, microwave, TV, DVD, and radio, to charge cell phones and Palm Pilots?  Because without all those abilities, one is powerless.

Without power (in the technological sense) One is also cold, hungry, and sleepless.  So I write this tale of powerlessness–obviously not from home–in a state of grogginess.  For the first time in my life, I slept with a Great Dane.   I invited her into bed with me when her “mom”, my granddaughter, bailed on us to go spend the night with a friend with “power”.  Honey, the Great Dane, usually sleeps with Tabitha, my granddaughter.  Tabitha thoughtfully lent us her comforter and Honey was dressed in a woolly sweater.  I wore my thermally correct underwear and a snuggly fleece robe-type thing over that.  We were warm enough.  Well, I was warm enough.  Honey was shivering and twitching all night, while I concentrated on hanging on to my share of the bed and waiting for the sun to rise.

Actually, I wasn’t all that hungry because I got to spend a wonderful 4 to 5 hours at a party with artists earlier in the day.  Mill Brook Gallery in Concord held an opening for an exhibit that was enchanting in its originality and breadth.  http://www.themillbrookgallery.com/  I had been invited by Patrick McCay, one of the featured artists, who is my EEE teacher.  (EEE stands for Explore, Exploit, Express–in whatever medium, whatever style.)  Two of his paintings already had red dots on them when we got there.  “We” because I did not have the use of my car yesterday but got a ride with two other artists, Bea Bearden and David Wells.  Through Bea and David I also found myself welcomed to a pot luck supper after the reception.  What a pot luck supper it was!  It deserves commemoration by publication of the entire amazing menu, but I cannot do it justice on the wing with descriptions like “quiche-type thing” and “rice and beans”.  I didn’t go near the pies–no room for dessert.

So in truth I was warm enough and not hungry at all, and only sleepless now.  Yesterday, before going off and partying, I used a few daylight hours to tinker with three paintings that I had started in EEE.  The third one is my newest one, which you have not yet seen.  In order to get enough light in which to photograph it, I brought it to the office with my camera.  No tripod though, so it looks a little fuzzy.

Taking a Bow

As the cyclists arrive at the top, someone throws a gray blanket over their shoulders, which keeps them from getting too chilled after their sweaty exertion.  The top of Mt. Washington is, even in August, likely to be a chilly place.  Andy, who happens to be my son, appears to be wearing a ribbon of some sort, which I only noticed in the course of working on this painting.  Will have to find out the significance of that.

The train car in the background is part of the  Cog Railway.

In this painting, I believe I have become more of an impressionist, which is kind of  what I have set out to do in the EEE class.  My highest goal is to emulate  Sargent and Sorolla, which to me means using the brush strokes expressively.  I really enjoyed working on this painting.  It is another of the studies for the larger work I am hoping to get to, the one of the whole top of the mountain with the crowds, the cyclists, and the mountain vistas.

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

at the Gallery at 100 Market Street in Portsmouth; at the Sage Gallery in Manchester; at the Manchester Artists Association Gallery in Manchester; at the Bartlett Inn in Bartlett; at the Red Jacket Inn in North Conway; at the Rockport Art Association Gallery in Rockport, Massachusetts.

Link to website:  www.paintingsbyaline.com

Details (Death to)

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“It’s all in the details” — a statement considered wise when the subject matter is policy. What about when the subject is art? Recently, I visited an exhibit of Dutch and Flemish paintings from the 17th-18th century, wherein the details were really important. Before photography, paintings were valued as records; the tiniest of details were appreciated. But in this day and age, details can be a hindrance to artistic expression. Representation, as opposed to abstraction, is even looked down upon in some quarters. Abstraction is the ultimate in detail-elimination.

Only last week one of my followers commented, “Your drawings are magnificent.  Great attention to detail.  Superb!”  Alas, his approval, to the extent based on my attention to detail, may be misplaced. I have to acknowledge a contrary judgment–that in general, attention to detail is not a good thing, and that in particular, my attention to detail is more of a handicap than an ornament to the quality of my output.

Which is just a long way of saying, I expend too much energy on details.  At one point during the Red Chalk workshop, Rob Liberace asked me to dial back on the details–I was making a virtual skeleton out of our lean model.  Referring to the portrait above, “Kitsch,”  Cameron Bennett suggested last Thursday.  Ouch!

Two experts within a short time identifying the same weakness–there must be something to it.  How did I get to this pass?  Certainly my plein air painting never permitted excessive detail.  One theory–my speed in getting to a near-finished state leaves me all too ready to look for areas to refine.  Instead of reexamining the broadest strokes to make sure those are as perfect as I can get them, I start on what I used to consider the next step–developing the details.  Another theory–I am just not that good an artist.,

Take this week’s portrait from a live model, posted as the cover image for this blog.  As soon as I caught Rebecca’s likeness and properly placed and sized all her features, I spent considerable time working on the details, or what I was then considering the nuances of her features–especially her mouth and eyes.  It was at the end of that session that I got the “kitsch” remark. Ouch–that still hurts!
Here is the current portrait next to the earlier one done in black and white. Big improvement anyway. (But we had less time to work on the black and white, I think.)

At least when copying a work done by a master, I cannot be criticized for the sin of detail. The detail, or lack of it, comes already supplied. Here is this week’s homework assignment, from a self-portrait by 20th century Italian artist, Pietro Annigoni.

The whole point of copying, may I remind those of you who abhor the slavishness of copying, is to train the copyist’s eye. If I cannot see how my ear is different from the original’s ear, how can I expect to paint a good representation of a real, live ear? So there is the original, on the right, with my copy on the left. Sitting on my easel, my copy looked virtually perfect to me–I fantasized Cameron accusing me of tracing the image.

Here, not so perfect. A decent copy, but far from perfect. I gnash my teeth in frustration! How did the bloody head get so elongated in the original, with me not noticing? This is why artists resort to projecting drawings onto their canvases from photographs, a practice frowned on by purists, and one that certainly does nothing to train the eye. Fury it is that motivates them!

I hereby resign myself to getting beat up upon by Cameron this Thursday because there is no way I am repainting that ear. (In order to narrow the head, I would have to move the ear.)

But back to the topic–Death to Details. With this new anti-detail directive freshly absorbed, giving a nod to Peter Granucci here as well since he also has tried to wean me away from focusing on details when drawing from a live model, I took out a painting that had never satisfied me.  This was a painting based on a drawing made with a live model.  I had no details to refer to –the painting itself was several references removed from the original drawing since I had painted over it several times trying to find a version that pleased me. Could I solve this painting by eliminating even more details?

The only part of this painting that I liked was the hand and the drape at the bottom, so I felt free to mess with the rest of it.  I tried muting the background.  I changed the hairdo.  I refreshed the skin tones and created large splashes of light. Finally, taking a cue from the hand that I did like, I outlined the figure in black.  Suddenly, it looked interesting.  I never use black ordinarily, so this was definitely weird.  I scumbled (a technique for applying a glaze but with a dry brush) more black into the background and it got even better.

Ultimately the color, and maybe the contrast may save this painting.  But my curiosity to obliterate detail is what motivated me to revisit this painting.  Maybe that makes no logical sense, but hey, that’s left brain for you!

Meanwhile, and D, I’m talking to you, don’t praise my attention to detail.  It’ll just make me squirm uncomfortably.

This blog started out over two years ago (!) with no particular angle on my painting adventures, but has begun to develop as a chronicle of my efforts to grow as an artist. So I have come up, finally, with a name for it: Painter’s Progress–playing on the phrase “Pilgrim’s Progress”, a religious tome from a time period when details in paintings were expected and desired.

Snow Painting

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Next August, I plan to participate in a special exhibit at the Arnold Arboretum in Boston, of paintings painted au plein air by members of the New Hampshire Plein Air group at the Arboretum. We are trying to cover all four seasons of the year. So we had to do winter. On January 7, the first group of us (about six in number) descended upon the Arboretum with our usual gear, plus all those things designed to keep us from freezing to death. I staked out a spot on the Willow Path, which is just inside the main gate, not far from the bathrooms in the visitor center. At least I had a bit of a hike to get to this spot. Others who shall remain nameless set up their work stations in the parking lot.

 

Willow Path in Winter

Willow Path in Winter

After finishing the painting above, I had a little extra time, so I produced a 6 by 12 panorama of a nearby culvert, which may seem a little weird to you. I chose it to seize the opportunity to include a richly dark area in my composition. Contrast creates drama.

Culvert in the Arboretum

Culvert in the Arboretum