Figure, Garden, 2017, Part 1

Posted by Aline on July 15, 2017

This is the fourth summer in which I have had the privilege of painting in the Gloucester garden of David Curtis. [For a taste of 2014 click this; 2015, here; and 2016, here.] I was worried for a while–David was quite sick with an infection that landed him in the hospital for weeks and he is still recuperating. Is it selfish to be concerned about one’s own personal loss when a friend or colleague is undergoing a crisis? How can you not think about that! But I feel guilty. I’m so relieved that he has survived, for his sake and mine.

So in May when I heard that David was running a 3-day Figure in the Garden workshop at St. Gaudens National Park in New Hampshire, I couldn’t sign up fast enough! The famous sculptor, Augustus St. Gardens, had his home and studio in Cornish, It’s now the only National Park in New Hampshire unless you count the Appalachian Trail. Cornish is northwest of me, close to Vermont, just South of Hanover, about an hour and a half’s drive, a doable commute. And I got lucky and interested local artist Rollande Rouselle in also attending the workshop, so we drove up together.

In the mornings of the workshop, we did landscapes with some input from David’s assistant, Connie Nagle. In the afternoon, Connie was our model, taking the same pose for all three afternoons. The third afternoon, Friday, got scratched for Rollande and me due to rain in the forecast. (David offered and we accepted the substitute of three Sundays in Gloucester.) So the painting below represents the two afternoons plus some perfecting touches in the home studio.

At St. Gaudens’ Studio

The next three Sundays we painted in David’s Gloucester garden. Connie was back as the model for the first two Sundays, and held the same pose both days. I chose to try a portrait of Connie on the second Sunday instead of working on the garden painting. That portrait is still not fit for public viewing, but the Garden one is, I believe, successful. In my studio, I added a few objects to the painting that weren’t there in fact: frog in the foreground and child in the background.

Hide ‘n Seek

The third Sunday was this past Sunday. Our model was Maryanne Thompson, another artist. She wore the same dress that she posed in last season in the painting I called “Diamond Bracelet”–see it here.

Maryanne in Blue

All three paintings are 16 by 20. All are for sale.

Tomorrow I will be down to Gloucester again. The weather promises the best. If I do nothing all summer other than these Sunday paintings, it would be enough. (However, I am doing other stuff–landscapes and cats, grist for another blog.)

EVENT: July 23-30 only! “Beyond the Visible”, an art exhibit expressing our concerns about the environment. I have two pieces in the show: Enchanted; and Hammock in Winter (renamed for the show as “Extreme Seasons”). The location is Azure Rising Gallery, 628 So. Main Street in Wolfeboro, NH. Because Wolfeboro is pretty far for me to drive, and because I have to sit the gallery on Friday the 28th (1 pm to 3), that day will be the only day I’ll be up there, but here are the other hours: Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays 11-3. Reception and Art Walk, Saturday, July 29th 5:00-7:30. Catch it if you can.

Round up

Posted by Aline on July 4, 2017

I’ve done some good work over the past few months but I’ve been too lazy or something to produce a report. My mood is picking up now, since meeting with my doc and getting the thyroid replacement dose increased. Tellingly, much of the work I have done recently (last few months) has been prompted by a workshop. So thyroid correction notwithstanding, I worry about my low degree of self-motivation. There’s this nagging thought in the back of my mind, that age is taking its inevitable toll, and I’m not going to be able to reverse it. Not at all what I had planned for my golden years.

The work that I have produced has mostly been fast draws–2-3 hour pet portraits and plain air landscapes. But one is a two-afternoon Figure in the Garden, a 20×16 masterpiece. Another is a studio landscape from a Cape Cod photograph that I started last fall and left untouched on my easel all winter.

I will start with studio landscape that I can now claim “took me months to complete”. It’s the coast guard station at Race Point. I had painted a small version of the building en plein air, but I also took a photo of it that dramatized the late-afternoon clouds and sunlight. I used a 18×24 canvas, making this one of the largest landscapes I’ve ever wanted to paint. The inspiration came not from the building but from the sky. I felt totally in sync with Constable, who obsessed over his clouds. Looking it over now, I think I wanted* to make the building even smaller in relation to the sky. Perhaps I will have to do a third version.

Coast Guard Station at Race Point

*Why didn’t I? The painting took over control.

The other landscape that I am pleased to show you was my first plein air effort since last Fall. Our NH Plein Air group were invited to the grounds of Bedrock Gardens in Lee, NH.: Acres and acres of plantings of shrubs, trees and flowers; sculptures interpersed. With all that drama available, I chose to paint a field that was virtually featureless–just to get at the red roof in the distance.

Red Roof at Bedrock Gardens

Sorry about the blue tape. I still have not mounted the painting onto a panel.

My next foray into paint was a 2-day workshop at the NH Institute of Art with a new, young instructor named Katie Swenson. Her specialty is animals and maybe that’s my specialty too. I actually didn’t believe anyone could teach me anything new about painting animals, but I knew that was a pretty arrogant assumption and one likely to be proved wrong. Whatever, I love to paint animals and this was sure to lift me out of my funk. Well, turns out that Katie is fabulous and the other students were like-minded and I hope those connections will bear fruit in the future. (She has a Facebook page but not a website–I don’t know how to link to FB.) As for the two days of the workshop, I started with Rocky, a dog belonging to my friend Jackie, and then I portrayed Freckles (my cat who was gone for seven years) in a pensive mood.

Rocky, in a moment of doubt

Freckles, in reverie

I’m going to save my Figure in the Garden for next week, when I should have another of the same kind ready to show. I don’t want to overload your senses. Hope you love the cat. Feel his woolly coat.

A bit of news: East Coast Colony had its 14th annual Petals to Paint at LaBelle Winery last week, and my painting got chosen by a brilliant designer, Jeanne Popielarz, who won the Peoples Choice vote. No actual prize but much glory! Here is my photo of the combo:

Creeping Shadows morph into delightful floral arrangement

Meanwhile, I have been pulling back from marketplaces. I closed my display at the NH Antiques Co-op. I have been showing paintings here and there (Armory in Somerville MA, Currier Museum in Manchester, Massabesic Audubon Center, Wolfeboro Library, Pease Library in Plymouth) through all the seasons, but there is nothing major going on. As usual, you may view paintings with prices and order prints, phone cases, pillows and the like at my Fine Art America pages, which are, like this blog, way overdue for updating. If the painting you are interested in is not there, or if you prefer to bypass that experience, you may contact me by email to alotter@mac.com.

If you want to add a public comment to this blog, go to the bottom of this page where it says “Leave a Reply”, and enter your comment in that box. I love to get public comments, so don’t be shy!

On Photographing Oil Paintings

Posted by Aline on December 20, 2016

I have, from time to time, complained about fog or glare appearing in my photographs of artwork. I tried to eliminate glare by cutting down on lighting, but it didn’t always work. The larger the painting, the harder it was to eliminate glare. When I started, I didn’t have a lot to photograph so I would take the artwork outdoors to a spot where the lighting was indirect. As I accumulated piles of panels to photograph, I wanted to be able to run through them relatively quickly–indoors and at night. I would flood the studio with full-spectrum artificial light. Instead of aiming lights at the artwork, I would bounce light off the ceiling, through a mirror, etc. I thought the only solution was to avoid the light that rakes across the surface of a painting. Yet my research on the internet kept producing advice to set up lamps aimed at 90 degrees from the artwork.

The result of my low lighting solution to glare was unsatisfactory color capture. I started using my iPhone instead of my once expensive, leading edge digital SLR Nikon D70. But all that is in the process of changing, since I attended a short workshop at the NH Institute of Art, conducted by the chairman of its Photograpy Department, Gary Samson. I learned a new concept: polarization. I’m no scientist, as Republican climate-change skeptics are so fond of saying, so the explanation that follows may read like a Mother Goose tale to someone who actually understands the physics of light.

Rays of light have direction, and bounce off surfaces like oil paintings. To polarize these bounces is to neutralize them, or counteract them, with filters that somehow deflect the bounces before they reach the camera. You need a filter for the camera lens. You also need filters between the light source and the art object.

I started by acquiring a filtering lens for the Nikon, and rephotographing some recent works that had troubled me. Despite the fact that I could not figure out exactly what I was supposed to see through my new circular filter, the photographs did improve. Compare the original hazy image with the new polarized image.

John Brown, posing as gardener or farmer (FOG FROM REFLECTED LIGHT)

John the Gardener (NO MORE FOG; COLOR ALSO MORE ACCURATE)

But then I tried to rephotograph a painting that I had varnished with a high gloss varnish. I could not get rid of the glare. So I rummaged around Amazon and then eBay until I found affordable gizmos to hang filters from the spotlights, and a large sheet of polarizing film from which to cut out sheets to hang from the gizmos. I don’t think it mattered whether the film’s polarity was circular, as with the camera lens, or parallel. Circularity was necessary for the camera so that the camera could still autofocus. I take that on faith since I don’t understand it.

Alas, the filters for the spotlights did not solve the varnish issue. I am so sad.

Two other advances in my photo technique have resulted from that workshop: I set the Nikon to take the photos in RAW format. That’s super-large format to accommodate enormous amounts of data for the purpose of manipulating the data in the finished version (jpeg) of the photo; and I bought a photo manipulating program better than “Photos”, which comes free with all my Apple devices. Adobe Lightroom, about $145 from Amazon, compatible with Macs and IOS. Headache! Powerful software equals massive learning curve, and hey, I hated learning how to operate the remote control on my DVR.

As a result of all this upheaval, my diligence with blogging faltered over the past couple of months. I’m hoping that by the end of January, I’ll have all the bugs worked out. Meanwhile, here is a decent photo of a 16×20 painting that I did over the summer–from a reference photo I took in my neighborhood.

Russell Street Roofs

Reminder for folks in the Chesapeake Bay area: see two of my animal portraits at the Annmarie Sculpture Gardern and Art Center in Solomons, Maryland. The exhibit’s theme is “Fur, Feathers, and Fins–Our Faithful Pets”. It will run through January 29.

Other places where you might catch a few of my paintings are:

NH Antiques Coop in Milford NH
Ellis River Art Gallery in Jackson NH (in January 2017)
Bartlett Inn in Bartlett NH
Red Jacket Resort in North Conway NH
Bernerhof Inn in Glen NH
Mesmer & Deleault Law Firm in Manchester NH

As usual, you may view paintings with prices and order prints, phone cases, pillows and the like at my Fine Art America page. If the painting you are interested in is not there, or if you prefer to bypass that experience, you may contact me by email to alotter@mac.com.

New Crop of “Figure in the Landscape”

Posted by Aline on September 30, 2016

For a third Summer in a row, I participated in the David Curtis offer of a model in his garden garnished with the light touches of his guidance and that of my fellow artists. This year, we had July Sundays in addition to the August Sundays, plus an errant June Sunday to get us in the proper mindset. We got rained out only once, giving me a total of eight Sundays, eight figures, eight paintings. David’s home and garden is in Gloucester, an hour and a quarter drive from my home. This year I had company on the trip. I persuaded Cynthia Arieta to try it out; she prefers figurative painting too, and we met during Cameron Bennett’s Cornwall workshop a few summers ago. She’s now as hooked as I am.

For models, we started with David’s wife Judy, dressed up as a Guitar-playing Gypsy. This was the June Sunday. The Rhododendrons were no longer in bloom, but David suggested I add blooms to the painting anyway, so of course, I did.

Judy Curtis, wife of David Curtis, posing in their Gloucester garden

The order in which I painted the middle ones might not be accurate, but who cares about that, right? I believe the second one was the Basketful of Flowers, featuring artist Marianne as our model. For both of these first two paintings I used a 20×16 Raymar panel. In the previous two summers, I had painted smaller, on 12×16 panels. I had been easily able to complete those 12×16 paintings in the three hours allotted, so this year I thought I would challenge myself by going bigger. As a result, the background of Basketful of Flowers was unfinished when I left that Sunday. I worked on it at home and brought it back the next week for comments from the others.

Basketful of Flowers

Not particularly happy with my first two paintings, I concluded that 20×16 was perhaps too large for me to complete in three hours, and I switched back to 12×16 for number three. I call this one Diamond Bracelet. My titles are mostly hooks to remind me which painting I am talking about. I could not use the dress color to identify this painting because, as you will see, another blue-green dress is coming up.

Diamond Bracelet

David objected to the downsizing idea: As long as I was getting enough information on the larger canvas to finish at home, I should keep working in the 20×16 format. Subsequently I also took pains to prepare the panels that I used with a dark ground. Dark brown or rusty red were my usual choices for the ground color. Without the pressure to cover up white grounds, I could get closer to completion each Sunday. If I remember correctly, the ground for White Wicker Settee (number four) was close to black.

White Wicker Settee

Our model, another artist, for White Wicker furnished the settee herself and of course chose her costume. David declares repeatedly, “Artists make the best models”, and surely their choices of accessories is a big component in their success. He tried to recruit me to model next year, but I am reluctant to sacrifice my painting time.

Number five. The next model is the daughter of one of us artists. I had to fake the rhododendrons again. From Gloucester to Manchester, we have been suffering from an extreme drought, and Judy Curtis, who is in charge of the garden, stands on principle in refusing to water her garden–ever. So the rhododendron blooms would not be the only flowers we had to invent or exaggerate as the drought worsened over the summer. Tablecloth and vase is the one of the eight that I am least satisfied with.

Tablecloth and Vase

After the fact, I decided I should have filled the canvas with the figure instead of letting “figure in the landscape” govern my composition choices. For future sessions, I resolved to get closer to the model and even, gasp, allow body parts to get cut off by the edge of the panel if necessary. Meanwhile, David encouraged me to paint in the pattern on the tablecloth in order to create something interesting going on. One of the most common praises he heaps upon me is that I “tell a story”. I don’t really understand what he is talking about, but hope I can keep on doing it.

The next two paintings did not require me to cut off any limbs, but I did allow major accessories to get cut off. The first, George Martin, Painting (number six), started on a blackish ground. Notice how his easel slides out of frame on the right? The part I had the most trouble with was his eyeglasses. The lenses caught quite a glare from the bright sun and sky above, but when I painted them like I saw them, it was too startling and distracting.

George Martin, posing with his brush and easel

John Brown is a regular on Sundays and has posed in the past on Sundays when I could not be there. I had envied the results I had seen, so was looking forward to his portrayal of Farmer John (number seven). (Or should it be Gardener John? Doesn’t have the right ring.) I believe I can detect a red ground for this one. His wheelbarrow leaves the frame on the right. This painting was my favorite (and David’s favorite) up to that point, but there was one more week to go. Could I top Farmer John?

John Brown, posing as gardener or farmer

In this number eight, the last painting of the summer, the red adirondack chair makes its third appearance over the last two summers. The model is engaged to marry David and Judy’s son. Her names escapes me right now–so sorry. But she also modeled for us last summer in a navy blue dress holding a red parasol–my least favorite painting from any of the summers. So when she appeared again in navy blue, my heart sank. I prepared myself for a disaster of a painting. But surprise, Navy Blue with Red and White proved to be a winning combination! And to celebrate, I cut off her feet!

Navy Blue, Red and White

A major contribution to the success of this painting is the shadow pattern on the parasol. The sun and the tree gave me what I needed to tell that story, whereas the shadow pattern in Diamond Bracelet was, well, no pattern at all. I may have to go back and fix that.

Reminder for folks in the Chesapeake Bay area, if any there are: see two of my animal portraits at the Annmarie Sculpture Gardern and Art Center in Solomons, Maryland. Opening reception will be October 7, which I cannot attend. Alas. Maybe I will make it down there before the exhibit ends in late January. The exhibit’s theme is “Fur, Feathers, and Fins–Our Faithful Pets”. It will run from October 7 through January 29.

Other places where you can catch a few of my paintings are:

NH Antiques Coop in Milford NH
Ellis River Art Gallery in Jackson NH
Bartlett Inn in Bartlett NH
Red Jacket Resort in North Conway NH
Bernerhof Inn in Glen NH
Mesmer & Deleaut Law Firm in Manchester NH

Catching up–Bartlett Style

Posted by Aline on September 8, 2016

I have been not performing, blog-wise, up to the standards I set for myself this summer. If I had met those standards, two topics would have been set before you already and the third would have been pulled together for today. The problem, as often happens, is just when I gather my thoughts and my photo illustrations, I notice something in one of the paintings that I must, MUST fix. Then after the fix, a new photo must be taken. It has been a summer of revisions and regrets.

One topic was to have been: best and worst plein air (marine) painting of the summer, covering why I thought one was good and the other not–but wondering how I could have rescued the one that was awful. A second topic was to have been the rest of the works resulting from the Stuart Ober course–you’ve seen the portrait of Sparkle, but I did a bunch of other stuff that never would have got started but for the impetus of taking a course called “Explorations in Oil Painting.” One of them could have been a topic in itself, as I worked on a 12 by 36 of “Impressions of Manhattan from the Whitney Museum”, a complex skyline with streetscapes that can always be improved or added to. I’m still adding.

This week, I hoped to be posting all the Figure in the Garden paintings from David Curtis’ garden, 2016 edition. Those paintings are finished, but the last one still needs to be photographed. I scaled up to 16×20, making the photographing more challenging.

And now, as topics pile up, I just got back from a workshop up North with Michael Chesley Johnson, for which blog I made promises. I feel a little like Mickey Mouse must have felt in the “Sorcerer’s Apprentice”. (Disney movie “Fantasia”)

I am going to take the advice I always gave my tax delinquent clients: do current returns first, then the past-due ones. Therefore, today without further ado, without messing about, I am posting photos of the three plein air paintings from the last two days, showing what I can accomplish in the approximately two hours available for each, before stopped by lunch and/or rain. Raw footage, as it were.

Excuse me while I go snap photos of each one with my iPhone.

. . . .

Eight students gathered at the Bartlett Inn in Bartlett NH to learn plein air painting from Michael Chesley Johnson, of Campobello and Sedona, for perhaps the shortest workshop ever–two days. We were lucky with the weather, in that the rain held off Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning until I was able to get one painting each time close to completion. I produced a third painting during the Wednesday rain. . .storm is too strong a word. Rain Event. More of that later.

Tuesday morning MCJ opened with a demo of how to paint rocks. We piled into a gazebo near the Jackson Historical Museum– it was shaded, just the right size for 8 students and a teacher, next to a rock-filled Wildcat River, and near our next stop: a preview of the museum’s upcoming show. Then lunch at a local deli, then back to the Wildcat, a river responsible for the phenomenon known as Jackson Falls. We got some sun, but mostly clouds, so we got experience with painting en plein air on overcast days. How to find a “hook” when there are no lights and shadows to create drama? Well, falling water is always interesting. Unfortunately, New Hampshire has been suffering a record drought, so instead of impressive, thundering cataracts of water, we got meandering trickles.

(MCJ photographed me working at the Falls and posted it to Facebook, if you are interested. I was wearing my usual distinctive hat, so everyone who knows me recognized me. I could probably link to it, but I don’t have time to learn how to do that! Got to get this post done.)

Jackson Falls, v. 5 or 6

Day Two, or Wednesday as most people know it, we headed down into the Valley to experience the location of Albert Bierstadt’s “Moat Mountain, Intervale, New Hampshire”. That is why I have titled this painting Bierstadt Meadow. Most of us chose to paint the ledges that are to the right of my scene, but I’ve a bee in my bonnet all summer about the pinky-purplish grass that shows up at this time of summer. It is most prevalent along highways. It was not present in this meadow, but there were other plants sporting colors in the same family, so I thought I would try to fake it.

Bierstadt Meadow with Bluebird House

We were treated to very little sunlight, but the weather forecast did not include rain. Nevertheless, Sharon (Sharon Allen, who organized this workshop and spends half her life painting around Mt. Washington Valley) “felt” it would rain and urged us to move to a sheltered location–under a bridge in Conway from which we could paint a red covered bridge from below and to the side. When we got there, most of the river (Swift and Saco merge near here) was, well, absent. We were going to get more practice painting rocks. However, a puddle under the bridge reflected the red covered bridge, and I chose to make that the subject of my painting.

Under the Bridge, of Another Bridge

All of my paintings were painted on the carton paper sold by Judson’s plein air supplier. The paper slows me down a little because it absorbs paint, making it harder for me to cover the surface. But once my surface is juicy with paint, I can go to town. The geometric shape on the right is the stanchion [is that correct term?] of the overhead bridge. When the rain blew in [is Sharon a witch?], it disturbed the puddle and handicapped me. Oh, well. Had to fake it.

Since I probably will not get to the topic, best and worst marine painting, and I cannot NOT show you the best, I will now show the best. Two “tall ships” came to the Portsmouth area. August 12 was the day I chose to visit them. One docked in Portsmouth for people to tour. The other docked in New Castle for people to ride. I would have bought a ticket to ride if my timing were better, but as it was, I had to wait for the “Harvey Gamache” to return to port before I could grab a photo of it. Meanwhile, I painted its expected path from New Castle’s Grand Island Park. In my studio at home, I added the sailing ship using my photo as reference.

The Harvey Gamache Passing into New Castle

I have some happy news: two of my pet paintings will be part of a nationally juried exhibit in a museum! The museum is the Annmarie Sculpture Garden and Arts Center in a place called Solomons, Maryland. The Sculpture Garden is affiliated with the Smithsonian! The two honored paintings are “Sparkle”, which had been sold but the owners have agreed to lend the painting for this exhibit; and “Partners in Crime”–the two tuxedo cats on a cat tree.

Partners in Crime

The exhibit’s theme is “Fur, Feathers, and Fins–Our Faithful Pets”. It will run from October 7 through January 29.

Other places where you can catch a few of my paintings are:

NH Antiques Coop in Milford NH
Ellis River Art Gallery in Jackson NH
Bartlett Inn in Bartlett NH
Red Jacket Resort in North Conway NH
Bernerhof Inn in Glen NH
Mesmer & Deleaut Law Firm in Manchester NH

Dissatisfaction

Posted by Aline on August 13, 2015

Dissatisfaction seems to happen like depression–is it a result of some mysterious collision of hormones or synapses (I’m not a scientist!), or is it justified by perceived failure? I am of course referring to my art. I can look at a painting that I created and quite admire it if I pretend it’s not mine. But knowing it is mine, and it is not completely successful in terms of what I had hoped to achieve, I am dissatisfied. This is very discouraging. The only way to escape discouragement is to find encouragement from the outside world. The best encouragement–say the “ten” of encouragement–would be if multiple admirers were competing to purchase a painting. A “one” on the encouragement scale would be sincere praise. I don’t mean to devalue sincere praise, but let’s face it, like is not the same as love.

The search for encouragement is why artists exhibit and seek to sell their paintings. (If they are looking to make a living, they teach, or pursue a career in illustration or graphic arts.) I think encouragement is also a prime factor in artists taking workshops from other artists; sure, you go to learn, but what you hope to learn is how good you already are! It’s as if we need a constant infusion of encouragement to keep us going. I know there are hermit artists whose work sees the light of day only after they are gone (gone=dead or institutionalized), but I cannot imagine how they keep plugging away with little or no input from the outside world. Such people must be so strong willed, propelled by such an inner vision, that they can only be compared to saints, as celebrated by the Catholic Church. (I was brought up Catholic and was a pretty devout one until I got out in the Real World where, after two children, birth control became a necessity.)

All is this is a preamble to this week’s collection of recent paintings with which I am not satisfied, completely. First, here is Margaret back again, after a three-session pose:

Margaret in Blue

Three sessions is long enough to get it all right. I had to repaint her leg and arm in the third session because I had the perspective so wrong that her leg looked as if, in the words of a fellow artist, it were coming out of her belly. So it is correct. But is it inspired? After the first session, there was (I think) a freshness and spontaneity that is now lost. How did Sargent manage to labor over his portraits and produce paintings that seem to have been painted casually albeit perfectly with the first stroke?

Two more figure in the landscape paintings have entered the world as the result of workshops in the garden of David Curtis in Gloucester. First, the orange one:

Figure in Orange

She was holding a red parasol, the same parasol that I painted last summer, but this time, we had sun flowing through it. The two-piece dress is Indian, a saffron yellow-orange. Do I have enough light? No, it does not pop like it should. Is the green unrelenting? Maybe, but it’s not the problem, is it? Orange and green should produce quite an impact together. Perhaps the figure should have been bigger. So I resolve to go bigger with the next one:

Figures in White

This set up is similar to last summer’s red parasol.

My angle on the figure is so similar, but this time I have more of the face. Red has been replaced by white. We are all thinking about Sorolla, who was especially admired for his whites. The first impression of this painting is pretty good, I’m hoping, but I hate the little area where her right hand comes to rest. And I wish the parasol sun dapples came across better. Wish? That’s what I’m reduced to, wishing it were better. OMG!

That’s enough dissatisfaction for this week. Last week, I enjoyed the highly encouraging turnout for my reception at the Firefly last week. I didn’t count heads, but the place was full and I didn’t have any leftover food to take home. Thank you, all who showed up and seemed to like it. For those who didn’t quite get there Monday night, you can still view the paintings at Firefly before September 9, and I recommend you make a reservation to eat in the gallery room. Their food is excellent!

This weekend there is an event in Essex, Massachusetts, that you should consider attending. Saturday artists will be crawling all over the town making paintings, and Sunday these paintings will be displayed and offered for sale. Essex Paint out and Auction Facebook page with all the details. I am getting up extra early Saturday morning in order to drive down there and participate.

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

At the Library Arts Center in Newport, NH; at the Bartlett Inn in Bartlett; at the Bernerhof Inn in Glen; at the Red Jacket Inn in North Conway; at the Firefly American Bistro on 22 Concord Street, Manchester (reception August 3–5:30 to 7:30–all are welcome); and at the law offices of Mesmer and Deleault at 41 Brook St in Manchester.

As usual, you may view paintings with prices and order prints, iPhone cases and the like at my Fine Art America page. If the painting you are interested in is not there, or if you prefer to bypass that experience, you may contact me by email to alotter@mac.com.

New Subject Matter

Posted by Aline on March 1, 2015

Drum roll, please! I hereby present my first floral painting*:

Floral Painting No. 1

It represents nine hours of development under the tutelage of Deirdre Riley, whose own floral paintings are simply spectacular. I went very slowly (for me) in order to grasp the all the points she wanted to get across to us, her “community education” students at the New Hampshire Institute of Art.

I am flying to Florida this Wednesday, there to paint daily en plein air, so I will miss the next setup in the floral class, but maybe they will still be working on it when I get back.

*Actually when I was much, much younger–between 18 and 20–I painted a still life with flower arrangement as a gift to my brother and sister-in-law. I think most of it came out of my head. At that time of my life, I had had zero experience at painting from life. Everything was from imagination. Then in my last year of college I signed up for a course in oil painting, Painting from “life” yes, but all very still life–not even dried flowers, every object was dead. Paper, wood, ceramic, and so on. Then, in a later year, taking a night class at the Museum School in Boston, for one session we had a live model. I painted a very crude portrait on a very large panel, which panel had followed me around for the decades from Boston to Florida, back to Boston then Michigan, ending up in NH. I finally reused that panel a few years ago to paint the abstract landscape that I call “Darkly“. I like to suppose that the portrait underneath influenced the new layer of paint and the title, in that the portrait and the meaning of the new layer are hidden from casual view.

About this Floral Painting No. 1, I want you to be aware that the background and table top were covered with brown wrapping paper, Kraft paper I think it is called?, then the paper was draped with gauze to affect its hue. The background gauze was lavender. The table top gauze was lime green. I chose to ignore the background lavender but did paint in the lime green gauze.

I enjoyed working on this painting. It is actually a still life, one of my first in the last nine years. The flowers were not alive, of course. How could they be, and last for three weeks? I believe they were silk. I have never been drawn to paint still lifes, but I have always enjoyed painting stuff into my figurative paintings. Flowers may be the lure to suck me into the world of the still life.

Snow Camp 2015

Posted by Aline on February 8, 2015

I’ve been “absent” for a few weeks, in part because of Stapleton Kearns’ “Snow Camp 2015”, which took place at the Bartlett Inn in Bartlett, NH. Stapleton started with Snow Camp in 2010 and repeated it annually thereafter at the Sunset Hill Inn in Sugar Hill, NH. But last year, Sunset Hill Inn closed its doors. Stape booked the workshop at the Bartlett Inn, which a few of us had been urging upon him from the beginning as it is home base for the Great semi-annual Artists Getaway Weekend. When I learned of the relocation, I jumped to sign up for it despite my 2012 decision not to spend any more workshop dollars on landscape painting. Besides, “Have boots, will paint [outdoors in the winter].” Meaning: I spent the big bucks back in 2010 for my duck hunting boots and the only time I use them is when I am painting outdoors in the winter–a pretty rare occasion. I was a little concerned by the fact that I am now five years older than I was when I first braved the conditions of frigid temps and difficult terrain underfoot. Regardless of any other measure of the workshop, mere survival was this year going to equal success.

I did survive–maybe! Four of our company had been nursing various cold-like symptoms, and Wednesday night after being back home, my own version of the ailment announced its arrival with a sore throat. I have taken the previous three days off to rest and recuperate, getting nothing done. Still no recuperation in sight, alas! I still have a wretched sore throat, along with other miseries. My resilience was probably compromised by those five years of aging, not to mention the daunting weather conditions we braved over the weekend: temps in the minus column before calculating the wind chill; fierce wind gusts; and on the last day (Monday), a new layer of snow falling gently. I was very happy to stay over at the Inn an extra night.

Miriam and Nick (the Innkeepers) kept the kettle on all day for tea and cocoa and if the timing was right, an artist could go inside to find warm brownies or ginger cakes awaiting. We stayed on the grounds of the Inn to paint, same as we had done in Sugar Hill. Sunset Hill Inn had a spectacular view of Cannon Mountain and Franconia Notch, but at the Bartlett Inn we enjoyed a different kind of subject matter: trees, buildings, roads, all covered in snow. No vistas. That suited me fine.

Snow as a painting subject is surprisingly complicated. In earlier days, before I knew any better, I’d painted a lot of snow scenes from photographs, which doesn’t even get near the problem. My blog of 2010 and 2011 talked about some of the issues, but when I migrated that blog to this site, I never reposted the photographs of those paintings. I am remedying that oversight now, but I’ll post those earlier paintings here too. In chronological order:

Hammock in Winter 2010 (despite the title, it’s really about the shadows) 11×14

Plein Air Artists 2010 11×14

Franconia Notch 2010 (footprints were inserted back at home, I think) 16×20

Alone on the Trail 2011 (yes, it snowed on our Snow Camp that year) 16×20

Franconia Notch 2011 (what happened to the stone wall?) 16×20

Stape always does a demonstration painting in the morning. It’s harder to deal with the cold when you are not absorbed in your own painting, but at least you can keep your hands warm. I spent both afternoons of the first two days working on one scene. The first afternoon was largely wasted: I had “toned” my panel to cover up an old painting underneath, and the paint I had used refused to dry. As a result the toning color (tan) was muddying up the new composition. And it was so cold that I couldn’t even squeeze my white paint onto my palette. Stape had to do that for me. And the paint was so stiff that I couldn’t mix it or spread it. Stape told me to wipe it down to get rid of the bad underpaint, then use a lot of Liquin to soften up and dry the new paint. The next morning, I went straight to work, forgoing the demo. Because of the conditions, I quit pretty early, about 2:30 in the afternoon that Sunday. Today I cleaned up the faults still remaining in the painting, and this is the result:

Last Scrap of Light at the Bartlett Inn

Whereas the 2011 workshop had been about getting all the primary hues into the snow, this year the problem was getting the values right. I had to make sure that no spot in the snow bank was as light as the lit edges, and I darkened all the shadows in the foreground so as to heighten the drama. The scene is of the cottages next to the Inn itself.

The next day, it was snowing all day. I watched Stape’s demo in the morning and started a smallish (12×16) painting in the afternoon. Most of us felt limited to whatever we could grab as subject matter from the shelter of the porch; I was right on the edge of the cover. Light, flaky snow accumulated on my palette during the course of the afternoon. I didn’t worry about it though, because Michel (hearty and hardy Nova Scotian) set up down at the road with only an umbrella to shelter himself. Here’s my view from the porch of the Inn:

Driveway into the Bartlett Inn

In addition to Michel and the usual assortment of NH and Mass. artists, we had artists from Houston, Texas; Baltimore, Maryland; and “an imposter” from Huntington, West Virginia. “Imposter” because he was not a painter at all, but an author, engaged in research for his new novel featuring an artist. You can buy his first novel, about a musician, from Amazon: Song for Chance by John Van Kirk. I downloaded it to my iPad but haven’t been up to reading it yet.

Snow Camp 15 - 31

In the background you can see the cottages that I featured in my first painting. The tall guy in the orange hat is Stapleton Kearns. It’s the same hat he was wearing in 2010. The guy in the red hat is James, who has not missed a year of Snow Camp since it started. The guy in the light gray parka is Byron Carr, who initiated the Artists’ Getaways as the Bartlett Inn–back in 2005, I think. From left to right: me; Michel; Jack; Jason; Gina Anderson (fellow artist at East Colony); James; Suzanne; Stape (in back) and Holly (in front); Gary; Dave Drinon (buddy from many classes at NHIA); Byron; John the Imposter, and Debbie (the organizer par excellence!). Wonderful collection of people!

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

at the East Colony Fine Art Gallery in Manchester (Langer Place, 55 S. Commercial St., Manchester, NH); at the Bartlett Inn in Bartlett; at the Bernerhof Inn in Glen; at the law offices of Mesmer and Deleault at 41 Brook St in Manchester; at the McGowan Gallery in Concord, NH.

Continuing the Garden Binge

Posted by Aline on August 28, 2014

Encouraged by the success of the red parasol painting, I returned to the David Curtis garden in Gloucester two more times. I have provisionally titled these two by the most prominent prop–a reflecting ball and a black kimono, respectively.

The reflecting ball was, to me, an annoyance, but I had to deal with it.

The Reflecting Ball

David advised us to paint portraits rather than a figure in the landscape, but as you can see, I ignored his advice. Two weeks prior, I had already committed to painting that tree in the background. Plus, the less real estate I needed for the reflecting ball, the better. David praised (I think it was intended as praise) it as telling a story. Why does mine tells a story and the others not? A women in gypsy outfit gazing at a reflecting ball? Must be a story in that, right? The answer lies in the fact that I painted a figure in the landscape, not a portrait. To tell a story, you have to back off a bit, gain some perspective.

Last Sunday we gathered around our model decked out in a black kimono and holding a fan.

The Black Kimono

This one I enjoyed a lot, almost as much as the red parasol. It was allegedly the easiest of the Curtis Garden Series. Certainly it presented nothing as complicated as that red parasol and cupid statuette; the fan? –not even close. Then why, when I could complete the Red Parasol with 15 minutes to spare, am I dissatisfied with Black Kimono? Something about her right arm doesn’t look correct.

Yes, our model actually held that fan up for twenty minutes at a time (she braced the elbow against her side), but her feet would fall asleep. Whenever the timer signaled her break, she would forget that fact about the feet, try to take a step, and collapse in the grass. Gracefully.

We all enjoyed ourselves very, very much–including David, I guess — he invited us back next Sunday. Since Bea is going out of town for Labor Day weekend, I shall have to drive down alone.

The Ultimate Opportunity in figure painting occurred on Monday, when our life group left the studio to meet with our model in the Lessard garden.

The White Floppy Hat

We will meet again next week to work on the same pose. I could almost call the painting finished, but it would be a pretty rough finish. I think I can do better: The head is slightly too large. Some of the spots of light on her could be more delicious–meaning more contrast between light and shadow on her.

All three of these garden paintings demonstrate the benefit of using a dark (mostly burnt umber) ground. I’ve been using previously painted-on panels, having sanded them down first. The ground helps to hide the remnants of the original painting, which might otherwise be distracting. The darkest ground provides the best cover, but my real reason for choosing a dark ground is the lovely foliage depth that occurs so effortlessly. I can leave the ground showing behind her in the whole upper right section.

All that help, still not “finished”. What magic took over when I painted Red Parasol? And how do I get that magic back???

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

at the Hatfield Gallery and the East Colony Fine Art Gallery in Manchester (both are in Langer Place, 55 S. Commercial St., Manchester, NH); at the Bartlett Inn in Bartlett and the Bernerhof Inn in Glen; at the Red Jacket Inn in North Conway; at the law offices of Mesmer and Deleault at 41 Brook St in Manchester; at the Manchester office of Congresswoman Carol Shea Porter; a single painting is on view for one more week at the Radisson Hotel in Manchester; at the Norris Cotton Cancer Center in Manchester; and at her studio by appointment (email: alotter@mac.com). You may also view paintings with prices and order prints at my Fine Art America page. If the painting you are interested in is not there, or if you prefer to bypass that experience, you may contact me using the private feedback form below. If you want to add a public comment to this blog, go to the bottom of this page where it says “Leave a Reply”, and enter your comment in that box. I love to get public comments, so don’t be shy!

Essay on Composing Pictures

Posted by Aline on August 21, 2014

(Almost) No pictures this week, but lots of words. My two CF card readers both died on me, so I can’t transfer my camera photos to the computer. Luckily, I had on my mind that I should write something about the workshop I took last month with Paul Ingbretson, on the subject of Composition . . . of paintings, of course, but I decided that the material applied equally well to photography. So I use the word “picture” throughout the essay. At the end, for purposes of illustration, I’ll include a painting that I corrected a few weeks ago at Paul’s recommendation. Yesterday, Paul met with us again to see what, if anything, we had retained from the workshop, so this is a good time for me to review and reconstruct my thoughts on the subject of composition.

I have written this up not from the outline Paul gave us, not from the notes written up by a former student of his and handed out at the workshop, not even from the notes I produced myself (radical happening, that–I never take notes). No, this is mostly a mergence, a convergence, of what I absorbed from what Paul was trying to get across plus a few elements from my own experiences. I hope it makes sense and somewhere in the prose produces a lightbulb of understanding for someone, an understanding that had not previously existed.

Composition of Pictures in a Nutshell

(Thoughts after taking workshop on “Composition” with Paul Ingbretson)

The composition of pictures involves the harmonization of elements with respect to:

Arrangement/placement of shapes/objects

Color (hue—red, blue and yellow) given to the shapes and the background

Value (light, dark, all gradations in between) given to the shapes and the background.

The goal of good composition is to achieve Unity AND Variety—and to help get across the idea or mood that the artist wants to express. It is VARIETY that makes the picture interesting, but UNITY is necessary to create harmony, loveliness, and the chosen mood.

Beginning with your choice of a subject and your selection of elements to incorporate in your picture, you are making compositional decisions. What colors, for example, and why?

ARRANGEMENT

After choosing a subject, and after selecting the objects or elements (or shapes) that you wish to incorporate in that subject, your next task is to arrange those elements or objects so as to distribute them in the picture harmoniously and interestingly. Your decisions will have to be informed by the colors and values of the objects. Therefore, you have to be thinking about all three major concepts—arrangement, color, value—at the same time.

[Arrangement choices while painting en plein air in a landscape do exist, albeit limited by reality]

Rules: Create overlaps; avoid tangents. Avoid same sizeness of objects or distances between them. Avoid boring!

Placement of the arranged object(s) within the picture frame involves cropping the picture for best effect—should the center of interest be in the middle, up, down, right, left, etc.? Consider zooming in, or out.

Subtopic: LINE

However, the most important effect of arranging is the line or lines that will be created thereby—of the objects AND the values (see below). The dominant line or “thrust” may be symmetrical or asymmetrical, simple or complex, straight or curved; can form a geometrical shape like a triangle or circle, or can meander, like the letter “s”. The dominant line had better not be boring! Subordinate or counterlines add interest as well.

[One of the few rules–to be broken at your own risk–is: Do not place an interesting element close to the edge of the picture where it might distract from the intended focal point.]

Rule: For the sake of unity, patterns need to be repeated, but for the sake of variation,may not be duplicated exactly. Patterns need to harmonize with one another.

COLOR

The initial selection of subject and objects/elements already goes a long way toward determining a color scheme. However, you will need to think about a dominant color, and make sure that the placement of that color will unify (harmonize) the picture.

[Outdoors, the dominant color is blue. We don’t “see” it because our eyes seek out the reds and yellows.]

Weaving or spotting of one color throughout the picture tends to unify the picture. Discordant colors, like discordant music, if used, can succeed only if they are well placed and mean something. Background color is critical to harmonize the picture and to set off the subject.

Although one primary color should dominate throughout the picture, variations on the other two primaries should be represented. A monotone is (usually) not very interesting. That is not to suggest that any of the colors need to be high in chroma. Subtlety can be more fascinating than stridency.

If a color is used only once in a picture, that object tends to stand out in importance. Even if subtle variations of the color are “smuggled” elsewhere in the picture, that singular object will remain the most important one in the picture.

Rule of threes: repeat a particular color three times (in three different places) and repeat pattern three times (but don’t duplicate!)

VALUES

The distribution of values in a picture creates abstract patterns that intrigue the mind of a viewer. The eye jumps to an area of high contrast, or to the lightest area in the picture.

Silhouettes are example of extreme values—light and dark with little mid values.

Spotting of values (lights or darks) may create or support lines. Hence the compositional element of “Value” is actually a subtopic of Arrangements. Perhaps everything is a subtopic of Arrangement and we circle back to the concept that composition means Arrangements–of shapes, lines, colors and values?

MOOD

The mood of a picture is the narrative that the artist wants to express or explore. All elements of composition must be geared to serve the mood.

The End. For now.

The corrected painting I have to show you is an example of the importance of color and the rule of avoidance of a singular color. You have seen this painting several times before, as I struggled with colors and values in an effort to “make it work”. The basic layout was pleasing to me, so I could not figure out why I was not totally happy with the painting. Paul told me why. Here is the most recent but not final version of “Three Turrets”:

Three Turrets, v1.3

Here is the latest, corrected version:

Three Turrets, updated (from the porch of the Currier Museum’s art school)

Do you agree that the added patch of green in mid left harmonizes the painting with the previously singular patch at bottom right?

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

at the Hatfield Gallery and the East Colony Fine Art Gallery in Manchester (both are in Langer Place, 55 S. Commercial St., Manchester, NH); at the Bartlett Inn in Bartlett and the Bernerhof Inn in Glen; at the Red Jacket Inn in North Conway; at the law offices of Mesmer and Deleault at 41 Brook St in Manchester; at the Manchester office of Congresswoman Carol Shea Porter; two paintings are hanging at the Bedford Library as part of the Womens Caucus For Art exhibit “Summer Bounty”; a single painting is on view at the Radisson Hotel in Manchester for the summer; and at her studio by appointment (email: alotter@mac.com). You may also view paintings with prices and order prints at my Fine Art America page. If the painting you are interested in is not there, or if you prefer to bypass that experience, you may contact me using the private feedback form below. If you want to add a public comment to this blog, go to the bottom of this page where it says “Leave a Reply”, and enter your comment in that box. I love to get public comments, so don’t be shy!

New (to me) Teacher: David Curtis

Posted by Aline on August 4, 2014

Yesterday Bea Bearden and I drove down to Gloucester, Massachusetts, to attend a plein-air-with-figure workshop in a garden attached to the home of David Curtis. Although David, as we are encouraged to call him, is an anointed master painter (member of the Boston Guild of Artists), I had not been acquainted with him, his work, or his teaching before Friday, when I got the call from Bea and signed up for the workshop. I feel extremely lucky to have got the opportunity. For the past few years, I have not been signing up for plein air workshops (unless they involved the figure somehow). I’ve taken so many plein air workshops in my short career as an artist, and done so many plein air paintings, that I had begun to feel I could not learn anything new. (“Know it all” syndrome.) Besides, it is the figure that I wanted to concentrate on now, so that’s where my workshop budget went. However, in one casual Sunday afternoon (three hours) David Curtis conferred upon me new insights into plein air painting. The kind of insights where you might say, oh, yeah, why didn’t I see that before! Maybe you did see it, but I hadn’t, not consciously at least.

Here are my two favorite insights:

First: On an overcast day (that’s what we had yesterday), the light comes from overhead, not at any angle. Hence the tops of flowers, e.g., are catching the most light. Duh! you say? I know. Obvious when you think about it. But I had never thought about it before.
Second: Did you notice, in the Sargent exhibit at the Boston MFA a few months ago, that there were very few skies showing? The absence of sky, usually the lightest element in a landscape painting, allows there to exist in the painting a different lightest object–one not at the top of the painting, which is, after all, a damn awkward place to suffer a focal point (unless you are focussing on clouds). From this opportunity to create a lightest spot elsewhere on the canvas comes the power to be unusual, to be dramatic, to capture the viewer. We all want to capture the viewer, and hang onto her. Now we have a new tool–eliminate the sky as an element of the scene.

We were a group of nine students in Gloucester, all quite accomplished painters. On the way home, Bea and I congratulated ourselves on the fact that we held our own in this company. We will join them again for two more Sundays later in August, and I am so looking forward to it!

Due to the speed with which I work, my painting was completed within the three hours of the workshop. Even better, it is one with which I am very happy. The flowers gave me the opportunity to paint just the kind of landscape that I like best, and the lovely model with her coral dress and orange-red parasol were a feast for the eyes. Thank God I brought my cadmium orange and cad red light. And my perylene red and quinacridone magenta. All were needed for the many reds and pinks in this painting.

Did you speak?

I made sure that my angle on the stone cupid showed off his best side too. Can you tell that the flowers inside the ring of granite stones are impatiens? The dabbing technique to simulate flowers and leaves is something I adopted back when I was first studying landscapes with Stan Mueller, and he encouraged it. It’s not something I can always work into landscapes vistas, and maybe that’s why I prefer not to do vistas. I began this painting with a burnt umber ground, applied to cover up the Campobello Island seascape underneath. (I’m getting more and more ruthless in my painting demolitions.) The dark ground helped me speed toward completion.

Today I worked on another portrait of my daughter Nancy. The Group (Monday Life Group) agreed that we wanted to paint the blue patterned kimono that she uses as a coverup between poses. My parents had brought this kimono back to me from Japan in 1966 or thereabouts, and after five decades it is finally coming into its own! However, it was not possible to deal with the pattern in the time given to us. Moreover, the wet blue paint did not allow for adding fresh whites and pinks where needed. So this is a Work in Progress.

Nancy wearing a kimono

After the kimono dries, I will add the patterns using this photo I took with my phone.

Nancy in the blue kimono

I don’t know if I really missed the tilt of her head as much as the photo suggests, but someone did tell me recently (Paul Ingbretson, I believe) that we humans have a hard time overcoming an innate desire to untilt heads. I have noticed as much in myself before, so I was trying extra hard this morning to counter that tendency. Sigh! Regarding the size of her irises, that was a deliberate decision to exaggerate them in order to get across how one perceives Nancy’s eyes. They come across as large.

Last week Nancy had posed for us nude, but wearing quite a deep tan–from walking the dog, she claimed. Her droopy eyelids of last week caused me to bring her a large iced coffee this morning in the hope that we not get the sleepy look again.

Nancy wearing a tan

I almost want to hide this one from you, because I feel I butchered the nose. Still, it’s interesting as a study of skin tones.

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

at the Hatfield Gallery and the East Colony Fine Art Gallery in Manchester (both are in Langer Place, 55 S. Commercial St., Manchester, NH); at the Bartlett Inn in Bartlett and the Bernerhof Inn in Glen; at the Red Jacket Inn in North Conway; at the law offices of Mesmer and Deleault at 41 Brook St in Manchester; at the Manchester office of Congresswoman Carol Shea Porter; two paintings are hanging at the Bedford Library as part of the Womens Caucus For Art exhibit “Summer Bounty”; a single painting is on view at the Radisson Hotel in Manchester for the summer; and at her studio by appointment (email: alotter@mac.com). You may also view paintings with prices and order prints at my Fine Art America page. If the painting you are interested in is not there, or if you prefer to bypass that experience, you may contact me using the private feedback form below. If you want to add a public comment to this blog, go to the bottom of this page where it says “Leave a Reply”, and enter your comment in that box. I love to get public comments, so don’t be shy!

Fast or Slow, Which Works Better for Me?

Posted by Aline on July 25, 2014

You could rightfully assume that when I turn up on the web after a longer-than-two-week hiatus, I’ll be accompanied by a raft of new paintings. Sorry to disappoint. Although many hours in the past 17 days have been spent on various kinds of art-related activities, painting actual pictures was only a smallish part of it. One workshop with the accomplished portraitist Mary Minifie produced a single portrait (representing three days of labor), while another three-day one with Paul Ingbretson on composition produced nothing but horrible practice scribbles. Even worse, last Monday’s session with our lovely preggie model was lackluster, the result not as appealing to me as my first painting of her.

One saving grace: as a small favor to me, my friend Arthur offered to sit for me to do his portrait, and I managed to turn that into a big favor. Immediately upon viewing the painting after the first sitting, his mom declared herself a buyer. And after the second sitting, my model asked me to do another one for him. Although I wasn’t timing either session, I think the first sitting lasted about an hour and a half, and the second about an hour. Hence: 24 hours on a Margaret produced with Minifie versus 2.5 hours spent on Arthur winging it on my own. Both paintings are 11×14, so there was no size differential. No surprise–Arthur’s portrait looks rough while Margaret’s looks delicate.

Arthur

Margaret July 2014

Mary Minifie started with the selection of clothing and background. The goal was to enhance the beauty of our model’s skin tone, and also to create a pleasing composition, in which color plays a major part (a point that got made again in the second workshop). That took one hour. I thought then that it was an outlandish amount of time to spend on the selection of drapes to form a background, but looking back, I appreciate its importance. My photograph of the painting, even when adjusted, may not convey the right color impressions over the internet, especially when the actual hue, value and intensity had been so carefully calibrated. When you look at the completed painting, can you appreciate the rightness of the color of the background? What about the color of her shirt? What about that bit of white in her bodice? The shirt, by the way, was painted with a lapis lazuli from Michael Harding that I found in a batch acquired through eBay. So beautiful–the blue used by Vermeer, before ultramarine was invented.

The next big chunk of time was spent on Mary’s demo of, and our attempt to duplicate, the egg approach to portrait painting. We first tried it on a small 5×7 panel, then on our big panel. The basic idea: paint an oval in the shape of the model’s head matching the tint of each area of the head and neck, gradually increasing the detail as we decreased the patch of skin being matched in paint. In theory, the features start to emerge. Attention is also given to her pearl earring, her red hair ornament, and her hair itself. Margaret was much better at holding her pose than Arthur, of course. In theory, the better painting should result from this approach.

However, I am happier with my portrait of Arthur. It reminds me of a tour de force by Rose Frantzen titled “Portrait of Maquoketa”. Maquoketa is the name of her home town in Iowa, to which she had returned after a period of trying to “make it” in the Big Apple. She set out to paint all of the Maquoketa residents who were willing to sit. You really should visit this page where the story and all of the portraits are kept. In the meantime, enjoy this cover of her book, which contains all 180 of the portraits and a clever flip-book effect in the corners, whereby you can watch a painting in progress.

Frantzen book cover

Frantzen’s method is called “alla prima” because the paintings are completed in one sitting without any kind of underpainting or academic preparation. Alla prima (or almost alla prima in “Arthur”‘s case) suits me better than the classical approach mastered so well by Mary Minifie. Alla prima is something I can do now, whereas the more academic method would take me years to master, and I don’t have that kind of time left to me, unfortunately. Although I expect to live to be 100, I’m not sure I will be able to paint until 100.

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

at the Hatfield Gallery and the East Colony Fine Art Gallery in Manchester (both are in Langer Place, 55 S. Commercial St., Manchester, NH); at the Bartlett Inn in Bartlett and the Bernerhof Inn in Glen; at the Red Jacket Inn in North Conway; at the law offices of Mesmer and Deleault at 41 Brook St in Manchester; at the Manchester office of Congresswoman Carol Shea Porter; two paintings are hanging at the Bedford Library as part of the Womens Caucus For Art exhibit “Summer Bounty”; a single painting is on view at the Radisson Hotel in Manchester for the summer; and at her studio by appointment (email: alotter@mac.com). You may also view paintings with prices and order prints at my Fine Art America page. If the painting you are interested in is not there, or if you prefer to bypass that experience, you may contact me using the private feedback form below. If you want to add a public comment to this blog, go to the bottom of this page where it says “Leave a Reply”, and enter your comment in that box. I love to get public comments, so don’t be shy!

Afterglow; Exhaustion

Posted by Aline on June 10, 2014

My show was Sunday. Many of you remembered that, and succeeded in getting there, for which I am most grateful. Others of you may have tried to come, but gave up when you couldn’t find a parking spot. If so, I apologize. I never thought to check my reception date against the schedule for the Fisher Cats games. I won’t ever overlook that detail again! [Fisher Cats is the name of a AA minor league baseball team, farm team for the Toronto Blue Jays; its stadium is pretty close to the building where East Colony Gallery lives, and its parking lot becomes a Fisher Cats parking lot on game days. The building owners tried to save us prime spots in the front of the Gallery; unfortunately, the normal signs there declare “Do Not Park”, so, in the absence of guidance, people were probably afraid to park there!]

Nevertheless, we had a decent turnout for our party, and I got to reconnect with some people I had not seen in a long time. Alas, I did forget to take pictures, but this was because I was too busy talking, so that was a good thing. Usually, at these shindigs, I am too shy to engage people in talking about my paintings. Having people there whom I already knew was such a blessing!

Meanwhile, I had an extremely busy week of painting: five-day workshop with Sean Beavers on figure painting; one night class with Deirdre Riley on the same subject; two paint outs, one in Exeter, New Hampshire, and the other in Goffstown. And the Monday life group met as usual yesterday morning. I’m sure it was good, in the abstract, to be painting so much, but it may not have been beneficial for the output. I was spreading myself too thin, especially as exhaustion began to take its toll. I must accept the fact that, at my age, I can’t keep performing day after day at the same high energy level.

The workshop paintings fared better than the landscapes. For Sean’s class, we had one model in the morning, doing one pose all week; and another in the afternoon, doing his same pose all week. Two completed paintings emerged, plus one half-done portrait:

Figure and Detail

After spending three days on the figure, I developed an urge to paint the model’s portrait. Since I had space on the same piece of canvas, and needed to fill that space with something, my decision to lay it down next to the figure was a no-brainer. Only problem was, I was really too far from the model to paint a decent portrait. I couldn’t see any nuances in the facial features with my uncorrected eyes from a distance of 15 feet. Moving my easel was not an option because (a) I would have obstructed views of the artists on either side of me, (b) my spot was my spot for the afternoon painting, and that would have meant two moves, and (c) let’s not kid ourselves–this is only for practice. The fact that I ended up doing close to the same thing for the afternoon painting just means I’m consistent.

Competing Lights

For this pose, Sean set up a spotlight with red cel in front of the model, and one behind the model with a blue cel, emulating sunlight. The effect was quite dramatic. Fun! I spent four days on this painting, and so had only one day to fill with a practice portrait:

Portrait version

Again, my inability to see detail that far away, and the shortness of time remaining to me, meant I could not produce a finished portrait, but I got the big pieces right. Sean was actually impressed! But bottom line, the face in my figure painting is more interesting that this “forced” portrait. (To me.)

The paintout on Saturday in Exeter ended with a wet paint sale to benefit the American Independence Museum, which had organized the event. We had a gorgeous day. Every other day last week it rained at least a little bit. My goal for this event was to paint something pedestrian but so well that someone would want to own it. I failed. Not in the pedestrian part but in the wanting part.

Exeter River with Japanese Maple

I’m not sure the name of the river is Exeter. I got many complements on the beauty of this painting, but no one wanted to own it. For the second one, I went even further Out There–Ashcan School?:

Municipal Parking

This painting quite simply failed to be beautiful for some reason that I can’t quite put my finger on. (If I could have identified the failing, I would have fixed it.)

Winding up the week, yesterday I did a figure in the morning and a landscape in the afternoon. Both will be getting more attention–we will repeat the Monday pose next week. Same is true of Deirdre’s class from last Tuesday. And the landscape, well, you’ll just have to wait for that report because, with luck, I shall have time during the week to bring it to a new level of Van Gogh-ness.

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

You may also view paintings with prices and order prints at my Fine Art America page. If the painting you are interested in is not there, or if you prefer to bypass that experience, you may contact me using the private feedback form below. If you want to add a public comment to this blog, go to the bottom of this page where it says “Leave a Reply“, and enter your comment in that box. I love to get public comments, so don’t be shy!

Back to Figure School

Posted by Aline on April 7, 2014

A major disappointment to me was the cancellation of a workshop with Dan Thompson at the Institute. It was to be on the subject of painting the portrait from observation. I took an earlier portrait class with Dan Thompson and I wrote about it in this blog. (here) So instead of advancing my practice of portraiture, I was dealing with a broken furnace that week. It was a cold week, too. I may have mentioned being too cold to sit very long in my computer room. Lots of stuff got wait-listed that week, a fact whose relevance is hinted at below. (Ending a sentence with two prepositions! Exciting times!)

Our weather has shown dramatic improvement lately. For instance, I haven’t been wearing a coat. What have I been doing with my time? Not painting. Paperwork. Meetings. Reports. Nothing you would want to hear about assuming I were free to tell. I found only two recent paintings that you have not yet seen, and one of them I never intended anyone to see. I dislike it for being too dark and sultry. But in my desperation I have reconsidered, and hope it looks no worse than work that I have seen better artists display proudly. To some, dark and sultry is a virtue.

Dark and Sultry

No, it’s no good. I still don’t like it. Ironically, this is the same model whose face I tormented in the Dan Thompson workshop mentioned above.

My other painting I like quite a lot, just not sure why. It’s accurate, it has good lights and darks I think, proportions good, skin tones good, composition good, etc. But what’s it about? Can I show it? What the heck do I title it? As you can see, for now the title refers to the light source.

Overhead Lighting

The painterly quality may be what I like most about this painting.

The overhead light source is thanks to Jack, our newest member. Jack retired from a career as a filmmaker and photographer, so he has some great equipment that he shares with us. If I recall correctly, the overhead light is composed of 400 watts of illumination, covered by a diffuser so it doesn’t blind the artists

Well, tomorrow is another day, isn’t it? Scarlett was right. But literally, tomorrow is Tuesday, another life group day, and I might, I just might do something worthwhile. It keeps me going back.

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

at the Hatfield Gallery and the East Colony Fine Art Gallery in Manchester (both are in Langer Place, 55 S. Commercial St., Manchester, NH); at the Gallery at 100 Market Street in Portsmouth; at the Bartlett Inn and Bernerhof Inn in Bartlett; at the Red Jacket Inn in North Conway; at the law offices of Mesmer and Deleault at 41 Brook St in Manchester; at the Manchester office of Congresswoman Carol Shea Porter; and at her studio by appointment (email: alotter@mac.com).

You may also view paintings with prices and order prints at my Fine Art America page. If the painting you are interested in is not there, or if you prefer to bypass that experience, you may contact me using this feedback form.

<a href=”http://fineartamerica.com/art/all/nude/canvas+prints” style=”font: 10pt arial; text-decoration: underline;”>nude canvas prints</a>

Changing it Up

Posted by Aline on March 31, 2014

I’ve been dragging my butt lately and seven days ago I caught a cold, which gave me a terrific excuse to stay in bed for a few days. But at the end of the week, I heroically dragged said butt up to Bartlett, equipped with plentiful supply of tissues and cold meds, for a two-day workshop on . . . wait for it. . . Watercolor Painting with Byron Carr! Or as he ‘splains it, he’ll “show you how to slop, splash, splatter, scrub and spray your way to a finished painting.”

If anything can shake me out of my slump, will it be messing around in a medium that I cannot get the hang of anyway? What’s to lose?

Byron at work on his demo

The class was full at six students, all experienced painters, some actually quite proficient in watercolor but with something to learn about the Byron Carr approach to watercolor. And Byron entertains as well as teaches; he keeps us from taking ourselves too seriously.

Students Melissa, Marion, Jim, Nick

Sharon at work

Me at work

Nevertheless, all the photos of me seem to catch the serious side, or maybe that is just the struggle of adapting to the watery medium. Come to think of it, we all look very intense and serious.

The Byron Carr process starts out simply enough: pick a photo; crop and apply paint to the photo to create a thumbnail sketch of your planned painting; tape dental floss in an “X” across said photo to create quadrants that help in the transfer of the image; pencil in the big shapes on your 23×30 sheet of heavy-duty watercolor paper (140# Arches for those of you in the know). So far, so good. Then: apply paint. That’s when it gets interesting and frustrating. Byron applies paint, loosely mixed (No homogeneous puddles), then toys with it using sprays and scrubbers. The trick seems to be using just the right amount of water with the paint, either on the paper or thinning the paint on the brush.

Byron’s Demo

Byron paints fast, like a demon possessed, and splashes liberally. Note the plastic sheets covering the walls in the photos above. (The workshop took place in one of the large, handicapped accessible guest rooms of the Bartlett Inn. The innkeepers moved all the bedroom furniture out to make room for our tables, and draped the walls with plastic because they know Byron very well from years of past demonstrations.)

I don’t know enough about WC to distinguish one approach from another, but I knew what we were learning was different from what, for example, Dustan Knight does (she is the only other WC instructor I have been exposed to). Byron told me one of my paintings employed a technique that he does not use, to wit, layering. This one:

My No. 2 in progress

I think I was just trying to deploy techniques that work for me as an oil painter. Oil as a medium fits with my talents and intuition, and perhaps WC never will.

At the end, Byron had each painting up to display in his black mat so we could all appreciate what we had accomplished. Here are a few:

Melissa’s No. 1

Jim’s No. 1

Nick’s no. 2

Byron with Melissa’s No. 2

Here are photos of both of Sharon’s paintings. She took the pictures as they lay on the floor so I can’t square them up, but you get the idea:

You may have noticed that many of my fellow students obediently followed the master’s footsteps by painting rocks and waterfall, Byron’s specialty.

Proud Nick

I took better photos of mine when I got home:

My No. 1

My No. 2

I get to show mine off bigger and in higher resolution because after all, it is my blog! I’m really sorry that I did not have any photos of Marion’s two paintings to display, but here is a photo of Marion herself and I must say, she looks the happiest of the group:

Marion

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

Duality Continues

Posted by Aline on December 16, 2013

Before I get into certain issues involving the EEE class, check out these pretty decent likenesses I achieved using charcoal on Mi-Tientes pastel paper. First, from the Friday life group, here is Rebecca.

Portrait, Rebecca December 2013 (12×9)

I truly cannot count the number of times I have tried to do a portrait of Rebecca, with varying degrees of success. I posted a bunch of them in this blog (“A Month of Beckys”) about 7 months ago; over a year ago I included the very first one here in a blog titled simply “Becky”. Despite the annoying texture of the pastel paper (I chose the more highly textured side by mistake), the one I just completed is the best. That’s encouraging since it means I am still improving and have not yet hit my limit, if there is one.

My other likeness attempt came as part of the Saturday Life Group’s meeting. A popular male model whom we have not seen for many months was back in NH, and one pose gave me the opportunity to try for a likeness of his face. Looks pretty accurate to me, but I may be biased. Here are both of the longer poses from Saturday–the first one, as you will see, did not afford any view of the face–and I remembered to use the smoother side of the paper:

Mike No. 1

Mike No. 2

Drawing a man who is “ripped”, as they say, is a lot of fun, and just what we needed after so many months of rounded flesh.

Putting all that likeness stuff aside, we can get to the bigger issue: can Aline come up with a paintable abstract concept, and go on to paint it appealingly? Jury is still out, but hope has not stopped springing. The two that I am going to show you are both from the EEE class, of course. Thursday was our last class. Many of my classmates intend to take it again in the Spring. I, however, am putting my money on the Master Portrait Workshop with Dan Thompson and don’t feel I can afford the luxury of taking two courses in a single semester. But I stray from the main story: the EEE class adjourned halfway through our allotted time at the Institute to regroup at Bea’s place, to eat, drink, be merry, and critique each other’s works. First up was my now-familiar abstracted landscape evoking stained-glass windows and Monet. Patrick stood by his initial eval, but my classmates objected strenuously to the light-colored wedge, which they felt was distracting. Peter Clive was present as well, so I asked for his opinion. He advised repeating the wedge shape in the lower right corner. Classmates seemed happy with that solution. Therefore, on Sunday, after having endured a few restless nights trying to make sense of that advice, I dutifully inserted Wedge Minor into the masterpiece (please hear that with ironic inflection). This smaller echo remains as unexplained as the original Wedge Major. Fortunately, it being abstract, I didn’t have to justify it in terms of a representing a recognizable object. Most important, the new element has to blend into the scene as if it had always been there.

This is your first view of this piece as translated through my Nikon SLR, so this version looks better simply because of that. I had the devil of a time getting an image without glare inasmuch as I had ladled on the paint and parts of the painting will reflect glare no matter where you set up the light sources. My solution was to go with less light and increase “exposure” in the editing room. Details got lost, however. There are more of the red dots in the middle background, for instance.

My last EEE project, started Thursday after a lot of planning, is complicated. Shiao-Ping Wang presented a program at the recent meeting of the Manchester Artists Association, a program that I had, as program director, requested of her. “How do you translate an abstract concept into a work of art?” She showed us how she did it, explaining how her love of water became represented by a specific shape that she repeated in many inventive ways. A few days after that, I saw a call for art for an exhibit on the theme “Love”, to be juried by Eric Aho, an abstract landscape artist whom I admire. Here is a short video with Eric, which gives you an idea of what he does as an abstract landscape painter. Because of the juror and because of Shaio Ping, I decided to make an abstract painting for the show, based on something I love, namely, cats. And fur is what I particularly love about cats. Patrick had shown me years ago his painting of white chickens using a brayer instead of a brush. The breasts of those chickens looked unbelievably soft and downy. So what I intend to make is a painting about cats, using furriness as the symbol and perhaps deploying a brayer in my quest for irresistible texture. But yet another influence out of the Contemporary Gallery of the Currier Museum led me to plan a hidden image of a larger-than-life cat face in the background of my abstract, furry foreground. So far, I have completed only that background. I have to let it dry now, before attempting the more difficult task of layering on the furriness without totally obliterating the face.

Love and Fur WIP (20×16)

(By the way, as the party was breaking up, Patrick told me that I had all of the other aspects of art making under control–I just needed more help with the conceptual aspects–advice that suggests I should reconsider my decision to take the portrait workshop instead of another dose of EEE. )

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

The Ghost of Steven Assael

Posted by Aline on November 26, 2013

Actually, Steven Assael still lives, but his spirit visited me this morning. You may remember how impressed I was by him in the course of a workshop that I took last summer. I was impressed and frustrated. Read all about it here. This morning, at our regular meeting of the Tuesday Life Group, I felt as if I had, for the very first time, successfully applied his method for painting a nude, and boy! did it feel good! Not all of the painting is a success . . . yet. Our model will be giving us another session next week in the same pose. But I am so thrilled with this start that I had to share it with you. While I was still in the act of painting, I wanted to shout out to the room for the other artists to gather around and see what I was accomplishing. Here is the image:

Margaret and her Nook WIP

The big deal here is the quality of the skin, especially on her back. The key technique: I feathered it with the fan brush that I acquired for the Assael workshop but never got around to using because I never got this close to finishing. My heretofore preferred way of painting nudes is more impressionistic. Perhaps the only significant difference is a simple one: Assael feathers his brushstrokes on the skin; my Impressionistic style favors obvious unmodulated brush strokes. I guess it has taken me several months to let go of my old conceit and actually try to create the kind of glow achieved by Assael. To see what he did as a demo for us, click here. This new painting method may not represent a permanent new me, but it is something that fascinates me, and offers new challenges for painting nudes. Keeps it interesting!

And on another track, way off to the side of the above:–my exploration of abstract landscapes. Here is a Work in Progress:

Imaginary Elements WIP

Here is the finished painting: (I need to know what you think–then next week I will report on the class’s reaction.)

Imaginary Elements

Here is another start on something, another abstracted landscape I guess. I’m thinking it would make interesting wallpaper at this point, so I have to dig down and find a more compelling reason for it to continue in existence.

The Start of Something

Remember how I bellyached about not have having any photographic record of all my Blackstone Valley paintings? One of my buyers came through with an image of the Castle Hill painting that they purchased.

Castle Hill

This is a fairly accurately rendered painting of funky farm buildings located in Whitinsville, Massachusetts. I think the stone wall stole the show. The wall was built by hand by men employed by the landowner to keep them busy (and earning money) during the Great Depression. The funky buildings resulted from the same impulse, I believe.

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

The Rest of the Story

Posted by Aline on September 11, 2013

Seated Nude A

Seated Nude A is from the Tuesday session of two weeks ago. Nancy C. urgently requested that I not make another mark on it, with about a half hour to go. I respect her judgment, so I only clarified the feet after getting her permission. Ii’m always saying I want to paint more loosely. The difficulty is knowing when to stop, so I need a Nancy C. around at all times, I guess. This is the Carolyn Anderson side of me.

Seated Nude B

I don’t know where Nancy C. was, but I got a little further into Nude B. I think the story here is the good contrasting skin values. I painted in broad shapes again. Don’t you see a similarity to the figure I had going with Steven Assael’s help here? I have to give another plug to Michael Harding’s King’s Blue. It seems to be just the right blue to add into the shadowed skin tones. Nowhere is it more evident than on the edges of Nude B’s shadows. I am getting away from the more chromatic shadows that I used to indulge in, e.g., Nude A’s thigh. One could say I improved a great deal in one week’s time, but one may be saying next week that I am just as fast a backslider.

Becky Portrait v.2

This is the portrait that I was reluctant to show you as a work in progress. The wayward eye is gone. You can’t even notice the tiny change I made to the outside face/jaw line. I think I should bring it in even more. There is still something about this picture that bothers me. What is it exactly? I think it is the modeling of the face. Kinda crazy, really. I need the model back!

Here, for sake of comparison, is the version 1 next to version 2:

unfinished portrait of Becky

Becky Portrait v.2

Could it be that it is the tightness that also annoys me? I must work on loosening up in portraiture now that I am getting a feel for it in figures.

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

at the Hatfield Gallery and the East Colony Fine Art Gallery in Manchester (both are in 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 the law offices of Mesmer and Deleault at 41 Brook St in Manchester; the East End Art Gallery in Riverhead, Long Island; at the Manchester office of Congresswoman Carol Shea Porter; at the Boston Arboretum Visitor Center, 25 Arborway, Boston; and at her studio by appointment.

Making do

Posted by Aline on September 3, 2013

This is not the blog I intended. This is a substitute blog, making do with unused photographs that I happen to have already uploaded to WordPress. The problem is computers. I have two computers at home now, resulting from my retirement. I call one the Office computer, for obvious reasons, so I guess the other one is my Home computer. Home computer is an iMac that I bought years ago, used, on eBay. Everyone who spends any time at all in my house has their own account on Home computer. It had been acting flaky, but only when it refused to connect to the internet did I take action. Maybe it is a coincidence, but running Disk Repair only made it worse. The repairs were not completed: the program stopped in the middle and said it could not repair the disk and that I should back up what files I could and then reformat (erase) the disk. That’s a scary message. I never made contact with that disk again. Well, maybe that is a bit overdramatic. I can’t get the damn thing to start up. I sure hope that I will be able to make contact when I get the cable that I need to connect Firewire between these two computers. I have a drawer full of Firewire cables. But Office computer is pretty new and has an 800 FW port, while Home computer boasts only a 400 FW port. So I purchased a $9 400-to-800 cable on eBay and am awaiting its arrival with a heart filled with hope. (Home computer has so many of my images, irreplaceable images.)

But in the meantime, I thought, I can bring the new images from the camera’s USB compact flash card onto Office computer, and from there to WordPress, using the card reader that used to live with Home computer. But Office computer refuses to acknowledge the presence of this alien card. I changed its USB cable just in case the problem lies with the cable. Yes, I happen to have another drawer full of USB cables with every configuration possible (except the one that would connect my two computers). Still no action. I can see a little light blinking in the card reader, but it looks a lot wimpier than the strong light I remember from when it was paired to Home computer. Another coincidence? Who knows! I am reeling. Almost gave up on blog altogether when I realized that this very situation may be worth blogging about, ’cause everyone relates to computer frustration.

But enough of prologue. Let’s see what I have in the media library that you haven’t seen yet.

Fletch under the Assael Influence

This is a fairly large (16×12) study (see, I am learning at least to consider them as studies!) from a recent Tuesday Life Group session. The Assael workshop had just ended, and I was very attentive to the shadows, making them as dark and as blue as I could. There is also a “philosophy” that I think I observed in Steven Assael, which now infects my own: get close, then closer, then closer, then closer, almost to infinity, until you are as close as you believe you can get. Close to what? Perfection, I suppose, but to break it down into parts: value, color, shape. Remember when he played on my painting, running over the shapes I had drawn, then left, instructing me to fix the drawing? (Revisit that post here.)

So here’s the Assael process as digested by me: you sketch in large shapes just to make sure the composition will work, then plug in the values and colors very roughly (as far as the drawing is concerned), then when those values and colors are “perfect”, you perfect the drawing by tightening up the shapes.

In this study of Fletch, I was trying to apply those principles without having first articulated the principles in my head, so it was haphazard. When I ever get my photos back onto a computer under my control, you will see in my last two figure studies something closer to the Assael process, although they will look rougher. Rougher yet closer to perfect? How can that be? It’s a puzzlement, and a delight, a never-ending search for the Way.

The other image I have been holding back is this work in progress–so much “in progress” that I was embarrassed to show it:

unfinished portrait of Becky

One of the images on my compact flash card is the finished–hmm, closer to finished–portrait of Becky. I corrected the wayward eye and worked on the values and colors. I carved back on the left side of the face as well. Dangerous to change drawing without the model as reference, but I felt I was making adjustments on the basis of information already there. Clearly the eye was too far to the right, so I only had to remember the shape and move it ever so slightly to the left. (Do wish I could show you now instead of later!) When I decided the face was too wide on the left side, I kept the same line and just moved it by millimeters (hope “millimeter” is small enough to be my meaning–let’s just say VERY small degrees) by painting the negative space: more hair, less face. I had to trust that the line itself was accurate. A leap of faith in myself. Well, I had no choice, did I?

So that’s it. I have nothing more held back, you know it all.

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

at the Hatfield Gallery and the East Colony Fine Art Gallery in Manchester (both are in Langer Place, 55 S. Commercial St., Manchester, NH); at the Kimball-Jenkins Gallery in Concord, 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 the law offices of Mesmer and Deleault at 41 Brook St in Manchester; the East End Art Gallery in Riverhead, Long Island; at the Manchester office of Congresswoman Carol Shea Porter; and at her studio by appointment.

Mixing it Up

Posted by Aline on August 20, 2013

I don’t have any major project under construction (like the poster competition), but I am keeping busy with the paint. Having lots of smaller projects of different kinds makes me happy. In fact, it dawned on me quite recently that I don’t even know how to finish a big project–I seem to specialize in plein air paintings and portraits and nudes from 3-hour sessions–all of which are by some artists considered good only as studies for something bigger. I’m taking a portrait drawing class with Deirdre Riley at the Institute, and we are working on one charcoal portrait for the last three weeks of 3-hour sessions. Deirdre asked me last Friday if I wanted to start a new one or try to bring what I already had to a more polished conclusion. I answered, polished conclusion, because that’s exactly what I don’t know how to do. The demo by Stephen Assael drove that point home. Now there’s a man who knows how to bring a painting to a polished finish! Every molecule of paint must be in the right spot before he is satisfied.

Next week, I hope to be proudly displaying a charcoal portrait finished to the nth degree of development. Unfortunately, the usual quickies are all I have to show for this week. I will start with the most polished, which you have seen before, because it deserves a second look without all those annoying light reflections. This is my third attempt at getting a good photo of it, and I think third time was the charm.

Profile in Red Sweater–Grace

Red Sweater is from the Cameron Bennett workshop, the last one, the interior one. I’m really liking how the red sweater came out–such a simple thing compared to facial features or even the head wrap, but at least I got it right.

Next is a pair of 6x6s; yes, it’s already time to start on the 6x6s. Our (Womens Caucus for Art) 6×6 show was held in February, but that show was a postponed version of the November exhibit. So now we have one again in November and time is running short.

Garden in Prescott Park

The Garden is painted from a photo that I took last week at the Prescott Park Arts Festival. There was no vantage point from which to paint this scene, but I can remember, with the help of my photo, the light that made it so enchanting.

Day One

The line of children is from a fairly old photograph taken of a granddaughter entering first grade, on that first day. It caught my fancy one day and I decided it was worth at least a 6×6 format. I might try to do more with the faces. I kind of gave up, maybe too soon. I’m proud of the gestures.

Overlooked in previous weeks–no, not overlooked because I consciously set it aside, let’s say postponed–is another portrait of Fletch. It may not capture his likeness as well as some others of mine, but I wasn’t focussing on likeness. I was fresh from the Steve Assael workshop, and my attack on this painting very much reflects the Assael influence.

Fletch under the Assael Influence

Last, and least (as far as size is concerned) is this portrayal of four little piglets taking a nap at Phoenix Farm when I visited it with Sharon Allen a few months ago. I was charmed by how they lined up, alternating heads and tails. These adorable little piggies are probably big porkers by now, being readied for someone’s dinner table. No Charlotte to save them.

Four little piggies napping

Piggies was painted on a tiny 2-inch by 2-inch canvas. The painting is destined to be a favor for one guest at a charity event called the Storybook Ball. East Colony has volunteered to decorate a table for the event, and we chose as our theme the storybook “Charlotte’s Web” by E.B. White. (It was my idea.) Each guest at our table will take away an original 2×2 painting, but that’s only a small piece of the project. Our table is going to be spectacular rendition of barn and web and spider and all the other characters from the book. The charity benefiting from all this activity is “CHAD”, or Children’s Hospital at Dartmouth.

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

at the Hatfield Gallery and the East Colony Fine Art Gallery in Manchester (both are in Langer Place, 55 S. Commercial St., Manchester, NH); at the Kimball-Jenkins Gallery in Concord, 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 the law offices of Mesmer and Deleault at 41 Brook St in Manchester; and at her studio by appointment. Two paintings hang in the Manchester office of Congresswoman Carol Shea Porter and a poster reproduction hangs in the Currier Museum of Art, also in Manchester. Reception September 5, 5 to 6 (blessedly short) with the Congresswoman and the artists.

Inadvertently omitted from the above line-up in weeks past was the painting I shipped down to the East End Art Gallery in Riverhead, Long Island. And coming up in September is the Boston Arboretum exhibit, which chose one of my paintings for its annual Jamaica Plain Open Studio exhibit, which you would know all about if you were one of my Facebook friends.

Steven Assael workshop, conclusion

Posted by Aline on July 16, 2013

This is my third and final installment about the Steven Assael workshop. The first two installments dealt exclusively with the demo that Steve started as the Monday session, 10 to 5. I think he liked it so much that he wanted to finish it with the model. Or perhaps he like US so much he wanted to spend extra days with us. Or maybe it’s a combination of the two. He had 16 students in the workshop, two of who are teachers at the Institute. Most of the rest of the class were young current BFA candidates or youngish BFA graduates from the Institute, but we had one stray up from Delaware (his home base) and Florida (his art college). Then there were the three of us older figure students, me and my buddies Bea and Elizabeth. It was a very compatible and committed group of artists. So maybe he just liked us.

Enough with the progress images of his demo. Here is the last one that I caught before I had to leave, followed by close ups:

3:50

3:50 detail-head

3:50 detail-feet

He dabbed away at that red fabric (a soft shiny material, perhaps silk) from time to time throughout, and the daubs became more purposeful as the end of time neared. Suddenly, the fabric on the model stand became the fabric in the painting. Like a hungry, prowling predator, he circles his subject, getting closer and closer until Wham! there it is captured to perfection, pinned to his canvas. (I don’t know what predator behaves like that in reality, but doesn’t it sound right?)

When I left at 4:30, he was scrubbing the background.

I hate to follow that with my own pitiful effort to emulate him. But I know you are curious. Here’s the disaster I spent two days on:

Becky, last version

I must have wiped that out nine times, trying to find my way. I refused to let him paint ON my painting, so he painted this as inspiration to get me over whatever was blocking my creativity:

Becky by Assael

But it wasn’t the start that I was having trouble with; it was the finish.

Thursday I changed rooms (we had two rooms going with a model in each) to paint Margaret. Here is my start, before any input from Steve:

Margaret before

Not enough blue! This time I allowed him to go at it on my painting:

Margaret After

Notice how he lost all my carefully drawn edges? As he left, he said “Now you can correct the drawing.” So I corrected the drawing:

Margaret, drawing corrected

And then I added the red lamp to my painting. When he saw this version and complimented me, I wasn’t sure whether he liked the lamp specifically, but when he later incorporated the red glow in his own painting, I imagined it might have been inspired by my red lamp:

with the red lamp

Saturday was a day of Drawing with Steven Assael, 9 to 5. He did not come around to critique or help us, but we could watch what he was up to and ask him questions. Margaret was our model. This is Steve’s drawing of Margaret, executed with Stabilo pencils on silverpoint paper:

Margaret by S. Assael

Don’t you love the decision to let her stomach disappear into the paper? And she wasn’t really sitting on her hand. So what if the likeness isn’t there! He couldn’t care less about a likeness, although he usually does get one, even of Margaret. I have another image to prove that but too tired to add now, which is technically no longer Monday.

This is my portrait of Margaret, in which I really do get her likeness. I was able to show it to Steve when nine of us went out to dinner with him, and I ended up in the seat next to him. He liked it, he really liked it!

Margaret, profile, in graphite and charcoal pencil

Two criticisms that he shared with me: I should carry the shadows of her jawline and cheekbone into the hair so that the hair does not look so flat. I will do so when I have a couple of artmaking minutes to put together. I expect the improvement to be so subtle that you won’t be able to identify it, but you will think it’s better. It’s also the way he paints–the subtle attention to nuance that brings living flesh and muscle into his painting.

The other criticism had to do with my composition. I had included Margaret’s breasts, but when they became too prominent in the composition, I scribbled them out. However, the scribbles still appeared to be part of the drawing. In a related point, the design of the hair masses need to be considered, not blindly rendered.

Exhausting, exhilarating, frustrating, inspiring–all that you might expect in seven days with a Master.

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

at the Hatfield Gallery and the East Colony Fine Art Gallery in Manchester (Langer Place, 55 S. Commercial St., Manchester, NH); at the Kimball-Jenkins Gallery in Concord, NH; at the Bedford Library in Bedford; at the Bartlett Inn in Bartlett; at the Red Jacket Inn in North Conway; at Stella Blu , an American Tapas restaurant in Nashua; at the law offices of Mesmer and Deleault 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. Two paintings are also hanging in the Manchester office of Congresswoman Carol Shea Porter.

Steven Assael workshop, cont.

Posted by Aline on July 14, 2013

I posted a mid-week report on this figure painting workshop, which you should check out before reading this post. The workshop was supposed to be five days, from ten a.m. to five p.m. That schedule was amended at the end of the first day, Monday, because Steve’s demo was turning out so good that he wanted to finish it before he left New Hampshire. Well, that’s my educated guess as to his motivations, which were really pretty transparent. First he determined that his model for the demo, Becky, was not available Saturday, so arrangements were made for her to come in Sunday! Saturday was therefore to be a group drawing day, with Margaret as our model. Margaret also modeled for the class Tuesday through Thursday. Monday and Friday and Sunday were given over to the “demo”. Plus we started at nine a.m. instead of ten, every day after Monday. I am wiped out and all I had to do was stay awake and focussed. (If I let my focus wander, I started to nod off.) Steve seemed to be running low on steam towards the end, but would not stop painting. Becky was released at 4:00 and I had to leave at 4:30, while Steve was putting finishing touches on the background. I hope they were the finishing touches.

As a result, I have so much material to show you and discuss that I could probably fill a week of posts. I will leave my own work out of the discussion for now.

Before the pictures, a commercial: please go here to vote for my poster if you can. The top 30 or something vote getters (that actually might be all) go on to another round of voting. It’s all too complex for my poor tired brain tonight. Just go there and vote! (Please)

The following four pictures were taken during the Friday “demo”.

The thing to notice about these “progress” pics is that he rather cavalierly blurs previously articulated shapes in the course of finding the hue and value he is looking for. Also notice how he uses the painting itself as an auxillary palette. The black and red drapes were added to break up the expanse of blue, but not much attention was given to painting them. Yet.

The rest of the pictures are from today. I have captioned each with the time I took the photo to give you some idea of the passage of time between one and another. You might understand better why it was hard to stay focussed:

10:30

The first thing he did was get rid of the blue drape altogether by covering it up with a brownish patterned one. I’m quite sure that if he had another couple of days to work on this painting, the pattern would be beautifully represented.

11:00

He cleaned up the background–uh, palette–and placed a red crescent about where the red lamp shone. Take note of that because I like to think something I did on Thursday may have inspired this bit.

See a little bit of patterning in the brownish drape? And her face is back–sort of. The black parabola emerging in the background has us all wondering. The black drape is so subtly beautiful that I’m afraid you can’t see it. Steve is a wizard with black.

1:23

Sunday’s session was supposed to end at one o’clock. Becky agreed to stay on and, I presume, the Institute agreed to foot the bill.

2:23

Not quite sure but I think the reflection of the black drape on her back and continuation of the red drape towards the background are new.

I have a few more images that I would like to show you, but I think I have exceeded some kind of daily limit–Wordpress is not accepting any more uploads. I will try again tomorrow.

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

Thumbs down and thumbs up

Posted by Aline on July 8, 2013

The poster competition deadline was today. I submitted last week, after much fruitless agonizing. I’d been obsessing over the lettering issue. I was seesawing between disliking formal lettering and being horrified by small misalignments of hand lettering. Here is where I got to toward the end.

poster, next to last version

As you might notice, the word “and” leaves a lot to be desired. I just couldn’t leave it like that, which meant I had to paint it out yet again. In desperation, I went out and bought multiple sets of stencils and stickers, hoping one of them would solve my problem, but none did. Without really knowing where I was going, I started to paint out the latest version of “and” when I realized that you can still read the letters when they are partially obscured. Clouds, I thought. One of my followers had actully suggested that, and now I was ready for that solution. Which resulted in this:

poster–final version

Am I happy? No, I realized I was never going to please myself, and I had just better stop messing with it. So in it went. I cringe when I focus on the lettering at the top, and just hope I don’t get laughed out of a competition where most of the entrants know exactly what to do with lettering.

On a more upbeat note, the painting (or study) that I created Tuesday turned out really well. I think so, and Peter Clive, our mentor, said about it something to the effect that it was one of my best, and in addition, it showed feeling.

Fletch, in profile

Every day this week I am immersed in a workshop with Steven Assael at the NH Institute of Art. If I can ever get the photos from my phone onto my computer, I will post the progress pictures from his demo. All I can say for now–amazing. I think I have found a kindred spirit. Stay tuned for a shift in my style.

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

Hello, Again

Posted by Aline on April 1, 2013

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

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

Portrait Fletch Mar 2013

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

Fletch portrait on darker bkgrd

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

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

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.

The Struggle (with compressed charcoal)

Posted by Aline on November 26, 2012

I’m pleased to report that I did not chicken out. Monday a week ago, I proclaimed my intent to deploy compressed charcoal in Larry Christian’s life drawing class, and on Tuesday I did just that. I had prepared myself by acquiring a large bag of cots. What is a cot, you ask? They are little rubber caps for fingers. They look like condoms. Larry said they would fit his dog’s, well, you know. I thought I would need only one cot, for the third finger, which I favor for smearing soft willow charcoal. I soon discovered that compressed charcoal attaches itself to fingers that merely touch the stick. By the end of the class, I had one cot on every finger of my right hand, because all of them were handling the stick. My thumb is fatter than my other fingers, and all my cots were medium-sized to fit my other four fingers, so my poor thumb suffered mightily from the constriction of blood flow; after all that, my thumb still got covered in dust because of a pinhole leak in the tip of the cot.

Smearing, the technique that I love to use with ordinary, vine charcoal, is not a good technique for compressed charcoal. You can’t soften a mark left by compressed charcoal–you can only make it look messy. You’ll see.

I started with a test sheet of mark-making.

A test of handling

My sticks were square, but not precisely square. One side of a square might produce a perfectly even application of charcoal, while the side next to it will produce streaks of darker lines at the edge. Unless you were expecting and planning for those streaks, this would be quite upsetting. Because THERE IS NO CORRECTING OF MARKS MADE BY COMPRESSED CHARCOAL. You can start light and get darker, but you can’t reverse direction. If you try to erase, you’ll probably sink the boat.

Gestures, no. 2

Upper left–that’s what happens when you try to smear or spread the mark left on the paper by compressed charcoal. Yucky!

Gestures, no. 1

gestures, no. 3

Gestures, No. 4

Gestures, No. 5

Gestures, No. 6

You’ll notice that I am not drawing with lines. Instead, I am trying to create form by darkening the space around it, or by filling in form with a darker value. Given the size of the charcoal stick, details can’t make it into the picture. You can probably deduce from a few stray boobs that our model was not a man.

The magic of the compressed charcoal comes from its revelation of the grain of the paper. Almost anything you do can look cool. To the extent that these gesture drawings are successful, it is probably because I didn’t have time to find ways of spoiling them. The more time I got with a pose, the harder it became for me to adjust to the unique properties of the compressed charcoal, as these next three poses demonstrate.

Struggle no. 1 Where do you go when you can’t draw the face or fingers?

struggle no. 2 still trying to complicate things

Struggle no. 3 Falling back on lines

Too black, too soon, those last two. I resolved thereafter to slow down, tread softly. Restraint is key.

Stuggle no. 4

Finally, I feel I am getting somewhere. Can you make out the smudges from my fingertips (actually from the cots on my fingertips)? By this time, my finger cots were layered in thick, greasy, black soot.

Struggle no. 5–close, or there?

Because the back view is my favorite, or maybe because this was our last pose of the night, whatever, I finally produced something of which to be proud. My light, early marks that were “wrong” (too wide buttocks) did not detract from the beauty of the final drawing. The paper I was using was low-quality sketch paper. I can’t wait to see how these marks will look on some decent “laid” charcoal paper.

Isn’t it ironic that a drawing that looks as though it were born of wild abandon is actually born of restraint?

P.S. Larry was quite pleased with me.

Finding a Face

Posted by Aline on November 19, 2012

My day has started out badly. My camera misbehaved in a way that has me stumped. I was taking photos of three paintings that I intended to show you, trying out all kinds a strategies short of standing on my head to get one without glare. I finally figured out that I had to get farther get away from the painting to avoid the shine, and zoom in on it. But the camera went into some kind of zombie mode wherein the painting showed up as a blank gray canvas. I loaded the images into iPhoto and increased the exposure, to reveal a ghostly image of the painting. Scratching my head. Did I change a setting by accident? It’s a Nikon D70, if anyone out there has an idea.

underexposed

Meanwhile, moving on: “finding a face” refers to the process involved in painting a portrait. I contrast the two nudes with faces attached that I worked on earlier in the week, with the stubbornly unphotographable portrait with body attached that I worked on over the weekend. Here are the bodies:

From Head to Foot

Larger copy of earlier pose

These faces are sketched in–not carelessly but not with any refinement either. A little dot of paint placed in the right spot pretty much does the job. Since the paintings are pretty rough overall, a refined face would look out of place anyway. These paintings are in line with the fast and loose style toward which I am reaching.

Enter Dan Thompson. I took a two-day workshop at the Institute with this painter, who hails from New York City (“the South”, as he refers to it) where he teaches at the Art Students League. There were no beginners in this workshop. In fact, two of the Institute’s teachers were taking part. Whereas I have been mostly concerned with getting the features placed in the correct spot, Dan’s primary focus was on the shapes of things. For example, in Sunday morning’s lecture/demo, we explored, in great detail, every nuance of the nose, ears, mouth and eyes–in that order. Before the demo of each feature, we received a lecture with diagrams. The following two photos show his roughed in portrait from Saturday’s morning demo/lecture, with the nose developed in the first one, and the ears in the second:

Nose

Ears

For the nose and ears, I made notes in my sketchbook. Then I got a little savvier, and took pictures of the diagrams. Here are his diagrams with lists of terms, one for the parts of a mouth and the other for the eyes, followed by his demo of each:

Somewhere under all the arrows and embellishments, there was an outline of a mouth.

mouth

eyes

I loved it. Every little bitty stroke had its own reason for color and direction, yet the product does not look overworked. No blending. I went back and examined my own work in progress from Saturday and was depressed; I didn’t even have the features in the right spots.

WIP– Halfway there?

But I pulled myself together and applied the thinking Dan had just demonstrated to us, and it got better–yet another portrait of Becky. (For a few earlier portraits of Becky, see my blog titled “Becky”. On his last go-round, he complimented me mildly, saying “nice job” as he left my station for another, and I have stored that memory in the place where I keep similarly encouraging statements, a place that I revisit whenever I think this whole striving to be great is just a foolish pipe dream.

umpteenth portrait of Rebecca

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

Catching the Odd Perspective

Posted by Aline on November 12, 2012

I haven’t mentioned it before, but I have been taking a figure drawing class at the Institute with Larry Christian. Larry’s approach to drawing the figure is the opposite of academic drawing. He pushes us to draw quickly, intuitively, expressively. The techniques are familiar ones, but to please Larry, we must apply those techniques more fluidly and expressively to create an image that is unique.

I took this course with Larry before, in the spring of 2006, when I was just getting started as an artist. At that time, I was obsessing on landscapes, particularly plein air painting. Now that I have done a 180 on that preference, and also come to admire Larry’s drawings, I was motivated to retake the course, hoping to find out how Larry achieves his dramatic effects. For the only images of his work I could find online, click here. By way of contrast, look at Anthony Ryder’s drawing, so meticulous, and also lovely, but definitely academic in style.

Most of our work product in Larry’s course is not fit for public view. We bring nothing to completion. We produce pages and pages of gesture drawings, 30 or more of them each week, and then do our exercises on the technique du jour. One week it was drawing shapes instead of lines. The next week, drawing negative shapes. The week after that, creating form with darker values for shadows. Most recent week, creating form by wiping out darker values to create light.

Last week did produce a few showable drawings. And one of them contributed to the title of this week’s blog.

Bent

We applied charcoal evenly over the paper in order to create a non-white ground, and then erased that charcoal to bring out the shape of the model. I got lucky in my angle on the crouching pose–the simplicity of the shape and the shadow distinguish this drawing. The one before it was a more traditional pose, more complicated, yet less interesting.

Seated

Now that the course is winding to a conclusion, I have a pretty good idea of what I will be practicing in order to emulate Larry Christian: Use compressed charcoal; draw negative spaces; and my shadow areas will be all in one value. That last point was a revelation.

The other example of an odd perspective is my painting from yesterday, Sunday. I brought a larger canvas (12×16) and had less time (we didn’t get started until 45 minutes into our 3-hour session with the model), so perhaps that inspired me to paint more with the larger, simpler shapes. Or maybe I was influenced by the success of my crouching pose above. In any event, here it is:

Pillowed

In evaluating this painting, I remembered one from a month or so ago, which, by consensus of my friends, I had ruined by smoothing out the shapes within shapes. It’s very hard to restrain oneself. Right now I’m looking at that light patch on her forehead, thinking it should be smoothed. But I had a light patch like that on her breast at one point, and it disappeared and I don’t even remember doing it. That’s how hard it is to restrain oneself.

Following up on the Soo Rye Gallery opening last Saturday, I’m hoping you are dying to see my photos taken at the reception.

Totem displayed in Soo Rye Art Gallery

High and Dry on exhibit at Soo Rye

Lotus Studies, on exhibit at Soo Rye

Bea’s drawing, displayed in Soo Rye Gallery

Bea’s portrait of Becky

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

The Week of “Super Storm”

Posted by Aline on November 5, 2012

Haven’t you heard enough about Sandy already? New Hampshire is one of the suffering states, but I got off pretty easy. Looks like I’m going to have to pay for a new roof without help from the insurance company. Being unscathed myself, I insisted on holding the Tuesday life group. It was, after all, a pretty nice day, weather-wise, a little rainy but hardly any wind to speak of. But most of the other artists were dealing with one storm-related problem or another and couldn’t get here for the group. So it was just the model, another unscathed artist, and me.

We set up in the window side of the studio and had our model lounge on the familiar old brown leather sofa. We found ourselves looking down on him, which felt strange at first. The model stand that we usually use puts the model at my eye level or above. (I sit to paint.) We also forewent any supplemental lighting inasmuch as the sun was streaming right in at our backs (yes, SUN). No dramatic shadows to fall back on for creating interest. But as it turned out, I didn’t need any drama from lighting. I accepted a full-on frontal foreshortened pose with the model’s feet practically in my face. (Of course that’s an exaggeration–I did say “practically”.) I was super pleased with this development because it furnishes a response to a taunt from one of my colleagues who, upon viewing last week’s blog, complained that I was not giving enough attention to feet. Since he is also one of our models, I suspect it is HIS feet he want more attention paid to. Nevertheless, feet are feet:

The Feet Have It

I have to point out that it is not often that you get to depict the wrinkles on the sole of a foot. Having recently watched a documentary on Lucien Freud, I also felt as if I were channeling him every so slightly, as I tried to paint the effect of hairy legs.

On Friday, four of us met with Peter Clive for a quasi-workshop session. Peter had during the summer been attending our Tuesday group whenever he could, but currently his teaching schedule at the NH Institute of Art kept him there on Tuesdays. So he offered to come instead on Fridays and critique work in progress, when corrections are possible. In the course of the summer and now the fall, Peter has seen quite a few of my paintings. He compliments me by saying something like “That’s a nice study,” or even “That’s a great study.” He said that about The Feet. Noting his use of the word “study”, I had reconciled myself to the reality that a serious artist does not go around producing a finished painting in three hours (actually less when you consider setting up time and break times). The fact that I consider these paintings as complete if not completely wonderful just shows how far I am from being a serious artist. There is a whole level of professionalism up there that I can only imagine.

However, the work that I did Friday was, at the end of the three hours, pronouced a “painting” by Peter, “not just a good study”. Yes, he actually said those words.

An Actual Painting

He liked the composition, which I admit, I had worked out early in the process. before paying much attention to the figure. So that was unusual. Perhaps because of that, a certain painterly quality emerged for the whole painting. But when I got home, I noticed that the right leg was too short, both as measured against her left leg and as measured against her torso. So I “fixed” it. I tried to duplicate the original foot before I covered it up, but the new foot (FEET again!) doesn’t look right. I may have botched this painting by correcting one errant part of it that may not have mattered in the big scheme of things. All is not lost, however–the same model is returning in two weeks for the same pose, and I will get another crack at that foot. I am also hoping to paint a larger version from the same pose.

Totem, 11×14, $300

Lotus Studies 13×13 $265

: High and Dry, 11×14, $300

A plug for the Soo Rye Art Gallery opening on November 10, reception from 5 to 8 p.m. The address is 11 Sagamore Road, Rye, NH. All the artworks being exhibited are priced no higher than $300. I contributed “Totem”, “Lotus Studies”, and “High and Dry”, three of my all-time favorite paintings. If you can’t get to the opening, the show continues through the end of December, but I expect that a lot of the art will be sold at the opening.

Here is some history for these three paintings:

Totem was accepted in a regional show juried by Don Stone for the Rockport Art Association (Massachusetts, not Maine). I painted Totem on the coast of Rhode Island, near Narragransett, with my artist friend, Mary Crawford Reining. The totem, actually more accurately called a cairn, in the painting really did exist exactly as I painted it. Other cairns had been built by person or persons unknown, but this one was the most adventurous. It was more than a cairn–so I titled it Totem. Earlier in that morning, I had painted another, more complex view of this rocky beach, and had an hour left over. Only much later did I realize until later what a successful painting Totem was.

Lotus Studies won Best in Show at a Manchester Artists Association exhibit, about a year ago when the MAA had a gallery of its own, but I created it at least a year before that for the Women’s Caucus for Art annual 6×6 show. That had been my first year in the WCA, hence my first 6×6 show. I had easy inspiration from photographs taken at the lotus pond in Wickford, Rhode Island, again visiting Mary. The next year we tried plein air painting at the pond, but my output was worthless.

High and Dry has no distinction to report, but it deserves an award, in my humble opinion, for oozing the most charm. I have Mary Crawford Reining to thank again, for High and Dry: this time I was a visiting her Marco Island home for perhaps the third year in a row. None of my Florida paintings had amounted to much until this one, and I still consider it the Prize of my Florida collection. Funny thing is, Mary had had her eye on this boat for a long time, wanting to paint it but never having got around to it. So I swoop in and steal her subject as it were, and make it one of my best from Florida.

Only in the writing of these descriptions did I notice the huge debt I owe Mary Crawford Reining for guiding me to these three inspiring subjects.

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 the Soo Rye Art Gallery in Rye NH; at the law offices at 41 Brook St in Manchester; and at her studio by appointment. Also, if you want to plan ahead, on December 1-2, a two-day show of unframed works at Adrienne’s studio on the 4th floor of Langer Place, 55 S. Commercial St., Manchester, NH; the artwork will be priced no higher than $150! At least six artists are participating in this sale.

Overcome by Hydraulics

Posted by Aline on March 26, 2012

This week ‘s tale is of the three-day workshop I took with Stapleton Kearns at the NH Institute of Art in Manchester. Stape, an active landscape painter, member of the Boston Guild, formerly of Rockport, writes a blog for other painters, and in that blog he had at one time discussed the anatomy of waves and other items of interest associated with the painting of seascapes. One point stuck with me: most of the dramatic, wave-crashing seascapes could not be painted on location–the painter, or at least her easel, would not have survived the first crashing wave. So I already realized we were not going to be heading out to paint waves from life (as if any such thing were available in Manchester, New Hampshire). I assumed we would be relying on some use of slides or photographs in order to paint our seascapes. That’s what we had done in my intro to waves with Peter Granucci–I recounted that learning experience in my blog of July 17 last year.

I do like surprises. I also just love being reminded that the mastery of painting is much, much harder than one might imagine, and takes a lot, lot longer than the time one has available. So, boy, was I ever pleased with this workshop!

First, there were no slides, no photographs to use as reference. Stape demonstrated on three separate paintings, one each day, how, without any reference whatsoever, he designs a seascape and works in the elements of the sea: waves, foam, rocks. All three paintings were fantastic little jewels. If only each afternoon I could have followed his example. The first day I mimicked his design, with a decent result.

Theoretical Wave

The second afternoon, I tried to invent my own composition. The big wave element was not working for me. Several times I wiped it out and started over–not because I could not construct a decent-looking wave. After all, the one I had done the day before was passable. But this one was too fussy looking. I was still working on it the last day, near the end of the workshop, so I asked Stape to come over and tell me what I was doing wrong. He sat down, squeezed out a half tube of white on my palette, mixed in some blues and grays, and pushed paint aggressively all over the offending areas. The wave is now barely recognizable, but the energy was exactly what I had wanted.

Stape's wave

What a monstrous lesson for me! I had been so caught up in the hydraulics of wave action, worrying about whether this brush stroke or that one was consistent with the physics of waves, that I forgot to just be a painter.

Stape also had us doing simple exercises, not necessarily related to seascapes. Below on a single panel are his demonstrations of three of the exercises:

Stape's painting exercises

The top one was a demonstration of how to paint a wave over and into white paint: After a generous layer of white paint is laid down, you manipulate your blue paint over and into the white to create a wave shape.

The one below and to the left shows the opposite technique: lay down the dark blue paint first, then come in with the white to shape waves. Sounds simple; looks simple. Ain’t simple. Allow me a year or two to practice that one.

The orb in the bottom right was his illustration of the rule that nothing in the shaded half can be as light as the darkest value in the lighted half. And vice versa. This rule is important to all subject matter whatever the media, but is easily overlooked when you get lost in waves. Confusion in the waves leads to ambivalence in assigning values–is this spot lighted or shaded? Stape’s advice: commit to one or the other. You start with a 50% chance of being right, plus another 25% from some other logical assumption–wish I could remember what–so taking that plunge with odds so in favor of you has to be better than not choosing at all (leaving wishy washy values). Even if I can’t remember where that 25% comes from, I shall remember to commit to light or shade, no matter what.

The overall lesson imparted was the one I hate most to hear: to be a good painter, you must paint every day for ten years. I cannot accept the extremity of that pronouncement, but I admit that I need a lot more practice (especially in seascapes). Maybe I should just stick to portraits and figures.

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 Splurge of Portraits

Posted by Aline on February 20, 2012

“Splurge” seemed the right word, so I looked it up, and indeed, there is a secondary meaning that covers what I feel I have today: an extravagant display. Beginning with the figure workshop with Peter Granucci last Tuesday, through the class with Cameron Bennett, and and ending today with my last–no, my most recent–edits of the Sami and Noodles portrait, my week was full of figures and faces, most of them falling squarely under the category of portraiture. Oddly enough, my favorite of the week is the most unlikely candidate. I entered a contest to paint a portrait from a supplied photograph by Shan Peck–he is the photographer and the contest administrator and the juror. It’s not a big deal, just a fun thing to do, and it became a project to do in my class with Cameron. I can’t reproduce Shan’s photo here–he made a point of forbidding any use of it other than to paint the portrait–but you can link to it here.

Since we were encouraged to upload our works in progress, I snapped a few of those on my cell phone (had to figure that out first–what a banner week!).

WIP for contest

Contest Portrait, Final

Our Sunday model, Sabrin, was slated to keep the same post and dress as she had last week, so I went prepared to draw a charcoal portrait of her. She was very late in arriving, however, so another artist volunteered to sit for us. As a result, I came away with two charcoal portraits, one better than the other. The first did not capture a good likeness. If I had had the time, I hope I would have achieved a likeness. As it stands, I believe I exaggerated the size of her nose.

HH Profile

The profile of Sabrin came out well, I think, likeness or not. Her mouth was very interesting and challenging to capture.

Sabrin, in charcoal and profile

While we are on the subject of portraits, I took another crack at the portrait of Sami and Noodles. It’s harder to capture children, I think, because you have to keep a light touch. Their features are so delicate. For that very reason, though, painting portraits of children makes for terrific practice in making marks at the precisely correct spot to provoke a translation in the viewer’s brain that matches reality. Our eye/brain supplies so much of the information that an artist who tried to lay out all the information before you, especially in a child’s face, comes across as heavy-handed and awkward. As a result of trying to avoid heavy-handedness, I spent most of my time today painting out the details that I had so carefully laid in earlier. I may not be there yet, but at least I know where I want to be.

Sami and Noodles

I’m not done yet. Remember, I promised a “splurge”. Tuesday, Peter suggested that my last drawing was worthy of working up to a finished piece. I had that drawing pad with me Saturday when my car broke down, so I was able to pass the time waiting for the tow truck by working on that drawing. Never has such a usually tedious wait passed so delightfully.

Nude woman in chair

Wait, there’s more. Saturday morning (the regular Saturday life group) I completed two charcoal drawings with which I was happy. One of my favorite models–it’s remarkable how much difference a good model can make to the drawing. Last week’s was uninspiring. This week’s–well, it’s what keeps me going back.

R, reclining

R, seated, in blue and yellow

I think that’s it. Seven days, seven happy figure/portrait projects.

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

Link to website: www.paintingsbyaline.com

Two Steps Forward, One Back

Posted by Aline on February 7, 2012

Adrienne in her tough guy outfit

It was a great week in terms of activity. Wednesday the Granucci workshop group met for 4 hours of live nude drawing. Thursday the Bennett class met for painting the contemporary portrait. Saturday the Saturday Life Group met for its usual three hours of live nude drawing. And Sunday I joined a new group that meets for three hours to paint or draw from a clothed model, who keeps one pose for the entire time.

Peter (Granucci) started us on shadows, and I am happy enough with my results to share with you for the first time some of my drawings from that workshop.

Two quick poses from Granucci workshop

Exercise in Shadowing

Thursday night, I took in my drawings from Saturday and Wednesday in order to choose one to use as a basis for painting. I narrowed it down to two: the more developed one above, and one from last week, the reclining figure. I was happy with both of the faces on these two, until I asked Cameron (Bennett) for advice on which to choose for my painting. He didn’t like the faces. I was so taken aback that I forgot to ask why. Anyway, together we chose the reclining figure to paint:

Translation into Oil

Our model on Saturday was the same person who was modeling for SLG the first time I joined. That was perhaps 4 years ago, and she hasn’t changed a bit. I have mentioned before how I just accept a bad angle and try to make the best of it. This week I tried, but I did not make the best of it.

Rear View

Extreme Foreshortening

In fact, I may have done better with the shorter poses, which were in pencil:

Series of poses from SLG:--5, 10, 20 minutes

Sunday morning I joined up with my friend Bea to go paint at Adrienne’s studio, the same studio where we meet for the Granucci workshop. Adrienne had arranged for a Sudanese model dressed in her native regalia, and Bea in particular was looking forward to painting the dark skin tones–she even prepared a special palette. But the Sudanese model never showed up–signals got crossed or were not even received, apparently. So Adrienne herself modeled for us, too upset to paint anyway, she said. She held the same pose for the entire three hours, with generous breaks every 20 minutes or so. I finished a small painting of her entire figure (the painting that leads off this post) and had a half hour to spare, so I started on a painting of her head. I was hoping that the limited time would push me to capture the essence with minimal strokes, a la Caroline Anderson (whom I have adopted as my muse, as recounted in earlier posts).

Alas, on my way home, the tape I had used to keep the full body portrait secured to its support came loose, and smeared the head portrait. In the course of repairing the head, I lost the freshness and simplicity of the original.

How to Sport a Fedora

The full body one was easy to repair, and I don’t think I lost anything essential to it.

So I am kind of down in the dumps at the end of a relatively productive week, which is probably why I couldn’t bring myself around to getting this post out on time.

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

Link to website: www.paintingsbyaline.com

Concentrating on Portraits: Faces with no Features?

Posted by Aline on January 23, 2012

Of all the works I labored over this week, the above detail from a charcoal drawing comes the closest to being an actual “portrait”. It looks like the model. In fact, the entire drawing could be called a portrait in that it not only looks like the model, but it conveys the model’s attitude, which I have called “Proud”:

Proud

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you already know that I am taking a course in contemporary portraiting at the NH Institute of Art, with Cameron Bennett. One of the points that he made in our first class was that anything representing the subject can qualify as a “portrait”–if that is what the artist intends. (One out-there example brought up by one of my smartypants classmates was Andy Warhol’s tomato soup cans. She/he said he practically lived on tomato soup; therefore the soup-can paintings could be considered self-portraits.)

So suddenly I feel free to call my anonymous figure paintings “portraits” too. I’m thinking of the studies I painted from the photos I took at the Mount Washington Bike Race, discussed and reproduced in several of my posts from last fall. As you will see below, I’m still working from those photographs, and I’m still trying to work more loosely. To that end, I have stuck printouts of Carolyn Anderson paintings all over my easel to help me remember how little I need in order to convey eyes, nose, etc. (Forget the mouth altogether.) All this fits splendidly into another theme or goal, which was urged upon me by various art teachers to whom I have paid good money to criticize and guide me. And that goal is to eliminate the detail. I was never quite sure which details I should eliminate, so now I am on track to eliminate all of them, so that should produce something like progress, eh?

Last week I was struggling with a portrait of Sammi and Noodles, which got way too detailed. (To see it, go back to last week’s post.) Thursday night, I went to class bearing that sorry effort, along with my photograph of Sammi, and my drawing from the week before. (All in last week’s blog.) But I (wisely, I think) decided to make a fresh start on a new painting of the same subject. Again I was seduced by the dog Noodles. (Maybe I should just give up and do nothing but pet portraits.) The depiction of Sammi was horrible. I can’t show you how horrible because I smeared it out even while Cameron and I were shaking our heads over it. He got into the spirit and started moving paint around with his fingers too, in random and varied directions, to show me how Carolyn Anderson would probably have attacked the painting. (I use the word “attacked” to convey both possible meanings.) Then at home yesterday I practiced on both versions of Sammi and Noodles, and here they are as they exist today, side by side:

No. 1, version 2

Sammi 2

xxxxxx

xxxxxxx

I’m not satisfied with either one, but don’t you agree that version 2 shows me moving in the desired direction? I decided it was time to move on and apply whatever I learned to another project. Here is the result:

Fans

I’m feeling good about this one. The paint is very thick and still very wet, which is why I could not get a decent photograph of it . . . also why the colors may be a little too muddy, but I’m not going to worry about that right now. The important thing is, I conveyed the gestures and attitudes of these three people without painting distinct features on them. My previous Mt. Washington studies (yes, this too is from that race) had started to become that kind of thing, what with the loosely painted crowds. Notice the crowd depictions above! Maybe too abstract? Hey, I’m feeling my way here.

But back to the portrait, the real thing, that I started you with today, the charcoal of “Proud”. My favorite thing from this week. I believe–I could be wrong, but I do believe–that there is no offending detail in that portrait. I am going to take it in to class this Thursday and see what Cameron has to say.

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

Link to website: www.paintingsbyaline.com

Three Hours of Life Drawing

Posted by Aline on December 19, 2011

I hesitated to expose an unedited display of everything I did in the course of a life drawing session–not all of it is worth going down in history–but I’ve got this blog to feed and I have done so little art this week that I am desperate. First you have to agree not to sneer. If you can’t promise that, you should refrain from going any further.

Our Saturday Life Group seldom varies from the following regimen: five quick poses of one minute each, then a five-minute pose, then a ten-minute pose. These total 20 minutes and earn a 5-minute break for the model. Then a 20-minute pose. In theory, at this point we have used up only 45 minutes of our three hours. Over the next two hours and 15 minutes, we will typically ask for two different poses, broken up by breaks every twenty minutes. The length of each “long” pose is usually between 40 and 50 minutes. Once, maybe twice, since I have been a member, we got one longer pose over that two-hour period. At that duration, I can start thinking about drapery and background, because I generally work fast. My Tuesday workshops with Peter Granucci are, more and more, informing my choices on Saturday morning, and one of things I am working on is speed. Slowing down. Getting it right in the beginning.

But one-minute poses don’t allow for getting much of anything right. What you must do for a one-minute pose is quickly decide what you want to capture–the gesture, for example, is a good choice. I had been using newsprint paper, both purchased and saved from packaging (one of my art suppliers uses crushed paper as packing material). Peter frowns on using inferior paper for even the quick sketches–you should be practicing on the same quality of paper that you intend to use for your masterpiece.

So (coincidentally) this week, I decided to obey Peter, and left the newsprint at home. Here are my five one-minute poses:

The first one, the one on the left, is my favorite. I went for the delightful posture, and attacked it by first marking a few key points, then connecting them. You can pretty much see those marks, which are slightly darker than the other marks. After that pose, I pretty much fell apart and struggled to find my way. But it doesn’t really matter–whatever comes of these exercises, they do warm you up, get you moving your arm and thinking in the right mode.

Here is how far I got on the five-minute pose:

Getting it right entails measuring and lining up. I do a lot of that by eye, but sometimes I need to do some actual measuring and lining up using a straightedge. For this one, I don’t remember using a tool. I think I placed the forward foot in relation to the calf of the closer leg, but it doesn’t look correct now. Instead of making sure that I got that relationship absolutely correct, I was busying myself with the more interesting light and shadows. Aside from the mistake in foot placement, this drawing is not bad for five minutes, but it illustrates how haste makes waste, and why I must slow myself down even when I have only five minutes to complete the drawing.

Next up is a ten-minute pose, which seems wonderfully luxurious at this point in our sessions. Usually I switch to charcoal at this point, but Saturday I decided to stick with the pencil because I must use it in Peter’s workshop. Using a pencil forces me to slow down. Because the pencil is so confining, I also chose to draw smaller, which led to two drawings on the same page–the ten and the twenty-minute poses:

With both of these, I tried really hard to slow down and get all the parts in the absolutely correct places. These are OK, I think.

For the last two “long” poses, I gave myself permission to do my drawings in charcoal. It seems weird to me now, but I used to be afraid of charcoal. I can remember asking permission to start my first charcoals drawings with a pencil sketch. Probably I was worried about being unable to erase, which is really silly because nothing could be easier than to obliterate a charcoal mark with a swipe of a finger. But the best thing about charcoal is your ability to create shadows with a smear of a finger. So much quicker than hatching with a pencil.

I like this one best. We got two 20-minute poses and I was finished with the pose then, but some people wanted more, so she went back into it for another 7 minutes, and I used that time to create another version of her head. She has a wonderful face to draw.

The final long pose was one I struggled with, which is a little strange because you would think this pose is easy:

I got hung up on her hand, and redrew it multiple times, and am still not happy with it. But the bigger problem lies most likely in my beginning — too fast perhaps. Looking at the pose now, I think she looks too uncomfortable. Yes, she was leaning on her far-side arm, but her legs should look more relaxed. I’m pretty sure I did the requisite measuring and checking, but something is not quite right.

After our session concluded, we went over to Joey’s house for the most wonderful party, to celebrate a great season of drawing. We will start up again in January.

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

Link to website: www.paintingsbyaline.com

“I See Naked People”

Posted by Aline on December 12, 2011

“I see naked people” was adopted last year by my life drawing group (SLG, or Saturday Life Group) as its motto on the occasion of its 20th anniversary. I didn’t get it at first. It’s supposed to evoke the little boy’s shocking statement in the movie ” The Sixth Sense “: “I see dead people”. We had t-shirts made up with the slogan on the front and an outline of a nude figure on the back. I wore mine fearlessly to Home Depot and the like, oblivious to the curious stares until someone would ask me about it.

Recently, as a result of several visits to an exhibit at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, I came to realize that what we see in SLG isn’t naked people at all–we see nudes. The MFA exhibit was the Nudes of Edgar Degas. The best of his nudes are pastels of nude women engaged in some kind of bathing activity with their backs turned to the viewer/artist. One of the many innovations credited to Degas was this rendering of a person unclothed on purpose, that is, for a purpose of her own, rather than a person unclothed and posing for the benefit of an artist who wishes to draw or paint a nude figure. The naked women by Degas were disturbing, therefore, stripped as they are of an artistic rationale. Nakedness is shocking, nudity is art. (If you think this is odd and hard to grasp in this day and age, consider the outrage that greeted Manet’s “Olympia”–she was depicted as a prostitute awaiting her customer, in a pose that had not shocked anybody when it was assumed by Venus, the goddess of love. See the Wikipedia article here.)

Anyway, this week I am treating you to some nudes. And what connects my nudes (albeit tenuously) to the foregoing two paragraphs is the word “people” in the SLG slogan. Usually I don’t see naked or nude “people” because usually I only see one person/model at a time. Models charge for modeling (clothed or not, but they get a little more for taking off the clothes), so it is a luxury to have more than one model posing at a time. Especially since you can look at only one at a time, really. I have trouble understanding why simultaneous multiple models would even be desirable– getting one figure right is challenge enough. Be that as it may, I guess we had some extra money accumulated in the kitty, so one morning a few weeks ago I went into SLG to find not one, not two, but THREE models undressing for our benefit! Fortunately, I could not see all three of them well enough to incorporate all three into a single drawing. Two was hard enough, thank you.

Double the Pleasure

We had two hours (less break time) to work this double pose. Our third model took his pose on the other side, forming a kind of triangle. Yes, he was a male. Radical!

This past Saturday, we were back to the normal single model, suddenly seemingly so easy!

sketch, standing figure

seated figure

I remember complaining in the past about getting more than my fair share of back views, and although I still do seem to get a lot of backs, I’m not complaining anymore. I have been humbled. Backs are hard enough to do. The challenge is to keep it simple even while suggesting the complexity of the bone and muscle structure beneath the skin. I am still working all that out and thus may be faulted for overdoing the complexity thing.

While rooting around in my stacks of older drawings looking for something suitable to submit for an exhibit, I came across this one:

His Dreaming

Funny how a drawing I don’t even remember making could magically appear and rise to the top of my favorites. I am fascinated to see how I used a light brown chalk to highlight his hair and applied those white strokes of light just as if I were as expert as, say, John Singer Sargent. Yet I recall nothing of the process. Probably it went fast, and was followed by something else that loomed larger in my mind. I usually make a note of the length of pose and the date on my drawings, so I am able to confirm that it was a 40-minute pose, and it turns out I had to accompany my granddaughter to a court hearing right after the drawing session. Yes, a court hearing could obliterate whatever came before it.

After patting myself on the back for the discovery of “His Dreaming”, I tore up many, many others that embarrass me now. God forbid I should be subjected to the fate of Degas with my inferior projects unearthed after my death and exhibited in a museum (I should be so lucky, but this is “My Dreaming”) alongside the good stuff, where pompously overinflated amateurs (like myself) can sniff and proclaim them to be worse than unremarkable.

That I am getting better is proved by the callousness with which I tossed my inferior stuff, and I think my progress can be attributed to the work I have been doing with Peter Granucci. What we do in his figure workshop is all practice, practice, practice, so there’s not much to show off–yet. He has promised that exhibit-worthy projects lie in our future. (As if a venue could be found for an exhibit of nudes. Naked people. Oh, the horror.)

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

Link to website: www.paintingsbyaline.com

Studies, Ending, Beginning

Posted by Aline on December 5, 2011

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

Posted by Aline on December 5, 2011

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:

Link to website: www.paintingsbyaline.com

Boats

Posted by Aline on November 21, 2011

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:

Link to website: www.paintingsbyaline.com

Never Try to Predict the Market

Posted by Aline on November 7, 2011

Last weekend was Open Doors New Hampshire as well as something called “ArtWalk” in Nashua and “Art in Action” in Londonderry. If you had the energy (I didn’t), you could have spent all weekend touring artists’ studios and watching demonstrations by artists and crafts people. As part of this pretty big deal, the NH Women’s Caucus for Art held its annual, tenth anniversary, 6×6 exhibit and sale as part of Nashua’s ArtWalk. It was great timing for the WCA (of which I serve as Treasurer) because the visibility brought in lots of new membership applications. Sales of our 6×6’s were brisk too– on Saturday. I suspect, although I haven’t got proof positive, that the higher Saturday sales reflect the fact that our artists were buying each other’s works. (No one appreciates your work as much as your own people do.) See the incriminating photograph on the blog of Kathryn Antyr of our president possibly red-dotting the panels that she wanted to take home.

Two weeks ago I made a prediction regarding which of my panels would be the first to sell, and I got many, many responses (by email and by blog comment) from my readers who agreed with me. I predicted that my first sale would be this image of the lounging alley cat, titled “At Home”.

At home

Au contraire. My first sale was the “Snaggle-Toothed Cat”, Grace, the one I painted many months ago to amuse myself while gallery-sitting.

The Snaggle-Toothed Cat

Apparently one of the artists from a neighboring studio fell head over heels in love with the snaggle-toothed kitty. I know from my own experience that when love happens, it happens. There’s no explaining it.

The next to go was the portrait of my friend’s deceased akita, Nora.

Akita

I heard, in fact, that more than one person wanted to buy the Akita, but then they both thought the Akita was a polar bear. I guess polar bears are popular. Coca-Cola knows what it is doing.

I had to get much of the above information on Sunday, after the fact, because on Saturday I was busy learning how to get luminosity in my paintings. It was one of the series of single-topic landscape workshops, offered by Peter Granucci through the New Hampshire Plein Air group. We began Saturday by studying paintings by masters such as Kensett, trying to figure out how they achieved luminosity, then we tried to achieve it in our own painting. Our first exercise was a new painting from a projected photograph:

Early morning

This exercise illustrates many of the attributes of a luminous painting–high key (meaning mostly very light); complementary colors (purples and yellows are the preferred set of complements); small areas of dark contrast; one lightest spot that seems to pour luminosity all over the scene.

Our second exercise was to work on one of our already “finished” paintings, trying to add more luminosity to it. I chose to work on “Spectator, Mt. Washington Bike Race”:

Bike Race spectator on Mt. Washington

I had already been pretty happy with my Spectator, but Peter saw potential for more luminosity. I lightened the background mountains, added the light source, and changed my white highlights to pale yellow. The result:

Spectator

Is this better? It looks darker rather than lighter. Must be the lighting when I photographed it.,

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

at the Gallery at 100 Market Street in Portsmouth; at the Sage 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.

[The Manchester Artists Association Gallery is now officially closed. But the MAA itself is as active and vibrant as ever.]

Link to website: www.paintingsbyaline.com

Brave New World

Posted by Aline on October 6, 2011

The title of this post has nothing to do with any art that I am sharing with you. It refers to my destination after Apple’s iWeb stopping publishing updates to my Blog. OK, I’m not going to complain anymore. I’m just going to get on with it.

I have lots of art to share: a backlog of nudes, my own “Motif No. 1”, sketches from the Mt. Washington Bike Race, and progress in my class with Patrick McCay.

Let’s start with Motif No. 1: Every artist should have a version of this red building, which came to be known as “Motif No. 1” because every artist painting in Rockport, Massachusetts, did have a version of this building. (Google it!) I painted mine yesterday from the “T Wharf”. I debated whether to include the pirate ship–thought it might be too much detail. But I liked the two masts and decided I could handle it. But the pirate ship kept leaving. I think they were selling rides. I would look up to check a detail, and it would have vanished, only to return an hour later.

I was in Rockport to attend the reception for the New England Invitational exhibit at the Rockport Art Association Gallery. Wonderful, large gallery, great reception food, with wine and champagne. Much more elegant than I am accustomed to. On the other hand, they were interested in my name tag, which I bought years ago for Manchester Art Association receptions. It identifies me as an exhibiting artist. Apparently, no one has thought of doing that before, but it was definitely useful. It caused the director to stop and shake hands with me, which I am sure she never would have done but for knowing who I was.

Another plein air enthusiast accompanied me to Rockport and to the reception. In fact, but for Clinton Swank and his car, I would not have been able to get to Rockport at all. Clinton is a young 20-something painter, absorbing knowledge and experience like a sponge. He did not know about Motif No. 1 and chose to paint another scene from the T Wharf even after I told him about Motif No. 1.

The McCay class is called “Explore, Exploit, Express”, maybe not in that order. In the future I will refer to it as the EEE class. This week my project was to repaint the first Bedford Farmers’ Market scene, the one with the multi-colored umbrella, but to paint it as if I had only ten minutes to get it down. It was a mess. But Patrick advised me to blur all the edges and then come back in with fresh strokes of highlights. I gave that a try, and there is where it stands as of today:This one is headed back to class for more help Wednesday, but already everyone who has seen both versions has preferred this version to the original. To view the original, click on the link below. http://web.mac.com/alotter/Paintings_by_Aline/Index_to_Painting_Albums/Pages/Newest_Additions.html

My long range project still involves the Mt. Washington Bike Race. Here are two pages of vignettes that I hope to piece together in a large painting:

Before working on the Big Picture, however, I will paint studies from these sketches. It is my intent, my goal, to keep the brushstrokes loose and fresh.

SLG, or Saturday Life Group, has met four times already! In years past, we would just be getting started in October, but since we meet in a classroom at the Institute (NH Institute of Art), we are subject to the Institute’s calendar, which means there are some Saturdays when we cannot meet there–when prospective students are invited for tours of the campus, for instance. We used to be required to stop working and cover up our model to let groups of impressionable youths come in and inspect our goings on. So instead of suffering such interruptions, we start the season a few weeks earlier.

Here are my best drawings from the past four weeks:

A 6×6 painting for $66

Posted by Aline on September 19, 2011

6 inches by 6 inches has recently become a popular size for two-dimensional art pieces because they are affordable and are highly collectible. But for the past ten years, every year, the New Hampshire chapter of the Women’s Caucus for Art has been organizing a member exhibit consisting only of 6×6 plaques prepared specifically for that purpose, and for that year. The price for each plaque is $66. Every media imaginable is represented. The plaques can even be used to create 3-D artworks as long as they can still be hung vertically.

My Lotus Studies series of four were created for the WCA event in 2009, and when none of them were sold, I combined them into this piece:

Lotus Studies

As this unit, Lotus Studies has been exhibited three times–once at the 2010 WCA “Flowers Interpreted” exhibit (another annual event), then at the Gallery at 100 Market Street in Portsmouth, and finally this spring at the Manchester Artists Association Gallery, where it won the Best in Show award. Though much admired in all these locations, it is unaccountably still available for purchase.

For this year’s 6×6 exhibit, I have decided to feature critters. I led off my blog (up above) with a half-finished study of that most endearing of critters, a sleeping cat. I’m going to call it “At Home”. Ironically, my model is Sundance, a rough, tough rescued cat who ultimately chose to rough it in the neighborhood. He relies on other suckers in the neighborhood to feed him regularly and suns himself on my deck occasionally. So although he looks really “at home” in this painting, he is dreaming anarchy (on my bed, by the way).

I have two other of my critter plaques started:

I need help with the Snowy Egret. There is a lot of empty space on the left of the plaque, which I intend to fill with written words. Poetic words. I am not a reader of poetry, so I don’t have any useful couplets filed away in my brain, but maybe one of my readers does.

This one I propose to title “Red Breasted Plover”. There is of course no such thing as a red breasted plover (this one is, I think, a black breasted plover in winter plumage). The red breast here is a reflection of the red canopy. Is that obvious enough to explain the title? Or will people think “red breasted plover” is a real species?

If you have been with me for a while, you might remember the Egret and the Plover from my trip to Florida in 2010, the year I deployed the zoom lens to such good effect. If not, you can see them here. Nineteen months later I finally got around to painting these birds!

The WCA 6×6 exhibit this tenth anniversary year will include the 6×6’s from prior years, so I guess my lotuses get out and about for the fifth time. The place of the exhibit will be in Nashua, and the length of the exhibit will be only 2, perhaps 3, days in November. A short, almost “pop up” type exhibit may generate more concentrated interest, and exhibit spaces that we couldn’t consider for a month-long exhibit become feasible. I will post more information about the exhibit when the date draws near.

Since this year we are including past works (retrospective), I will probably offer two that I recently painted on 2010 plaques, covering up what I did last year. (I hated what I painted on last year’s plaques so I didn’t submit them to the exhibit. Lack of inspiration results in worthless artwork.) You may remember these recent portraits from a previous blog entry:

A Blond Akita A Snaggle-tooth Cat
For more about the cat, search “Grace”. I adopted her last year.

I was going to post some pictures of drawings from our Saturday Life Group, but I think this is enough for now. Next week I am sure to have lots to talk about, because I will be attending a workshop with Stan Moeller, the guy who opened up the door to landscape painting for me back in the Fall of 2005. The subject of this workshop is near and dear to my heart:–how to paint people into your plein air landscapes. I have been practicing that very thing in anticipation of this workshop, and now I will learn the real scoop. . . . fingers crossed, that there is a real scoop to be had!

Layering Water

Posted by Aline on September 5, 2011

This week I was almost a full-time artist. Tuesday, I attended a figure workshop in the morning and painted at the Bedford Farmers’ Market in the afternoon:

Friday I tended Gallery (Manchester Artists Association) and passed my time by painting a sunset with reflections in puddles, thinking to prepare myself for Saturday:

Saturday I attended another one of our periodic single-issue-landscape workshops with Peter Granucci; the topic of the day was handling see-through water, that is, water shallow enough to allow you to see to the bottom. More about that later.

Sunday Sharon and I met up with other NH Plein Air artists at the Fruitlands Museum in Harvard, Massachusetts. Our mission was to paint, but we also visited the art musuem on the grounds. On exhibit from their permanent collection were paintings by the Hudson River painters; on special exhibit were paintings by New England impressionists from the turn of the century. Only one name was familiar to me–Childe Hassam. My favorite of the heretofore unknown impressionists was a guy called Clifford Grear Alexander. I googled him, but other than his dates (1870-1954), no biographical information is available. Both Sharon and I were struck by the fact that many, if not most, of the paintings in these two exhibits were of New Hampshire scenes.

Farm House at the Fruitlands Museum, 11×14; when I got bored by this painting, I applied high contrast outlines to see the effect. I like it.

Meadow at the Fruitlands Museum, 11×14.

Monday, today, I put more time in on the Meadow because I had only one hour’s work into it on location. One of the docents had told me she saw a doe with two fawns at the tree line, so I added them to the scene. I wish I had a better grasp of deer anatomy, but people keep referring to our Great Dane as a deer, so I put her in the painting, hoping she passes as a deer from a distance.

The title of this blog, “Layering Water”, comes from the Saturday workshop. The point of the workshop was to learn to see all the layers created by water, and then, armed with that understanding, represent them in a painting. There is the reflection on the water, which requires that the water be relatively still. There is the surface at the bottom of the water, which requires either no reflections, or that any reflected object be in shadow–you cannot see through a reflection if the reflection is lit. If you can see the bottom rocks, mud and whatever, you need to note color changes and value changes but much more subtly than if the water was not present to obscure the view. Sometimes it’s hard to decide whether you are looking at a reflection or at something that exists under the water, especially if your reference has no context. Peter started us off with photographic examples that made our heads spin. Then we worked on two assignments. Here are my results:

The assignment on the left was relatively straightforward. Below, on the left, is a closeup of one of shadows formed by the submerged rocks. The closeup on the right is reflected grass–note that the reflection is darker because the underside of the blade of grass is not lit by the sun.

The second photograph was hard to deciper. We believe that the lighter shape at the top may be an overhanging rock. The middle section is supposed to represent a partially submerged rock extending toward a fully submerged ledge. Why is the water line so dark? I still don’t know what to make of the dark shape between the overhanging ledge and the submerged ledge, but in the middle of it is another rocky shape that suggests the whole dark piece is a shadow cast by — something outside our view, or the overhanging ledge? Peter wouldn’t say. He took the photo but maybe he couldn’t remember, or maybe he just enjoys torturing us.

At Last! A Good Plein Air Day

Posted by Aline on August 15, 2011

Last week, I told you about the Eight Days of Weeks, National Forest celebration, that we NH Plein Air artists turned out for. This week, on Saturday, our numbers at the Flume hub were reduced to just Sharon and me but we celebrated the Weeks Centennial with personal highs–two paintings each that we were happy with. Above is the covered bridge over the Pemigewasset River on the grounds of The Flume. We got a lot of traffic going by, and it was fun interacting with the visitors. By the time we got hungry, the paintings were done. I took this photograph while we were packing up, just in case the painting got bought at the wet painting sale, but of course, no one showed up for the wet painting sale. Late last night in my studio, I took photographs of my entire week’s worth of artworks; I use articifial “full-sprectrum” light that I thought produced images that are good enough. However, the images of the bridge were not nearly as good as the one I took in the field. Makes me think I should stop trying to photograph my painting indoors.

After hanging around for the wet painting sale that wasn’t, Sharon and I headed farther north to enjoy the late afternoon light on Profile Lake, which lies below Cannon Mountain, right in Franconia Notch.

That high point, Sharon tells me, is something called “Eagle Cliff”, but I couldn’t see the eagle in it. Perhaps it has lost crucial parts. Sharon could still see an eagle, but Sharon sees images in just about anything–a habit somewhat annoying to artists whose clouds and rocks are the subject of her scrutiny.

Sunday we found ourselves together again at a Peter Granucci workshop in Londonderry at the studio of Elaine Farmer. The subject of this workshop was wet-surface reflections, including sand and pavements. We also got into the combination of reflection over what might be visible underneath the water.

This is my copy of a detail from a painting by Alfred Thompson Bricher, a White Mountain painter born in Portsmouth, NH. The painting that we copied is called “Time and Tide.”

This one was painted from a photograph. My photograph here is pretty awful–colors are off, but I think you get the idea.

Last Thursday was my last class with Cameron Bennett for a while. He had read my blogs and seemed much less critical of my efforts, but that may be my imagination–as I progress to becoming more critical myself, it may seem to me that he is overlooking egregious errors. Here is Rebecca again, from the other side:

This too was painted in the direct painting method that I used for the homework as described in last week’s blog.

And here is my final effort on that Valentin Serov copy (I erred last week when I identified the Russian portrait artist as “Kerov”):

I worked on this even after the last class last week, trying to get the right eye placed correctly. I had already put hours and hours into that eye, and considered devoting the whole blog this week to the Mystery of the Traveling Eye. I might revisit this topic when I have a better handle on it. If that ever happens! Right now I am so disgusted that I ‘m not even giving you a chance to compare my final (for now) copy to the original.

So it has been a full week for me, and thus wonderful.

More about Portraiting

Posted by Aline on August 8, 2011

Above is the final version of my copy of the Annigoni self-portrait. This is what I had to show the class and the Critic Supreme, Cameron Bennett. I wish I could remember his exact words, but they were more complimentary than usual, and he concluded by saying I should post it on my blog. I had to confess that not only had I already having done so, but I also solicited suggestions, which I took, on things to fix.

But not everything got fixed, because after the compliments, he and my classmates proceeded to tear it apart. Here, for the sake of comparison, are both new and old versions of my copy, against the original, which is in the middle:

He rejected my own observation about the face being too wide; that was an illusion caused by the ear being too low. Also the nose was too tipped up, the nostril shadow not extended enough, and the eyes too wide open. Each issue is a matter of millimeters. Millimeters matter. If there were something smaller than a millimeter, it too would matter.

That exercise entailed the drawing of the portrait before the painting of it. Once you have labored over a drawing, the painting phase becomes semi-automatic. As long as you get the colors right, and stay within the lines you have drawn, the portrait comes out okay. This week our assignment is to copy a portrait by a Russian painter (Valentin Serov, one of the greatest Russian portraitists of his time, according to this website) using the “direct painting” method. Skip the drawing. You start by painting an oval for the head. After the outside shape has been refined, you may begin to suggest features within that shape using midtones and shadows. Here is where I was with my copy last night–original is the one on the right:

This morning I corrected the eyebrow on the right; it was arching a little too far to the right. There’s something not quite right with that eye, but I’m not sure whether it is the size or the shape, or both. The iris just seems to be popping out of her head. Perhaps I need to narrow the entire head.

Saturday I finally got outside for a little plein air painting. I joined other members of the NH Plein Air group to help celebrate “Eight Days of Weeks.” A NH native, John Weeks, was instrumental in the passage of the Weeks Act 100 years ago, without which we would have no national forests. So each Saturday during the month of August, we are organizing painting forays to northern New Hampshire, which is dominated by the White Mountains National Forest. For this first Saturday, we were determined to get an early start so as to paint the Turkey Jim Covered Bridge in Campton in the morning, then move to the Forest center in Lincoln for the afternoon. At three o’clock we would then have two wet paintings to offer for sale at the center.

Alas, we couldn’t find Turkey Jim Covered Bridge. This is a bridge now closed to vehicular traffic but looking delightfully paintable in its disrepair–from photographs. Mapquest led us to a point near its western terminus, but we didn’t know that and even if we had, we would have had to climb fences. (Not feasible with painting gear.) Then first one then another “native” gave us bad directions. When we finally found the correct road with the help of a third native , it led us to a field bursting at the seams with RVs, waiting for a bluegrass festival to begin. We managed to talk our way through the field to the other side where our bridge awaited, without buying tickets to the concert. Our reward for all this extra effort and lost time? No good place to set up easels. The only good view of the bridge was from the middle of the stream.

So off to Plan B, Otter Rocks on the Kancamagus Highway, in the White Mountains National Forest east of Lincoln, NH. We picked up lunch in Lincoln and arrived at Otter Rocks about 11 a.m. to find a picnic table waiting for us at a particularly good vantage point for painting the rocks. I ate my sandwich and started painting without changing position.

Otter Rocks was brimming with families Saturday, plus one really interesting dog. I wish I could have included the dog in my painting, but getting those two figures in there was effort enough. I waited until I had most of my painting completed before even considering figures. The painting was thick with paint by then. I focussed for a second on an appealing father-daughter pair and tried to freeze that image in my brain. By the time I had scraped away excess paint to make room for my figures, the father had stood up and I was on my own. Apart from the original gesture, my figures bear no resemblance to the real people who inspired them.

In September, I am taking yet another Master Class workshop, this one with Stan Moeller; he promises to teach us how to people a landscape en plein air. It is definitely something at which he excels. Check out his paintings here. I sure hope he has some tricks to teach us. I was fortunate to have taken landscape painting with Stan at the Institute when I began to paint in 2005. He wasn’t including figures much then. Now he paints hardly anything in which a figure is not the focal point. I want to do the same.

Oh yes–the Rest of the Story. No one came to the wet painting sale. But we shall try again next week because the Flume is scheduled as the site of the next wet painting sale. If we can get into the Flume to paint, chances are better that some visitors will turn into art collectors. The Northern Arts Alliance and other Eight Days of Weeks organizations are to receive a 30% commission on all wet painting sales, although they will have done little to earn that. We had to fashion our own price labels out of scrap paper and prop up our paintings against a fence. Maybe they didn’t expect us to actually show up. Now they know. Crazy artists!

Share this:

*Why didn’t I? The painting took over control.

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: