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:

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 the law offices of Mesmer and Deleault at 41 Brook St in Manchester; in the Community Gallery at the Currier Gallery in Manchester; at the Manchester office of Congresswoman Carol Shea Porter; at the Studio 550 Art Center in Manchester NH, as part of the annual 6×6 show of the Womens Caucus for Art; and at her studio by appointment (email: alotter@mac.com).

Only People

Posted by Aline on November 19, 2013

I am still trying to paint an abstract landscape in the EEE class, but the current effort is kind of a mess and I left it behind to dry in the classroom. Fresh eyes this Thursday will, I hope, inspire me with what to do to make it something I can be proud of.

Meanwhile, I’ve been working hard on the figurative side of representational art. Some nude, some clothed, some full figure, some portrait. I am happier with the the painted ones, but I’ll start you off with the drawings –selected drawings. Some of them are disappointing and I don’t want the world to see how uninspired I can be. Here’s my favorite:

Map of the Back

Graphite, charcoal pencil and charcoal on drawing paper–not an ideal combination. I was feeling my way with the media. But I like the result moderately well. The next pose was a standing one, with the model’s head silhouetted against the bright window. Hard to see well enough to represent. I tried, but am sparing you the result. We (the Saturday Life Group which meets at the NH Institute of Art) are now drawing in a studio with side windows, instead of the studio with the overhead skylight. I prefer the side light, but it’s hard to take when it’s in your face.

Grumpy takes a cup of tea

“Grumpy” because he prefers to pose in the nude plus he can’t really enjoy that tea while posing. We promise not to make him keep his clothes on again.

Dennis in his clothes

It was cold in the studio that day, so we had to let Dennis stay dressed. He was happy about that.

Map of a different back

Mike is a new to us, relocated here temporarily from California. He’s a real pro, when it comes to modeling–comfortable and inventive with his props, like the pole and the “stool” he was sitting on. For the next pose, I chose to draw a portrait of him:

Portrait of Mike D.

At last, we’ve reached the paintings! There are two of them, both painted in the workshop studio behind East Colony Fine Art’s gallery. The challenge again is the lighting, but not from windows–either there’s too much fluorescent overhead, or you can’t see what you are doing. We are wising up and bringing task lights that clip on easels, or hang around artists’ necks.

Leaning against the wall

Challenging circulation

Well, that’s a stupid name for a painting. Sigh. Yes. Do you know how hard it is to distinguish one nude (painting) from another by its title? So many nudes, so many standing, so many sitting, so many reclining. Then you try identifying by the color of the drape. So many blues, so many reds, so many yellows, etc., etc. The major distinguishing feature of the last painting was the fact that Margaret’s leg kept falling asleep. Of course it did–what else could we have expected? But that became my idea for a title.

The first one is of a new model and I’m not sure she would be comfortable with being identified by name, which makes titling the painting even harder. The elements of this painting just came together so beautifully, and I quit working on it before I spoiled it. Always a good thing.

Both paintings were done in oil, on the brown carton paper sold by Judson’s Fine Art Outfitters, with very little medium. Does it appear to you as if I were working in pastels, not oils? I think it’s that combination of the dry paper with the unmodified paint. The paint drags across the surface of the paper. When you stop to think about it, that’s what pastels are: pigments without the oil binder. So when the paper soaks up the oil and leaves the pigment sitting on top, you get the pastel effect.

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

Two Projects Are Resolved, and a Theme Continues

Posted by Aline on November 11, 2013

Bear Notch sunset 24×36

Bear Notch Sunset (named for an overlook on Bear Notch Road in Bartlett, NH) is the piece that I started as an abstract painting inspired by Tom Thompson. Like all of my previous attempts to paint abstractly, it morphed into a recognizable landscape. But this time I collaborated–I gave in to my natural predilection in order to rescue the painting (after all, 24×36 canvases don’t grow on trees), but am still determined to keep working on the abstract angle. Proof: here is the one I started immediately after declaring Bear Notch Sunset finished:

Design Inspired by Nature 11×14

I had no photographic reference for Design Inspired. It grew from a mental image, which I tried to capture in paint, thinking if it’s successful as a design, I might do a larger version. However, I currently am not inclined to go big with it. Not that I didn’t enjoy the expressiveness of applying this thick, dark pigment. (I switched internally for inspiration from Tom Thompson to Vincent Van Gogh.) But I don’t feel like repeating that design; I’d rather come up with a new idea to use in the same manner. Maybe not a landscape.

Unfinished business: I promised images of my four paintings from the Blackstone Valley Plein Air Competition at the end of September, but I have only one to show you. Two of them were purchased, one to persons unknown, and the other to a nonresponsive purchaser for whom I have only an email address. A third I donated to the sponsoring organization (“Alternatives”). But the fourth has come home, and, alleluia! it was my personal favorite:

In the Shadow

The little community was aswarm with painters (25 but seemed like more), while I was tucked away in this secluded spot that the director had led me to. I felt very special. I was on the balcony of one of the red brick mill buildings that Alternatives inhabits. The roof over the balcony cast a huge shadow over the millstream below. It may help your orientation if I tell you that the waterway disappears over the edge of a dam on the right. The play of shadow and light on the water and on the aquatic plants intrigued me, but I worried that you couldn’t tell what was happening. Others have assured me that they easily “read” it as what it was. Was the subject matter too abstract for the customers? Or just not evocative of a landmark? Doesn’t matter, I’m happy to have it still in my possession.

The Alternatives event was outstanding, as good as Castine except with respect to the number of avid collectors at the finish of Castine. Both were first-time events, which makes the undertakings even more admirable and their success amazing. Alternatives treated the artists like kings. We got box lunches delivered to us in the field on the first day, and a buffet luncheon back at headquarters on the second day, and more food at the auction that night. High class all the way. I wish I had made a point of meeting the juror, Charles Movalli, but at that point I was on the edge of wipeout and still had the drive home ahead of me (2 hours at least).

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 the law offices of Mesmer and Deleault at 41 Brook St in Manchester; at the Epsom Library in Epsom, NH; at the Manchester office of Congresswoman Carol Shea Porter; at the Studio 550 Art Center in Manchester NH, as part of the annual 6×6 show of the Womens Caucus for Art; and at her studio by appointment (email: alotter@mac.com).

Fixing up and the Start of a Bushwhack

Posted by Aline on November 4, 2013

Thanks to everyone who appreciated the drawings last week. Black and white can be boring, especially when not brought to a polished finish. It is fun for me to go back through them occasionally, hopefully to discern some progress being made, and drawing is the backbone of (most) painting. I will show you perhaps an exception at the end of this post. (latest project being painted mostly from my head without references)

And today’s post is full of color! I made small refinements to three deserving plein air pieces. The first goes back to Castine, Maine, on the pier facing the student (Maine Maritime Academy) ship, the U.S.S. Maine with its tug. I had allowed the lit facet of the yellow tug to brown down, which sacrificed drama, and more importantly the contrast that had attracted me to the scene in the first place. So here’s the original, and after it, the new and improved version:

The State of Maine (with tugboat)

My second redo is actually a finishing up. A Spring painting of the valley behind Franconia Notch in Sugar Hill was interrupted by showers, and the sky was left as blank white canvas. One of my closest friends and admirer of paintings begged me not to touch it as he thought it perfect as is. Do I listen to such pleas? Well, I hung back for yea these many months but decided I had to fill in that emptiness–without violating my friend’s sensibilities. I concluded that what he liked was the extra crisp edge of the mountain range line, so I made sure to keep that sharp, and the high contrast between sky (light) and mountains (dark), so I maintained that contrast as well. While there, I punched up some of the other small lit areas–meadow, roof top. Here’s the before and after:

Franconia Notch, May 2013

Finally, I applied the advice that I had received at the Manchester Artists Association meeting last month, to my first painting of Clark Pond (link to that post here):

Clark Pond in Auburn WIP

Clark Pond will now be framed and readied for exhibit somewhere. (Probably East Colony Fine Art Gallery, where I just took down my figurative show and put up landscapes that are dearest to my heart. Each show lasts for two months.) I was excited to learn that the Currier Museum is allowing us docents-in-training to exhibit one of our own pieces in the Museum (basement) for the month of December, but I have another project in mind for that particular honor.

And that project is the one I am calling a bushwhack, since I don’t have a trail to follow, and have no clue how to reach my rather amorphous goal–to paint an abstracted landscape inspired by Tom Thomson.

Here’s the scoop: I am painting in Patrick McCay’s EEE class with a start from the photo of the cloud shadows. (posted here) In addition to experimenting with the idea of abstract landscape, I was influenced by a book that Bruce Jones brought to Bartlett for the getaway weekend–a book full of the paintings of Tom Thomson, a Canadian artist working during the earliest decades of the last century. Thomson painted juicy, blocky abstractions of landscapes and used the complementary colors of dark blue and orange to great effect. Here is a stunning example:

Sunset by T. Thomson

I wanted to paint something that had that same impact. My painting looked like this when I left off a week ago Thursday:

Bear Notch WIP

Something about my painting wasn’t working. Patrick suggested that it evoked a forest fire with the dark spots represented charred remains of forests. In theory I didn’t care what it evoked since abstraction was my principal goal. But it wasn’t working as a whole, so last Thursday, I abandoned the abstraction goal and transformed my painting into an identifiable landscape that I hope will have almost the same impact as the Thomson. You will have to wait until next week to judge. (I forgot to photograph it before I left the class studio.)

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 the law offices of Mesmer and Deleault at 41 Brook St in Manchester; at the Epsom Library in Epsom, NH; at the Manchester office of Congresswoman Carol Shea Porter; starting Nov. 9, at the Studio 550 Art Center in Manchester NH, as part of the annual 6×6 show of the Womens Caucus for Art; and at her studio by appointment.

Back to the Drawing Board–Literally

Posted by Aline on November 1, 2013

Maybe it’s the result of my overbooked life, but I suddenly found myself longing for the simplicity and discipline of the black and white drawing. Never mind that it turns out not to be simple after all (a fact I had almost forgotten). Pencil drawing also turns out to be sloooow! But drawing has acted like balm for my chapped soul.

It started a week ago Tuesday. I was running late and really preferred to stay in bed, but I had to show up for Tuesday Life Group because I am the one with the key. So I unearthed a drawing pad, grabbed my box of charcoals and pencils and charcoal pencils, and rushed to the studio. My drawing pad, looking back on it, was intended for pencil, not charcoal. I used the hard and medium charcoals that day, and the image, being mangled in the pad all this time, is greatly degraded, but I think you can tell it was a successful session:

TLG 10/22/13

You might wonder how I can treat a successful drawing so carelessly. The process of making a successful drawing is pleasurable, and I have the remains of the image to remind me how pleasurable. But nudes, especially not painted ones, don’t have any other purpose than to give me the pleasure of creating them. No one buys them. And I have so many stored away now that I can’t take the time to enjoy them as past projects. When this drawing pad is full, it goes under the bed with all the others.

Next was a Friday Life Group session with Dennis again as our model. I kept trying with the hard charcoal.

FLG 10/25/13

As you can see, I got enamored of the podium Dennis was sitting on, and the shadow he was casting on the wall. And his hands, but I had to do those separately:

Dennis’ Hands

Working on interlaced fingers is a little like working on a jigsaw puzzle. I did them a second time hoping that my understanding would have improved with practice. Not so much, I’m afraid.

The next day was Saturday Life Group. We had a new model, one that was obviously a yoga practitioner. SLG starts with five 1-minute poses, then one 5-minute, then one 10-minute, then one 20-minute. I sketched all but the 20-minute on sketch paper. Usually I throw them away afterward, but first made photographs for the blog:

1-3 of the 1-minute poses

4-5 of the 1-minutes poses

5-minute pose

10-minute pose

In all of these drawings, I was facing the windows (our venue has changed–no more overhead skylight), so the model is backlit. After the ten-minute pose, I changed paper pads and started using the drawing (as opposed to sketching) paper. I still hung onto the charcoal. I first toned the sheet with a film of charcoal powder so as to enhance the play of the backlit around the edges of her body.

20-minute pose

Reclining portrait

A good likeness, this one, except I dropped a few pounds off her tummy. Finally, I switched to charcoal pencil.

Recumbent

Graphite pencil got the nod for this one; by comparison to paint or charcoal, it takes a much longer time to build up the darker values. Nevertheless, I could not resist depicting the Halloween-themed drape behind her.

Dennis in pencil

I needed a few more hours to work on the values.

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 the law offices of Mesmer and Deleault at 41 Brook St in Manchester; at the Epsom Library in Epsom, NH; at the Manchester office of Congresswoman Carol Shea Porter; and at her studio by appointment.

Smorgasbord of Art

Posted by Aline on October 22, 2013

My artistic output last week hit all the bases: nudes, portraiture, experimental landscapes, and plein air landscapes.

Skipping over Tuesday primarily because I don’t remember what I did and I do remember being unhappy with it, let’s start with Wednesday. Wednesday is usually a plein air day, but not last week. Adrienne held another one of her all-day figure study marathons, from ten a.m. until seven p.m. I had no pep, but was determined not to let my health issue stop me. But I could not keep it from slowing me down. Larry Christian and I were the only ones to stick it out to the finish, but I had to stop painting when I ran out of surfaces to paint on. For the last 45 minutes or so, I watched Larry working his charcoal magic on 10-minutes poses of the two models together.

I had two interesting compositions from a side angle:

Foot First

Girl Talk

Foot First was a pose of about two hours, I think. We were late getting up and running, and I had to cut out early to take my daughter to an appointment. The Girl Talk pose was maybe only 20 minutes. No, that can’t be right–it must have been at least an hour.

When the Girls next changed positions, they presented me with profiles of each. After 20 minutes, we found a compromise to keep me happy with long views of the profiles and Larry happy with frequent pose changes. Even as the models changed their poses frequently , they kept their profiles toward me. My view or angle would change slightly each time, but I managed to extrapolate from a current profile to the original profile.

Two Profiles

Thursday was the EEE class, wherein I am trying to discover abstract paintings in my plein air studies. The studies were 11×14. The class projects are 16×20. For both, I used a lot of paint applied with a palette knife. I love thick, juicily painted paintings, a la Van Gogh.

EEE No. 1

EEE No. 2

I was in the Mount Washington Valley and environs all weekend. The semiannual Artists Getaway Weekend organized by Byron Carr and sustained by Sharon Allen’s cohort of plein air fanatics brought together, in addition to Byron and Sharon, Bruce Jones, Sandra Garrigan, Patricia Sweet MacDonald, Jim O’Donnell, Elaine Farmer, a Gentleman Jim from Georgia whose surname I never got. I left for Bartlett after class on Thursday, taking only small panels (8×10) with me. I knew by that time that my fatigue will keep me from covering the usual amount of canvas. Sure enough, I finished only four paintings over Friday and Saturday, despite the fine weather we had.

Saco Riverbed

The Davis Farm

Thorn Hill Road View of Ledges

Mount Washington

The last painting, the one of Mt. Washington, took me only little over an hour, including nodding off time. ( Patricia caught me napping with brush in hand, so there’s no point in covering it up.) It is a simple composition, straightforward in execution. No broken color, no short strokes, no uneven thickness of paint. I was not surprised when many of my colleagues refused to believe it was mine. But they agreed I didn’t likely find it under the pumpkin truck either. I really could not have painted such a distant scene any other way on such a small canvas.

I have a new idea for this week’s EEE class: on my way back from Bartlett, traveling the Bear Notch Road, I took some photographs of the cloud shadows on the mountains up North and am planning to make something abstract out of those images for the class this week.

left center

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 the law offices of Mesmer and Deleault at 41 Brook St in Manchester; at the Epsom Library in Epsom, NH; at the Manchester office of Congresswoman Carol Shea Porter; and at her studio by appointment.

Health Matters, yes it does!

Posted by Aline on October 14, 2013

You may not have noticed, but I did not publish my usual post the week of September 30, or the week of October 7. Before Friday evening, I had been drafting a post in my head; I planned to use it to mull over the phenomenon of retirement generating more “optional” stuff to do and the psychology of slowing down anyway just because the pressure of earning a living has been lifted. Thinking philosophically or finding excuses, whichever you prefer.

But before I could commit those weak ramblings to the ether, an event occurred that provides a better explanation of my inability to perform at peak levels for the past weeks–perhaps the past few months, even. Unsurprisingly, I am all over that new, more concrete excuse, like a rat diving on cheese, and say in celebration, hail to the UTI and its curability with antibiotics.

How it all went down: I had been feeling kinda crummy for a few days, and even had a spell of faintness, but nothing interfered with my performance of essential tasks. I got to appointments, shopped for pet food, cooked, etc. Suddenly, late Friday afternoon, in the middle of trying to reconcile a bank deposit for one of my nonprofit organizations, I started to feel really chilly. I suspended that banking task and went to prepare an early dinner. I turned on the central heat and plugged in a space heater. I kept getting colder. By the time my hamburgers were ready to be served, perhaps only ten minutes, I was shaking uncontrollably–paroxysms might be the right word. I couldn’t talk, much less drive. Ambulance was called–by my 17-year-old granddaughter. Big scare put into family. Not so much me– I could not focus on anything except my desire to get warm. After a few hours of hydrating and testing in the ER, Good News! I was in terrific health but for this one thing, a UTI (urinary tract infection), curable with the right antibiotic (Cipro). The doctor said something about the infection being well-established, suggesting it had been present in my system for a while. That got me thinking of a health event that occurred on my way to Castine, back in July, which I could not explain. I looked up the symptoms (vomiting with lower back pain), but didn’t follow up with my doctor because the symptoms evaporated.

This morning I was infused with a microburst of energy, which resulted in the images that I will be sharing with you below. In the past three weeks, I have been more prolific than would appear from this meager supply of five images. The weekend of the Blackstone Valley Plein Air Competition resulted in four paintings. I forgot to photograph any of them, and had to leave them there for another month. One has been sold, and if the other three are too, we shall be at the mercy of the buyers for decent reproductions. It was a marvelous weekend, and I will go again next year if invited. I’ll save the details for when I actually have visuals to go along. Two additional paintings are at the Institute, drying. They are from my fall semester class with Patrick McCay, called “Explore, Express, Exploit”. They should be ready for photographing next week.

Here is the painting I made of Dennis on the Tuesday before Blackstone Valley:

Dennis in Plaid Shirt

I complained a lot about the plaid shirt, but I secretly was enjoying the challenge. Looking at it now, from a new perspective, I admire the casual but effective depiction of his feet.

After Blackstone, I hit the ground running. Well, painting. I met up with the Cornwall Four (including me, four of us who took Cameron Bennett’s “Inspired by Cornwall” workshop in August) at a new water location in Auburn. I identified it today from a map as Clark Pond:

Clark Pond in Auburn

The scene had everything–almost too much–bridge, the start of fall foliage, water, reflections, lily pads. Yet I added the rock formations on the left; really, they added themselves. The lily pads raft together to form little islands, which may confuse the eye. One of the first lessons that I learned in my first landscape painting experience, from Stanley Moeller in 2005, had to do with water lilies. He told me to underline them with “black” (darkest of pigment, which was not necessarily black) to indicate the shadow they cast upon the water. I couldn’t see but the thinnest of shadows, but he said “Trust me” and I did. And do. Still heeding his advice, I added the most delicate and unobtrusive of shadows under my pads. This painting came under critical review by Peter Clive last Monday at MAA and when I am more of myself, I will be making some perfecting changes–playing down the reflections of tree trunks in the water; playing up the light on the rocks and bridge; settling down the water on the other side of the bridge, which doesn’t recede like it should.

The next day being Tuesday, I did a figurative of new model (to us) Michael, but I don’t like it, so I’m not showing it to you. Wednesday, I was back to Clark Pond:

Clark Pond in Auburn

What a difference two days made! We have liftoff! (Fall foliage is a Big Deal here, where tourists flock jus to stare at our trees. How strange is that?)

Margaret

I wasn’t feeling too great last Tuesday, when I painted this new figurative featuring Margaret. I get a lot of kidding about how fast I paint, so Tuesday, someone commented that I wasn’t going as fast as usual. I felt that too, and hoped the slowing down was for the better. I concentrated on the flesh tones, trying to get them just so, a la Steve Assael. Now I’m wondering if it was just the UTI manifesting itself in sluggish behavior.

Friday morning we got together in the back of East Colony Fine Art Gallery to try it out as a location for figure study. The podium is quite high since it started life as a work table. The lighting is abominable since it consists of fluorescents over a worktable. But there was room enough for my core group of artists, and plenty of easels. Along with Margaret posing nude, my daughter Nancy posed clothed. Nancy was “shadowing” Margaret to see if modeling is something she could do. Naturally, I chose to paint Nancy:

My Daughter Nancy

Another plaid shirt. She has my mother’s admirably straight nose. We had the fluorescents off and a small spotlight on our models.

That night, of course, was the night of the ER, and I have been recovering ever since. Now that I know what symptoms I should have noticed before, I am noticing them, but my fatigue should never have been overlookable. I suspect the paroxysms of shivering took a lot out of me. On the bright side, the back pain I have been putting up with for weeks has subsided–not arthritis after all!

Bottom line, I have been shirking all but the most imperative of duties. One of those duties: I took upon myself a viewing of “Gravity” 3D on the iMax screen. I heard it should not be viewed any other way, and I was worried I would miss out if I didn’t act today. I can now report that the advice was justified, and worth the prioritizing.

The rest of this week will be taken up with Tuesday Life Group, trip to Boston to collect my painting at the Arboretum, and bridge–all on Tuesday, Adrienne’s Fall Figure Marathon all day Wednesday, docent training at the Currier and my Triple E class with Patrick, Thursday, then a drive to Bartlett for the 3-day Fall Artists’ Getaway Weekend. Glad I found out what ails me before all that went down!

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 the law offices of Mesmer and Deleault at 41 Brook St in Manchester; at the Epsom Library in Epsom, NH; at the Manchester office of Congresswoman Carol Shea Porter; and at her studio by appointment.

Have Brush, Will Paint

Posted by Aline on September 24, 2013

I haven’t gone far, but I did go, and that’s got to count for something. Or against something. Sometimes I worry that I am not painting enough stuff near my home. If I don’t do that, who will? I think of Van Gogh, Cezanne, and how they practically documented their surroundings. Both of them were certainly obsessive and almost manic. I wonder if that is what it takes.

First up is Wolfeboro. I participated in the Paint the Town event last year, painted two paintings and sold one. This year I spent all my time (I think they gave us less time) on a single painting and did a pretty good job on it.

Back Channel in Wolfeboro

But it didn’t sell. The blue building houses a hardware store. Even a painting of a hardware store would be desirable if it were painted by Van Gogh. I am not Van Gogh. Alas. When will I learn to paint a desirable subject?

For IPAP weekend, (IPAP stands for International Plein Air Painters, I believe), I started out well, subject-wise. This is the entrance to Beech Hill Farm, a good place to go for ice cream and other neat things tangentially related to farming. Pigs and sheep are present for the viewing as well.

Beech Hill Farm near Hopkinton, NH

I’m thinking of calling this “Portrait of the Artist’s Automobile”. Yes, it kind of ruins the picture for anyone whose car it is not, but I’m perverse that way. It being my car, I could have moved it, but I deliberately chose to include it. Please take note of the rain puddles too. It did rain, and I did persevere without pause.

Day Two of IPAP weekend was Saturday, and I could not give up my attendance at Saturday Life Group, so I arrived quite late at Wagon Hill Farm, in Durham. This Farm is conservation property, with beautiful rolling hills and a few antique wagons to provide some farming flavor. I saw no evidence of active farming. Indeed, I hardly ventured into the property before I unloaded and set up my gear with nothing but a rolling hill to inspire me.

Wagon Hill Farm in Durham NH

I like it.

Day Three we drove out of New Hampshire to Acton, Massachusetts, to the home of one of our members. “Home” does not quite describe the property. I did not even see her actual home. What I saw was old growth woods with one log cabin in decent shape and one tumbledown shack, with chairs sprinkled about, all on a big pond, large enough to be called a lake. I found a chair in front of the log cabin and painted two paintings from that spot. Next time I’m going for an area inhabited by lily pads.

Isabelle’s Rock, Acton Massachusetts

‘Belle really liked this one because she has herself painted that rock many times (like a mini version of Cezanne’s many paintings of Mont Victoire) and she felt I really captured it.

Isabelle’s yellow-orange kayak

In the title to this piece, I specified the dual colors of the kayak to make sure the viewer didn’t think I was confused. Getting that kayak right was challenging. Trees and rocks are so much more forgiving, but man-made objects have to be spot on. I am pleased with the shine of sunlight hitting the kayak but unhappy with the shadows cast by the tree branches. To me, the shadows look built in, part of the kayak’s surface. Note the lanterns hanging from the tree limbs. Windsocks and other whimsies decorated the property. She also served snacks!

In terms of bathroom facilities, always an important factor for us girls, Beech Hill gets the blue ribbon with real rest rooms. Wagon Hill had a portapotty in the parking lot. Nyala (that’s what Belle calls her woodland estate) boasted something else, I’m not sure what exactly, but I rank it under the portapotty. Still, better than going in the woods, which I have, on occasion, been forced to do.

In addition to the above official NH Plein Air events, I have been sneaking around with several of my classmates from the Cameron Bennett workshop. Four of us have been meeting up to paint on Massabesic Lake and at the Griffin Mill Pond and Dam in Auburn. One of the best paintings I ever painted was done at Griffin Mill Dam, years ago. I tried to duplicate that success.

Griffin Mill Dam 2 (12×16)

It didn’t happen. In some ways, this is the better painting technically, in that the individual elements are more expertly done; but the whole doesn’t jell for me. I realize now that I was not in the exact same spot, because this time I plunked myself down without a second thought right in the middle of a bridge. When I painted the earlier painting, I wasn’t so bold. Ah, age brings with it a certain devil-may-care attitude. That’s because Life IS Short now. Here’s the original:

Griffin Park dam (8×10)

Isn’t it lovely?

Here’s another from the Griffin Hill Dam, this time looking straight across to the barn up the hillside. That’s right, all buildings in New Hampshire are related in some way to farming.

Griffin Mill Dam 3

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; at the Manchester office of Congresswoman Carol Shea Porter; at the Boston Arboretum Visitor Center, 25 Arborway, Boston; and at her studio by appointment.

The Heck with Nudes!

Posted by Aline on September 17, 2013

Who would’ve thunk it? We got bored with nudes! So last Tuesday, we asked our model to keep his clothes on, and he was very happy to do so, being very new to the experience of modeling in the buff. We all had a really good time, and we all produced pieces that we are proud of. So I decided it was time for another sharing of my blog with my fellow artists.

Nancy C’s

Nancy Crowley works most often in charcoal, and most often will do the whole figure. We were surprised to see she was focusing so much on the head. I love the blocking of light and shadow in this one.

Jan’s

Jan Wittmer joined us very recently and has become a regular, but I can’t say I know what she usually does. I thought this was brilliant though. I learned later that this was her second take on this pose, which may account for the fact that it is not overworked.

Nancy H’s

Nancy Healy is a pastelist, and probably the one of us with the most experience being an artist. She always does masterful work. You can tell she is standing at her easel.

My own

This is the photo that I took with my phone, so I am not giving my image any advantage over the others. Actually, it is at a disadvantage, being the only one in oils and therefore the only one with light bouncing off the globs of oil paint. Ah, well. You can tell I was sitting at my easel.

Invitations:

I had two event postcards to get out before this week, and got around to neither of them. Coming up on Friday of this week (September 20) is the reception at the Boston Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, of the Jamaica Plain Open Studio exhibition of “Artists in the Arboretum”. The reception is in the Visitors Center and starts at 6 pm and ends at 8. I will be there, but cannot promise to stay until 8 unless the food and company is particularly good. The exhibit will continue through October 13, and you should confirm viewing times by calling 617-384-5209.

The second one is a “Call for Collectors and Art Enthusiasts”: Blackstone Valley Plein Air Competition. There will be a reception and an auction on Sunday, September 29 at 6 p.m. The judge for the competition (known as a “juror” in art parlance) is the well known Cape Ann artist, Charles Movalli. The competing artists are outstanding, and I guess I just feel grateful to be included. Bev Belanger, of East Colony Fine Art Gallery, is also participating. I should be scared to death, but I’m too old to get worked up over such things. I think. It would be awfully nice to see some familiar faces or names. The address for the reception and auction: Alternatives’ Whitin Mill, 50 Douglas Road, Whitinsville, Massachusetts.

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.

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.

Sidewalk Art Show in Portland, Maine

Posted by Aline on August 28, 2013

Bruce Jones and I tried again, this time in Portland. I had to get up at 4:20 a.m. in order to get myself and my helpers to Portland by 7:30. This was our second experience with outdoor art shows. Our first was the Beacon Hill Art Walk. We enjoyed Portland more. For one thing, we were not under the noisy, dirty elevated rail line. For another we were not in a wind tunnel.

Our spot in Monument Square

As you can see, we had an end location, thus enabling us to extend our real estate. We spread our paintings over three extra panel surfaces, and set up our table display out of the way of browsers. I stacked about 12 unframed panels on the table for bargain hunters. Bargain-hunting art collectors may be an oxymoron: People enjoyed looking but no one asked for the price.

Bruce and me waiting for business

The day was gorgeous–so crisp in the morning that my daughter brought two sweatshirts with her. But the temperature heated up as the day weathered on, and by the end of the day, I was sunburned. I carry sunscreen and insect repellant in my plein air pack, but never thought to bring those things to an art show. Another thing we didn’t think to bring was bags to put the art in if we sold something. Whew! Good thing we didn’t sell anything! I am now pricing clear bags with die-cut handles and wondering if they will be strong enough for a large painting in a heavy frame. I’d have to buy a box of at least 250 of them to find out.

I brought 20 paintings to hang on what turned out to be six display panels, and this time out, most of them were figurative. Half of the figures were nudes. Cameron will perhaps be pleased to learn that I hung 4 out of the 5 paintings I completed in his “Inspired by Cornwall” course. You wouldn’t think anyone would care about paintings of people whom they don’t even know, but my paintings and drawing of black women attracted the most attention. Also, consider that fact that someone bought my portrait of the black African girl (“Red Headdress”) at the Londonderry Art in Action. Pretty interesting phenomenon. My landscapes were almost totally ignored.

Side A: My Figures

Side B, my mixed side; Side C, Bruce’s landscapes

But in the end, the results were the same as Beacon Hill–no sales. We watched as the guy across the square from us sold his giclee prints like hotcakes; we had to admire his organization and salesmanship. We didn’t bring any giclee prints. But we handed out cards and may hear from those interested art lovers as a result of meeting them there. Probably not this one:

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

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.

Prescott Park in Portsmouth

Posted by Aline on August 12, 2013

Saturday I had a grand day, painting with an old pal, Flo Parlangeli, in the urban seacoast setting of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. We were taking part in an event organized by the New Hampshire Art Association. There were flower gardens and bridges and boats to see, with families, boaters, tourists seeing them. Later there was music to hear. Many also stopped to investigate what the artists were up to. I believe there were even a few sales. I thought the quality of all the artwork was pretty high. My first painting was a view out of a densely shaded part of Prospect Park towards the brightly lit homes across the street.

In Prescott Park

Some of the figures were suggested by the appearance of actual people, others I just made up. I am trying to develop a skill for making a few strokes of color suggest people.

After getting one serious painting under my belt, so to speak, I experimented with the next two paintings. I deployed my largest brush with my medium mix of Gamsol, stand oil and Liquin, and first covered my panel with creamy yellow paint, thereby creating a wet surface to paint into. Continuing with that big brush, I blocked in big shapes, working very fast. As long as feasible, I kept using the big brush. I never did move to anything smaller than a medium brush. It was fun and energizing. I don’t know if the results are anything to write home about, but these two paintings have a different feel to them.

Waiting for the Show to Start

People had reserved their spots by setting up lawn chairs and blankets along the front, but those chairs and blankets were empty because no one wanted to wait in the sun. There were plenty of people in the shady background, but I wanted to populate my sunlit chairs, and so I continued my experiment with slashes of color. Enough to suggest people? The water in the background is the Piscataquog River that separates Maine from New Hampshire. The Portsmouth Naval Station is represented by the buildings on the right, across the river.

Backstage at Prescott Park

Actually, this is behind the back of the stage–trailers, chain link fence, tent, stacks of wooden fencing (I guess–I didn’t really analyze what exactly I was observing here). I see a flaw that I would like to correct now–those dark “holes” in the staging should feel more like gaps through which you can just make out some trees on the other side. Yes, those multicolored blotches are trees. I was listening to my inner child.

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 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.

Inspired by Cornwall

Posted by Aline on August 5, 2013

All last week I was preoccupied with my participation in the workshop with Cameron Bennett, which he titled “Inspired by Cornwall” because it was. . . inspired by his time living in Cornwall and becoming familiar with such artists as Alfred Munnings and Laura Knight–the Newlyn School. We were to paint the figure in landscape, en plein air, because that is what the Newlyn painters did. Their history has been made into a movie, “Summer in February”, which is being described with such terms as “complex”, “wild”, “incendiary”; our assignment, to re-create the that atmosphere, was a departure from the usual workshop fare. Every day was threatened with rain, but we must have had the luck of the Irish with us because the sun shone for us each day. Until Friday.

Monday, Cameron handed out an essay written by him on the Cornish painters, treated us to a slide show of representative paintings, and demonstrated his own approach to the subject at the location–Pretty Park– and with the model that we would use the next day–Margaret.

Tuesday and Wednesday, we painted at a local cemetery with Dennis (he of the portrait that I did a few weeks ago) in the morning, and with Margaret at Pretty Park in the afternoon.

Dennis, bridge in Pine Grove Cemetery

Margaret in Pretty Park

Thursday we went to the Seacoast and spent most of the day on this pose.

Grace at Odiorne, with Big Hat

When the sun seemed about to leave us, and the wind picked up, Cameron set us up on the edge of the beach with only 40 minutes to paint, and like a drill sergeant, prodded us on to finish a gestural study.

Grace, standing at edge

Friday, we were all but comatose and welcomed the excuse of potential rain to retreat into the Institute to paint a figure in an interior setting. I never quite got around to the setting.

Grace, another profile–red shirt

It’s not good as a portrait, but I like it as a figure study.

Cameron showed more slides to remind us of what we were supposed to be learning. I hope I absorbed the learning by osmosis because my brain was pretty drowsy by that time. At the end of Friday, we staggered out of the building into a gorgeous late afternoon, too tired to notice.

About the Currier Museum poster competition that I may have mentioned once or twice in the past: I made it into the semifinals, and as a result, I have a piece of my artwork hanging in the Museum. Yea! ( I didn’t win.)

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 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. And a poster at the Currier Museum!

Painting Castine (plus Grace in dreadlocks)

Posted by Aline on July 29, 2013

Before getting to the title topic, I just have to show you the portrait I did last Tuesday of Grace. She is justifiably proud of her new dreadlocks, and of the fact that she created them herself. I had to be careful not to let the dreadlocks dominate the painting, so fascinating were they:

Grace in profile

This was my first portrait after attending the Steven Assael workshop, and I think I was still under his influence. My process was a little different in that I scribbled in the shapes and stayed a little looser than usual, and the result is different in that it is a little more contrasty. more monochromatic, and bluer. Because of Assael, I have discovered the pigment called “King’s Blue”, and it is a glorious blue indeed. Slightly redder than cobalt, so very close to my favorite color, periwinkle. You see King’s blue in the highlights of Grace’s face. You’ll see it in the sky I painted behind my ships, in the painting featured below.

I got home yesterday from four days away, the principal point of which was Saturday’s plein air festival in Castine, ME–the first annual plein air festival in Castine, I have no doubt. Inspirations for paintings lay strewn about like pebbles on a beach. I settled on boats, and I had lots of company on the dock. Michael Chesley Johnson took this photo from his own easel and caught me on the far left.

Castine dock painters

Next from the left is Michael Vermette, who started out more towards the boats, between me and Bobbi Heath (in the blue shirt), but then his easel took off under the sail of his umbrella, scattering all of his equipment and 50 tubes of paint in my direction. Fortunately, I was unscathed, but the leg on his easel broke and that is how he ended up using the picnic table in the photo. On the right is Renee Lammers, who paints on copper and sells out regularly.

Participation in this event was juried and I felt very lucky to be among the Chosen. I drove up with Sharon Allen Thursday, and we spent that day and stayed overnight with Diane Dubreuil, one of our Bartlett Weekend paint buddies. In Castine we each with residents, so our only travel expense was the gas, the tolls, the meals. The food at the Saturday night wet paint sale was extraordinary in quality and quantity. All in all, the event was fabulously successful with the only fly in my ointment being that none of my three paintings sold. Here is the first and my favorite:

The State of Maine (with tugboat)

These boats belong to the Maine Maritime Academy, which is located in Castine.

I hope you remembered to vote in the first round of the poster competition, and if you did, thank you: I made it to round two! The winners of next round are to be determined by the experts, and those 15 who survive that test will be on exhibit at the Currier Museum on Thursday this week, from 5:30 to 7:30, and admission is free because everyone who shows up can vote for his/her favorite poster. Need I say more?

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.

A Cloudy Day on Top of Cannon Mountain

Posted by Aline on July 22, 2013

Cannon Mountain is a ski mountain, owned and operated by the State of New Hampshire as a State Park. During the summer, one of the ski lifts, a tramway, takes tourists up to the top–and down again–to enjoy the view from the top and the sights along the way. Today I was lucky to be on the tram that passed over mama bear, grazing in the path of the tram. Ordinarily the views both from the tram and the top are of distant mountains in Maine, Vermont, Northern New Hampshire, and Canada. Today, those views were momentarily available on my ride down. Down, after enduring the wind and chill of the summit, trying to make a painting. Good thing I don’t really like to paint long-view vistas, because the only objects visible were those located within 100 yards.

For photos of what it could look like from the top of Cannon Mountain, check out the website here.

For how it looked today before the clouds completely enveloped the summit:

Housing for a Cannon ski lift (or, what I could see before clouds completely socked in)

I tried another painting when I got back down to parking lot level, but really dark and threatening clouds came rolling in our direction and we hied it out of there. We drove over to Crawford Notch prospecting for sunlight, stopped by the Bartlett Inn to make sure our October Artists Weekend reservations were in, and, failing to discover any better weather, ate our way home. (Stopped for supper at the Yankee Smokehouse in Ossipee and for ice cream at Morrisey’s in Wolfsboro.)

Most of last week I spent laboring, still laboring, in the effort to whip my files at the law office into submission. On Friday, however, I took a break to attend my portrait class with Dee Riley, and produced this drawing of new model, Dennis.

Portrait of Dennis in charcoal

I did not think (and neither did Deirdre) until today that his ear looks awfully small. Maybe he has small ears. The class will be spending two more sessions on this pose. I will miss the next two classes because this Friday I will be in Maine for the Castine Plein Air Festival, and next Friday I will be at a plein air with figure workshop with Cameron Bennett.

Cameron taught portrait drawing and painting at the NH Institute of Art before moving to England last year. He is offering this workshop at short notice to coincide with his visit back home to New Hampshire. Most of his old (previous, some also like me, old) students are excitedly looking forward to seeing him again, getting the scoop on practicing art in England, and sopping up all the learning he acquired in the byways of Cornwall, because the title of the workshop is “Inspired by Cornwall”.

As we are already nearing the end of July, let me alert you to Trolley Night coming up on August 1. Trolley Night, a/k/a Open Doors, consists of trolleys providing free transport between the art venues of Manchester, starting with Langer Place, where East Colony Fine Art Gallery is located. Trolley Night in Manchester used to happen four times a year, then it was three times a year. Now, only twice. So don’t pass this one up. The East Colony Gallery puts on a special show just for Trolley Night, in addition to the regular exhibit: Picnic! is the theme of the special show. So come Thursday, August 1, between 5 and 8. The food is great, the people welcoming, and the art fantastic.

If you have voted in the Currier poster contest at my behest, thank you (whether you voted “correctly” or not). If you have not done that yet, here is the link to the Museum’s home page: Currier. Look there for the link to the poster contest. This may work better for those of you who had trouble with my link to the contest site.

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, 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:

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

Posted by Aline on July 10, 2013

He starts with a red ground when painting in cool light. However, he rigged up a red lamp to create the intense red highlights on the model. Note his palette clamped to the right. “I’m not a neat painter”, he admitted. His methodology is so extraordinary that I can’t describe it, much less emulate it. He grabs paint from one area of the palette, no specific color most times, just the value, or from somewhere on the canvas, and swipes it at the painting, or pushes it into the painting, or waves it at the painting; and sometimes shakes the brush toward the floor if it, the brush, is carrying too much medium. A glob of blue fell off the canvas at one point, and of course he stepped in it, which of course resulted in lots of little blue blobs on the floor. But hey, it’s an art school.

He works the background with the same energy as he works the figure, and although his method may not be discernible, every brush stroke is genius–even in the background.

The figure begins to emerge from swipes and passes.

He develops the drawing. She comes to life. From greens and blues comes living skin. I learned that Caucasian skin color is basically a variation on orange. Now I know it includes all the colors of the rainbow, just like white light. For the first time, it seems right to call white skin “white.

She has a face. This is where he left off. He will finish the painting Friday. My photo is underexposed because we lose the light at the end of the day. I took another shot the next morning but it hasn’t reach my computer yet. My phone takes its sweet time sending pictures.

Hope you enjoyed.

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:

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.

Review of June’s Poses

Posted by Aline on July 2, 2013

On the theory that you can never have too much of beautiful nudes, here is my entire collection of the Tuesday June poses, two of which you have already seen but through the glare of wet paint. Margaret times 4:

Margaret-June 2013-#1

Margaret–June 2013–#2

Margaret–June 2013–#3

I still need to finish the background for No. 3, and perhaps bring up her left knee, which for most of the time I could not see at all. That stool swivels, and it was very difficult to get her back into the exact same position after each break. In fact, every time she took a deep breath, the stool swiveled a little.

Margaret–June 2013–#4

No. 4 is obviously unfinished. We all wanted another session on this pose, but since it was the last one with Margaret for a while, we will all have to wait until the fall to finish it up. The pose was one inspired by another painting, one that Tony spotted on a magazine. There’s usually one element of a pose or scene that attracts the eye, and in this case, it’s the curve of the hip. I spent most of my time working on the hip and legs. You can tell. You may also recognize the brown leather sofa. I should start including “brown leather” as a tag to facilitate a search for all of them. Will start with this one, but can’t promise to edit all previous ones.

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 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.

Do overs and lupines

Posted by Aline on June 25, 2013

A couple of months ago I posted a rave on Anders Zorn, and I think I may have found him a few new fans. Today, I have another, similar artist for you to sample, through a click back to Robert Genn’s site here. The artist is Joachim Sorolla (WA keem SarOYah), a Spanish contemporary of both Sargent and Zorn. He was a master of all the same skills that I admire in Sargent and Zorn, plus he was a magician with white. Not actual white, but that hue as changed by light and shadows.

And now for a commercial: please visit this address for a view of all the artworks accepted into an online exhibit called “Women’s Rights, An Artist’s Perspective”. My painting “Grandma’s Jewels” was juried into this exhibit. All of the artwork in this and similar exhibits is something called “conceptual”, that is, a message is conveyed, to the most intense degree of drama possible. Picasso’s “Guernica”, for example. I think it would be hard to be a conceptual artist all the time, but some artists thrive on it. Personally, I just like to find something beautiful and paint that. Beauty does not convey message, at least not any message that packs a punch.

OK, with all that out of the way, on to this week’s topic: Do-overs. Lupines. In the past few weeks, I have been outside doing a lot of plein air painting. My best paintings have a way of being alla prima, without any going back to correct or improve. In fact, I cannot think of one that I was able to turn from mediocre into superlative. Yet I keep trying! Of my two from the Forbes House (discussed last week here), I did produce one winner, the little one of the “coverlet”. The other one was a bit messy, and I took a knife (palette knife) to it, thinking to reclaim the panel for another project. But that damned Urge to Fix overcame me, and I repainted the bloody thing, using the ghost images as my guide to the placement and shape of the boats.

Milton Landing, before scraping

Marina, repainted

I’m afraid the result may not have been worth the effort, but no effort is really wasted in this learning process. Or is it?

Then last Thursday, I took the day off to go lupine painting with the lupine experts of the NH Plein Air group. Lupines are a flower that blooms in June rather extravagantly in some places. The town of Sugar Hill has so many lupine fields that it holds a “lupine festival” every year to encourage visitors to the area. Lupines come in shades of blue, pink and white, sometimes within one plant, but mostly blues and purples. They look a lot like the Texas bluebonnet. I have had trouble painting lupines in the past, but I wasn’t giving up on them. Yet.

I produced three lupine paintings. Not happy with any of them. The first was the obligatory field of lupines against the backdrop of receding mountains featuring Mount Washington on the misty horizon. The second was lupines by the lake. In both of these, I was really more interested in the receding mountains and the lake, respectively, than I was in the lupines. The lupines seemed kind of stuck on. An accidental presence. So I painted a quick lupine closeup as my third and last opportunity to conquer the lupine hazard.

When I got home, with the advantage of distance from the actual scene, I decided the problem was my schizo approach to the lupines. To make the first two paintings better, I had to downplay the lupines, stop treating them as pimples on an otherwise idyllic landscape. And for the third study, I just needed a few more strokes to define the nature of the lupine and its leaves. Not so much of a do-over, more of a touch up.

I hope you have not been holding your breath! Here they are, the befores and the afters:

Field of Lupines, BEFORE

Field of Lupines, AFTER

Pearl Lake BEFORE

Pearl Lake, AFTER

Lupines close, BEFORE

Lupines, AFTER

Not only am I cursed by this compulsion to fix mediocre paintings, I am cursed by the compulsion to write about it, doubling the time and effort expended. Should I make this my last lupine festival, or is there hope for me?

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 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 hung somewhere in an office of Congresswoman Carol Shea Porter, probably the Manchester one.

She’s Back (More Margaret)

Posted by Aline on June 17, 2013

Margaret in a Twist

June is the month of Margaret, but since we are not meeting on Fridays, we’ll have only the four Tuesday sessions to try to capture her elusive likeness. (Prior agonies were explored in this blog.) This profile isn’t too bad, but what I was concentrating on was the body–the subtle swellings and shadows that reveal bones and muscle and fat. Not much fat on Margaret, but that just makes what is there all the more fascinating. As usual, I enjoyed playing with the colors, exaggerating the warmth that I was seeing in the shadow side. I see a few things (e.g., the way the chair back comes forward) that I would fix if I thought I’d be showing this anyone, but that’s unlikely to happen. (I mean in person, not online.)

Saturday, a welcome change of pace: I took the opportunity to join the NH Plein Air artists in the second annual paint out at the Forbes House Museum in Milton, Massachusetts. Last year we had lots of sales (commission to benefit the Forbes House), so we had some hopes for a repeat. But this year, no bustling crowds. My theory–everyone had graduations to attend. Never mind–the weather was outstanding and we were doing what we love to do. For painting subjects, with the Museum’s encouragement, we left the grounds of the Museum to seek out local water scenes. My driving companion, Flo Parlangeli, has a connection to water that sets her heart to pounding. I’m sorry I didn’t think to take a photo of her painting and her two paintings. She was painting them both at the same time–one on her easel and one in her lap. Pretty peculiar, but it was all because she was working in acrylic paint, which dries fast. The fast drying quality was something Flo was using to her advantage. She’d let one dry and work on the other, then pick up the first and paint over the previous layer, then repeat with the second one.

Milton Landing

This was my first one, which I spent about three hours on. I placed it in an Art Cocoon and to make sure it didn’t flop out, I taped the corners. But I was careless, and turned it upside down, and the panel did flop out of its bed. As a result, I lost some of my crisp dark edges at the bottoms of the boats. I had thick, white paint in those areas that just flattened and spread out over the edges. I like to paint thick, wet into wet, although there is a limit to how much paint you can pile without losing control of the situation. I was too close to losing control here even before the accident with the Cocoon. This also illustrates why Flo was using the fast-drying acrylics.

So Flo was not going anywhere and I was finished with the boats. I could have taken her car and driven to another location. Instead, I set up in a new spot nearby, in the lee of the boat ramp, where I was visited by a family of ducks. Such as the joys of plein air painting, offsetting the distress caused by wind gusts that try to make off with umbrella and anything attached to it (like your easel).

Covelet at Milton Landing

I thank you all for your feedback on last week’s project, the lettering for my Live Free poster. I am still mulling over all the suggestions. In the meantime, I have covered up “. . . and”. Some objected to the ellipsis, but it was part of the original challenge–just in reverse order. I decided to conform to the challenge more literally–when the paint dries, I will paint in letters for “and . . .” When I complete the project, I will post the final version. And if I have nothing more interesting to talk about, I will describe all the suggestions I received and reasons why I did or did not take them.

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 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 hung somewhere in an office of Congresswoman Carol Shea Porter, probably the Manchester one. Currently, the only location for viewing the nudes is at her studio.

Living Free in New Hampshire

Posted by Aline on June 10, 2013

This week’s obsession is a poster contest announced by our gem of a museum, the Currier Museum of Art, in Manchester. First, if you are not already familiar with New Hampshire’s notorious motto, here’s a little background.

State Emblem

“Live Free or Die.” The motto achieved its national notoriety after the NH legislature determined that it must be written on our license plates. Some uppity commie liberal type objected to having such an inflammatory statement attached to his personal motor vehicle, and sued all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court to get it removed. Well, that’s the story my memory came up with, but I know better than to trust my memory anymore, so I looked it up on Wikipedia, and it seems the offended motorist was a Jehovah’s Witness, who reacted not by suing but by covering up the “or Die” portion of the motto because death for a political cause was unacceptable in his religion, and the Supreme Court got involved because he was prosecuted under a criminal statute for defacing the license plate. His conviction was overturned under the First Amendment to the U. S. Constitution–the State could not force him to express a sentiment with which he did not agree.

Although that was something of a slap down, the motto remains on the license plate. I had to look to be sure. New Hampshire does live by the motto: seat belts are not mandated for adults; helmets are not required of motorcyclists; soda cans do not come with a refundable deposit; and taxes, at least those that would reach a broad segment of the population, are abhorrent. Cigarettes, fireworks, gambling and liquor are encouraged. They generate revenue. When we say “free”, we don’t mean “tax-free”. For a comedic take on New Hampshire’s philosophy, see Juston McKinney’s YouTube analysis.

In defense of free living, New Hampshire was an early adopter of same-sex marriage, thereby proving it is an independent thinker. I believe there is also a law on the books to the effect that gun-toters must be allowed to enter courtrooms and legislative chambers with their guns on board. In that last case, the death resulting from living free may not be that of the free liver lover. So you see we have a lot of scope for comedy here.

Anyhoo, the Currier has a contest going for the best poster on the theme of “live free AND _______”—you fill in the blank. The idea is to describe or celebrate something wonderful about New Hampshire, where you may live free and also do some constructive things, things other than killing yourself on the highway.

I had an immediate super-brilliant idea and decided to compete, ignoring the fact that I have zero experience or training as a graphic artist. I ordered ten poster boards from Dick Blick, mostly because you can’t order just one. Extras would be good because I would surely mess up the first few attempts. Then I explored the internet for some hints on how to go about painting on poster board. There wasn’t much out there to help me, but I did learn that applying oil paints directly to the board would not be advisable.

Luckily, I keep some acrylic paints on hand, so I planned to paint a base of acrylic, which would seal the surface and prepare it for the eventual painting in oil. The base would coordinate with my background colors. Once I got going, very confidently since I thought I was still just painting the base, the whole thing just sprang to life. My first acrylic painting. I was stunned. And happy.

Then began the process of lettering. OMG. I proceeded with great care (and concern). Again I conceived a plan: The letters are to consist of their outlines only, because I wanted the background painting to show through. I drew the my letters freehand. I did not want mechanical-looking letters but I did some measuring. I cut them out with an Exacto knife. Not as easy as it sounds. Hard, in fact. I stuck them onto my poster with museum putty to see how they looked. I repositioned them. I redid “. . . and” to make that piece smaller than the “Live Free“. I outlined them using a pen. I painted around the outlines. The unevenness bothered me. I didn’t want it to look professional but I wasn’t going for sloppy either. I tried blurring/bleeding edges with my medium (I was using oil paints at this point). Kind of liked that. Wiped out the word “Free” because letters were too crowded together. Painted with acrylic paint over the wipe-out to create fresh, clean surface for next go ’round.

And that’s where I am. Today I am researching the kinds and uses of stencils, vinyl lettering etc. Should I give up on the outline plan? Guess I am going to have to show you in order to get any feedback.

The above is a close up or detail of the painting, showing paper letters positioned where I planned to outline them. I wished I knew how to make the letters look as if they were actually hanging in front of the poster.

Above is the whole thing, with all of the letters positioned; I must have corrected “HIKE”‘s position before penning its outline in red ink.

Above is the state of the poster before I darkened the upper outlines and before I whitened the “HIKE” outline, and yes, before I got up in the middle of the night to remove the crowded letters forming “Free”. I like “HIKE” now, but am worried about “Live Free”. All of my options for stenciling or applying letters involve letting go of the open outline design. What do you think I should do?

As for the subject image, if you have been reading for a while (over a year). you will recognize it from a 9×12 study that I did for a Patrick McCay course at the Institute called “Explore, Express, Exploit”. I published it in this blog from October 2011. Here is the original inspiration:

The Lone Looker (photo)

I am well and truly exploiting that image of the guy on the rock outcrop that I photographed at 2011’s bike race up Mount Washington, thus fulfilling the promise of that course.

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

A Month of Beckys

Posted by Aline on May 27, 2013

My life is just a little bit crazy right now, what with retirement deadline looming and two major art events coming up next week. Yet here I am, whiling away the national holiday making good on my promise to post weekly. It’s a Good Thing though, this weekly blog, perhaps as important as all those other important things. For however long the internet lasts, it will remind me of where I was on Memorial Day of 2013, just before those three major milestones.

(I’m glad at my age to still be counting milestones other than birthdays!)

So, to get to the point: Major Art Event No. 1 is taking place this coming Sunday, June 2, in Boston. From noon until 6 p.m., I with 71 other artists will be participating in the Beacon Hill Art Walk. It’s not your typical urban art show in that many of the artists will be set up in gardens and on firescapes. Bruce and I, however, are setting up a conventional tent right at the S(tart) point on Cambridge Street shown on the map here. I introduced you to Bruce Jones last week as my partner in this Beacon Hill venture. It’s the first of its kind for both of us, possibly the first of many partnerships if this experience is a happy one. I’ve decided to go eclectic with my display, meaning a couple of landscapes, a couple of figurative works, and my steam locomotive.

: Side-lined

Engine 501, depicting the real life orphan at the North Conway train station, has been looking for a forever home via the Bartlett Inn for at least a year now. Maybe Boston will be the place where it comes together with the right guardian. (For those of you in the dark, “forever home” and “guardian” is animal rescue speak, dear to my heart.)

Major Art Event No. 2: I am opening at the East Colony Fine Art Gallery. Some weeks ago I was juried into this artists’ cooperative gallery, located in the Langer Place Building, the very same building where I conduct my figure drawing sessions, and where the Hatfield Gallery is located, where I also exhibit. Friday I hung six pieces, all of them plein air landscapes. All are, of course, my favorites. (But I have more favorites left, to take to Boston.) My first reception as a member of this gallery takes place on Friday, June 7, from 5 to 7 p.m. I would love to see all my friends there, cheering me on, especially those (you know who you are) who have complained I don’t do enough to market myself.

Back to the business of Becky: I have three new paintings to show you, none of them exactly “finished”, but I may not ever touch them again since I got what I needed from my efforts.

In the red sweater

I love the texture of the bare, clear-primed canvas and so my leaving the background unfinished was a choice. Nevertheless, it will probably be classified as a work in progress if it survives a few hundred years. Painting a clothed model was a change of pace, one that I enjoyed very much, but I guess I was in the minority because the following week when Becky asked if we wanted her clothed, the response “No!” rang out. So I painted this:

The Faraway Gaze

I couldn’t finish this one simply because of the size of the canvas: I chose to bring in a 20×16 canvas on stretchers, which I would never use for plein air so why not? I knew I had better concentrate on the face, then the chest since I could leave the background and the hair to memory or invention or both. Everyone, including myself, thought my lips (the ones I painted) were great. What makes them work, though, is how well I painted the chin and philtrum–lips don’t exist in isolation. OK, check off lips; next up is noses. Her nose here is pretty good, which gives me hope. Becky’s ear is amazingly simple–most people have complex ears, lots of folds and dips and valleys. I think I will make Becky’s ear my template for ears so I don’t use up so much time on them. Nobody really cares what happens inside the ear as long as its placement is correct, the shape is correct, and the tilt is correct.

From the large to the small: this painting is only 10×8 and it felt even smaller to me because I was trying to get the whole figure in. It’s hard to paint small, I discovered–that little stroke that does the job on a bigger canvas makes a blob on the small canvas, and sometimes wipes out a nuance I had been counting on. I thought if I went small I would end up with a small, completed jewel of a painting. Ha! But this one could be a jewel with just a few corrections here and there, and maybe tomorrow I will get a chance to make those corrections. That depends on the other members of the gang. Most will probably prefer to move on to a different pose. I must say, it was nice to paint the other side of Becky’s face for a change!

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 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. Through May 31, nine of her Boston Arboretum paintings are on display at the Leach Library in Londonderry, NH. On Sunday, June 2, she will be participating in the Beacon Hill Art Walk, in Boston.

The White Mountains of New Hampshire

Posted by Aline on May 20, 2013

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

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

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

Smith Millenium Bridge

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

Strawberry Fields (Cathedral Ledge) (No.2)

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

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

Mt. Adams (No. 3)

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

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

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

Roadside Painter (No. 4)

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

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

White Horse Ledge over Echo Lake (No. 5)

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

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

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

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

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

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

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

Art in Action

Posted by Aline on May 6, 2013

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

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

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

And here is the painting from the photo:

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

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

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

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

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

The Joy of Completion

Posted by Aline on April 29, 2013

Detail from Portrait of Grace

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

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

Portrait of Grace

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

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

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

Figure Study (M on BLS)

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

Portrait of Margaret

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

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

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

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

Race up Mount Washington

Posted by Aline on April 22, 2013

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

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

Mt. Washington Phase 4

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

Fans

Awaiting the Stragglers (3-legged dog)

View of race with vista

Whew! (a top female finisher)

Andy with bike

A Very Special Guy

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

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

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

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

Figure in Turban and red drape WIP

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

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

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

A Milestone Reached

Posted by Aline on April 15, 2013

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

Jon, supine pose

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

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

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

Anderson nude

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

Anderson portrait

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

Translation of life drawing into Oil

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

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

M on brown recliner, WIP

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

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

Aging

Posted by Aline on April 9, 2013

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

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

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

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

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

LL&D No. 1

LL&D No. 2

LL&D No. 3

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

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

Phase 3–Biking on Mt. Washington

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

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

Jon seated on stand wip

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

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

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:

Portraits, by Zorn

Posted by Aline on March 18, 2013

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

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

Face and Hand

One of Zorn’s:

Martha Dana

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

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

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

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

Opal

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

1799

I think I may try to copy this painting.

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

DSC_0002 - Version 2

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

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

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

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

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

Viewer Discretion Advised

Posted by Aline on March 11, 2013

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

Becky on the Green Chair

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

Half-finished portrait of Becky

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

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

Becky, left side view

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

Becky, front view

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

Duo Jamie and Catherine, No. 1, 20 minutes

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

Duo Jamie and Catherine–No. 2, 45 minutes

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

Duo Jamie and Catherine–No. 3, 25 minutes

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

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

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

Marco Island Paintings Part Two

Posted by Aline on March 7, 2013

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Crabby Stephen

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

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

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

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

Bella and the mullet skiff

Posted by Aline on February 24, 2013

I just released this painting to the owner of the boat and of the dog, in exchange for some cash and two dozen just-steamed, seasoned blue crabs. Stephen, the owner, is locally called “Crabby Stephen.” For his crabby output, not his outlook. What a joy for both of us! Sitting down to enjoy the crabs for dinner now.

Marco Island Paintings Part One: M.C. Reining

Posted by Aline on February 24, 2013

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

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

P.S. Heather’s from Tuesday

Posted by Aline on February 17, 2013

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

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

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

Posted by Aline on February 16, 2013

Still a work in progress

That photo is a product of my cell phone. While in the throes of packing my gear for Florida last night (I’m writing this from Cleveland airport during a long layover), just for the sake of comparison, I snapped this image of the same painting with my Nikon.

Yes, my hand shook a little ( couldn’t afford the time to set up properly with tripod), but the colors are truer. Bearing that in mind, here are the cell-phone-pix of my fellow artists:

The Front by Nancy H.

The Back by Nancy C

Nita’s Portrait

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

brownie

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

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

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

Potpourri–Nudes, Landscapes, Almost Abstract

Posted by Aline on February 11, 2013

Sideways (12×9)

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

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

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

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

Mangroves, Ding Darling

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

California Landscape

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

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

Mt. Washington from 302, No. 4

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

Jackson Community Church, looking west, BEFORE

Jackson, AFTER

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

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

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

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

Welcome, Groundhogs*

Posted by Aline on February 4, 2013

Skin Colors

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

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

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

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

Steve’s Best

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

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

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

A Walk in the Woods, 1

A Walk in the Woods, 2

A View of the Bay

A View of the Forest

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

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

Artists and Model

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

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

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

Frozen Moments

Posted by Aline on January 28, 2013

My boots were duck hunter’s boots, so wide and thick that I have a hard time climbing stairs in them. I wore four layers on my legs, four on my torso, three on my arms and hands, two on my head, plus a scarf to wrap around my face. My equipment held up well, creaking a little bit but not refusing to lock and unlock. My brushes were frozen but not brittle enough to break. My Gamsol did not turn into jelly in subzero temperatures like my Turpenoid did two years ago. Nevertheless, painting plein air this past weekend in the North Country was a fool’s enterprise.

My biggest surprise was my paint. I made the mistake of leaving it outside overnight. Freezing oil paint is a good way to prevent the large gobs of untubed paint from drying out; it does not damage the paint. But my paint never had a chance to unfreeze before I set out to paint that first crisp morning. (“Crisp” is such an understatement that it is funny–temps were around minus 14 with strong winds adding emphasis.) Once I got my brushes working, I could only poke at the paint and smear it around a little. (Sharon reported that she couldn’t even make a dent in her yellow with a palette knife.) Meanwhile, my face was so covered up that I couldn’t really see what I was doing, and gusts of wind (which fortunately you do hear coming) would periodically force me to hang onto the equipment and endure sprays of snow until the wind died down. I lasted about 20 minutes not counting set up and break down time. Sharon soldiered on for about another ten minutes. [Sharon Allen is the leader of the NH Plein Air painters group, and for the weekend, my chauffeur and guide.] Below are photos of the spot we were painting and our two attempts.

Mt. Washington from Rte 302

Heroic Effort (Sharon’s)

Heroic Effort (Aline’s)

Just for comparison, here is a painting I did in the fall, after a snowfall on the mountains, from the same spot.

Mt. Wash. from 302

Somewhat wiser after lunch, we sought out a sheltered spot for our next attempt. Nothing like an indoor viewing point for sheltering from wind, so we drove up to the Glen House, across from the Mt. Washington Auto Road, and obtained permission to set up in a corner of the restaurant. Sharon painted the view to the north while mine was southwest.

Plein air? Not.

Glen House Painters

In my view is Mt. Washington, but a shoulder obscures the top, so no buildings are visible. It’s the hump toward the left side of my panel. Route 16 runs through the painting but I decided to leave it vague.

Indoor painting of Mt. Washington

The next day, Saturday, was a little better. I think the temperature rose to 5 degrees, and the wind had died down. Nevertheless, we got lots of passersby commenting variously on our bravery, determination, and insanity. I was by that time in total agreement. Knocked down a peg or two was I! Below are photos memorializing these efforts.

Artist or Terrorist? (Sharon)

Frozen Stream

This green tinted frozen water was what had fascinated both Sharon and me. We had not realized how hard it is to depict frozen water. I had never learned of any way to signal to the onlooker that, hey, this is frozen water here–not flowing water, not an empty field.

WIP Sharon

Jackson Community Church, looking west

Jackson Community Church looking east

Above was a view we had planned to paint Saturday afternoon, but the wind! I guess we were lucky to get in a halfway decent morning. The church in this photo is the same one I was trying to paint from my location in the parking lot of the Jackson Historical Society, up river and to the right in the photo. You can see the sign on the building in the background behind Sharon’s easel, which is why I didn’t crop her Work In Progress down to just the painting itself. The Jackson Historical Society has a collection of White Mountain Art, including a few by Benjamin Champney. Metcalf, Gerry and Shapleigh were my favorites in that collection. The parking lot was a great place to paint if you don’t mind being interrupted by passersby, and since these passersby were on their way inside to see White Mountain art, they got our full attention.

But we never found a suitable spot to paint that afternoon or Sunday either. Every time we spotted a paintable spot, we would check the flagpoles. The flags kept up the whipping all the way home. We took pictures and persuaded ourselves that in doing so, we were doing artists’ work. We wandered through Conway, Albany, Moultonborough, Meredith (lunched there), Weirs Beach, Alton Bay, Chichester, Northwood, and Nottingham (there we stopped by Jenness Farm to buy goat milk soap and socialize with the goats).

The Friendly Goats of Jenness Farm

So I conclude that to get more use out of my duck hunter’s boots, I must be alert to a good painting day around home and just seize it. Carpe diem! We have a few warmer days coming up this week.

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

In February, you can also view some of my paintings and drawings at the McGowan Gallery in Concord, NH, and at the Artstream Gallery in Rochester, NH. Receptions for those shows are, respectively, Feb 1, 5-7; and Feb 2, 5-8.

If you happen to be near Orlando, Florida on February 14, 15 or 16, you should go to Nude Nite, a happening at this location: 639 W. Church St. (Blue Freestanding Warehouse just East of I-4). One of my paintings was invited to participate. This one:

Standing Tall

Two Takes on Margaret

Posted by Aline on January 21, 2013

Detail from Tony’s Figure

I have a collection of artworks from half the Circle this week as our numbers continue to be reduced by contingencies related to sickness, travel, and weather. Margaret gave us a two-session pose. I led off with an enlargment of Margaret’s face from Tony’s painting. Such an exquisite expression, and economical strokes. Below you will find his entire painting, and those of the rest of us, including a drawing from our Friday mentor, Peter Clive. Peter has taken to working in pencil because, I believe, he spends so much of his time overseeing us, that he doesn’t have enough time to work up a painting.

Tony’s Figure

Fletch’s Portrait of M

Peter’s drawing

Aline’s Figure

Aline’s Portrait of M

Margaret also posed for this painting that gave me fits last month:

Seated Nude

Talk about willowy!

But “willowy” implies height and Margaret is not at all a tall person. Perhaps that is why my brain balks at the sight of such a willowy creature inhabiting my artspace when I think of the model as being compact and petite. Have I been fighting my own preconceptions? It is, as the King of Siam remarked with a sigh, a “puzzlement”. (“The King and I,” the musical. Yul Brynner and Deborah Kerr starred in the movie–before your time?)

On my snow day last week, I worked on the half-completed 16×20 from the week before, and brought it closer to satisfaction:

Aline’s Figure of B

I had to reconcile some proportion discrepancies and fill in the background. The first problem was solved by carving away at her back and belly, shrinking the hand, and thickening the leg that is closer to the viewer. I’m still not happy with that thing she is resting her right hand on, but not sure it warrants any more attention as I don’t count this one among my masterpieces (using that word loosely!).

In addition to the Tuesday and Friday meetings with the Circle, I painted with the Sunday Sinners, a small group invited to the studio by its owner. I love this figure study that I completed, but the photograph cannot do it justice because of the many paint strokes that catch the light.

Aline’s Figure of G

I need a break from all these nudes, and I am taking it this weekend. Going up North to paint en plein air. I will have something different to show you next Monday.

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

Breaking Bad

Posted by Aline on January 14, 2013

My weekend was dominated by my iPad (Christmas gift) and my discovery of the HBO series “Breaking Bad”. Apparently it’s been around since 2008, but only recently came to my notice. Convergently, my iPad excels at downstreaming (if that the correct term) episodes of Breaking Bad from Netflix, 46 episodes starting in 2008, each about 48 minutes long. I made only a small dent. Needless to say, not much art got created. So in a way, I acted out in my own very small way the title of the series, which refers to the conduct of a high school chemistry teacher who breaks bad and sets up a secret lab to manufacture crystal meth.

Thank goodness for Nita and Nancy, my fellow Circlers, who have provided images of their creations to flesh out this sorry specimen of a blog entry. All three of us painted Tuesday morning, and Nita painted Friday as well, while Nancy and I were gallivanting to Boston for the Symphony and the MFA. Let’s start with Friday and go backwards for a change (it’s good for your mental agility, they say):

Nita’s Friday Project

I’m so impressed with this portrait. It is well drawn, and the lips in particular are so delicately painted (and accurate for the likeness, if that matters–it matters in the sense that you score more points for a likeness, but doesn’t matter in terms of quality of painting). The modeling of the facial structures is also well done. And the eyes are good. Skin tone, really good, well I could go on, but you get the idea.

Because we were a smaller than usual group on Tuesday, we gathered around the brown leather sofa, on the sunlit side of Adrienne’s studio.

Nancy’s pastel painting

Nita’s Oil Painting

My Oil Painting

I took this painting to a collegial critique on Wednesday and got some really useful suggestions, which I promptly implemented, all except one which I forgot about until just now (add red reflection of the drape on his thigh). My handling of the pillows and the sofa itself drew more admiration than the figure. Here are some–perhaps all, at least all that I could locate–of my prior interpretations of that sofa:

The Feet Have It

Owning the Brown Leather Sofa

On the Brown Leather Sofa

Vote for your favorite brown leather sofa painting by commenting below. If you want to. Don’t feel obligated!

I will be participating again this year in the McGowan Gallery’s annual “Love, Lust and Desire” show–it’s a Valentine theme for the month of February. The reception will be February 1, from 5-7. The show is unique, or at least pretty unusual, for the limitation on the size of the artworks: 2D, no larger than 8×11. The prices are accordingly affordable. McGowan is a superb, high-end gallery, worth regular visits any time you might be in the neighborhood. 10 Hills Avenue, Concord, NH. My contributions to the exhibit are mostly small oil paintings on treated paper. I included two copies of master’s portraits that I am particularly proud of. One is a self-portrait by Pietro Annigoni , the other a detail from a painting by Jacob Collins. I love this black and white closeup of his model’s head almost better than the original half-figure-in-color version.

After Jacob Collins (detail from Carolina)

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

This week’s nudes

Posted by Aline on January 7, 2013

I’m risking a “same old, same old” reaction from my followers, but I really have no choice. Nudes are what I did this week, so we are stuck with it. I regret not getting photos of the others’ paintings as well, but that’s not what I’m thinking about at the close of a session when we are cleaning up, packing up, making arrangements for our next meeting. On Friday, our model continued the pose that you have already seen two weeks of, from every possible perspective. But today you get one of those perspectives from me.

a different perspective

As chance would have it, I grabbed a sheet of 16×20 canvas simply because it was handy, and I had only one session to produce something on it, so I knew I could not finish anything. But I should at least have got the proportions correct, and I see problems with that aspect. Nothing prevents me from working more on this painting at home (=studio) and bringing it closer to a state of completion/satisfaction. Whether I will feel like doing that is the question.

Our Sunday sessions are back. I took in a smaller canvas this time–12×16, same size as the successful one from the last two weeks, “Artists and Model“. 12×16 is a good size to work with, because I don’t have to use it all. I can carve an 11×14 painting out of a sheet that is 12×16. This time, however, I wanted all of the sixteen inches of available length and less of the width. So I carved away (not literally–I just drew a line) about 2 inches from one side. My composition was improved, but maybe I was just too lazy to contemplate filling the space behind the model. There were no artists on the other side for me to inspire me.

Leaning pose

Because of my pruning, if this painting turns out to be a keeper, I will have to order a custom-sized frame for it. Pondering that result as I was painting away Sunday, I suddenly understood why so many of the masters’ paintings were odd-sized–not just 22 x 31, say, but 22 and 3/8 by 31 and 1/2. They must have cropped their paintings to achieve the optimum composition for each. For the Old Old Masters, the frame sizes were not standardized anyway.

Upon further reflection today, I realize what a handicap we modern, thrifty painters accept, those of us who strive to paint to a standard size frame. My very best frames come from a company that sells only standard sizes, and you have to buy of lot of them at one time. Their frames have “closed corners”, which means the frames are put together before the finish (gold leaf, e.g.) is applied. You won’t see a seam in the corners. The other kind of frame is “chop” or something like that, and on those frames the seams are discernible. When a painter reaches the level of selling for $50,000 a painting , he or she will order a custom, closed-corner frame and pay thousands of dollars per frame. I’m not there yet.

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

More from the Circle of Six

Posted by Aline on December 31, 2012

Artists and Model

I completed this painting last Friday, and there seems to be universal agreement that it is one of my best, knocking last June’s “In the Artist’s Studio” out of the top spot. What makes it best is, I believe, the additional interest contributed by the figures in the background, and I surely do hope I did not go overboard in depicting them. I was acutely aware of the need to not compete with the central figure of the model, and I therefore had intended to be much sketchier with the artist figures. But, as happens so often to me, the painting wrested control from me. So far, no one admits to thinking the background figures are too prominent.

As I laid it out for you last week: Tony is still the one on the far left, and Steve is the one across the room from me. Both of them started over on new works this week. Here is Steve’s, and after it is Tony’s–in paint this week (hurrah!):

Steve’s drawing

Tony’s painting

Continuing around the room counterclockwise, next is Fletcher’s painting, then Nita’s.

Fletcher’s painting (awesome knee!)

Nita’s painting

Heather was not with us this week; she was a casualty of the snowstorm we had the day before. Elizabeth couldn’t make it either, a worrisome thing; I hope you will eventually get to see some of her work.

I’ll keep it short and (hope-you-agree) sweet this last day of the year 2012. Happy New Year!

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 her law offices at 41 Brook St in Manchester; and at her studio by appointment.

Circle of Six, Sometimes Seven

Posted by Aline on December 24, 2012

Gentle readers, particularly the artists among you, are you wondering at the many opportunities I get to paint from live models? How does that happen when there is no way could I afford it on my own? It happens because I am lucky enough to have friends who are just as obsessed as I am, and another friend slightly less possessed but able to offer us the hospitality of her studio. With the advantage of so much practice since last Spring, we have been progressing as artists. One by one, each of us has turned from drawing to painting. Suddenly, two weeks ago, I looked around the studio and discovered sights amazing and inspiring. Since then I have been collecting as many images from the stalwarts as I could, to share them with you.

So this week I celebrate the team, the Circle of Six (sometimes seven) who show up week after week, sometimes twice a week, each week producing better and better art, and now producing it better with paint.

Heather Lord was the original painting fool among us. I remember her years ago, bringing her paints to the Saturday Life Group, trying desperately to capture those short poses with oil paint. Daft, but the results were vibrant. It was her desire for longer, painting-possible poses that last April, led to our Tuesday morning experiment with 3-hours-as-default programming.

This Fall, with the consent of Peter Clive, our Friday workshop instructor, we continued with 3-hour program. Lately, for both Tuesday and Friday sessions, we have enjoyed double sessions on the same pose. We have just come off two straight weeks with Becky in one pose, and started on another pose that will continue next week.) I was lucky enough to get photos of Heather’s paintings of both poses, the second one still a work in progress.

From Heather, pose 1

Heather's painting of Rebecca [Work in Progress} week 2

Heather’s painting of Rebecca [Work in Progress} pose 2

My own portrait of Becky in week 1 of pose 1 was in last week’s blog, “Painting Faces“. Week 2 of pose 1 is toward the end of this blog.

After noticing what fun the two painters (that’s Heather and I) were having, the others decided to give painting a try too. Nita Van Zandt was one of the first to brave the new frontier of painting, and right away–way too quickly we first adopters carped–she began creating bold, vivid images, experimenting, of course, because painting is all about experimentation.

Nita’s, pose 1

Elizabeth Peck–no one works harder than Elizabeth to perfect her art. She takes countless workshops and can quote some famous artist on almost any point. However, she was too busy to furnish a photo this time. I hope we can catch her later.

For years perhaps, Fletcher Taft had been drawing with pencil or Conte crayon. He produced small, delicate images, quite lovely, but not “bold” or “adventurous”. Look at him now!

Fletch’s, pose 1

Fletcher’s pose 2

Nancy Healy has been at this longer than any of the rest of us. Her artistry was and is already mature, so “progress” is less striking and unnecessary for her. She favors painting with pastels, despite its drawbacks. (Pastel paintings are very fragile.) Like the rest of us, Nancy doesn’t worry about selling, and she is a master with her pastels.

Nancy’s pose 1

The sometimes-seventh member of our circle is Tony Fiore. Tony is a man “who knows a lot”. About everything. But not in an obnoxious way. He entertains us with random knowledge on those days when his sailing does not interfere with his art-making. Like most of us (except Nancy), he is a frequent student at the Institute of Art (the “Tute”, he likes to call it). He was the last of us to try painting, possibly because he refuses to paint in oils, but eventually he could not resist, and for week 1 of pose 1, he brought his acrylics to give it a go. Unfortunately I did not get a picture of his painting from that week, and he reverted to charcoal this week. For the time being, we’ll have to settle for his drawing.

Tony’s drawing pose 1

I had a particularly good week myself. I completed one on Tuesday that may be my best yet, and started one on Friday that I will be finishing up next week. Here they are:

Seated on Red Drape (Tuesday)

Seated on platform, WIP, Pose 2

I accidentally smudged the first one in the course of getting it home, but decided not to repair. I took a photograph at an angle to the second one so as to avoid glare, so that’s why it off kilter to the camera. But no glare! When finished, there will be a suggestion of the two artists painting in the background, and one of them is Tony. The other is Steve, who comes so rarely that despite his role as model for this painting, is getting no glory. Yet.

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

Painting Faces

Posted by Aline on December 17, 2012

Lately, in a change-up from the nudes, I have been trying to paint faces. I suppose in the back of my mind I had been harboring some hope of getting good enough at painting faces to paint portraits. The master of portraits is John Singer Sargent. I’m beginning to realize that I will never ever be good enough to paint a portrait that I could even show to JSS for a critique. No, of course I’m not aspiring to paint as expertly as JSS, but there is a continuum, let’s say of 100 points. JSS is 100. I had hoped to reach 80. And for a while, it had seemed doable, as I gradually captured more and more of the likenesses of my subjects. But OMG, it dawned on me between this and that stray thought, almost casually, that capturing a likeness is simply putting the correct shape in the correct spot, sort of like the police artist who renders the likeness of a suspect from the selections of a witness. A likeness is only the beginning of a portrait, a toe in the water of portraiture. I did two likenesses this week.

Close up of Becky’s Face

Close up

Neither of them qualify as portraits. Let us compare JSS’s portraits.

First, his portraits are full length. I can’t think of a single JSS painting of a face. (He did do many smaller charcoal or pencil drawings of facial likenesses, which I love to copy.) “Portrait” signifies so much more than facial features. “Portrait” suggests that attributes of the subject’s disposition are revealed. The posture of the subject, the objects held by the subject, all contribute toward conveying what the subject holds dear and what attitude the subject takes toward life.

Second, consider the monumentality of effort that JSS put into his portraits. Despite the fact that he was superbly accomplished and experienced, he would not complete a portrait with fewer than eight sittings (according to Wikipedia) and rumor has it that in at least one instance, the unfortunate subject had to submit to something like 80 hours of sitting. And by the way, again according to Wikipedia’s source, he usually got the likeness right away, in the first sitting. The rest of the sitting time, the bulk of his efforts, had to do with everything other than the likeness.

So in conclusion, I have not yet completed a real portrait, or even come close. And if I were good enough to get so far as to complete one in my lifetime, which is alas limited to another 30 years at best, I should have by now received some inkling of the possibility. I continue to make progress, but I will never arrive.

But hey! I’m having a wonderful time. Here is the lovely nude that escaped my camera last week, and a few more from this Saturday’s session:

Attitude for 20 minutes

10-minute pose

5-minute pose

35-minute pose in charcoal

You might like the 5- and 10-minute short poses better than the longer 35-minute pose. That 5-minute pose is the best pose–wish I could have had an hour with it. (The 50-minute pose was too horrible–I won’t even look at it, much less photograph it.) The photos this week were, by the way, brought to you by my phone, pitch-hitting for the digital single lens reflex made by Nikon. Not too shabby for a camera phone.

After our grueling session in the morning, a few of us SLG-ers got together for a party that night, and someone else’s camera phone caught this totally unposed candid shot of a few luminaries in attendance. Not.

Members of Saturday Life Group at Xmas party

From left to right: Marion Hazelton, Joey Pearson, Bea Bearden, Larry Christian (yes, THE Larry Christian), and me.

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

Slacker!

Posted by Aline on December 10, 2012

I only painted thrice last week, and it’s thanks to my Tuesday and Friday morning life drawing sessions and the Saturday Life Group that I accomplished that much. It made me realize how little time I have been putting in on studio projects, and on painting in the great outdoors. I used to be a pretty decent, very enthusiastic plein air painter. Without actually counting, I would bet I produced over 50 plein air paintings in 2011, compared to 25 this year. I miss it. But so much of my artistic energy has been absorbed by the figurative and portrait sessions that I haven’t been carving out time for plein air outings. Now the weather is getting nasty outside. My New Year’s resolution, adopted early, is to find more opportunities to get outside to paint–starting with our first ever Bartlett Artists Winter Getaway in January, followed by a visit to Mary on Marco Island, probably in February.

Meanwhile, the story of this week: Since our Tuesday model and our Friday model and our next Friday model is the same person, those of us who do both Tuesday and Friday decided to make it a repeating pose, enabling a total of 9 hours on one pose for those who wanted it. I will probably the only one of us who will use all three sessions on a single painting, although I expect not to use the entire final session on this painting.

“Huis Clos” (“Inside closed doors” or “no exit”?) WIP after 2d of 3-session pose

One of the more interesting aspects of this painting is the background architecture. I had recently watched a video, part 1 of Dan Thompson painting a figure, in which he recommended painting in the background, at least temporarily, in order to use it as a roadmap. It works. Before I drew in the Exit door on the left of the painting, I had drawn the figure’s arm too close to his body. By situating the frame of the door where it intersected the body, I uncovered the drafting error in the arm. The cubicle on the right (it’s the bathroom) helped me with sizing the figure’s left leg (leg on the viewer’s right).

Because I knew about the extended pose, I started this painting on a 16×20 sheet of primed linen. I intended it to be a whole body pose, but allowed my impulsive first blocking in to change my mind. What you see is the product of two sessions, and it is almost finished. Some tinkering with the facial features and decisions on the background are needed next week. When it is finished, I will roll it up and stash it away with so many other paintings on which I have lavished hours of time and effort. And love. Paintings that, unlike landscapes, no one else is likely to savor.

At SLG (Saturday Life Group) I continued the experimentation with compressed charcoal that I had started in Larry Christian’s class at the Institute. Here is the final pose of the session:

40-minute pose, view of the back

Yes, I do like backs.

There is another drawing, from a 20-minute pose, that I wanted to include today, but for some reason, the photo I thought I took of it did not turn out. Too bad. It was a good one, and different from the one above. I will include it next week if I can work it into next week’s topic, whatever that might be. I hope next week’s topic will include work in my studio, inspired by the successful completion of my reorganization exertions. Yes, that’s my excuse for no studio painting: I have been laboring on moving stuff, and removing stuff, to create more space in my bedroom/studio for the studio portion. Books, heavy books, had to be carried downstairs to make room for just art books on the studio shelves. Underbed storage units had to be emptied to make room for clear bags, saved drawings and such art-related, seldom-accessed items. Dust bunnies had to be captured and disposed of (sneeze!). Furniture had to be rearranged and some of it relegated to the guest room. Today, I ache all over. Well, that’s nothing new. Arthritis. Really slowing me. Down.

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

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