The In-House Model

Posted by Aline on December 9, 2015

When, a few months ago, I faced the fact that not enough artists were coming to my Monday morning life sessions to cover the cost of the model, I struck a deal with the model who lives behind my garage: my 19-year-old granddaughter Natalie. She now sits for me for free in exchange for her room behind the garage, and still gets cash when other artists join me for a particular session. She does not pose nude, but frankly, I was getting weary of painting the nude body anyway. Moreover, as I never tire of pointing out, paintings of nude bodies are difficult to exhibit. Americans are such Puritans! Except for museums, which unfortunately do not have room for a learner such as I, people running exhibit spaces are paranoid about the possibility that children might clap their wide eyes on a picture of a nude human being.

So you will see Natalie more often now. For the first pose pursuant to this arrangement, I had her dress up in her mother’s wedding gown. The gown had been hanging (literally) around since we cleared out attic and closets for a big garage sale that I had in early October. I retrieved it from the sale items along with some vintage items of clothing that deserved to be memorialized in paint.

Natalie was at first resistant. The gown was old-fashioned with lace and puffy sleeves, and covered her up to the neck–definitely not something that a modern girl like her would choose to wear anywhere, much less to her wedding. But the gown fit her like a glove, and after a while she got into the costume spirit of the enterprise. She has now spent a total of four Monday mornings in the thing.

The first week was just me and one other artist, so access to a good perspective on the model was not an issue. I chose a 18×24 panel and took my time, expecting to get a few more sessions with this pose. But more artists showed up the next week, so we had to move her out of the corner to get more good vantage points. But I have not given up on the first pose. I like the concept of the bride with her bare feet up, hair all frowsy, head thrown back in exhaustion:

The Wedding is Over (WIP)

The second pose is more formal. Natalie applauded the change because it got her closer to the fireplace and was more comfortable than the first pose. We all five started on portraits that were, at most, 3/4 length, so what she did with her feet was immaterial. (The feet were clad in slippers and resting on a toolbox stepstool.) I took photos at the end of the second and third weeks, then took a photo of her so that I could finish the piece using that as my reference. Today, I fixed some details and took another photo, its status today, which might be final. All four stages are shared with you below:

The bridal portrait (WIP)

The bridal portrait (almost done)

Bridal portrait–the real thing

The bridal portrait–finished, maybe?

Two days ago, we started on the third pose. Two other artists were with me, and we agreed to go at it again next Monday, but I think I’m finished with the face and hair at this point.

Snuggled up by the fire (WIP)

The snuggle for real–photo of the model in her pose

Natalie is all wrapped up in a blanket in front of the fire, the best pose ever, according to her. Next Monday I need to rearrange the folds of the blanket for the sake of the composition, bringing the back folds across her body instead of running down into the corner. Also, I feel that the blanket should be more in the shadow, competing less with the light on her face. I don’t want to bring the face into a more “finished” state. In fact, I’m afraid I have already lost a certain fresh quality. Here’s an earlier state of the painting:

snuggled early version

Another part of the scene that bothers me is the chair. I’m thinking maybe I should get rid of it. Or change the color. To what? I hate it when I find myself in a color quandary.

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

At the Bartlett Inn in Bartlett; at the Bernerhof Inn in Glen; at the Red Jacket Inn in North Conway; at the Center for the Arts in the New London Inn; at Apotheca, in Goffstown, NH; at the Norris Cotton Cancer Center in Manchester, part of the Healing with Art program; and at the law offices of Mesmer and Deleault at 41 Brook St in Manchester. My painting “Darkly” (link to it here) has finally donned a frame and can be viewed at E.W. Poore Framing Studio in Manchester, as part of the Manchester Artists Association “Artist of the Month” program.

Continuing through December 24 is another popup from East Colony Fine Art: at Salzburg Square on Route 101 in Amherst, NH, open Thursdays through Sundays, 11-5.

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

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

When Something Ends . . .

Posted by Aline on September 28, 2015

Something else comes along to fill the vacuum. Last week, I had to announce to all on my list of figure artists that I was ending the Monday Life Group, after more than five years I think. It does not work as a drop-in kind of thing unless a sufficient number of artists are willing to show up a few times a month. I needed five artists to break even at the other studio, three to break even at my home studio. When times were good, more than the minimum would show up, and I would have extra money to tide me over those weeks when not enough artists showed up; but when you get down to three, there’s just no slack to work with.

Being forced to paint every Monday from the live model was very good for me and for my progress as an artist; I feel lucky to have had that experience for so long. There is a silver lining though, in the opening up of a whole half day in my calendar. I’ll have more time to lead tours at the Currier, work on my blog and finally get to more floral paintings. Perhaps flowers will replace figures.

So here is the last of the MLG output: my granddaughter Natalie.

Natalie on arm of sofa

I booked her for only two weeks, and it just proves that two weeks is not quite enough to complete a portrait, no matter how loose the style. I would have like to do more work on the hair and skin tone, but I pressed to get a face in. It is a pretty nice likeness, right down to the pained expression. Her hip was hurting.

My other output last week was in Canterbury, the town center of Canterbury. I have many times painted in Canterbury Shaker Village, but never before in the town of Canterbury. We (plein air artists) were invited to paint during the Farmers Market and bring some works to sell, but Flo Parlangeli and I went out there in the morning, before the Market, so as to have something of the town to show, maybe sell. We were warmly welcomed by the people of Canterbury, especially the hospitable librarians. Chocolate cake with vanilla icing left over from a library anniversary party the night before! And bathrooms! The Market itself takes place in the Library parking lot. To paint our first painting, however, we set up outside the general store, called the Canterbury Country Store. I later learned that the Town owns that store, probably because it’s not really a going proposition. But it sells good ice cream! There was a constant stream of residents stopping in for one thing or another. That was when we noticed one coming out with the ice cream cone. We had to immediately take a break and try the ice cream. Also the storefront looks adorable:

Canterbury Country Store

Maybe I can count this as a floral painting.

We moved downhill to the Library and the Market mid-afternoon, where we were joined by Sharon Allen, Mary Crump and Ann Traynor Domingue. The Market was fun. School kids were given some kind of scavenger hunt which required them to ask an artist what “plein air” meant. That’s why we were invited!

I was at that point a little tired, and being pleased with what I had already painted in the morning, not in the mood to stretch myself. I looked for a convenient subject, one that allowed me to keep my easel shaded and the table with my paintings for sale nearby. By facing toward the sun, I can keep my painting shaded, and the painting itself keeps the palette in shade. The subject I found when I faced the sun was Sharon:

Sharon at Canterbury Market

I don’t know why she needed two things protecting her from the sun–her canopy chair was backed up by her ShadeBuddy–but my depiction is accurate (as always). Notice the plastic bag that she throws her oil-smeared paper towels in. She uses those blue shop towels, as do I, because they are much sturdier that ordinary kitchen paper towels, even Viva, and I wish I had got the blue towel more prominently present in the picture. Sharon has burned her name onto the back of her Guerrilla pochade box. See that orange straw coming out of the plastic cup? Sharon keeps Dunkin Donuts in business single-handedly. I believe, but am not positive, that Sharon was painting the musician who was playing his heart out just behind me. I could have done him instead, but it would have been complicated since I could not use my ShadeBuddy on the hard macadam surface where I was so comfortably chilling’ out. Yeah, I was just lazy.

The rest of my week was taken up with so much interference: meetings, exhibit chores (I was appointed chair of an exhibit in Concord — see below), physical therapy (I’m going to solve the new knee problem and maybe even the old lower back problem that keeps me from standing to paint). At my age, because of my age?, I am productive only half the time I am awake; the rest of the time I am chillin’ out. I like to think of chilling out as restorative, but worry that it’s not restoring anything useful.

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

At the Bartlett Inn in Bartlett; at the Bernerhof Inn in Glen; at the Red Jacket Inn in North Conway; and at the law offices of Mesmer and Deleault at 41 Brook St in Manchester. I have also had a painting at the Red River Theatre all month, which I had overlooked in previous posts, but it comes down at the end of the week. And for the month of October I have two paintings in the Womens Club of Concord, part of a three-part 20th anniversary exhibit by the Womens Caucus for Art. However, the hours during which the WCC is accessible to the public are unpredictable. You can visit the other two parts of the 20th Anniversary exhibits at the Kimball Jenkins carriage house and the Concord Chamber of Commerce.

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

Fabulous!

Posted by Aline on September 4, 2015

Duveneck Reader

“Fabulous” was David Curtis’ word for this painting, completed in his Gloucester garden as the last figure-in-the-landscape event. As if to prove he was not using the word casually, he added that it was a “prize-winner” (or “award-winner”–same thing except some awards don’t come with any prize other than the glory). I took that pronouncement as a challenge–I went home and entered it in the Artist Magazine competition for Artists Over Sixty. Doesn’t that narrow the pool so as to benefit my odds? On the other hand, artists who have been painting all their lives are pretty darn good by the time they attain the age of sixty, which hurts my chances. If/when I get passed over, I get to tell David Curtis he has been overruled.

The title, “Duveneck Reader”, arises from the fact that the book her right hand is resting on is titled “Duveneck”. It is an art book about the painter Duveneck, who was affiliated with the Boston Painters. As such, he occupied a middle ground between academic painting and impressionistic painting–pretty much what I do too. Anyway, David was so pleased that I included the book and actually thought he could read the word “Duveneck” on the spine of the book in my painting, that he might have been biased in his assessment of the overall quality of the painting. Hence, I felt I had to include the name in the title of the painting. (There’s not much logic involved in titling paintings. Numbering them seems like a cop out to me, so if something just pops into my head, I accept that as a valid title.)

For the competition, I didn’t rely solely on the one painting. As long as I am entering, I might as well include two more of my recent figures (at the cost of $20 per image). I chose the Bridal Gown as one, and a nude that I have just completed after three Monday sessions. The nude furnishes a good example of how very tiny adjustments can improve (I hope!) the overall effect of a painting. First, here is the painting after the end of the first session:

After one session

I knew I was going to have two more sessions (each is three hours) with the model in this pose, so I concentrated on getting the proportions and angles correct, in other words, the drawing of the figure. I could afford to leave the skin tones, facial features, hands, and drapes for another session.

After session two

After two sessions, the painting seemed almost complete. Thinking back onto Steven Assael’s demonstration, however, I knew I could improve on the skin tones.

At the end of the third and final session, I had this.

After session three (try to ignore the shadows at top, from my easel)

My artist companions thought the hands were too small. The size of the hands had been on my mind throughout as problem areas, and I had measured them against her face, taking into consideration the fact that she does have small hands, and at least one of them was extremely foreshortened in my eyes. But I accepted the verdict of Laura and Nancy, so after they left the studio, I opened my palette back up and got to work enlarging the hands.

American Beauty (final)

Nancy had suggested I just make the foreshortened hand wider. I did so, and also blurred the left edge. The other hand, which had been so difficult to render in the first place, now had to be re-rendered without help from the model’s presence. Insane. But the very fact that I had painted it dozens of times with her present enabled me to recreate a slightly larger version without her present. I think it actually turned out better.

You might have noticed that I hardly touched the red drape after roughing it in the first week. The shapes of the drapes changed drastically not only between weeks but also between poses–even during poses at one point. During the second session, one of my cats became enamored of my model and the drapes. He explored the possibilities and ended up carving out a napping spot behind her hip. Wiser the following week, I locked all four cats up in my bedroom.

Bad Cat

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

At the Library Arts Center in Newport, NH; at the Bartlett Inn in Bartlett; at the Bernerhof Inn in Glen; at the Red Jacket Inn in North Conway; at the Firefly American Bistro on 22 Concord Street, Manchester; and at the law offices of Mesmer and Deleault at 41 Brook St in Manchester.

Margaret

Posted by Aline on October 1, 2012

Last week, Becky was my headliner. This week, Margaret is the star. Margaret is another of our regular models. She met with a terrible mishap last Spring: While modeling for another group–in a standing pose, she fainted, and crashed from the model stand onto her jaw, breaking it in three places and damaging 11 teeth. Young people don’t buy health insurance, and Margaret was just past the age when she could have been included under her parents’ policy. But you’d never know from her cheerful attitude that the whole traumatic, painful and expensive mess was anything but an adventure. She even celebrates the scar under her chin. So let’s celebrate her this week, and her youthful exuberance that refuses to be bottled up.

The paintings, all painted in the past month, are shown in chronological order.

Figure on the Green Tuffet

Margaret, portrait from the right side

Second portrait of M, left side

We were so happy to see her again, that we have cut her some slack with the talking. She’s a talker, and even a jaw wired shut could not completely shut her up, according to her dad (as reported by Margaret). That relatively silent period probably increases the happiness she feels now in being able to talk nonstop. Stop her we did, eventually, because you just can’t paint a face that is talking.

AlineLotter is currently exhibiting:

at the Hatfield Gallery in Manchester; at the Bartlett Inn in Bartlett; at the Red Jacket Inn in North Conway; at the Pantano Gallery in the Shapiro Library at Southern NH University; at the Derry Public Library; at the law offices at 41 Brook St in Manchester; and at her studio by appointment.

Paintings by Aline

A Painter's Progress

Tag Archives: model

The In-House Model

When Something Ends . . .

Fabulous!

Margaret

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: