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.

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.

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!

Color Me Encouraged

Posted by Aline on August 20, 2015

Last week I was bellyaching about how dissatisfied I was with my paintings, and Fate apparently paid attention, showering me with encouragement this week. Just a little, no “tens” on the ten-point encouragement scale but maybe, considering all, a solid seven.

First, I partook in the 4th Annual Essex (Massachusetts) Paint Out on Saturday. It was my first foray into this event but I had heard that the auction was widely supported. We painted Saturday and handed in the wet paintings before leaving Essex to go home. On Sunday we returned (I was already in Gloucester for my Figure in the Landscape workshop with David Curtis) for a Silent Auction (4-6) and a Live Auction (6 -7). About 18 works had been preselected for the Live Auction–works by popular local artists. About 100 paintings were entered in the silent auction.

Here’s how a silent auction works: the artist declares a value for the painting (in my case, $325 for each 9×12 wet painting, unframed); the authorities (actually, some computer, they alleged) use that value to peg the minimum/opening bid (in my case, $125). Each painting is accompanied by a bidding sheet. The top line states the opening bid. A bidder writes his/her name on that line. Thereafter, other bidders could come along and bid higher by writing their names on the next line, and stating the higher bid next to their names. The first bidder must lurk in the area, watching for such an eventuality so as to strike back with another bid if he/she really wants the painting. So that is the Sunday scene.

Now back to Saturday. Flo Parlangeli and I sought out a scene with marshland (for her) and buildings (for me). Based on a tip I got at registration, we drove to the end of the appropriately named Water Street. From there, we had a view upriver (the Essex River) to the Town of Essex (buildings, including a steeple, de rigeur for a New England town), and a view downriver toward the bay, eventually toward the ocean. Downriver was Flo’s choice.

View of the Town

Essex River–Highway to the Sea

The edges of the Essex River are very marshy. Its pace looks relaxed, and its path meanders and splits off to form separate pools here and there. When the tide is low, mud flats are exposed. The Town is celebrated for its clams, dug out of those mud flats.

We were welcomed by two brothers who had inherited the house at the end of Water Street, and encouraged to go anywhere on their land, either side of the road, despite the No Trespassing signs. They also regaled us with inside stories about our location and the town. The bottom of Water Street had once been called Callahan Point, Callahan being their great grandmother’s maiden name, or Clay Point for the industry of brick making that once thrived there. Associated buildings are long gone and the land is now all under conservation never to be despoiled again.

Soon we were joined by another artist–from New Hampshire! Total coincidence. She was a pastelist and left after lunch, never to be seen again. We looked for her painting at the auction but could not find it. I suspect she was a victim of Dissatisfaction. Speaking of lunch . . . Wow! I volunteered to go collect the lunches for all three of us since I had finished my first painting. That turned out to be quite a project. They served clam chowder (of course), tossed salad, sandwiches of every description, homemade chips, cookies, water and condiments. I had to choose what kind of sandwiches and figure out how to transport three lidless clam chowders cups to Water Street.

Flo was working all day on one larger piece looking downriver, and didn’t finish until about 4 o’clock. With that extra time to think, it occurred to me that between us we had two extra tickets to the auction event, so we offered those to our hosts. One of them said he would bid on my upriver painting, and indeed he did, and he won it for the opening bid. My other, downriver, painting also sold, to a local art photographer whose stunning sunset-over-the-marshes view was in the live auction. (Unless he got outbid–I have not received any word yet of the final bids.) Unfortunately, Flo’s painting did not find a bidder. Indeed, a quick glance around the barn of the items up for silent auction suggested that less than half were finding bidders–not exactly what had been anticipated based on prior years’ performances. I suspect the large format of Flo’s painting might have put off savvy buyers, who are all too familiar with the cost of framing.

We stuck around for the live auction, at first because David Curtis had one in it and I thought I might get a David Curtis painting for an unrealistically low price–what a coup that would be! However, I fell in love with a different painting and had to go my limit ($300) to get it.

Wildflowers in August by Carole Loiacono

This artist spends half the year in Florida, apparently. I guess she was not at the auction. Neither was David Curtis, and by the time his piece came up for bidding, I had “shot my wad”. Sorry, David.

Riding on the crest of my Essex success, yesterday I embarked with Sharon Allen and Jim O’Donnell on trip up to Wolfboro for the annual paintout sponsored by the Governor Wentworth Arts Council. This paintout also ends with a sale of some sort, sometimes an auction, other times, a straight sale. One time, I sold in the silent auction format–$100 for an unframed 8×10, which I had to split with the host organization. My buyer that year had guarded my painting so that no one else could get near the bidding sheet to compete with her. I didn’t really mind, because it’s not about the money for me. I was flattered.

This year we were allowed to set a price, and to be consistent, I put the price of $325 on my 9×12 painting. Yes, only the one painting. We had to turn them in at 2 o’clock and I had picked a difficult subject that took almost all of the 4 hours available to me. There were no buyers for $325 paintings. $60 paintings, yeah. I would have attributed my failure to find a buyer to buyers choosing against me, but for the fact that I WON People’s Choice!!! I now know how Sally Field felt accepting the Academy Award for Norma Rae. I had not even voted for my own painting, assuming it wouldn’t even be in the running. Instead I voted for Jim’s excellent painting of the water vista. And Jim came in second! I am so glad I voted for him. Fate rewarded me.

Proud Winners

My painting was of a statue in Cote Park called “Sharing”. It features two bronze figures and a park bench, which visitors use like a bench for photo opportunities. If only they’d stay long enough for me to incorporate them into the painting. The title of the sculpture must refer the “sharing” of the experience of eating ice cream cones by grandfather and boy. It should be noted that there is a place to buy ice cream down at the docks. After handing in my painting, I availed myself of a cup of something chocolatey. A rather large cup. Turns out, I deserved it!

A Moment to Treasure

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

Dissatisfaction

Posted by Aline on August 13, 2015

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

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

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

Margaret in Blue

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

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

Figure in Orange

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

Figures in White

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

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

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

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

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

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

Mt. Washington Valley in May, 2015

Posted by Aline on May 24, 2015

Last weekend was the annual spring artists’ getaway to the White Mountains of New Hampshire, and I was happily present. This time I took some larger panels to paint on, instead of those 9×12 carton paper supports I have been relying upon lately. I’m a big girl now and I want to paint bigger. I took three 12×16 panels, one 9×12 panel, and as back up if I needed them, a small stack of the carton paper sheets.

There were eight of us, not very many but very select. Walt and Ann from western Massachusetts; Suzanne from Rhode Island; Helene, my roommate, from Nashua, NH; Betty from Wolfeborough, NH; and of course the stalwarts and leaders of this plein air event, Sharon Allen and Byron Carr. It was a great weekend, with the weather cooperating for the most part–rare for a New England spring. Weather forecasts for rainy Saturday afternoon sent us off course in search of meaningful nonpainting pursuits, none of which really panned out (the museum in Jackson was closed), whereas the weather stayed lovely and would have been ideal for painting. [virtual teeth gnashing] I made up for it on Sunday and the good thing is, I never had to dip into the reserve supports of carton paper.

My first painting Friday morning was this one from Pear Mountain Road.

View of Mt. Washington from Pear Mt. Rd.

I added the telephone wiring after I got home. I did not want to smudge my lovely blue sky by trying to add the wires into wet paint; besides, at home I had some new tools called “French curves”. I don’t know the proper method of deploying them, but I picked out an appropriate curve and used it as a guide for my brush. The resulting lines are almost too confident. These wires wee a necessary element of this painting. Here is what it looked like before I added the wires. The greens in this cell phone version are more accurate than the ones in the expensive SDLR Nikon version above. (more whining complaint below.)

View of Mt. Washington wip (cell phone photo)

After lunch four of us gathered at Jackson Falls. I have painted various versions and aspects of Jackson Falls over the years. How to make this one better? Feature a big rock instead of all that white water.

Portrait of Big Rock at Jackson Falls (cell phone photo–because Nikon version too dark)

Since I was working large, I had no trouble filling each half-day stint with just one painting. I was pretty happy with how things were going so far. The next day we went looking for a covered bridge because of the Stupid Weather Forecast. The one we chose is not open to traffic, and usually we would have been content to paint it or paint from it at road level. This day, however, my painting buddies discovered a way to get underneath the road with a view up at the bridge. This created a curious problem, one I did not recognize until I had already committed to my vantage point. Damn covered bridge is essentially four stripes of almost equal width running across the top of painting–that is, if you want to show the water too. Nothing more monotonous. I struggled with the size of the stripes. I messed with the edges. I toned down the red so as to push the thing into the background. Still awful. When I got home, I decided it couldn’t hurt to try scrumbling shadowy darks over the left edge of my bridge, and I think that may have saved it from the scrap heap. Here are the before and after:

Convergence of Saco and Swift Rivers (before)

Convergence of Saco and Swift Rivers (after)

OK, the colors don’t match. For some reason, photographing all of these paintings has been unusually frustrating. The new Photos app that Apple has forced on me does not give me a way to adjust the level of yellows, blues and reds. I am not coping well!

That accounts for my three large format, 12×16, panels. Sunday morning, after the usual fabulous breakfast at the Bartlett Inn (but no rancho huervos this year–I forgot to complain about that!), Sharon and Betty and I followed Byron up a road off Route 3 between Twin Mountain and Franconia Notch:–white water, moss-covered rocks, deep pools. For the best spot, you needed to be pretty adventurous, but I found a tidy little version close to the road and fought off Sharon for it. I included some Trillium at bottom left because I saw some on the slope to adventure spot. This may be my favorite from the weekend.

Woodland brook 9×12

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

one last week at the East Colony Fine Art Gallery in Manchester (Langer Place, 55 S. Commercial St., Manchester, NH); at the Bartlett Inn in Bartlett; at the Bernerhof Inn in Glen; at the Red Jacket Inn in North Conway; at the Library Arts Center in Newport, NH; at the Sharon Arts Center in Peterborough, NH; at the Buttonwoods Museum in Haverhill, MA; and at the law offices of Mesmer and Deleault at 41 Brook St in Manchester.

Marco no. 1

Posted by Aline on March 3, 2012

Paintings by Aline

A Painter's Progress

Tag Archives: plein air painting

Fabulous!

Color Me Encouraged

Dissatisfaction

Mt. Washington Valley in May, 2015

Marco no. 1

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