Skip to main content

I Went Back To School!!




"Orchard I," 8"x10", acrylics on museum quality panel, a study created plein air while shivering majorly at Millers Big Red Cider Mill this past weekend. I don't do cold, but I ventured into the chilly great wilds this weekend for the opportunity to paint plein air with one of my mentors. You can snag this painting for $200 if you are the first one saying please.

I HEARD A PLEASE, so this one's SOLD! THANK YOU!

I got to paint with none other than Vianna Szabo this weekend! I was part of her landscape painting workshop. She took 8 of us on a whirlwind immersion to the joys - and realities - of painting plein air.

The first day we focused on composing and editing the landscape. Plied with donuts and warm cider, we then ventured into a wet and cold orchard to create value studies that solidified (or should have) our concepts.

My first ah-ha moment came while working on my color study. I was tracking my brushstrokes on a value scale (I thought to better understand the realm of greens seen). Then I discovered how much of my color fell smack into that "3" of the middle value range. 

So what does this mean? My initial thought is that I'm allowing myself to be distracted by color, and not fully using value, and this could be why I sometimes struggle with building great depth.

Vianna recommended I study some masterpieces and reduce them to 5, 3 and 2 values each. I was too exhausted to tackle this challenge right away, but I do think this will be eye opening, and an exercise to try later this week. From the warmth of my own studio!!

Tomorrow I'll share what we learned on Day Two!

Thanks, as always, for following along with my artwork,
Kim

PS Lots of photos from the weekend are here. 
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

“Katie’s Moustache,” 6x12, pet portrait in acrylic on canvasboard, $90. Inquiries to ksantini@turtledovedesigns.com . One glimpse of Katie’s face, and I was hooked. Not only did she fall into my beloved “black & white” category, but she came with a full moustache and doe-like eyes. I first covered the canvas with a variety of blues and purples, using a (mixed) light green and pink for the highlights. (Right now my palette has been expanded to include the following: pthalo blue red, azurite hue, cad red dark, alizarine crimson, cad yellow dark, and then for graying/hazing out I use light green yellow and ultramarine purple.) I lighten with titanium white and darken with one of the blues and a touch of one of the reds. As a side note, at this time last year I was really struggling with my limited palette (I went from about 60 pots of paint to 3), but I have lived the benefits – I am so much more familiar with what I can mix given just this handful of colors. My paintings are also m...
Post a Comment
Read more

Dear Copyright Thieves

Dear Copyright Thieves,   Just because it's on the internet doesn't mean it's free for the taking. So let's just stop pretending the internet is a free-for-all.   Don't play the card that you didn't know - that's insulting. And don't also tell me that you meant to follow up and get permission but never got a chance to. That's insulting too. And by the way, don't you have a copyright protection notice on your own site?   And don't even try and point the finger at a third party who commissioned you to make a copy of my painting - again, an insult - you and I both know the difference between a reference photo and a painting.   And don't tell me that I asked for it because I share my artwork on the internet. I share my paintings and ideas and the stories behind them so as to encourage others to pursue  their own passions . I do not share so that those lacking integrity and morals can copy and market the images as their own...
33 comments
Read more

Golden Open Acrylics

I get all sorts of process oriented questions. Most recently I've been getting asked a lot about my paints and palette, which made me realize what a nice blog topic this would make! I use a Masterson Sta-Wet Premier palette box . This is comprised of a box (think Tupperware) with a sponge liner and a slice of palette paper that work together to keep my paints wet. This setup allows me to work with the same palette for about a full week, having the box open for multiple hours every day. You can see what the palette looks like at the beginning of a new session above - below the exact same palette after this week's work. For the last 25 years I have used Golden brand acrylics, mediums, and varnish. I love the overall quality of these paints and the fact that, when I have a question, their customer service department is made up of artists who actually use the products. Until last year, I used their Heavy Body paints exclusively. They have a buttery consistency, a little loose...
11 comments
Read more