Blog

This 'Letters to Students' blog post is composed of replies to real people who were studying with me at the time. They have been lightly edited, mostly for clarity.

---- I would say it's pretty much an illusion that painting in front of a camera is easy for me and in fact it's the thing I dread the most. That's because the concentration level never gets to where it should be and I'm so rarely pleased with what I do in that situation. My discomfort isn't really the main reason why I don't do it more though. I've just never been convinced that it's really a great way for people to learn. I think demonstrations can have their usefulness but the main benefit is following the principles and thought process and I can tell that a lot of students entirely miss the point there. Anyway, I do hear you, and clearly comprehend how outvoted I am on this topic -- so will take your request into consideration.

----  As you are working you are going to have to start telling the critical side of your brain to shut up. I know that's kind of contradictory since you are trying to improve, but I think you are tripping yourself up over things that are really just fine. There is some nice work in all of these and I'm seeing some definite improvement every month. Very impressive! Trust those spots of color if they are feeling right and when you have the canvas covered-- put the work away. The things that probably need changing are not going to be apparent until you can go back and look at them later with a fresh eye.

----  I'm so pleased to see you are getting the concept of flowers relating to a solid shape and the patterns of light. Do you have any idea how few people ever catch on to that? You are on the right track so just keep at it. On the lovely single flower I'm not sure how you pulled off such a good feeling of light given the reference image, but you did! On the larger sunflower piece -- go ahead and pick up those few petals in shadow on the far left side as they are part of the story of the light.

--- pay special attention to the principles of what to look for and how to see more clearly. If you distinguish between advice which is about learning to see better, as opposed to formulas designed to excuse you from seeing --then you should be OK on whatever path you follow. 

----- Lilacs, as you have noted ,are a tough subject matter. Most artists either go very detailed, or very abstract and I'm usually aiming for something in-between. 

----   The notes you have here look pretty good to me. I usually emphasize the warm undertones rather than cool ones on white flowers because that ends up looking more correct to my eye but it's all contingent on the background color and color of the light.

-----As for 'fat over lean' ; The basic thing you need to remember is this-- the paint layers should get more flexible each time you add a new one. Alkyd and/or oil will add flexibility and turp or mineral spirits will take away flexibility. Regardless of how much or how little you start with, the amount of alkyd medium or oil you add should increase for each subsequent layer. 

--- On color mixing, with the exception of some of the most intense colors we have, I can almost always think of 3 or 4 ways to achieve the same result. With more neutral colors there would be even more ways to get to the same place. In that sense it doesn't matter so much whether you use the same pigments , or vary them from one note to another. It only matters what look you have in the final product and whether the image is going to read well to the viewer.

-----There are definitely some situations where we have limitations as far as what we can achieve with our pigments. One common example would be sunlight on blue mountains. That is a limitation of our range of hue. When we mix those colors thoroughly together with our pigments the result just doesn't match what we see so about the only solution we have it to handle it where some areas lean warm to indicate the warmth of the sunlight and other areas show the bluish local color of the mountain. Somewhat like the Impressionists did--broken color.  

-----it's really not possible to know what's going on in someone's life at any given moment or how they will respond to a particular suggestion so I do worry about that sometimes. On the other hand one can't learn without some struggle and I certainly wasn't expecting just compliments when I was in art school.

----   From the work you sent in I feel like you probably admire a lot of the same painters I do --representational but not photographic necessarily. I follow the path of keeping my focus on seeing skills because that is the thing that every artist I admire has emphasized. By concentrating on seeing as an artist and particularly on shape (drawing) and values you will then eventually be able to go any direction you want. The study of relationships. That will serve you well regardless of whatever path you take.