Thomas Eakins - A Favorite of Mine

Thomas Eakins is an artist that I admire greatly for his individuality and his devotion to his art. He studied anatomy vigorously and taught his students that understanding anatomy and the movement of the body is paramount to learning how to draw and paint the human figure. His portraits were a departure from the traditional romanticized portraits of his era and before. They vibrate with emotion, the personality of the sitter is apparent immediately. His use of color and light is so striking. He was very concerned with accuracy and tried to instill this on his students. I like his realistic style, though I am more of a modern impressionist painter. Eakins also pioneered using photography with his work and studied the movement of the body using photography. What I am most impressed with, however, is his devotion to working from life. I included some examples of his work here.

Max Schmitt in Single Scull

Miss Amelia Van Buren

Studying Emil Carlson's Style

On May 16, Jack Keledjian demonstrated the style and methods that Emil Carlson used when painting his still lifes. Emil Carlson had a unique style. His compositions were simple, soft, and they drew you in. His subjects were simple earthenware jugs, shiny brass and copper pots, and simple Chinese blue and white vases with dark wood stands.

Jack mixes Neo Meglip by Gamblin into his paint to give the paint the glossy, smooth quality that Carlson is famous for. It is the consistency of Vaseline.


Before he starts, Jack tells us that we need to think very carefully about our subject and to imagine what we are going to paint, each aspect of it before we begin to paint. Do not center your main object, but pick a location on the canvas that is off center. This provides better interest. Harmony is very important, he says. Work each stroke in relation to the one next to it.

In speaking of temperature, it is important to note that a color is not warm or cold until there is something next to it to compare it to.

Jack starts with a pale yellowish green color in acrylic paint, covering the canvas. This is the under painting that will come through later. You can do this in oil as well, but it will take longer to dry.

Jack begins by drawing the objects with a light brown shade, using the drawing to place the objects on the canvas correctly. Jack puts in the background strokes with broad swishes of the brush in crisscross pattern, almost basket weave-like. He uses cobalt blue, ultramarine blue, and trans. oxide brown. It's not solidly applied, letting the background color come through. You can use a crumpled cloth to pull out some of the color afterwards.

Jack starts by filling in each object with large strokes, but leaves light areas undone. He limits the number of highlights. The large brown crock is done in a dark brown with soft edges to keep it from coming forward. For the brass pot, he uses browns and cad orange, always using some Neo Meglip. He works on getting the rounded shape, and will punch the color with two strong swipes. He says to make sure that the color temperatures work together. Always put warm near cool, otherwise the colors look dirty.

For the vase, he uses several long top-to-bottom strokes of pale bluish purple in varying degrees of color and then softens the edges to blend them. Then he warms the shadow with some yellow. He punches the light with a lighter white blue. He puts the flowers on with small cross strokes, and then the leaves.

For the pansies, he uses orange to cut the purple color intensity. He lays on paint with a large brush in fan like strokes, one next to the other. Instead of the yellow pansy, he puts in a off-white bud. The yellow is too intense.


The onions were softly rounded and quiet, but interesting. He used some warm red and yellow to push back the brightness of the white. He added a onion skin at the bottom of the canvas and some flower blossoms leading into the pots. Lastly, he cooled the bottom right foreground and warmed the bottom left foreground.
leading into the painting. He cooled the bottom right foreground and warmed the bottom left foreground.

The Smith Library Show

I recently had a show at the Edward Smith Library. It was their first art show ever and my first in my hometown. Now that they have a renovated library, they have space to do all kinds of shows, so it promises to be a nice venue for art. It was a successful show for me. One couple really liked Dirt Road to the Meadow and after some thought, put a deposit down on it. There may also be commission work later from this couple.

Members of The Northford Women's Club also came to show their support. It was a nice crowd. The next day, a member called and she and her husband came over to the house and bought two from the show and two from my stock at home. They also took one home to try out. It's very exciting.

Just yesterday, another member of the club called and wanted to buy the Sunflowers III painting. I'm glad that she decided to do so, since she has wanted it, apparently, for quite a while.
I'm going to go to the library and exchange some new paintings for those that sold. You never know when someone might come in and see something that they like.

I hope to do more shows there, perhaps later in the year. We'll see.

Looking for Opportunities

In the summer of 2007, I learned that one of our small town libraries was closing for renovation. It was built in the early 1940s, so the building was quite old and outdated. I knew from looking at plans for the building that the architecture would change significantly and I thought that someone might be interested in preserving the original look of the building in other than a photo. So, I set up one warm summer day and began to paint the building en plein air.

Later, I contacted the director of the library with an idea of selling this painting and perhaps others to the library to decorate the new walls once it opened. I was met with some enthusiasm. I kept in touch with the director over the next year and was invited to meet with the board of directors for the library. They seemed interested in my work. When the building was complete, the library bought the painting of the old building. I put an article in the local papers announcing this event so that others in the town were aware of it.

Currently, the town is going to raisie funds for another small painting of mine of a local landmark. I am very excited about this. I'm also going to look into doing a painting of the other library in our town, which is going to be renovated soon as well. I've received some positive feedback on this quest as well from the directory of the library. The second library is very old with some really pretty architecture. It will be a pleasure to paint.

The exposure of my work to the public is probably the best that I could hope for in such a small town as ours. I'm hoping that I will garner some commissions in the future. If not, it's pretty exciting to know that some of my work is going to be part of a permanent display in my town's library for generations to come.

I've learned from this experience that you have to seize the horse by the tail and make opportunities for yourself instead of waiting for something to come along. It takes perserverance, but it's really worth it in the end.

Winter Snow

It's been snowing a lot this winter, but it's been too cold to stay outside for very long. This is the view from my living room window. It is always so beautiful, but when I saw it that morning after the snowfall during the night, I had to paint it. The sun was coming up in the East, throwing long shadows over the fields.


"Snow Blanketed Field"
9"x12" Oil on Canvas Over Panel, $300.

Christmas Bouquet

I received this bouquet as a gift from my cousin, Lisa, who is a premier floral designer. It was so gorgeous, I had to paint it before it withered away. It was fun to use luscious reds and oranges right out of the tube. There was some great reflected light that carried the warm color to the surrounding objects.

This was painted from life in my studio.

"Red Amarillis" Oil on Canvas, 14" x11", sold.

Piero

Here's a commission for a Christmas present. This is Piero, a gorgeous parrot that is much loved by its owner. Apparently, he takes him into the shower with him and they talk parrot to one another. What a cutie.

It is 12" x 9", oil on canvas over panel.