Deborah Paris - A Painting Life

Afterglow

2008-05-20T17:34:00.014-05:00

Afterglow - oil on canvas 24 x 30
Available at Hildt Galleries, Chicago

Here is the second painting of the "pair". I had planned to post them side by side but Blogger doesn't seem to want to let me do that. But, hopefully, they do read as complements to one another, as intended.

Twilight Field

2008-05-17T21:07:00.004-05:00

Twilight Field - Oil on canvas 24 x 30
Available at Hildt Galleries, Chicago

Here 's one of several larger pieces I have been working on over the last few weeks. The gallery asked me to do a "pair" of paintings- which I have never really tried to do before. The idea is that these two pieces would be somewhat similar, complement one another and be framed the same- they could be sold as a pair or individually. Sounds simple, right? Well, it turned out to be much more difficult than I anticipated. Unlike a diptych where the same composition flows from one canvas to the other, these images needed to be separate and distinct, yet enough alike to "hang together". I decided to use generally the same point of view and thus horizon line to help hold the two images together, as well as similar color harmonies. The second piece is not quite finished but I'll post it in a few days.

Evening Sky

2008-05-08T18:02:00.007-05:00

Evening Sky
10 x 10 Oil on panel
Please contact me if interested in this piece

The last few weeks I have been hit or miss, mostly miss, in my posting schedule. There are lots of good reasons- trying to get a group of larger pieces completed for my Chicago gallery and some personal stuff- but do feel guilty when I let it slide.

I've been having a problem lately with varnish. It seems like every time I varnish a painting I end up with lots of little bumps and debris on the surface that I didn't see before I varnished. I haven't changed varnish- I use Gamvar made by Gamblin- but I have changed my painting methods quite a bit and I've started using gessoed panels in addition to canvas. So I figured there was some technical voodoo at work. I went to the Studio Notes on the Gamblin web site for help. This is a great resource for painters- lots of technical information. I read their article on varnishing and then sent an email off with questions. Within 24 hours, as promised, I received a helpful email from Scott, who helped me pinpoint the problem (dust!) and gave some suggestions as to how to prevent or fix the problem. So today my husband constructed a little canopy under which my paintings reside while the glaze or varnish layers are drying- it was either that or build a new studio which is not in the same building as his shop. The canopy seemed like an easier solution. In addition to strictly technical advice, Studio Notes also has an interesting article comparing direct and indirect painting methods and the art historical context for those methods.

April Moonrise

2008-04-29T17:10:00.005-05:00

April Moonrise
Oil on panel 20 x 24
Available at Hildt Galleries, Chicago

A couple of weeks ago there was a spectacular moonrise. I did a small painting of it but wasn't really satisfied. So I made a few adjustments for this larger piece and I think I captured that brief moment when the sun has set in the west, the moon is rising and night is falling.

Bogata Hay Barn

2008-04-27T13:12:00.003-05:00

Bogata Hay Barn 6 x 6 oil on panel
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I'm working on some larger pieces so I haven't had much to post. Hopefully, a few of those will be post ready this week.
The other thing that has been a major distraction this past week is that one of our dogs (we have 5) has gone blind very suddenly. My little Sophie is the oldest of our pack- she is almost 13 but my husband and I call her the Dorian Grey of dogs- she has always looked like a perpetual puppy. Internet research and trips to the vet leave us without hope that she will regain her sight and another eventually fatal condition was also found. We are, needless to say, very sad.

Green

2008-04-19T16:42:00.007-05:00

Spring
Oil 16 x 16
Please contact me if interested in this piece

The weather this week has been absolutely wonderful- mild, slightly breezy, sunny and everything is ....green...very green. Landscape painters will all tell you that green is the toughest color to get a handle on, the one most easily and often abused. Some respond by just not going there at all, and others go too far. I decided to celebrate spring by pulling out a color called cadmium green. Its made by Gamblin and its just the sort of color that would make you think of Wolf Kahn, not Deborah Paris. But its spring, and I'm celebrating.

I'm pleased to say that my work is included in the annual Plein Air Texas show which is put on by the Outdoor Painters Society. The exhibit includes about 50 artists and opens today at Southwest Gallery in Dallas, Texas.

Greenhouse Gallery show

2008-04-07T21:40:00.005-05:00

Twilight at Scatter Creek Oil 15 x 18

This weekend, April 12, is the opening of the Greenhouse Gallery Salon International show in San Antonio. This painting and one other were accepted into the show. A small study for this piece was one of the first things I posted when I first started this blog back in September last year.

Panels & Palettes

2008-04-05T17:49:00.015-05:00

The Pool at Dusk
Oil 20 x 30

After my last post (thanking everyone who responded), I got several emails this past week from people wanting to know what I had discovered on my quest to reproduce the Magic Panel. I got a huge amount of information and some differences of opinion, all of which I appreciate immensely. Right now I am doing my own little R&D project by testing out three different gessos (Artisan, Utrecht, and Art Boards) and Gamblin Ground on hardboard, gatorboard and birch. The plan is to make a bunch of different panels with different grounds and supports, paint on them, then report back.

I've also had several emails over the last few months asking about my palette. I talked a little about that and my technique for doing under paintings followed by layers of transparent color here. When I started to paint again about 18 years ago (yikes!), I started with a limited palette because that's what my teacher and mentor, Ned Jacob, used. I stuck with it for a long time and I'm glad I did. Limited palettes are great for teaching you how to mix color and making you focus on the components of color (value, temperature and chroma). As time went by, I modified the limited palette to suit my needs, but pretty much stayed with primaries, ivory black and white. Last year, when I started working in a more indirect manner, using glazes and scumbling, I knew that I needed to address opacity vs transparency, something I'd not ever really thought much about.

I started out by working with the transparent colors that are well known and obvious- ivory black, burnt sienna, sap green, ultramarine blue. I also already had a color called Shale by Vasari on my palette which is a rich warm transparent dark with a violet undertone. An artist friend suggested I try Indian Yellow - and that was all it took- I was hooked. Wow! what a color! Where had it been all my life!! What other colors had I been ignoring?!?

A little research quickly led me to Gamblin. I was already using some of their products (Gamsol, primarily) so I checked out their line of transparent colors. Now many are in my paint box- transparent orange (every bit as wonderful as it sounds), transparent earth yellow, transparent earth red, ultramarine violet, brown pink (delicious!), hansa yellow light, terre verte, olive green and indanthrone blue. I've also added naples yellow, which is opaque, but mixes beautifully with many of these transparent colors.

So that is how I went from three colors to a "joy ride in a paint box"( as Churchill once famously said) .

The Magic Panel & A New Gallery

2008-03-29T19:11:00.007-05:00

Sunset Pool; Oil 20 x 24
Available at Hildt Galleries, Chicago
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Thanks to everyone who commented or emailed me about making painting panels. I really appreciate all the good information I received. I also tracked down the artist who made the one I found in my studio - which we now refer to as the magic panel -and got her "recipe" for silky smooth panels on birch plywood. So I am making panels this weekend and also plan to try a couple of the commercially prepared ones recommended by several of you who contacted me.

I'm happy to say I am now represented by Hildt Galleries in Chicago. They sell 19th and early 20th century art as well as represent a small group of contemporary artists.

Angus Grazing at Dusk

2008-03-28T17:15:00.003-05:00

Angus Grazing at Dusk 8 x 8 oil
Please contact me if interested in this piece

This image has been floating around in my head ever since the drive back from Amarillo almost a month ago. I figure if its still there in my head, I'd better go ahead and paint it.

A Spring Evening

2008-03-20T15:17:00.005-05:00

A Spring Evening oil on board 10 x 10
Available at Hildt Galleries, Chicago

In this piece I'm jumping the gun a bit, meteorologically speaking. Most of the trees around here are still bare but there are a few tantalizing glimpses of spring- flowering trees, daffodils and iris and longer, warmer days. And besides, a girl can dream, can't she?

The big news, at least for me, with this piece is that I painted it on gessoed plywood board instead of canvas. I have pretty much always painted on canvas. When I first began to explore painting in a more indirect way- under painting, glazes, etc- I read a lot about how glazes work better on a smooth surface. I resisted that for a couple of reasons-the main one being that I didn't think I could use the dry brush technique I like to use in my under paintings as effectively without some drag from my painting surface. Another being fear. So when I found this silky smooth board in my studio the other day, I'm not sure why I decided to try it. But boy, am I glad I did! I loved painting on this surface and while it certainly made the paint behave a bit differently, I really loved the way it took glazes. The paint just seemed to float on top of the surface making this lovely atmospheric envelope. Now the problem is I have no idea where this board came from! I'm pretty sure it was handmade, not commercially prepared. So, Steve (my husband) and I have been experimenting this week with gessoed masonite. I found some good information on line about preparing these boards, but I still have lots of questions - like how many coats of gesso, do you need to sand in between or just at the end, whether or not you need to seal them in some way so they are not too absorbent and what to do about larger pieces. So if any of you out there have answers to these questions, I'd love to hear from you!

J.M.W. Turner in Dallas- Part 2

2008-03-18T12:09:00.009-05:00

This is the second post on my visit to the exhibition J.M.W. Turner at the Dallas Museum of Art. You can read the first post here.

As I mentioned in my first post, I always feel a bit like I am entering a shrine when I go to an exhibition of this sort. Both as an artist and a lover of art (and those can be two completely different things) being in the presence of the work of an artist I admire and revere is a humbling and reverent experience. In Turner's case, it is perhaps doubly so because his work has had a profound and transformative influence on the art of landscape itself and on the work of so many artists including me.

It is not exaggeration to say that Turner, along with his contemporary John Constable, charted the course of landscape art from a backwater, second class genre to the towering achievement of late nineteenth century art, Impressionism. Turner has been called the first impressionist but I think that is a simplistic, linear way of looking at what he achieved. What he set out to do and did was to express the idea of light, air and atmosphere in his paintings.

When Turner turned to oil painting he came to the medium as an accomplished watercolorist. His early works were completed in a traditional way on a dark toned ground and worked up with a fairly well developed under painting followed by opaque touches and some glazing to bring the whole to completion. As his career progressed, partly because of his watercolor background and partly because of his fascination with Venetian painting techniques, he began to experiment with the use of light colored grounds which would be more reflective and create luminosity, especially when used in concert with glazing. Turner was avidly interested in the new pigments which were becoming available, particularly in yellow and whites, which he believed were necessary to express light in his pictures. He often used a mixed media approach, using both oil and watercolor in the same painting. His experimentation has unfortunately led to some of his paintings being in extremely poor condition - even during his own lifetime.

His quest to portray light and atmosphere also resulted in the forms in his paintings becoming less substantial, often dissolving into or emerging from the light through veils of translucent color. Contemporary accounts of his painting methods indicate that he relied heavily both on glazing and scumbling to achieve these effects. The result are works which appear startlingly modern. Subject matter was essential to Turner but light and color became the most important formal concerns of his art. In that way, he seems to actually leap frog over the Impressionists into modernity - toward Helen Frankenthaler and Rothko.

But Turner most certainly loved the landscape and his devotion to its many facets comes through in these works. He used light and color to describe the idea of the Sublime with which he believed the natural world to be imbued. It is that, for me, which gives these works power and timelessness.

Twilight at Honey Grove Creek

2008-03-15T18:06:00.006-05:00

Twilight at Honey Grove Creek Oil 10 x 10
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On my way home from Dallas last weekend, I took a new route. I discovered some wonderful countryside and several new creeks and streams. With so much rain/snow the previous week, all the newly plowed fields had puddles and flooded areas- favorite motifs for me. But who could resist a creek called Honey Grove?

I had intended to write my second post about the Turner show and post it this weekend. It's all composed in my head and I've even written a little outline, but the studio called today. Tomorrow- I promise.

J.M.W. Turner in Dallas

2008-03-11T11:01:00.011-05:00

As I mentioned in my previous post, this last Sunday I traveled to Dallas to do a demo and talk for the Pastel Society of the Southwest. Luckily for me, I was able to spend about a half a day at the Dallas Museum of Art which is hosting the exhibit J.M.W. Turner. This exhibit, which was selected by curators of the National Gallery in Washington, the Dallas Museum of Art and the Metropolitan Museum in New York in collaboration with Ian Warrell of Tate Britain, is billed as the largest and most comprehensive retrospective of Turner's work ever presented in the United States. The paintings are beautifully hung in large galleries- dimly lit, with rich jewel tones on the walls- which show the 140 works to great dramatic effect. For me, it was like visiting a shrine.

J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851) is acknowledged as one of the greatest landscape painters in the history of art. Turner's impact on the art of landscape began early in his own lifetime and has pretty much continued unabated to the present day. When he began his life as a professional artist, landscape was considered a second class genre of painting, important only as a backdrop for historical and classical scenes. By the time of his death, he had transformed landscape painting into a vibrant, modern subject for artists who followed him.

The exhibition is organized chronologically, beginning with early watercolors and ending with Turner's late, almost abstract works. Turner's original medium was watercolor but he soon began painting in oil as well. Oil was the only medium which would provide entrance into membership of the prestigious Royal Academy. The painting above, Fisherman at Sea, was the first oil painting Turner exhibited at the Royal Academy. Eventually, he became the youngest artist to ever be elected to full membership. This subject of ships and storms at sea was one he would return to throughout his entire life.

The exhibition follows Turner's career and includes huge oils that are fine and famous examples of other subjects which he returned to over many decades- Venice, contemporary events like the Battle of Trafalgar, whaling, sailing regattas, and views from his numerous travels throughout Europe. Many of the larger paintings are shown with watercolor sketches which were done as studies for the larger works and show the development of his visual ideas. One of the most effective presentations is the gallery containing two oil paintings which Turner painted of the fires that consumed the Houses of Parliament on October 16, 1834.

Turner actually witnessed this event and returned to his studio to produce the watercolor sketches which are displayed with the two oils. These watercolors are among the most beautiful I have ever seen- dramatic spare compositions with almost abstract shapes of luminous color.

Turner's art was in large part dedicated to the idea of the Sublime - a concept which had been around since antiquity, but enjoyed a particular resurgence in the eighteenth and early 19th century. The Sublime as applied to landscape was the idea that certain views or scenes, whether grand, vast, even horrible or terrifying, could evoke feelings of rapture, closeness to divinity, and expansion of the mind. The Romantic sensibility of Turner's time embraced the idea of the Sublime. Turner came to understand that in order to capture it, he must find ways to paint which sensuously presented light, air and atmosphere rather than detail. In my next post, I'll write about those technical aspects of Turner's art and how he revolutionized the art of landscape painting.

March Snow

2008-03-07T18:15:00.009-06:00

March Snow Oil 6 x 6
$100 + shipping
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Winter just won't give up- we have had snow twice this week. This doesn't happen often here- although there is some difference of opinion about what that means. Our mail delivery person (mail lady?) says twice a year (she's batting a 1000 as of today) but our wood delivery guys say every couple of years, in which case we had two years worth of snow this week.

Sunday I am heading to Dallas to do a demo and talk for the Pastel Society of the Southwest. Happily, the big show of landscape giant J.M.W. Turner is at the Dallas Museum of Art right now. This show, which originated at the National Gallery, includes 140 oils and watercolors, many from the Tate Britain which have never been seen in this country. Turner is a huge influence on my work, so this is a rare treat and I can hardly wait!

A Dispatch from the Bubble

2008-02-29T10:35:00.007-06:00

My husband and I set out a year or so ago to simplify our lives and to create - as we call it - "the Bubble". This is the place (both geographical and internal) where we can do what we do in a simple, purposeful way. For me, that means painting and trying to mine the vein of visual ideas that the landscape suggests to me. I have talked a little about this here.

Writing this blog has become an unexpected part of the Bubble for me. In addition to the opportunity to connect with other artists all over the world, the small paintings I have produced and posted here became the seeds of ideas for larger works and even series of paintings. Because I was doing many of these little paintings rather than just a few larger ones, I was able to develop the ideas more quickly and also to adjust the technical changes that were occurring in my work more quickly. The change in my working process from direct painting to using indirect traditional methods like glazing also contributed to this- making it necessary to have several pieces going at once, rather than the simple start and finish approach I have always used before.

So what I am posting here are two beginnings - lay ins which are done in the manner I talked about here - of a series of 10-12 larger paintings now in progress. These are all based on the same visual idea, the seed of which is the small Rick's Pool paintings I posted over the last several months. Here in the Bubble we find this to be fascinating stuff, but I realize it may be less than compelling to you out there in the world. On the other hand, all artists I know have a pretty intense inner life going, so hopefully you'll forgive this little navel gazing glimpse into mine.

A rift in the time/space continuum of the Bubble occurs this weekend when we travel to Canyon, Texas for the opening of the Panhandle Plains Museum Invitational on Saturday. I have talked about the Museum and this show here, and am looking forward to the road trip, seeing the Museum again, and visiting with artist friends I know who will be there.

Winter Greys #4

2008-02-25T16:21:00.007-06:00

Winter Grey's #4 oil 6 x 6
$100 + shipping

This is the last of the Winter Greys series I think. I actually painted this back in December on one of those spectacular foggy winter days, but forgot to post it. Today it was 70 and spring does in fact seem near. I am working on some larger pieces for shows and galleries which is at least one of the reasons posting has been more sporadic. I'll post some work in progress if nothing else later this week.

After The Rain

2008-02-17T13:09:00.005-06:00

After the Rain oil 6 x 6
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Well, the flirtation ended abruptly. The last few days have been cold, windy, rainy-decidedly unspring-like. I don't really mind- I love the winter color harmonies and I'm not sure I'm ready for green 24/7.

Clear Creek Evening

2008-02-10T17:52:00.002-06:00

Clear Creek Evening oil 6 x 5
$100 + shipping
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Yesterday was another delightful day- Spring seductively wafting through the air. Then last evening I could swear I heard the hum of insects, may be even a cricket or two. It couldn't be, could it? I mean, it is February, isn't it?

Bogata Barns

2008-02-08T14:37:00.002-06:00

Bogata Barns 6 x 5 oil
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Today was a beautiful sunny day with mild temperatures. It felt and even smelled different. And then at sunset I noticed that the sun had moved a little to the north. Is winter over? I doubt it, but Spring sent out a scout today.

Winter Crows

2008-02-06T16:55:00.002-06:00

Winter Crows Oil 6 x 6
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We have some crows that hang out on our property. I love watching birds but I am not a big fan of crows. They do make a lot of racket but what I really don't like is that they raid other birds' nests. Last summer I watched from my studio window as a pair of them took on a snake -they won. But, I must admit they make an elegant, albeit slightly sinister, accent in the winter landscape.

Winter Field

2008-02-01T18:28:00.001-06:00

Winter Field- 12 x 12 oil
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Some of you may recognize this painting- a small version of this was posted a few weeks ago. I liked it and decided to try to size it up to use for the Panhandle Plains Museum show. I wasn't sure if I could recreate the texture in the field with the dry brush technique I mentioned in the previous post. I made a few changes but overall I think it worked out well.

I also got some good news late yesterday! I had two paintings accepted into the prestigious Salon International show at Greenhouse Gallery.

Starts and Finishes

2008-01-30T16:27:00.000-06:00

Over the last couple of months I have gotten several emails asking questions about various aspects of my painting process. Since I don't have a small painting to post today, I thought it might be a good time to write about that... if anyone happens to be interested. First, I should say that my painting process has changed pretty radically over the last year, so what I say here isn't something I've been doing a long while or am even sure is the way I should be doing it. Previously and for many years , I worked in a fairly direct way- not exactly alla prima (except outdoors) but definitely direct. Now, I am painting in a more indirect method which involves using layers of paint - and more passages of transparent paint. So here is a typical lay in using a color made by Vasari called Shale. It is the workhorse dark on my palette- I like it because its transparent and has a warm violet undertone. I used to thin my paint with OMS for this stage, but now I often use an almost dry brush technique to put this first layer down because it will show through in portions of the finished painting. This is also why I like a linen with a little bit of texture so that I can also use that texture to describe elements of the landscape, like here, where the texture of the canvas and the drybrush help describe the field. I also use a rag to wipe out lights and a palette knife to scrape out finer lights.

Here is the next stage of the painting where more transparent layers have been added to the trees and also the field. When you are planning to use layers of glazes you have to be very careful not to get things too dark too quickly. Unlike a more direct method - where you can always adjust the value of a shape with another coat of opaque paint- if you want to keep that area transparent, you have to get it exactly right from the start (which is always a good idea anyway!). In addition, because successive glazes will darken the glazed area, you have to start a bit lighter than you plan to end up. I will also use a scumble occasionally( a thinned translucent layer of paint, usually containing white or some other light opaque mixture) to lighten an area, or to soften edges and create atmosphere. I use Liquin as a medium. I also use it between layers to "oil out" the painting- that is to bring the colors and values back to their original state so another layer can be accurately judged against what has already been laid down. Here, the opaque portions of the painting, the water and sky, haven't been laid in yet but the light value of the canvas "stands in" for that value. Using transparent paint in the darks and opaque paint in the lights is pretty standard procedure, but I like to mix it up sometimes, using mostly transparent paint for the entire piece like here or transparent paint in some of the lights, like here.

Here is the finished painting. The sky and water have been added with opaque paint (Naples yellow and Gamblin Brown Pink + a touch of white) and then glazed over with several transparent layers. More layers have been added to the trees and ground plane, creating what I hope is a rich color harmony. This painting is available at Ernest Fuller Fine Art in Denver, Colorado.

Winter Greys #3

2008-01-27T11:30:00.001-06:00

Winter Greys #3 oil 6 x 6
$100 + $10 shipping
This week we had freezing rain followed by freezing fog. I have to admit, that's a new one to me! I do love the color harmonies it produces in the landscape - and the utter bareness of the trees and the muffled quality of both color and sound. Its such a lovely contrast to the sensual melancholy of fall and the lush exuberance of spring.

EmptyEasel Feature

2008-01-23T10:46:00.000-06:00

This morning a nice surprise in my inbox- an email from Dan at EmptyEasel letting me know that my work is being featured today here. So, click on over and read it!