Several readers wrote to let me know they were having trouble viewing the images in my last post. So I am reposting them. Thanks to those of you who let me know!
You should be able to click on all images for a larger view.
This first image is a painting which is headed to the Small Works, Great Wonders show at the National Western Heritage Museum in OK City.
Woods Lake Interior
20 x 16
I am hard at work on some larger paintings, but here are several drawings and a few small paintings.
This past week I spent several days in a beautiful aspen grove. On about the third day I decided to do a study of an individual aspen tree. I noticed what I thought was an odd growth tucked between two branches. I got out my binoculars and discovered it was a broadtail hummingbird sitting on her nest! I spent a delightful couple of hours watching her as I worked on the drawing.
On my last day I spent a few hours doing a study of the trunk and branching of a ponderosa pine.
it's been a wonderful trip. I am headed back to Texas, but will return to Colorado in just a few weeks to teach a workshop in Telluride.
I am in Colorado on a two week sketching trip! The mountains are beautiful and the air is cool, but I still seem to find myself in the woods, whether it's an aspen grove or stands of huge ponderosa pines. Here are a few drawings. All are charcoal on toned paper.
I am happy to say I have been invited to exhibit at the Western Visions Show & Sale at the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson, WY in September. This small oil will be part of the fixed price sale, while the drawing will be in the "Sketch" silent auction.
I have just a few spots open in my most popular online class Drawing & Painting Trees. Class begins on October 26 and you can register here. Not sure if an online class is right for you? Check out student comments here.
Although I am working on six paintings in the studio for an upcoming show at Blackheath Gallery in London, I am also taking time to do some drawing. This is always a good way for me to unwind when I come off an intense period in the studio, or in this case, at the show in Telluride. Vine charcoal and toned paper is a favorite drawing medium.
I still have a few spots left in one of my most popular online classes- Drawing & Painting Trees, which starts next month. You can click here for information and registration. Wondering if an online class might be right for you? Be sure to check out student comments here.
I am in the midst of teaching my online class The Painted Sky. It's a wonderful time of year for it- the big cumulus clouds are building up in the afternoons, and the heat and humidity are creating wonderful hazy light and spectacular sunsets. I've also been doing some field research on sketching methods for my new online class Field Sketching for Landscape Painters which I'll be teaching this fall.
As part of my classes and workshops, I always include some art history and use both contemporary and historical examples to demonstrate concepts we are learning. In the case of this new class, my goal is to give students some basic information and tools to study Nature in the field and gather reference material for studio works. So many aspiring landscape painters are simply taken outdoors to paint without any preparation, drawing skills, or basic knowledge of composition and values. In fact, this is the standard model, such as it is, for training for landscape painters today.
If we go back and look at how landscape painters learned their craft and art in the 18th and 19th centuries, we will see that a rich tradition of drawing and sketching was undertaken in the field, both in close studies of individual elements like trees, rocks and plants and general sketching of compositions. Painted studies followed these efforts. So, I try to incorporate these methods in my teaching, providing not only techniques but examples of these works.
This study started with a simple thumbnail sketch of a sky observed in my backyard.
Using toned paper was a well known technique for making sky studies in the late 18th and 19th centuries. The paper creates a value for the sky and midtones, shadows and highlights can be created with the black and white charcoal and white pastel. It is particularly well suited for cloud studies. Here's a detail of the drawing. All of the images can be clicked on for a larger view.
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Summer Woods
7 3/4 x 8 1/4 Vine Charcoal on Canson paper
This week it was hot in Texas with big well developed cumulus clouds forming in the afternoons. When we moved here a few years ago, I really missed those clouds. We seemed to just get high cirrus clouds. But, this summer we've had the big boys! Yesterday I saw some really large ones, all stacked up to the north as I was walking back from the studio to the house in late afternoon. Soon after, a ferocious storm blew in and our power was knocked out for a few hours. This morning I noticed one of the huge old white oaks across the road had come down.
Whenever I am out of the studio for a while - as I have been for the last few weeks- it takes me a while to get back into the rhythm of long days spent at the easel. When I leave there are usually works in progress and plenty of ideas for new pieces that languish in my absence. Starting on those immediately would feel like jumping into the deep end of the pool, so I stick my toe in and wade out to the deeper waters slowly. Usually, I do this by drawing-nothing serious in the way of finished drawings, but simply reacquainting myself with visual ideas by doing pages and pages of thumbnail sketches. This always builds excitement and within a day or so I am ready to start.
Southwest Corner
Vine Charcoal on Strathmore paper
I have just announced a new online course- Studio & Business Practices for Successful Artists. I am really excited about this class. There are lots of courses on the business side of art, but I think what I have to offer is unique-the straight scoop from a working artist-from the trenches so to speak. There is a direct connection between what happens in the studio and the business side of art, particularly sales, and this course is designed to explore that connection. As a working artist with a business background (my former life) I think I have a valuable perspective and wealth of knowledge and information which can save years of trial and error. This course is for professional artists as well as those who don't want or need to make a living from their art, but want to be better artists, sell more work and gain more recognition. Go here for more information and to register.
Moon Over Myakka 7 1/2 x 10 Vine charcoal and white conte on Twinrocker handmade paper
I made this drawing as a study for a painting for my solo show at M Gallery of Fine Art in Sarasota next month. My husband says its hokey- well actually, I asked him if he thought it was, and he said yes. Note to self: don't ask questions you don't want the answer to. I prefer to think its romantic.
The trouble is that images of Florida can seem trite even though they are of real places that actually exist (like this one). There is a sort of image overload out there that can't sort out what's real, photography, fine art, or a plastic place mat at the diner. But, of course, there are people out there that think the landscape itself is trite, and how sad is that?
I was born and raised in Florida. I am intimately acquainted with both her real beauty as well as the cheap dime store lipstick and plastic alligator version. I just hope I can do her justice.
Blue Moon - 11 x 9 Vine charcoal and white conte on Twinrocker handmade paper Available at Deborah Paris Fine Art
The full moon - the blue moon- was incredibly bright this week- lighting up the night and making for some wonderful moonlit landscapes. This drawing was made on one of several new papers I received from Twinrocker last week. I've been doing a little research on laid papers which were used by late 18th and early 19th century artists like J.M.W. Turner and Thomas Girtin. Both Turner and Gertin used a blue laid paper similar, I think, to this one. This one is called Cornflower Blue and is actually bluer than it appears on the screen. I'm getting great pleasure from experimenting with these different surfaces.
I've only a couple of spots left in the Drawing & Painting Trees online class starting in February. I've also scheduled a new Painting the Luminous Landscape online class which begins March 26, and a brand new class called The Painted Sky. Information and registration for all classes ishere.
Morning Fog- 8 1/4 x 10 1/4 Vine charcoal on Twinrocker handmade paper Available at Deborah Paris Fine Art
I'm about 24 hours behind on this post but I did not want the day to end before wishing you all Merry Christmas. After a lovely Christmas Eve with family we woke to a dusting of snow here in northeast Texas. Tonight was cold and starry. God bless us, everyone.
Stream Study -7 1/2 x 6 3/4 Vine Charcoal on Strathmore paper Available at Deborah Paris Fine Art Sold
For artists there are few things that can match the excitement of new materials. A trip to the art supply store is like a pilgrimage. Living in a very rural area has curtailed that particular pleasure for me, as my supplies these days arrive in bundles from the UPS guy. Still, one of the first things I do when a new roll of canvas arrives is unwrap it and unroll just a little so I can feel and smell it.
A few weeks ago artist Brian McGurgan mentioned on his blog a source for paper-Twinrocker Handmade Paper. As I am teaching an online class on drawing and painting trees soon, Ive been trying out different papers for pencil and charcoal. So, I ordered their sample swatch set and a few small sheets of one of their papers. What pure delight to open that package and find such beautiful papers! That day the UPS guy looked a lot like Santa.
Tree Study 5 1/4 x 9 1/4 Vine charcoal on Twinrocker handmade paper Sold
Landscape painters often think they don't need to draw. Or, if they do, they study life drawing but leave the drawing materials in the studio rather than taking them to the field. In the 19th century artists often used drawing as a way to record information which would later be used in studio paintings. Although we think of the 19th century as the time when droves of landscape painters headed outdoors, often they brought their sketchbooks rather than their paints.
Drawing lends itself to both the sketch -what John Constable called "that which you were at the time" -and the more considered study. In both cases the economical time and materials invested in a drawing can bear much fruit.
Study of Mangrove Trees 7 1/2 x 9 3/4 Vine charcoal on Strathmore paper
Thumbnail sketches help us explore compositional ideas, sketches can quickly record a fleeting effect, and studies provide raw material for studio work. I've also come to see recently that my drawings often help me work out the visual shorthand I need to describe something in a painterly way.
My new online class- Drawing & Painting Trees- filled so quickly that I've opened up a second section for those who missed out. Information and registration is here. Update: 5 spots left!
Every once in a while you have to shut down and reboot your artistic energy . I've just come off an intense three months in which I completed almost 40 paintings for various shows and events. Although I have a solo show coming up in February at M Gallery in Sarasota, this week I just couldn't pick up a brush. Instead, I made a series of charcoal drawings- some studies for paintings I have in mind to do for the show and some simply for pleasure. I feel better already!
Southwest Corner 7 1/4 x 8 7/8 Vine charcoal on Strathmore 500 paper
For landscape artists, trees are arguably the most important raw material of our craft and art.Their very individual character, their attitude as living beings within the landscape make them a source of endless fascination and challenge for the artist. Artists in the 19th century routinely sketched and painted studies of these sentinels of nature in order to understand their structure as well as their artistic bearing. These drawings and studies were then used to create larger studio works.
I have a new online class scheduled- Drawing and Painting Trees. I plan to structure it as an online atelier for the study of this most important subject. You can go HERE (scroll down) to read more and to register. Class is limited to 10 students - 3 spots left!
