Tea Pot and Mayer's Handbook - WIP

First pass on new set up, yet another tea pot. I like the shapes in them. The green book is a very old copy of Ralph Mayer’s The Artist's Handbook of Materials and Techniques. Mayer’s book is a excellent reference book for artists, it opened my eyes to a lot of the traditional procedures and materials of oil painting. If I had not discovered this book years ago, buried on the University library shelf, I would have probably quit art school.

The Artist's Handbook of Materials and Techniques by RalphMayer (1895–1979)

You can find it as a free download in several places online.

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Ripe Pear

I have been working on some alla-prima studies, which is a more direct wet into wet painting technique, I work this way mostly on location when doing plein air work / landscapes but it is a good approach in the studio also. It allows you to apply paint in a looser and often more expressive, direct way. Plus there is a lot of instant gratification in this method.

Ripe Pear, oil on panel, 5 x 7 inch © Jim Serrett

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Bottle Collection III - WIP and the constant reminder

I am constantly reminded -  just because you have looked at something, doesn’t mean that you have seen it. Painting is often a practice of being present and that focused attention is a type of discipline that runs directly counter to the high-speed, plugged in digital world we live in.

So I wondered if I would have this still life done in time for a post this month but instead of rushing along, I decided to slow down and take a longer look at it. I think it could stand another pass with just a bit of nudging here and there. For such a simple arrangement of objects there are a lot of things going on. Some very subtle reflections and color notes. And to observe and capture those unique nuances has been a slow go.

At this point I think I will let it live a while there on the easel and wrangle with it just a little more. It’s like a small military campaign and the battleground is my palette and the canvas the spoils of war.

 “If There Is No Struggle, There Is No Progress”  Frederick Douglass

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Happy Independence Day

In the painting Independence Day, Andrew Wyeth portrays his longtime friend and neighbor Tom Clark sitting on a porch alongside a billowing American flag. Clark lived in a small African American community in Chadds Ford known as “Little Africa,” which had originated as a Quaker stop on the Underground Railroad. Beginning in 1957, Wyeth produced numerous drawings and watercolors of Clark, whose physical features captivated the artist.

The composition and lighting are dramatic and suggestive of the times. Painted in 1961 an important year in the civil rights movement I cannot help but think Wyeth was making a social comment here. I like this analysis of the work, “The composition isolates Tom Clark from the flag, but this flag is broad and expansive, and capable of extending freedom to all Americans.”

Happy Independence Day !!

Andrew Wyeth (1917-2009) Independence Day, watercolor on paper, 14 x 20 inches

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Astonishing Mango

“I Will Astonish Paris with an Apple.”  Paul Cézanne

What strikes me most regarding Cezanne was the way he spoke about and communicated form and space, changing the structure of planes of objects to express that idea and drag the viewer into his reality. I think his quote “I Will Astonish Paris with an Apple.” was not about the apple but showing a different perception of the world and expressing it in a meaningful way. And, is that not the biggest mission of an artist or at least one of its rewards?

I will be fine just astonishing myself with a Mango on a piece of plywood. I truly enjoyed painting this fruit, the color and form with it's gradations and transitions, it was fascinating to paint. All the nice weaves of complementary color with interesting neutrals – just the thing to get some palette mixing nirvana going.

When you find the truth of a thing, you will find the beauty in it.

The mango painting was done with a limited palette of Alizarin Crimson, Cadmium Yellow Light,

Ultramarine Blue, and Burnt Sienna

This limited palette is a color triad of high chroma and fairly vivid hues, however when mixed with white or neutralized and grayed down it is a remarkable balanced and harmonious palette. There is a nice range of transparent dark's and opaque lights representing a wide range of values. With the addition of a earth color or gray you will be surprised at the broad spectrum of color you can achieve with this limited palette. Overall a great compact palette that will teach much about color mixing and can pretty much reach anything you want.

You see many artist producing color charts to gain understanding of color mixing, which is a great exercise and should be done. But nothing accelerates that understanding more than practical experience of color matching and observation.

Keep in mind that all color is relative, every color has an inherent characteristic when seen in isolation such as a red that is warm leaning towards orange or a blue that is cool with a bias to green but those cool or warm attributes will change with the interaction of the colors surrounding it.

You must ask yourself comparative questions, what is the name of this color? Literally name it on the color wheel. Then ask is it a cooler version or warm version of that hue? Is lighter? Darker? How intense a color or how gray?

Color is always comparative and relative ………..

Paul Cézanne (1839–1906) Biography

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Astonishing Mango oil on panel 8 x 10 inches ©jimserrettstudio

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Bottles and Pomegranate

I liked the rhythm and design of the bottles next to the solid mass of the pomegranate, with a really nice color palette between the background and the objects.  Items on my still life shelf sometime just seem to compose themselves, and well when that happens, you have to just paint them.

Bottles and Pomegranate oil on panel 8 x 10 inches © Jim Serrett

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Coffee with Rothko - Underpainting Techniques – Demonstration Five- Part III the ébauche underpainting - WIP

                           

Here is the final work on the ébauche painting, titled Coffee with Rothko. I have always enjoyed Mark Rothko’s work. His paintings are surprisingly meditative and contemplative, and if you have ever been up close to one, they are very spatial with a remarkable simplicity. He could go into great descriptions about the hidden meaning and symbolism in his work, alleging his work is based on mythology and philosophy, conveying the spiritual. What Rothko’s paintings lack in skill and craftsmanship he made up for by creating a dialogue about his work and inspiring people to discern their meaning. Don’t get me wrong Rothko was one of my early artistic influences and I would love to sit down, have a cup of coffee with him and ask just how much of his rhetoric was art speak and bullshit. 

Jim Serrett, Coffee with Rothko, oil on panel, 12 x 16 in, © Jim Serrett Studio

You will read over and over that art is subjective. What moves one person may not move another… on that I will agree. But there is a means by which we can quantify a work of art and it has very little to do with what explanation is written, what critics state or academics affirm about a work of art.

It is why people work hard and intensely all their lives creating art.

  “He who works with his hands is a laborer.

  He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman.

  He who works with his hands and his head and his heart is an artist.”

                                                                            ― Francis of Assisi

Pronunciation -  ébauche: ay•boash


Links:
Mark Rothko

Underpainting Techniques

Bistre Method - wipe out

Grisaille underpainting

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Underpainting Techniques – Demonstration Five- Part II the ébauche underpainting - WIP

So here I am at the end of my first pass over the ébauche. I am using the color ébauche over a white ground, but different types of ébauche have been done through history, artist have used the color ébauche over top of a grisaille and in conjunction with a wipe out or bristre underpainting. So the main differences here in this type of underpainting compared to that of a grisaille (monochromatic underpainting) is that you have light passing through the thin layers of paint reflecting back off of the white ground the base color or local color. And as I work through the first pass the ébauche underneath supports the new color note and gives this very nice and sympathetic foundation to paint over top of. 

So I push through the first pass, relating each color note (hue-value-chroma) and passage, following the pattern of light, I keep dialing in closer and closer the resolution and fine tuning the image. In this layer I wanted to think more about dimension, where light hits and does not hit, what catches light and what is in shadow.

In some ways this is harder than using a grisaille because you are working color with form at the same time and you need to be very aware of the values you are using, building up your darks. In others ways easier because your color notes are in harmony with the layer underneath and you are describing the major forms so much quicker and getting the “big” picture, dialing in the finished image. What it does give you is an understanding of why through history artist have used this indirect painting process in its different variations, each had its advantages, and it was up to the artist to determine which method would be best suited for a given picture.
Next post - the finish.

“Learning never exhausts the mind.” ~Leonardo da Vinci

Pronunciation -  ébauche: ay•boash

Links:

Underpainting Techniques

Bistre Method - wipe out

Grisaille underpainting

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Thanks for Listening 2014

Wishing you peace, good health, and happiness in 2015.

Thank you to all my friends, colleagues, collectors, bloggers and loved ones who made 2014 such a wonderful year.

For all of you I am truly grateful.

To my wonderful wife, no words can express how thankful I am for you.

I look forward to sharing more work and ideas about the process of art in 2015!

Jim

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes."

-- Marcel Proust

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Underpainting Techniques – Demonstration Five - the ébauche underpainting - WIP

I start the painting by creating a preparatory drawing. Working from life I develop a simple but accurate “contour drawing” using a straight line "block-in" and use comparative measurements to find the big relationships "enveloping" all of the objects in the composition as one main shape. Drawing the largest shapes first and breaking them down into smaller and smaller components. The emphasis in the drawing at first should be simple straight lines, thinking in in terms of angles and tilts makes comparative measurements of one area to another easy. This helps in refining the block-in with confidence, creating a very accurate and economical map of the forms and objects. There are some prior posts here about the drawing process.

What I want in the drawing is a strong composition and a good foundation to work from, I want to look at the big picture not the details, check and measure the spatial relationships, and pay close attention to the negative and positive spaces. I will make many revisions on this simple contour drawing until I feel that I have established an accurate map of the major shapes. It’s not that I need a lot of information, I just need truthful information. When I am happy with the drawing I do a graphite transfer to a canvas panel.

Once I have my line drawing on panel I start the ébauche or first block-in with color. The term ébauche is a French word that in translation means “draft” or “rough sketch” and is most often associated with the French academies and traditional 19th century academic training. It is a form of underpainting that uses a thinly applied lay-in of dominant colors that describe the major forms.

As an underpainting “the ébauche” is used to approximate the qualities of color and value in their true relationship and quickly establish the overall appearance of the painting. Painted loosely and thinly, it somewhat resembles a watercolor. Unlike monochromatic under-painting techniques, the wash-in is fully chromatic, which allows the modeling of form immediately and gradually with hue, value and chroma. I like this process and use variations of it when painting on location and from life, it allows you to really establish the overall design and general effect of the painting quickly. 

Next post - the first pass.

Pronunciation -  ébauche: ay•boash

Links:
Under-painting Techniques
Painting Techniques

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