"21 Under 31" Feature in Southwest Magazine

I'm proud to say I am being featured in the September 2012 issue of Southwest Art magazine in their annual article on emerging artists, "21 Under 31: Young Artists to Collect." This is the first major publication to feature my artwork, so I was very happy to receive the news. There are lots of impressive young artists joining me in this issue. Many of my favorite artists have been featured in the same article in past years, with Jeremy Lipking at the top of the list (I believe it was the first article that he was published in as well).

You can grab it at the newsstands in a couple of weeks, or read my little interview on their site by clicking here.

Little cloud

Here's a little painting I finished today. I've been inspired lately by NC Wyeth, Maynard Dixon and Edgar Payne. I've been fighting with myself for awhile, trying to decide if I need to stick to painting a certain thing and become known for that. But I have the most fun painting when I'm expanding my horizons and trying different things, so I've decided to just paint whatever I want. For better or for worse, at least I'll be having fun!

Desert Flower, 8"x8", oil on panel

Little update

Thought I should say hi and share some news, so you know I haven't dropped of the face of the earth! I've actually been busier than ever, just not so great at the blog updates. Last weekend I did my first "art walk", in Montrose, CA--one of my favorite places. I've been showing in galleries and other venues for the last year, so I wanted to give the outdoor thing a try as well.

Another first was my public demo, conducted in my tent. It was an interesting way to work, stopping and starting throughout the day, paint drying much faster than I'm used to in the warm breeze, and bugs and dirt sticking to the surface as buses passed. I experimented a little, and I think it has a cool "fresco" kind of look.

"Farmland Study" 9"x12" Oil on panel

In other news, I'm finishing up a ten-week anatomy course that was just what I needed. I took it online at www.scott-eaton.com, and I very highly recommend it.

More soon!

Wrapping brushes

I've started wrapping my brushes now and then to keep my flat brushes flat. This is a nice video to show you how to do it. It's helped a lot to keep my brushes from going bad fast, now that I'm painting every day.

(Thank you to artist Kristy Gordon for the video!)



More later! I've been too busy painting to blog much recently but I'll have a painting in progress to show soon, start to finish. :)

Studio Lighting for Poor People Who Aren't Allowed to Screw Anything Into the Ceiling.

With the time change this week, I realized that by 4 pm it was too dark to paint in my studio! It usually takes me until about noon to really get in the painting groove, so I was finally forced to make a trip to Home Depot last night and find a solution to my problem. Hurrah! All it took was a couple daylight bulbs, and a $20 shoplight. This was good, because I have chosen to keep painting instead of getting a "real" job, despite the fact that I may need to start eating Saltines for breakfast. 

When my husband came home from work, he said that our living room looked like a meth lab. "Except for all the paintings," he said helpfully.

Useful information: I found that by using a combination of "daylight" bulbs (blue light), and "soft white" (more yellow light), I could actually see the colors of my paint accurately. This is good, unless you are a fan of alarming realizations first thing in the morning. For example, that the gray sidewalk you thought you were painting last night is actually green. (This is a true story, from my more inexperienced days. [Yesterday.])

Bonus tip: It is also helpful to find a floor lamp across the street that your neighbor is throwing away.

Glen Orbik Head Drawing Class

My portrait drawing has taken a leap in the past few weeks, mostly as a result of Glen Orbik's head drawing class at 3Kicks Studio. Here's my drawing from tonight, done in about an hour and a half.

To illustrate just how much I've gotten out of these past few classes, check out my drawing from the first class:

Not too bad, just... boring. The major change, is that I've gone from just trying to make an accurate representation of what I'm seeing, to concentrating on making an accurate, but interesting picture. That's what Glen has been stressing--getting the big shapes in, and then going for a "cool design". If something's straight, make it more straight, if something's curvy, make it more curvy. It's put more of my attention on the fact our job as an artist is not to just copy what we're seeing. Though obviously being able to draw accurately is important, this is the next step.

Meanwhile I've learned some very useful things to understand the head better, which has made my portrait drawing much faster, and more accurate and convincing. The first homework he gave us was to use tracing paper over photographs and find and draw the planes of the head. You can print these same handouts from the website of Glen's teacher: http://www.fredfixler.com/index.php/cave-22/. I highly recommend this exercise--it really makes the planes of the head something you easily and naturally use. The exercises we've been doing from these diagrams have been a key part of what he stresses in finding the rhythms and modeling of the head.

Another thing that Glen has continually recommended is the importance of copying pictures of artists you like in order to learn from them. It really can't be stressed enough. Thought it's obviously up to you, he recommends John Singer Sargent, Andrew Loomis, Charles Gibson, and J.C. Leyendecker--the guy Norman Rockwell wanted to be when he started out.

In conclusion, I very highly recommend this class to anyone who already has their basic drawing skills and wants to be a great portrait artist.

I'm also taking another class, with the incredible Richard Morris. This class is pretty wildly different, and while I'm getting a lot out of it, it's also making my lack of anatomy knowledge painfully evident. Next up--anatomy classes!

Painting on Ampersand Aquabord

I bought a bunch of Bords yesterday at the Utretch art store in Santa Monica. (GREAT store, by the way!) A "Bord" is just Ampersand's way of saying "board." Today I did a watercolor on the Aquabord.

Terrace View, Chicago -- watercolor on board -- 5"x7"

It was an interesting experience working on this clay board, as this was my first time painting watercolor on something besides paper. They say that you can lift the paint back to white easily, but this was not my experience at all. I realized with my first laying of color that once something is on there, it absorbs right into the board--there's really no going back. So I'm not sure why they say that... maybe I'm missing something. I'm used to having at least a small window of time with paper to blot something up, or create a gradation of color. Eventually I learned that if you want to do a wash or a flat, even color over an area, you need to wet the surface first so it doesn't soak right in and create a hard edge on contact. 

One major advantage is that you can spray varnish it and not worry about framing it behind glass--which to me is a pretty big deal when it comes to have to ship the artwork! However, it DOES chip fairly easily. So I would recommend some kind of frame.