8×16″, Golden OPEN Acrylics on sealed, primed hardboard
Email me at JamieWG@aol.com if interested in this painting.

I’ve spent a lot of time over the past couple of days looking at my photo references. Usually I set aside photos that I take that appeal to me for paintings, and place those in a separate file. From time to time, I look back through ones I did not select, and usually find many that appeal to me now, though for some reason they did not grab me at the time. This photo is one that I took a couple of years ago, but happened to stumble upon it yesterday and saw it in a new light.

I did this painting with four of the new Golden OPEN colors: Prussian Blue Hue, Cadmium Yellow Dark, Transparent Yellow Iron Oxide, and Quinacridone Crimson, plus Titanium White. In the end, I also used a little Cadmium Yellow Primrose in the greens to increase the “sparkle factor”. I love these new colors! The Cadmium Yellow Dark mixes rich, warm greens. The Prussian Blue Hue is clean enough for skies, yet muted enough to not take over the painting, and mixes very deep darks (as I was hoping). The Quinacridone Crimson is going to become the new cool red on my palette. Transparent Yellow Oxide is a color I frequently use for underpainting and glazing in both oils and Golden Fluid Acrylics. I’m so glad that I have it now in OPEN as well!

I still vividly remember this bright, late afternoon at the Vanderbilt Mansion property along the Hudson River in Hyde Park, New York. It’s one of the best sunset locations that I’ve ever encountered, and one of the few parks where you can drive right to the river (though they do close the road to the river on weekends). I haven’t done any plein air painting there for a long time, but I think I will change that soon!

8x12 to 12x24, Available, Boats and Ships, Golden OPEN Acrylic Paintings, Hudson River Paintings, Hudson River Valley, Landscape, Portraits and Figures | No Comments »

20×16″, Golden OPEN Acrylics on canvas covered hardboard
Email me at JamieWG@aol.com if interested in this painting.

I was eager to work in a medium that would enable me to layer quickly today, so I grabbed my Golden OPEN Acrylics and a 16×20 canvas covered board for open studio portraiture. I left most of my acrylics upstate, so had to make due with what I had: Cadmium Yellow Primrose, Pyrrole Red, Transparent Red Oxide, Ultramarine Blue, Carbon Black, and Titanium White.

These paints are just sooooo much fun. I prefer them on paper or smooth hardboard rather than canvas, so next time I’ll have to remember to size some watercolor paper or matboard before I go.

Leigh was a really great and beautiful model. We’ll have her for another sitting in January, so I’ll get to sketch her again!

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20×16″, Oils on Canvas covered hardboard
Email me at JamieWG@aol.com if interested in this painting.

You may remember two weeks ago when I sketched Troy in pastel. We had no open studio last Thursday since it was Thanksgiving, but today I went back, oils in hand, for another sketch. I used Rembrandt Ivory Black, Gamblin Torrit Grey, and Winsor Newton Artist Titanium White with a little Winsor Newton Griffin Titanium White mixed in to speed drying. I also used Weber Res-n-gel medium.

Troy will keep the same pose for three weeks, and most of the artists are keeping their spots and working all three weeks on the same painting. I waited until after the posing started for any returning artists to reclaim their previous spots before setting up in a new position, but go figure…. (Yes, you know what’s coming!)… As soon as I got set up, someone came in late and said, “You’re in my spot!”

I didn’t really care where I painted from; I just didn’t want to miss the posing time. There is never enough time with the model! Anyway, this ended up being about two hours of posing time altogether. I always seem to have difficulty getting the head situated exactly where I want it on the canvas. This time, I really took my time with placement and it ended up right where I wanted it to be! Amazing!

I like this model, Troy, very much. We’ll have him for one more week.

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12×9″, Pastel on Art Spectrum sanded paper
For purchase information, please email me at JamieWG@aol.com.

This is my first portrait since last winter — a two hour sketch from life. The model sits for three consecutive sessions, but I prefer to use them as sketching opportunities, and generally try to wrap up in a single session if possible. This model, Troy, is new to the art center. We’ll have two more sessions with him, so I plan to do others from different angles.

I’ve always felt that portrait and figure drawing and painting keep me honest as an artist. When painting landscapes, we can move a tree from one side of the scene to the other, enlarge a mountain, and put in clouds where there are none. But with portrait and figure painting, you can’t transplant somebody’s nose to where their mouth should be, or put a foot on the end of their arm!

Once the cold weather gets underway, I go into the portrait or figure studio a couple of times a week, using the winter to sharpen up my drawing skills. It really helps my winter doldrums too, since I’m not fond of plein air painting in the frigid weather. By late fall, I start looking forward to the change of subject and venue that winter brings. After a winter of studio landscapes, and portraits and figures from life, I feel really charged up about getting out for plein air work again in the spring.

Today I dove in for the first time this season, both in subject and medium. I hadn’t broken out the pastels for quite some time (although I’ve been talking about it for a month or so), and it’s my first portrait of the season.

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12×9″, Watercolor on Arches 140# hp
Email me at JamieWG@aol.com if interested in this painting.

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11×14″, Watercolor on Arches 140#hp
Email me at JamieWG@aol.com if interested in this painting.

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18×12″, soft pastels on Wallis
For purchase information, please email me at JamieWG@aol.com.

I haven’t done any pastel work for quite some time, so I decided to bring my large Dakota box of pastels to open studio this week.There’s everything under the sun in that box, all mixed together and sorted by value and color.

This has been a tough week. My poor husband got food poisoning, and I hurt my back yesterday trying to move a cabinet, so my artwork may well be a little sporadic for the next week or so. I miss it already.

8x12 to 12x24, Available, Portraits and Figures | 1 Comment »

Path Through the Open Land Foundation
8×10, Golden OPEN Acrylics on Multimedia Artboard
Please email me if you are interested in this painting.

It’s been sooooo hard for me to keep this under wraps, but the time has finally arrived when I can share the great news! Everybody’s been asking me this year what acrylic paints I’ve been using that look so much like my oils, and I have to hem and haw and politely change the subject……until now. Golden Paints has developed a brand new line of “acrylics” with a very long open time. It is called Golden Open. They’ll be shipping to stores on July 1. The painting above is one of my favorites done with these new paints. You can see my demonstration thread for this painting here.The underpainting was done with Golden Fluid Acrylics, and then the Open paints were used over that.

I’ve been testing these paints for Golden Acrylics since last August, and it’s been such a thrill for me to finally have an acrylic paint that does what I want it to do. The long open time enables me to paint like I would with oils, only better. It is really like a new medium in that it can do some of the things oils can do, some of the things acrylics can do, some of the things gouache can do, and some of the things watercolors can do. After nine months of using this paint, I feel like I’m still just scratching the surface in terms of its possibilities. Almost all of the acrylics that you’ve seen here on my blog since August were done with this paint.

This still life on clear-sealed linen is another one of my favorites done with this paint:
Flowers on Linen, 8×6″

The paint tacks up as I work just enough to be able to do things that oils cannot. No more acrylic paint drying on your brushes either. When you finally get that mix of colors just right, the paint doesn’t dry out before you get a chance to use it. Edges can be blended and manipulated—no more razor-sharp acrylic edges in your paintngs unless you want them. Yet, it tacks up enough as I work to be able to scumble, glaze, and overpaint. Oils can’t do that! For plein air painting, they can’t be beat. Just a spray of water now and then keeps them totally workable. I can get paintings varnished and out to galleries in less than two weeks. I don’t have to put up with that nasty “sinking in” and flattening of values that oil paints do overnight without my permission! The color remains as beautiful and vibrant as when it was painted. These dry to a matte finish, so do not at all have that plastic look of many acrylics.

I’ve had good success with it in the figure painting studio too. This one from a few weeks ago is one of my favorite figure sketches with the new paint:
Amanda Resting, 8×10″ on Canson board

I hope any of you artists out there reading this will have the opportunity to try out this new product. It’s like nothing you’ve ever experienced before. I’d be happy to answer any questions relating to the working properties of the paints; just enter them as comments on this post. I am so happy to be able to discuss them at last.

Available, Landscape, Portraits and Figures, Shows and News, Still Life | 7 Comments »

8×6″, Golden OPEN Acrylics on linen, matted to 8×10″ or mounted on board (buyer’s choice)

I loved the way the backlighting rimmed the front of the figure in this pose.

8x10 and smaller, Available, Portraits and Figures | 3 Comments »

8×10, Golden OPEN Acrylics on Canson board
For purchase information, please email me at JamieWG@aol.com.

This painting is from today’s open studio—a great pose from our model Amanda, with lots of foreshortening to make me work extra hard!

8x10 and smaller, Available, Portraits and Figures | 2 Comments »

9×6″, pencil in a Raffine sketchbook

I try to sketch portraits and figures whenever I can. This one was done from a photo reference while my husband was watching the news last night. It is the novelist Evelyn Waugh. This is just for my own drawing practice and is not for sale. I like this Raffine sketchbook for water media very much, but I feel the texture is a little rough for graphite work.

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5×7″, Golden OPEN Acrylics on Canson board, varnished to a beautiful gloss (Frame as an oil painting)
Email me at JamieWG@aol.com if interested in this painting.

I went to Marshlands Conservancy in Rye yesterday. It was a gorgeous day and although I didn’t have time to stop and paint, I got loads of wonderful photo references. Now I have some compositional ideas for when I return there to paint later in the spring, as well as some things to work on during rainy days.

This mom was having a lot of fun following her little boy around the beach on Long Island Sound. He went exploring every nook along the shoreline. It was a chilly, spring afternoon, but the bright sunlight made everything light up.

I used an expanded palette for this painting. I think I actually dipped into every single color here. It’s unusual for me to use so many.
Titanium White
Naples Yellow
Cadmium Yellow Medium
Cadmium Orange
Cadmium Red Light
Cerulean Blue Chromium hue
Ultramarine Blue
Oxide of Chromium
Transparent Red Oxide
Phthalo Blue

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8×6″, Golden OPEN Acrylics on linen
For purchase information, please email me at JamieWG@aol.com.

This is from today’s open studio. This is the first time I’ve done a figure on this clear-sealed linen, and I just love the way the colors work with it and the texture.

I used the new, lightweight painting/pochade box that I made for this one. It’s working out great! Here it is in the life drawing studio all set up and ready to go….

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Gouache on Strathmore 400 cold press watercolor paper
Cropped image size as shown above is 8×7″
Full page as shown below is about 9.5×7″

Full page:

We had a wonderful model in the life drawing studio who is a dancer. I saw this beautiful red dancing skirt and immediately thought—Degas! I hope she’ll be back soon to model for us again.

This is the first time I’ve used a scanned image of my artwork instead of a photograph. I think for small, completely dry work, and especially work on a white ground like this, it may be better to scan it. I can never get the white paper to show white when I photograph.

Portraits and Figures, Sketches | 1 Comment »

This sketch from life was done with an umber, water soluble Cretacolor stick on Arches hot press watercolor paper. It’s about 6×11″.

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7.75×11″, watercolor on Arches 140 lb HP rag watercolor paper
For purchase information, please email me at JamieWG@aol.com.

We had to leave our usual life drawing studio due to a solvent spill. I was painting in oils, but when we moved to the clay room, there wasn’t room for my oil painting gear. Fortunately, I had a little Winsor Newton Artist watercolor pan set in my purse and a nice umber Cretacolor stick, and some Arches paper in the car, so I pulled those out instead. You know what they say….When life throws you lemons, make lemonade! So, that’s what I did.

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Click image to enlarge:

24×18″, oils on canvas
Email me at JamieWG@aol.com if interested in purchasing this painting

We had our wonderful model, John, for one more session. I pulled out a 24×18″ piece of canvas and did the painting in one fell swoop. It was about an hour and a half of painting time. I love painting this way—trying to catch the essence of a pose, and seeing how refined I can get it, in a single sitting. It makes me think of plein air painting, where the moving light sets the clock constantly ticking, and you need to be able to say what it is you want to say without fuss and deliberation.

Portraits and Figures, Sketches | No Comments »

About 18×12″, oils on unstretched canvas
For purchase information, please email me at JamieWG@aol.com.

Kerri was back modeling for us again today. I was going to do a bunch of quick oil sketches of her, but I really liked the way this was coming along, so I decided to stick with it for the full session.

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12×9″, soft pastels on Art Spectrum Colourfix
For purchase information, please email me at JamieWG@aol.com.

This was painted in two sittings from life. I may make some minor adjustments next week, but it is basically finished. I had a wonderful time playing with the warm and cool colors. There was a warm floodlight on, but also cool blue light from outside streaming in through the windows. The combination of light types made for some interesting challenges and color combinations.

8x12 to 12x24, Available, Portraits and Figures | 1 Comment »

Click to enlarge:

24×18″, Oils on unstretched canvas

This is a fairly large oil sketch on canvas, painted from life this morning. It can be shipped when dry, rolled in a mailing tube. Nudes are wonderful paintings for bedrooms and private sitting rooms, and convey a feeling of intimacy.

I really enjoyed working this size today in the life drawing studio. I cut a bunch of canvas pieces this size from a large roll I have, and I think I’ll stick with these larger ones for awhile. When I draw with charcoal in open studio, I usually go 24×36″, so although lately I’ve been painting figures a lot smaller, the 18×24″ size didn’t feel overwhelming.

The longest poses in these Wednesday sessions are 50 minutes, so the real challenge is to try to capture something special in that period of time. Everybody usually draws rather than paints because the time is so short. A couple of my oil sketches this morning bit the dust, so to speak, but I really like the way this one turned out. If I can come back from a session of short poses with just one thing I like, I consider it a success!

Portraits and Figures, Sketches | No Comments »

Yesterday, portrait artist extraordinaire Alan Reingold showed me how he teaches his Parsons students to speed paint figures in oils in 20 minutes from life. It was way fun! Each of these is a 20 minute pose, in order from the first of the afternoon to the last. I painted a couple and then moved my spot. The model kept the same pose.

The paintings are 12×16″ each, though I’ll be moving up to 16×20″ as soon as I cut some canvas! They are on unstretched canvas.

Here’s a look at the palette I used when all was said and done. I premixed a few colors to start, and adjusted with the colors on my palette as needed.
Colors:
Naples Yellow
Cadmium Yellow Medium
Cadmium Red
Oxide of Chromium
Ultramarine Blue
Burnt Sienna (Transparent Red Oxide)
Titanium White

Portraits and Figures, Sketches | 1 Comment »

12×16″, Golden OPEN Acrylics on canvas
For purchase information, please email me at JamieWG@aol.com.

Normally in life drawing and painting, artists avoid the hands. They are so complex, and difficult to render in a short time. I think everybody was glad that Jean took this pose with her hands behind her back! They were all on the other side of her. I finished my painting from the front last week, so this morning I went behind her to take on the enemy directly in my own, personal challenge. It was a three hour pose with breaks, and of course the hands changed a bit each time, making a tough subject even harder.

8x12 to 12x24, Available, Portraits and Figures | 1 Comment »

24×18″, charcoal and pastel on brown craft paper
SOLD! Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com to inquire about a similar painting.

It seems I’m spending a lot of time in the figure studio this week…..

24×18″, charcoal and pastel on brown craft paper

Portraits and Figures, Sketches, Sold | 1 Comment »

18×24″
Email me at JamieWG@aol.com if interested in this painting.

We had Marshall back in the life drawing studio this morning. He is such a great model, with wonderful expression, a vivacious personality, and knows how to hold a pose! These are both 19×25″ on Canson MiTientes paper, charcoal and pastel. You can click either image to enlarge it to 600 pixels. The pose below was a lot harder to draw than I thought it would be!

18×24″
[artpal=insert]

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Click image to enlarge:

16×12″, oils on sealed, primed hardboard
SOLD! Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com to inquire about a similar painting.
This portrait of Amy was painted from life in about three and a half hours of posing time. I’ll do a few more tweaks, but the model time is up, so it’s pretty much done.

8x12 to 12x24, Portraits and Figures, Sold | 2 Comments »

16×8″, oils on sealed, primed hardboard
For purchase information, please email me at JamieWG@aol.com.

This morning in open studio, I finished off this painting of Jean. I wanted to take it a bit further than this, but at 16×8″, the painting was just too small to work it more—at least until I get new glasses! The head is only about an inch and a half high or so, so you can imagine trying to paint facial details standing at an easel.

My palette for this painting consisted of:
Transparent Red Oxide
Cadmium Red
Cadmium Yellow Medium
Naples Yellow
Ultramarine Blue
Titanium White

Once I was done with that, there was still an hour or so of studio time left, so I started a monochrome oil portrait of her, then wiped it off at the end of the session. Why’d I do that? I have no idea! I was actually pretty pleased with it, but after the first wipe with the cloth, it was too late to go back.

Jean will be back next week and I’ll paint her from a different angle.

8x12 to 12x24, Available, Portraits and Figures | 2 Comments »

Click to enlarge:

About 12×10″, Wolff’s Carbon Pencil and wash on acid free, heavyweight paper
Email me at JamieWG@aol.com if interested in this painting.

This was about a 1/2 hour sketch of Michelle. The poses aren’t that long, so I focused mostly on her face. I think I’m finally starting to get the hang of the way these carbon pencils react with water. There is definitely a learning curve with them. I like that they can get way darker than graphite, and thus extend the value range when working in monochrome.

My apologies to those who tried to get to my site today and were unable to get the front page to load. The problem seemed to be caused by Mapstats. I took it off my site and now it’s loading like lightning.

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12×9″, pastel on Wallis sanded paper
For purchase information, please email me at JamieWG@aol.com.

This pastel of Jean was done start to finish in a three hour pose, minus breaks. I really loved the way the light hit her face from this nearly backlit position, and the influence of the burgundy velvet on her skin, combined with the warm light.

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Click to enlarge:

12×9″, Pastel on Art Spectrum Colourfix
For purchase information, please email me at JamieWG@aol.com.

This painting was done from a live model over the past two weeks.

8x12 to 12x24, Available, Portraits and Figures | No Comments »

Click image to enlarge:

18×24″, on brown craft paper

Marshall is a fabulous model with oodles of personal charm and charisma, and interesting features to draw. Here are some of my sketches from today’s life drawing poses.

Above: 36×24″

Below: 18×24″ (click to enlarge image)

16x20 and larger, Available, Portraits and Figures, Sketches | 2 Comments »