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18×12″, soft pastels on Wallis
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.
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.
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.
8×10, Golden OPEN Acrylics on Canson board
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!
11×12.5″, Gouache on Stonehenge Fawn colored rag paper
This is today’s work from the figure studio, painted from life with lightfast gouache pigments on beautiful Stonehenge 100% rag, “Fawn”-colored paper.
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.
5×7″, Golden OPEN Acrylics on Canson board
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
8×6″, Golden OPEN Acrylics on linen, matted to 8×10″ for any standard 8×10″ frame or 8.5×11″ protective sleeve, with a lovely ivory single mat
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’ve matted it with a 10×8″ ivory mat and it looks sensational! Ready to pop into a standard frame. Figures are the perfect art pieces for a bedroom or den.
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….
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.
This sketch from life was done with an umber, water soluble Cretacolor stick on Arches hot press watercolor paper. It’s about 6×11″. The pose was about 20 minutes.
7.75×11″, watercolor on Arches 140 lb HP rag watercolor paper
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.
Wednesday is my day to oil paint in the life drawing studio. These are short poses, and so most folks there use charcoal, and some use pastels, as those media lend themselves to fast work. I like to take up the challenge of using oil paints though.
These sketches are all 18×24″, on canvas. The first two are each two short poses by the same model. I superimposed them over one another by painting one first, and then the other. This presented some interesting compositional ideas for my landscape work. Expect some experiments in the spring!
There are some stray lines on this first sketch because I did three others on this piece of canvas beforehand, and wiped it off just before this pose because I didn’t have time to get another piece of canvas and tone it before the model started! I guess I missed a few lines here and there on the wipe-out.
We all get spoiled with this fabulous model, Jean. There are lots of paintings of her here from the past several weeks. These are the last two from this morning, same size:
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.
About 18×12″, oils on unstretched canvas
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.
24×18″, oils on unstretched canvas
This is a fairly large oil sketch from today’s open studio.
12×9″, soft pastels on Art Spectrum Colourfix
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.
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!
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
12×16″, Golden OPEN Acrylics on canvas
Email me at JamieWG@aol.com if interested in this painting
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.
24×18″, charcoal and pastel on brown craft paper
SOLD!
It seems I’m spending a lot of time in the figure studio this week…..
24×18″, charcoal and pastel on brown craft paper
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!
Click image to enlarge:
16×12″, oils on sealed, primed hardboard
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.
16×8″, oils on sealed, primed hardboard
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.
Click to enlarge:
About 12×10″, Wolff’s Carbon Pencil and wash on acid free, heavyweight paper
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.
12×9″, pastel on Wallis sanded paper
Email me at JamieWG@aol.com if interested in this painting
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.
Click to enlarge:
12×9″, Pastel on Art Spectrum Colourfix
Email me at JamieWG@aol.com if interested in this painting.
This painting was done from a live model over the past two weeks.
Click to enlarge:
This sketch is just over 10×11″, oil paints and Prismacolor pencils on Stonehenge paper
This was done in portrait class today with the same model as last week, Julia. I scrapped my first two attempts, so was left with about two hours minus model breaks to try to get something down on paper! It was way fun to break out the Prismacolors again. I forgot how wonderful they can be to work with!
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)
16×12″, Oils on canvas covered hardboard
This oil sketch took about 2.5 hours, minus model breaks. Many thanks to Julia for being such a great model, and to Alan Reingold for a wonderful portrait class.
I’ve decided to dive back into some classes during the cold winter months, and take the opportunity to use my indoor, non-plein air time for artistic growth. Taking this time to work and receive critiques from artists I so admire is an opportunity I can’t pass up. Portraits and figures are great practice for any subject and style of painting, and I only have time to do a lot of that in the winter. More to come in the weeks ahead!
For my landscape afficionados, not to worry! You’ll be seeing some landscapes emerging over the next several weeks as well!
7×5″, oil painting
SOLD!
This is a little oil sketch of my friend Paula, painted while she was painting at Teatown Lake.