7.75×11″, watercolor on Arches 140 lb HP rag watercolor paper
$150.00 plus $10 shipping and insurance within the Continental United States. Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com for International purchases or with any questions.

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.

8x10 and smaller, Available, Portraits and Figures, Sketches | 1 Comment »

Some days I’m so short on time or just can’t get into the painting groove. It’s nice to dive into my sketchbook on those occasions. I’m getting antsy for the weather to warm up so I can get back to my life of plein air painting soon. I did a few pages of sketches today in ink and watercolor, and some color swatch tests of new paints, so in spite of all the errands I had to run, it wasn’t a day totally devoid of art.

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I was in the mood for something different and experimental today, so I pulled out my Sumi brushes and a video that arrived via Netflix on Chinese Brush Painting, and popped it into my computer while I painted. Although humbling, it was actually kind of fun.

Here are two of the many. Both of these are about 14″ square. I painted them on a big roll of white butcher paper that I use for sketching.

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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.

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About 18×12″, oils on unstretched canvas
$395.00 plus $20 shipping and insurance within the Continental United States. Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com for International purchases or with any questions.

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.

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

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!

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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 »

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, pastels | 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 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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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, pastels | 2 Comments »

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!

Portraits and Figures, Sketches | 2 Comments »

Click the image to enlarge, and then hopefully you’ll be able to read the text!

I was a little disappointed as I turned to do my daily origami, to see that the Origami Calendar I got for 2008 doesn’t have pages for the weekends! So, I turned to a couple of the items listed for the current Wetcanvas Scavenger Hunt, and sketched the flowers and bow instead with the Golden Fluid acrylics left in my Stay-wet palette. I added some cadmium yellow light, needing the opacity for the gold edge of the bow.

I’ve started reading The Art Spirit by Henri. I came to a section where he talks about artists who do lots of sketching. That would be me! hahaha….. I copied it into my sketchbook. I suspect my sketchbook will be accumulating many quotes of his as the new year gets underway.

RiverWinds Gallery has asked to have some of my work there beyond the current show, so I’m hoping it will snow soon in order to get more reference images for winter paintings! I found one image last night in my files that I really like. I painted it once before, many years ago. The painting was sent off to the new owner, framed, via UPS. It got totally trashed in transit, and all that was returned to me was a piece of the broken frame and a shred of torn paper. I’ve been meaning to paint it again ever since then. Hopefully the new painting will meet with a better life!

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Click images to enlarge them.

Here are a few sketches done today using Golden Fluid Acrylics: Ultramarine Blue, Hansa Yellow Light, Pyrrole Red, Titanium White and (for the box only) Transparent Red Oxide. I diluted just with water where necessary (no medium) and used Taklon brushes.

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A month or so ago, I bought myself a 2008 origami calendar. It’s very cool! There’s a page for each day with folding instructions. I thought the shapes and colors would be fun to sketch from time to time and to use in some still life paintings.

I’ve been considering separating my sketches into a separate blog, rather than mixing them in here amidst my paintings. I’d love to hear what my viewers think of that idea. Would you rather see everything all in one place, or are you more interested in viewing a site with just the paintings, or just the sketches?

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This is what I did with much of my New Year’s Day—put up drying/display rails in my studio. See the post below this one for photographs and details about the installation and molding I used.

Click to enlarge:

The post below shows more images of the drying rails.

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Click on any image to enlarge it.

During the winter months, I really enjoy the “Scavenger Hunts” posted to the Artwork From Life forum on the Wetcanvas website. Every 8 days, a different artist posts a list of 26 items, which must be sketched from life (no photo references/imagination) using any medium. The ink and watercolor sketch of my studio (above) is one of the items in the Scavenger Hunt. The current list of items includes:
A clamp
A door handle or knob- Challenge: the whole door
A hinge
kitchen clock
A musical instrument
Your knee
An ear
A nose- Challenge: 3 different views
Something black
A bathtub
An egg
An orange
A potato
Piece of jewelry
Pair of glasses
Your studio (area) in ink in 10 min. or less
A wine bottle (or soda or whatever if you need to)
A comb
Your favorite pen
A flashlight
A pet (come on, (if you don’t have one, be creative)
A bottle of soy sauce
Your favorite mug or cup
Your favorite pen
A mushroom
A profile

You can click here to see the thread with all the entries from the different artists who are participating. I’ve been sketching items from the list over the past few days, in between paintings. Items are numbered in the order in which they are done, not the order in which they appear on the list. So far I’ve sketched 16 of them.

The first five items, above, are all sketched with an umber Prismacolor wax-based pencil. Watercolor washes were then applied over the top. All the sketches are done across two-page spreads in my Hand Book Journal, so they measure about 8×10″.

Items 6-9, above, are all black Prismacolor pencil. Next, I pulled out a Wolff’s Carbon pencil to do the sketches below. Then I used a brush with plain water to blend and shade the sketches.

Now I’m coming down the home stretch. I love using these scavenger hunts to play with different mediums. I pulled out some Derwent Graphitint pencils for the next ones. These are graphite pencils blended with watercolor. After sketching with them, the color can be blended with a wet brush.

This Scavenger Hunt ends in two days, so hopefully I’ll have time to finish off the remaining items before the next one begins. It’s a great way to stay in sketching practice and explore all kinds of subjects.

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12×9″, Oils on Art Spectrum Colourfix
$150.00 plus $15 shipping and insurance within the Continental United States. Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com for International purchases or with any questions.

Spending so much time sketching with watercolors in my sketchbook lately put me in the mood to do something sketchy in oils too. I really enjoyed painting these flowers that my husband gave me. It felt great to break loose from a more confining size and style and paint something with more expressive brushwork. I think I’ll do more of these!

Art Spectrum Colourfix is an archival surface for all media, but is generally used for pastels. I love the way it took the oil paint! I’ve used it for both pastels and acrylics, but this was the first time I tried it with oils. I’ll definitely be working on this surface a lot more!

Palette:
Cadmium Red
Cadmium Yellow Lemon
French Ultramarine Blue
Titanium White

Here is an image of the painting cropped to about 8×10, so you can see it in a little closer:

There’s a lot of thick paint texture on the painting that, unfortunately, didn’t come through on the photo. I think I’ll have to switch to taking my photos with the Nikon and tripod, instead of hand-holding my little point-and-shoot!

8x12 to 12x24, Available, Sketches, Still Life | No Comments »

To see my studio tour, scroll down below this post!

The following are watercolor sketches done while sick over the past few days. They are about 8×10″ across two-page spreads in my bound Hand Book Journal—a wonderful heavyweight paper sketchbook.

Pears on Parade—I really like the composition of this one. I think I’ll do something similar in a larger format soon, in oils or acrylics.

Color Chart and Flowers

Collapsible Bucket and Waterbrush

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You may click images to see larger views.

My parents have this beautiful bronze statue of a dancer in their home. I’ve always wanted to paint it, and enjoyed sketching her from many different angles in ink and watercolor. The flowers below were sketched out on the lanai, and the chinese figure is from a set of three, but I only had time to start one, and didn’t get to finish it. These are all on two-page spreads in my sketchbook.

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I just returned from a couple of days of visiting my parents in Naples, Florida. They’ve got a wonderful lanai overlooking the Gulf of Mexico, so I did a couple of watercolor sketches out there. Above is a section of their seating area, and below is a quick sketch of the view of the Gulf from the lanai. Both are watercolor, 8×10″ across a two page spread in my sketchbook.

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Several weeks ago, I got a surprise package in the mail from my mom. I opened the brown, cardboard box, and inside was a beautiful red and gold silk box!

Imagine my surprise when I opened the box and found this exquisite set of Sumi brushes:

I think I must be the biggest art materials junkie of all time, so of course I was more than thrilled with this new acquisition. I went to the internet and read up on Sumi brushes and how to care for them. I washed the starch out of them, and made a hanger for them to dry out of a clothes hanger and paper clips:

I’ve been so busy getting ready for my solo show that I didn’t have much time to play with them yet, but I wanted to at least doodle a bit and say, “Thank you, Mom!”

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Click for clearer image and to enlarge:

The vase and carnations on the left is gouache, and the other sketches are watercolor. These sketches from the past few days have been done in a Hand Book Journal, sold by Dick Blick and other art stores. The paper is very thick and holds up to water media quite well.

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Click image to enlarge:

From time to time, I really enjoy doing more sketchbook work while I shift gears. These are both watercolor sketches.

Now that plein air season is coming to a close, I’m exploring other possibilities for winter subject matter. I’m excited about diving back into portraiture and figure drawing. I’m also getting ready for my North Salem show. Today I pulled out a lot of my paintings from the area and started sifting through to decide what will go into the show and what I won’t have room for. I’ve got to start varnishing soon and selecting frames…like tomorrow!

Sketches | 2 Comments »

One thing I learned as a result of doing these sketches is that if you’re going to paint mannikins, you should at least learn how to spell it. Now I know that it can be spelled mannikin, manikin, or mannequin. Leave it to me, with so many right ways of doing it, to get it wrong on my sketchbook page.

Anyway, moving on to the sketch itself, I’ve had this little mannikin for quite some time. She finally emerged from her box to pose for me. The two left ones are in gouache. The two on the right are done in Prismacolor pencil, then blended with turpenoid and a Q tip.

I can see lots of potential for her to make an appearance in still life paintings, posing with all sorts of props. Unfortunately, this one does not come off the stand. I’ll have to find one that can be positioned in sitting poses, and which has more versatility.

I only have 66 pages left in my sketchbook now! I’m aiming to finish it by the end of 2007. That means a little more than a two page spread every day in addition to whatever paintings I do. I am determined to dig into a new sketchbook at the start of the new year.

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Click picture to enlarge:

8×10″, watercolor sketch in my bound sketchbook

I am still determined to finish off this sketchbook before the end of 2007!

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I try to make the most of the time I have to spend waiting for my daughter here and there. One of my favorite ways to utilize that time is to sketch. This is 8×10, done across a two-page spread in my sketchbook with Pitt pens. Trying to capture the different foliage textures and the distances (not to mention the architecture!) is great practice.

I rarely let myself sketch in pencil, even with complex subjects. There’s something about the unforgiving quality of ink that is very appealing to me. You need to really think your important lines through in advance, and make a commitment before setting pen to paper. I find I make much more of an effort to get it right on the first try when I know there’s no going back!

This one is 8×5″, on a single page in the book. It is the side of the Howland Center in Beacon, NY. It seems nothing opens in Beacon until noon, so whenever I get there early, I have some time to sketch or paint.

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Pitt Pens, 8×10″ in my sketchbook

I bought a set of warm and cool grey Pitt pens a couple of weeks ago and finally had a chance to test drive them in my sketchbook. They were lots of fun to draw with, but the barrel values really don’t match the ink, which makes it a challenge to select the right pen! This is in my bound sketchbook, so is not for sale.

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5.5×8.5″, acrylic on sketchbook paper

After a full day of plein air painting yesterday, I came home and just couldn’t resist this red daisy. It was in a bouquet on my kitchen counter, and I’ve been dying to paint it all week. I snipped the stem, put it in this round vase, and pulled out my Golden Fluid Acrylics. I didn’t do any drawing—just went right in with paint. It was so much fun to explore that rich red color and the glass. I’m glad that tired as I was, I didn’t miss the opportunity for this painting.

Since this one is in my sketchbook, I can’t remove it to sell. However, I’d love to do another, so if you’d like to purchase one, just let me know!

Sketches, Still Life | No Comments »

I love to play in my sketchbook. I’ve had so many shows lately that the pressure has been on to turn out finished pieces, but sometimes I think this is how I like to spend my time the most. It enables me to test drive ideas, relax, and enjoy the “doing” of art.

The pears in the shallow bowl are ink sketches, with acrylic washes laid over while the ink was too wet. I get impatient. Below the pears are my new bottle of Sennelier Walnut Ink, and a little inkwell I got in the gift shop at Sturbridge Village. It’s made there in the pottery shop, and it works really well!

The apple and pear on the facing page are from the Brewster Farmer’s Market. They are painted in Golden Fluid Acrylics, with no preliminary drawing; I just went in straight with paint—always my favorite painting method! For the pear, I experimented with the Irridescent Gold Deep, using it to mix my greens, and with ochre. The shimmer is quite subtle when combined with the other colors. When the light hits it just so, you see the sparkling irridescence. I think I like it!

I’m looking forward to the transition to studio painting for the winter. I’ve been rounding up ideas for still life paintings, some larger landscapes from photos, and doing more in my sketchbook on a regular basis. I’ve got a new sketchbook waiting for me. I’d like to start it in January with the new year, so that should give me some incentive to get through the rest of my current sketchbook before 2007 draws to a close!

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