Ned Mueller

I have been teaching art for over 50 years and drawing and painting for 75 years. Where did the time go?! Like most people, I have certainly had my ups and downs and now that most of my life is behind me I have the tendency to reflect and think about what the heck happened! I was fortunate to get a lot of support from my family, friends and most teachers. Drawing was my favorite thing to do, other than sports and most of the first half of my life revolved around either or both of those activities, along with backpacking and traveling this wonderful world that we live in.

I never had much confidence in myself when I was younger, mostly just a very curious and competitive nature while being raised in the magnificent Gallatin Valley in southwest Montana surrounded by mountains, just North of Yellowstone Park and hanging out with some great friends helped me get through a lot. I have heard some horrible stories of people who were not allowed to follow their passion for a whole lot of reasons…probably with good reason. As for most of us, it is the great love and passion that takes many years of hard work to get anywhere good at it, unless we were one of the lucky ones blessed with superb talent, genes and maybe a trust fund or two! 

I had a little of the talent, however, one of my great uncles was one of the countries better sculptors. I was very competitive, inspired mostly from lack of self-esteem and on the flip side from a fairly poor family, which isn’t always such a detriment in small-town America. Most of us seem to have a mixture of positive and negative influences whether we want them or not and I think the bottom line again is that we really must have the love for doing whatever it may be as that is what can carry us through rejections, tragedies, and disappointments so many of us may have to endure. Growing up in Montana, I was not aware of any great artist role models, probably more due to my lack of initiative to find any. We had Charlie Russell and that was about it! That era from 1940 to 1980’s we were fortunate to have so many great magazines and books mostly chock full of some very great illustrations, a lot of it being great art done by some really great artists! We didn’t have the great museums as in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and the other great cities of the world, so those magazines for me were a wealth of inspiration and I kind of wanted to make pictures but deep down I felt that I could never be able to do that.

I kind of wandered around for my first 17 years, dreaming, but somewhat disillusioned of what I could do with my life, and won’t go into all of those details here (a long story). But my father (we did not see eye to eye on much, another very long story), finally got it out of me what I would really like to do, to become an illustrator, and he told me to give it a chance, but to try and get into the very best art school that I could get into. He was very competitive also and those were the people I would have to match to make a go of it! To his generation, failure was not really an option! Well, we both researched around for the art schools and living in Northern California decided that the Art Center School in Los Angeles seemed to fit that bill. So, we drove down to L.A. and had an interview with them. I put together a rather shabby portfolio of my drawings and a few paintings. I figured that there was no way that I could get accepted, woe is me, yet they seemed to be impressed regardless of my lack of faith in myself and accepted me (Art Center was and still is one of the hardest art schools to get into and also one of the hardest to graduate because of its high standards. If you didn’t quite meet those standards you were politely asked to leave!) On top of being accepted and because of our rather poor status, I was also offered a full scholarship after the first three semesters. A semester was an outrageous $410 back in the early sixties, which I think is about $30,000 a semester now, but don’t hold me to that. We from Montana have a tendency to exaggerate at times! 

I managed to graduate, a wonderful experience surrounded by such great students and friends and best of all, the instructors were all working professionals who knew what it took to succeed at whatever program you chose. One of their premier offers was automotive design and all the Detroit car companies got most of their top designers from Art Center and also sent promising students to the school. Certainly, in hindsight, I know that so many other artists, for so many reasons, were not that fortunate. Right around my graduation, autumn of 1963, they had the draft and so I had to go into the service. Two of my best buddies and I joined the Marine Corps and the Vietnam War was just around the corner. Needless to say, my experience was short-lived and I got an Honorable Medical Discharge (a mental and physical breakdown, another long story) and so missed that awful, misunderstood and divisive part of our history. Sorry for these distractions, but I think they are related to the struggle to keep trying, sometimes against great odds, and how I as an individual and with individual issues somewhat succeeded. As in this case, I was in a vegetable state, discharged, hospitalized and felt I had let myself and my country down and scared to death of what may happen! I was lucky to have friends and family to get back on my feet again.

Eventually, I got a job as a laborer, then a carpenter, and to work as a postal carrier, a wayward art student, not knowing what to do! I at least had the sense to go to some life drawing sessions at night, twice a week to keep my hand in the game and slowly regained some confidence to the point I was going out with my portfolio to ad agencies, book and magazine publishers, whatever seem related to my goal of being an illustrator/artist. I had some pretty darn good skills, but not much confidence to go with them! This is where my main theme of trying to succeed comes in. I call them the three P’s! Passion, Perseverance, and Patience. Not that I was endowed so greatly with them all but at least had some of them and mostly less of the Patience one… Perseverance, being a lot of stubborn… and Passion, wanting to be able to eat!   

It took me about two years to where I was slowly going out to agencies, publishers and a couple of galleries, that I was getting assignments. Hearing that I would get a call for this assignment or that, but, discovering that once out of sight I was pretty much out of mind as there was a pretty constant flow of other artists knocking constantly at their door. Pretty much the same with the galleries. This is where perseverance comes into play and the love of what we want to do. Some are so gifted that THEY are getting the knock on the door or phone call but for most of us, that is not the case.   

Around this time, I was also taking workshops from the very best artists that offered them, such as, Richard Schmid, Sergei Bongart, Harley Brown and Del Gish. They gave me the confidence to teach my own workshops.

By having to put painting into words as best one can really helped me to visualize my own work better and helped to pay the bills! As I improved over time and was invited into or applied to some of the better exhibitions with many of the very best artists, I would get a few of the calls from other shows and good galleries. Needless to say it sure is good for one’s self-esteem and that struggle for recognition is finally rewarded! One of the very best exhibitions in the country at that time was the “Artists of America” show in Denver, Colorado. It showcased the very best traditional/impressionistic work from all over and the show that everyone wanted to be in. The best collectors and gallery owners would fly in to see all of the fine work. One could apply to the show and they had a jury panel that would screen the work and that would vary ever so often. I applied for about eight years and always got turned down, but finally, because of new jurors maybe I did get selected and was even invited to give a demonstration at the show. To say the least, very grateful, humble and nervous throughout, as I was in the presence of so many of my heroes and other great artists. The Director of the show, bought one of my paintings.

I didn’t think it could get much better than that! Unfortunately, because sales were down, the Exhibition closed the following year. I got into some other top shows and looking back I feel very fortunate that I was able to experience, what for me was some recognition after 30 years of ups and downs and trying to do my very best. After overcoming so much I figured that my last few years would just be spent enjoying creating, pretty much what I wanted to, and whenever I wanted to, but alas, I had to face some of the biggest challenges of my life when about eight years ago, an old football back injury caught up with me. I had excruciating pain that use to go away and this time did not. I had to have back surgery and when I woke up I knew something was not quite right, but went into instant denial. I had an almost dead left leg and in chronic pain, another long story, and told that another surgery might fix it. That did not happen and with my denial, I thought I could just keep charging forward, doing the shows, galleries and a lot of plein air shows hiking and painting pack trips and still traveling the world a bit. I suffered a lot more than I should have, but keeping busy and working on my painting helped me to think less of the pain.

After about four years of that nonsense, I finally started to accept being marginalized. Some of the denial still lingers on and I have learned and accepted, along with being 80 years old, and in love with a most wonderful woman that really cares about me, accepts me and herds me around when I certainly need it! I guess it helps that she herded and ran a dairy farm for her sick uncle when she was just a teenager! Recently I have blessed with this rare disease, “autoimmune pancreatitis”, not life-threatening, but mostly have to watch what I eat and drink, and since I love to eat all the great foods of the world and love a beer or wine ever so much I am still adjusting to all of that. Yes, I do feel sorry for myself at times, other issues also to be dealt with, but I guess I would be crazy if I didn’t. My love of painting and Karen are my great blessings and so I persevere on and am still challenging myself to do a better work of art than the last one, although I still manage to do some real clunkers, but try and cut those down with more time with working out value and color studies.

My productivity is down, but very grateful to still be able to do what I love the most! Trying to think of a moral to this story is, maybe you can come up with something better? I have included a few samples of my work from my teen years up to the present day. It’s nice to see the progress and I think that some of the work I am still doing is going in that same direction. Trying hard to come up with something unique, at least for me. I must quote an old artist’s proverb, as I see way too much of it lately…” to copy from one person is plagiarism, to copy from four or five is creativity”. Look at great art..not bad art..it gets in our brain, it is humbling, which is OK, but also inspiring!  Thanks for getting this far and bearing with most of my story. I only hope that with whatever travails you have to deal with you can find some inspiration, hope, and solace in your own work!

I have a Facebook group where I have demonstrations and videos of my processes including portraits, figures, studio, and plein air landscapes along with explanations of demos and references I use and why and how I put them together. I have been teaching for over 50 years and painting for 75 years and so have a lot of experience, knowledge and some wisdom to share. I am also a “Designated Master” with both the Oil Painters of America and the American Impressionist Society and I love to share my process with others. You can go to this link: Ned’s Artist Buddies or go to my website at: www.nedmueller.com and click on works and then “Artist Buddies”. It is a very good deal!

Most of us would like to be creating unique or compelling works of art, or at least something that we can feel quite proud of. However, all sorts of things can either get in the way or just our own financial situation can inhibit us from doing so. For some of us its circumstances, tragedies or whatever, that make it very untenable. I know when I was younger and had to worry too much about paying the bills and it really would affect my work and with a family I needed to be more secure in selling my  paintings on a regular basis so I was very tuned in to what kind of subject I was doing and the pricing so that I could be fairly sure that it would sell. This was mostly back in the 1980s and 1990s when the Art Market was more robust and when more collectors were exposed to Art in our school system. Things like the internet were not around and the world was not so small. I was also mostly involved in the “Western Art Market” and it was quite robust with three-legged horse paintings and drooling cows even selling in some of the Galleries and Auctions. I knew that if I turned out an exceptional work of art, it would usually sell within a couple of months.

I was fortunate enough to get a scholarship at one of the best Art schools in the country, The Art Center School of Design in Los Angeles. I was an Illustration major and got some really great training as all of the instructors were working professionals and really maintained the very high standards that it would take to survive in a very competitive career. One of my favorite illustration classes was with a teacher that gave us some restrictive limitations in some of our assignments. We would be given an odd size as 9″ x 20″ and would have subject limitations such as we could only see half of a car, two-thirds of a tree, a house, etc. It made us think differently as to being inside of the car looking out, up in the tree or inside of the house or on top of it. Well more exciting things came out of those kinds of assignments than those in which we had unlimited choices. As they say: “necessity is the mother of invention”. It was quite a revelation for me and I often remember that lesson. I always felt that as “Artists”, that was kind of our job… “to see things differently and to present it to the world”. Unfortunately, all of the Art world and buying public and even educated buyers are not necessarily in tuned or so enamored with what we consider “a great invention” or a “unique” point of view! Art is very subjective and that creates some very positive and negative situations for us all.  That seems to be the kicker in so much of how one survives to make a living in the Art World. There are a few that are so talented, ingenious and skilled, but most of us fall in the middle range somewhere and really have to diligently work at our craft and figure what will work best just for us.     

I want to expound on this “Unique” thing as I think it is something we all would like to do more of, but the reality for most of us is it doesn’t always translate into sales as idealistically we would like it to. I have been a member of the “Northwest Rendezvous Artists” for some years and it has some of the best artists from all over the country and each year the 30 to 35 members would vote on our five favorite paintings. We all knew each other fairly well and had some idea when a member really came through with an exceptional work of art and so we would vote accordingly. I think most artists are a fairly good judge of a good or great painting, and I believe even more so if they are pretty darn good artists themselves. So anyways, each year the top five were chosen and invariably most of the time those paintings did not sell. That is a heartbreaker to see and I just tell this tale as what one would think, those works of Art would be cherished for, but not the reality of it. I have seen it happen in other shows. I have been fortunate to have been invited to some really fine exhibitions where some of the artists were really pushing the envelope and doing some creative work making me feel like my own was looking rather mundane! It at least got me inspired to think about what I could do if I could at all! To try and put a little more “interest” in my own work.

The main point here is that one must WANT to do that in one’s own work, certainly not necessary. So what if one is selling most of their so-called “mundane” work, isn’t that all quite good anyways? When expressing my disenchantment to other artist friends I would get various responses from “you are doing great..just keep fine-tuning what you do” or “sure, why not, try and do some different things”. All of it would get muddled with, should I change my style, get more sophisticated ideas, and how does one do that? Different subject matter? Jeez..I was already doing some of that, probably not the “sophisticated” so much; and I was also doing the work in different mediums! Many of us struggle with most or at least some of these things in growing as an artist. The main thing is we have to be somewhat true to ourselves and even that can present a problem to those of us who are more insecure about our own work. I kind of ended up compromising, I have mainly been fine-tuning my style, and looking for more unique compositions or viewpoints and different subjects. But still in the back of my mind I sometimes think, is there a hidden, wild abstract expressionist being repressed, that pure inner child? I kind of doubt it! 

I have included some of my paintings, that..and the important point..for me was doing something unique, at least unique for me!  I should mention that often I have gotten some big awards with them and usually because they were somewhat different from the general run of the mill entries.  

This first image is an example of a subject and composition that I generally do, a typical mountain stream, pine trees, and some rocks. At least an interesting arrangement of shapes and colors but nothing very “unique”.     

Getting a little better. This image is a landscape of a mountain setting but with more emphasis on the “abstract” arrangement of rocks and snowfield. 

A little different, nothing that hasn’t been done before, just lined up figures on the far side of the picture frame, but not having to have everything happening within the picture frame. In a way, the single flower on the steps on the right..helps balance everything.     

Now I’m getting somewhere, at least subject wise. This was a plein air painting I did in a plein air event in Telluride, Colorado (did not sell it and still have it) but I entered it in the “Outdoor Painters Society” show and it got “Best of Show”…$5000!  As I tell my students “a good painting is an interesting arrangement of shapes, colors, and edges- regardless of the subject”, and it could apply to abstracts also! The judge saw it as that, even though it is a back alley of garbage cans, dumpsters, broken pavement, and the rear end of a car!     

This image was from a plein air event in Annapolis a few years back. As I am in the habit of looking for something unique, I had just finished a rather mundane painting and walked onto this scene. An old oyster shack with some junk laying around and this odd machine that had a bright green tarp wrapped around it. As soon as I saw it, I knew that I would get a good painting out of it. I was really fascinated and excited and enough of an edge of doubt that I thought it came out darn good. Fairly well-executed and unique and it got second place in the show! I later sold it to another artist!     

I wanted to include this image and add a side note if I may as it has an interesting story and history behind its execution.  The “Quick Draw” has always been a big crowd pleaser and it originated with a group of artists that I have been affiliated with, “The Northwest Rendezvous Group”, where we use to have our annual exhibitions in Montana. I was not a member at the time, but we would have a campout and paintout the week before the exhibition, somewhere nice in Montana. The first few years the campout was in the Madison Valley, just Northwest of Yellowstone Park.

We would invite models to the campout, including Mountain Men, Indians, Cowboys, with their horses, Tipis and such. A wonderful gathering of artists and subject matter suited for one of the top Western Shows. Artist, Robert Morgan (May he rest in peace) had the ingenious idea to invite the collectors to the campout and watch the artists create a drawing within 30 minutes and then auction off the work. It was mostly to let the artists show off their drawing skills and so that the artists literally have enough money for gas to get home!! Well, the quick draw has changed in so many ways now, mostly all painting and for much longer periods of time. In fact, the Rendezvous show has recently given us artists up to 5 hours to do a work and those who do not paint from life could bring in a painting two-thirds done and finish them off at the Quick Draw. Anyways, I have done a lot of quick draws over the years and everyone does them in paint, including me. Well for some reason I thought, wouldn’t it be nice and “Unique” to go back to the original intent. After all it is called a “Quick DRAW” and so I did a drawing of the other Plein Air artists. In fact, I had so much time, I did three drawings, and lo and behold I got First Place and could have sold the drawing three or four times! Very grateful that we had a judge that understood the importance and uniqueness of a drawing! Just this last summer, I did a drawing for the Quick Draw in the largest Plein Air Event in the world in Wexford, Ireland and got a second-place award.

This drawing shown, of Some Plein Air artists I also did at this last summers “Art in the Open” in Wexford and got picked as the “Best Drawing” in last month’s Plein Air Salon. I am mentioning these awards I have gotten to emphasize that often the judges are looking for something different. I have juried a lot of shows and one sees a lot of the same paintings, same subjects over and over again and so most judges are looking for something, not just well done, but also has that “Uniqueness” that so many of us are looking for. I realize so much of this has been about my experiences but I am familiar with the circumstances and the motivation behind them and at least hope that you might be able to use it to spark that part of you that calls out for trying to be a bit different… certainly at least different for us and whatever form that may be. 

A few last words… I think a lot of this idea of being “Unique” can radiate from trusting our own instincts. Those thoughts and impulses that come from our deeper selves. We need to trust and listen to them as they often are things that seem right at the time and only for us and our “unique” vision. Beginners usually have to concentrate so much on developing their skills, they just don’t have the inclination to consider their instincts, but with growing skill confidence those instincts can be more trusted and more readily paid attention to. I would love to hear some of your comments, both agreeable and not so, and anything in between! Thanks for lasting this far, I hope that you enjoyed this blog and best of luck to you in your endeavors!

I have a Facebook group where I have demonstrations and videos of my processes including portraits, figures, studio, and plein air landscapes along with explanations of demos and references I use and why and how I put them together. I have been teaching for over 50 years and painting for 75 years and so have a lot of experience, knowledge and some wisdom to share. I am also a “Designated Master” with both the Oil Painters of America and the American Impressionist Society and I love to share my process with others. You can go to this link:  Ned’s Artist Buddies or go to my website at www.nedmueller.com and click on works and then Artist Buddies. It is a very good deal! 

 We all would love to have fewer paintings that just don’t seem to work for us.  I know I do. I’ve been drawing and painting for over 75 years and I certainly am trying to save some time away from the clunkers! 

I have found one fairly good way for me is to do value and/or color studies and understand it is not for everyone. I was trained as an Illustrator in art school and we were given assignments that involved doing value and/or color studies, often having to do multiple ideas or designs for the same assignment. It really made sense as we often had to work with art directors who would give us an assignment and make sure we were both on the same page.

We would have to submit small studies that the art director would look at and advise us what we would have to do or not do (usually to do) to communicate or illustrate the story, part of the story or if an advertisement, create the right visual message. There was often quite a bit of money at stake so that commercial process was more of a necessity!

I have carried some of that habit into my fine artwork, particularly with my studio and figure painting where I will work out a composition or design with multiple figures, accessories, animals, etc. They are often telling a story and so I will use a variety of photos that I will try and orchestrate into a painting like the examples here. 

I will also do the same with some of my landscapes where I will usually have one main photo reference and use other photo references or my own memory bank – things that I think will help make the painting better, such as fruits, flowers, baskets, horses, trees, streams, ground cover, etc.

The main thing in the smaller value studies is to get something down so that I can see and think about what I need to do to hopefully make it work better. Usually, with the value studies, it involves making shapes larger or smaller, darker or lighter, edges sharper or duller and adding or subtracting objects, be it figures, dogs, bushes, streams or whatever might make it a better painting. In the case of a color study, the same issues apply. But think more of brighter or duller color and color harmony. I like to tell my students that the old Master’s worked in values for FOUR YEARS. When I was in art school it was for two years, and our first color assignment was three white eggs on a pale blue plate! It is hard to get students to do value studies for two days, let alone two years, but if they are in any way serious about their work, they understand how important it is to master that part of the process!  In regard to doing color studies, I like to tell students that a fairly accurate definition of a good painting is “an interesting or compelling arrangement of shapes, colors, edges, and texture”.  This definition applies for classical to abstract work. And doing smaller value or color studies is a more efficient process to learn all of that, not the only way, but a pretty good way to get a handle of things!   

Usually, the concept of doing studies is associated with more thoughtful studio work. But they certainly can be applied to other forms of painting, such as plein air where immediacy can really be a moving force as often one is in a situation of the unfamiliarity of where and when to go someplace. Just taking a few minutes to get something down visually can clarify some thoughts, feelings, and concepts that may lead to a more successful effort. I have a small sketchpad that I often just scribble down some tones and shapes that helps to clarify some ideas of a scene that has piqued my interest. At least I am not diving in cold turkey and hoping the heck it will all work out as I go along. Yes, sometimes that works. There is much to be said for spontaneity and a quick study guide does not have to inhibit that. Rough sketches at least gave me something of a starting guide with value and shape relationships to contemplate for better or for worse. Usually, we are in a hurry to get going outside and with the first quick sketch the temptation is to say “that’s good enough”, but I have too often gone ahead and had to live with my regrets for not being more patient!

When working in the studio and having more time to think about what and how I am going to paint a picture, I will sit down and do around 10 to 15 value studies. Working from photos and my own memory bank, I develop some concepts and then pick out around 6 or 7 that I like best and do color studies of them. The idea here is to find some ideas that I really like out of many and spend my valuable time on something I am excited about. The one problem with that is that I have played the ballgame twice already, and as the process of creating a picture is what I enjoy the most I lose a bit of an edge in doing a larger piece. Now, I often will just do a value or color study and still have the challenge of seeing if I can make it better on a larger scale. I usually make the color studies around 6″x8″ or 8″x10″, but sometimes larger and may just carry them to a more “completed” finish and leave them as is. 

Everyone is so different in their interests, styles, and motivations and whatever system works best for you is great. Sometimes it takes a while to figure it all out, you may want to detail your studies out more and that is fine. I mainly use the studies to work out my composition or design, trying to get the shapes, values, colors, and edges to work for me. Often, they just don’t work out or they almost work, but just not quite and I can’t figure out what it needs. I have hundreds of value studies and a lot of color studies laying around the studio and in stacks. Every so often I will go through them and  sometimes with a fresh eye see what one needs ..sometimes in a few days..often longer.

One of my best paintings, a complicated street scene with figures and animals, took me almost a year before I figured out how to get it to work. This street scene is what I finally came up with. The creative process really works in strange, but often wondrous ways for us!

You may have already found what works best for you. But if you haven’t, you might consider doing some smaller value studies to work out designs and compositions. Also, read some good books that talk about that and try and look at great paintings in all styles to figure out why they are so good. Some of it may be very relevant to what you are doing and often you can bet that the artist went through a process of doing value and/or color studies to make it better. 

I have a Facebook group where I have demonstrations and videos of my processes including portraits, figures, studio, and plein air landscapes along with explanations of demos and references I use and why and how I put them together. I have been teaching for over 50 years and painting for 75 years and so have a lot of experience, knowledge and some wisdom to share. I am also a “Designated Master” with both the Oil Painters of America and the American Impressionist Society and I love to share my process with others. You can go to this link:  Ned’s Artist Buddies or go to my website at www.nedmueller.com and click on works and then Artist Buddies. It is a very good deal! Thanks for getting this far and best of luck to you in this great adventure of creating art!