Oil Painting

I started painting at the age of 52, having no artistic training beyond high school, and absolutely loving this incredible new activity, I took every class I could find.  Painting pretty much became my life.  I began to win local awards and my paintings were selling well.  In my first 7 or so years of painting, many of the classes I took included painting from life: models and plein air.  But those paintings were just practice and rarely left my studio.  Paintings that were accepted into galleries and exhibits, and paintings that won awards were all studio paintings.  It became easier, and I thought more productive, to paint photos from my monitor rather than to paint from life.   

And then, gradually there were more and more unfinished paintings lining the walls of my studio. Sometimes I’d work my way through the problems, but many canvases were painted over or thrown away.  There were too many visual questions I couldn’t answer.  Painting had become more about copying and less about interpreting or creating.  A bit of the joy went out of it.  I finally realized that I wasn’t challenging myself, and I wasn’t learning or making progress.  Meanwhile plein air painting was gaining in popularity.  Many prominent artists claimed that true color and value are seen by observing the subjects from life.  We all know that photos are not accurate.  After sending a photo of one of my paintings to an artist I admire for critiquing she suggested that my paintings would improve if I painted from life.  That was it.  I had nothing to lose.  I knew I couldn’t completely step away from studio painting, so I planned to spend at least 3 days per week painting from life and 3 days in my studio.  

Living in a suburb of Phoenix during the winter, I didn’t have to brave the elements and the wonderful Scottsdale Art School was handy for open studios.  I assumed it would be frustrating.  In fact, painting en plein air has been both exhilarating and enormously frustrating.  I found that even when the paintings were pretty darned bad, painting from life was the best part of my day.  In the 7 or 8 months I’ve been working at it there have been some magical and unusual moments.  I’ve painted on a hilltop while bagpipes played in the distance, painted a successful painting in a rare AZ snow storm, and had my lunch stolen from my backpack right behind me by a very brave squirrel.  Painting next to a stream, on a mountain top, sitting under our deck to paint the garden on a rainy day, attempting to capture the magnificence of God’s creation….those are good days no matter how the paintings turn out.  I’ve never felt that in front of a monitor.

I’ve been told by seasoned plein air painters that my persistence will be rewarded gradually with more accuracy in color, value, and stronger compositions.  And gradually I am feeling more comfortable and occasionally seeing some improvement.  I am at the beginning of this process.  Some plein air artists are painting with the intent to produce a finished painting; some use the paintings as reference for studio pieces.  I’ll most likely be the latter.  My slow methodical painting style does not lend itself to finishing paintings in a couple of hours, but painting from life has already taught me so much, and as I said before…..I really enjoy it.  It’s a wonderful challenge, and one that I think my paintings will benefit from.   

 As part of this journey I’ve said “yes” to participating in two non-juried plein air events, completed paintings in both, and a couple sold!  I attended the Plein Air Convention and Expo this year in Denver and found it very helpful.  I entered an AZ Plein Air Painters event and that painting done in the snow was accepted.  That was pretty gratifying.

If you’re getting a little stale in front of the monitor, you might think about challenging yourself to step away.  

Set a date during the week when it looks like the weather will cooperate.  Don’t let excuses derail you. Paint on your own or with a group; whatever you are more comfortable with.  I saw painting opportunities on the path behind our house long before I got up the courage to set up there.  When I finally got out it was a really easy and fun experience.  People were very encouraging.  

Do you have a garden?  It might be easier and less intimidating to set up in front of something in your yard.  I find it easiest to start with a small simple subject rather than taking on a vista.  And that aligns with what I usually paint in the studio.  Often I will go back to the same subject the next day (or two) and make adjustments.  Looking at my painting in studio light makes it easier to see value errors.  I can go out the next day and approach my subject with a more educated eye.  For me, there are no rules when learning.  I take as many days as I’d like to work on a painting as long as my subject is in the same light and hasn’t changed appreciably.   

Challenge is good, continued learning is vital, in whatever way you find it.  For me it meant getting away from something that had become a crutch.  Moving away from my monitor has brought a fresh eye not just to my plein air paintings but to my studio work as well.  I will trust that those plein air paintings will eventually get better, but enjoy the process meanwhile. 

There are so many aspects to being an artist.

In the Beginning we start Exploring Mediums.…

At first, it’s how to hold the pencil or how to use an eraser (really! I remember my 2nd grade teacher showing us how to get the most out of using an eraser!)

Then comes color….

and the artist’s world explodes with joy and questions. When I was still in junior high, Magic Markers burst into the market and my world of pencils, pen & ink and crayons got even more exciting.

By College, My first love for color quickly became the challenge of taming the wild and unpredictable, translucent watercolors. It was not the passive medium of crayons and markers or tempera paint. With those mediums, I could put down a stroke with great confidence and it would stay put, but watercolors?!?!?!

Watercolors talked to me. Instead of sitting still on the paper, it wiggled and blurred and crashed into the other colors, creating all kinds of interesting chaos. It became a language I really wanted to learn. Sometimes we (watercolors and me) “laughed” together and sometimes we got into “arguments” frustrated with my impatience and lack of control. However, watercolors captured my heart and became my passion for more than 3 decades.

Watercolors became my career, I won my first honors, awards and recognition with this feisty medium. Along the way, I explored the art language of sculpture, too.

Then, in my timeline, when I married Howard Friedland OPAM in 1998, the thick and gooey world of oils entered my life. For the first 5 years, I watched his magic brushes push and slide this curious oil medium and before I knew it…, I had to dip my brushes

Into this language of three dimensional strokes. So in 2003, I discovered my art language had expanded to included oils.

Why am I telling you all this? Because each step of the way, I needed to be curious, be experimental, and be willing to struggle and not give up. But I was not alone. I had good Teachers and most important, good Mentors.

Teachers and Mentors: First for me were my mom, dad and even my grandpa… they were my teachers and my mentors. They were artists. Mom was a wonderful experimental hobbyist and explored lots of art mediums. Dad was a professional graphic designer by day. In the evening and on weekends he painted in watercolors and sculpted. Grandpa used pastels and created “Chalk Talks” for churches groups, (an evening of him painting with pastels to wonderful music and then mixing into the painting, invisible chalk that became alive when the lights went down and the black light was turned on.) At 6 years old I witnessed firsthand the power of art when the audience would gasp!

They were my first teachers and most importantly my first mentors.

My Teachers showed me “how”. My Mentors were and still are the “coaches” of my art world. Those words of my mentors have stayed with me and guided me for decades.

Sure Mentors, like Teachers, show you how to do and use and get better at whatever art medium you are using. That is what a good coach does. But most importantly, Mentors see your strengths and help you build on your own unique art abilities. Mentors also are aware of your individual personal art weaknesses and help you turn those weaknesses from hurting your paintings to strength in your paintings, from negatives to positives.

I give a lot of credit to my teachers that took the time to also be my mentors. It started in kindergarten and has never stopped. They are all around us.

AND I will always be grateful to all of my mentors especially:

My greatest mentors:

• Betty Swartwout – my mom
• David Swartwout – my dad
• Rudy Swartwout – my grandpa
• Don Strel – “Believe you can do anything” (College Professor)
• Irving Shapiro – “Plan your paintings” – “Paint with big brushes” (incredible watercolorist and instructor -American Academy of Art in Chicago)
• Phil Austin – “Embrace Plein Air Painting” (awesome watercolorist and my grandpa’s friend)
• Richard Schmid – “Tell only what is necessary” (spectacular watercolorist and oil painter, fellow staff member at Loveland Art Academy)
• Howard Friedland OPAM – “Paint as if you’ve never seen the subject before. See it as a child would see it for the first time.” (Amazing oil painter and wonderful husband)

Warning #1: Don’t think that mentors are there just to pat you on your back and love everything you create. You and I both know that feels good but doesn’t help us grow. A mentor needs to point out your weaknesses, in such a way that you are, at the same time, encouraged. A good mentor has the magic ability to critique your work and leave you excited to get right back to painting. A good mentor will point out what is glorious and also what needs to be fixed and in the process your art growth happens quickly.

Warning #2: Don’t expect your immediate family to be mentors. They will love everything no matter what you do.

Warning #3: Don’t expect your teacher to be a good mentor. Sometimes a good teacher and a good mentor just don’t come packaged in one person.

How to Find a Mentor: You want to discover a person that gives you both sides of the coin…. Will they tell you what they love and what needs to be changed? Or, find two persons, one person that tells you the areas they love in your painting and another person that you know will honestly tell you what doesn’t work. That was my world of mentors when I was growing up. As a young child, I quickly learned how to use my “mom + dad” mentor for my best success.

How I learned to be a Mentor: My mom loved everything I created and I cherished her for that. She graciously skipped over the stuff in my drawing or painting that needed to be fixed. But my dad didn’t do that, he went right to the elephant in the room to be fixed…

So as a little girl, I quickly learned to go to mom first and show her my artwork. She would oooh and ahhh and pump me up with joy….. Then I would go to my dad. My dad owned a graphic design studio and had a staff of artists he critiqued daily. So when critiquing his adult artists, he needed to go right to the spot that needed to be fixed and he would tell them how to fix it . . . without worrying about hurting their feelings.

That is how I formed my method of mentoring. After getting pumped up with confidence from my mom, I would show my dad and sure enough, he would go right to the heart of the matter and tell me what was wrong. As a child, that could be harsh to hear, but insulated with praise from my mom, I glided right past the hurt feelings and loved to hear what he had to say. What did I learn? Always wrap my critiques with support and encouragement in the beginning and again at the end.

(This critique method really worked because my sisters, Karen Vance – Oil Painter and Lindy Schneider – illustrator grew up and have become outstanding artists.)

I have a passion for teaching and being a mentor throughout my 50-year painting career. My joy is to pass on the knowledge given to me by encouraging the artist’s strengths and finding ways to reinforce his/her weaknesses. Each artist has a unique approach to their paintings. My job is to find those unique strengths and help the artist bring them out stronger and stronger. Through the years I have mentored many, many artists. Currently I mentor about a dozen artists from all over the world, one-on-one and also in group sessions.

I am also honored to be a critiquer for Oil Painters of America.

Some years ago, while raiding the family library, I came across a slim volume of essays by Robert Louis Stevenson.  My grandmother had written her name inside the cover, along with the place where she was attending college:  “Estella Rawleigh, Madison, Wisconsin”.  Stevenson, of course, was the author of rip-roaring tales of adventure—Treasure Island, Kidnapped—but I was unfamiliar with his essays, and I made off with the book.  

Well. Shiver me timbers—the essays are pure gold. One in particular I’d like you to notice. It has an awkward title, “Virginibus Puerisque,” meaning in Latin “for girls and boys,” but it’s a pure delight. It’s Stevenson’s take on men, women, and marriage, including his advice on what profession to look for in a spouse. Painters rate highly among the marriageable vocations, according to Stevenson (my emphasis in italics):   

The practice of letters is miserably harassing to the mind; and after an hour or two’s work, all the more human portion of the author is extinct; he will bully, backbite, and speak daggers.  Music, I hear, is not much better.  But painting, on the contrary, is often highly sedative; because so much of the labour, after your picture is once begun, is almost entirely manual, and of that skilled sort of manual labour which offers a continual series of successes, and so tickles a man, through his vanity, into good humour.  Alas! in letters there is nothing of this sort. You may write as beautiful a hand as you will, you have always something else to think of, and cannot pause to notice your loops and flourishes. . . .  [But] a stupid artist, right or wrong, is almost equally certain he has found a right tone or a right colour, or made a dexterous stroke with his brush.  And, again, painters may work out of doors; and the fresh air, the deliberate seasons, and the “tranquillising influence” of the green earth, counterbalance the fever of thought, and keep them cool, placable, and prosaic.

What do you think—is painting “highly sedative,” the sort of labor “which offers a continual series of successes, and so tickles a man, through his vanity, into good humour”?  Does painting out of doors provide a “tranquillising influence”?  For my part, the “continual series of successes” that Stevenson speaks of has eluded me for more than twenty years.  There’s little that’s “sedative” or “tranquillising” about painting outside—it’s exciting—yes, certainly—and rewarding and addicting, but hardly sedative.  

Stevenson wrote his essay a few years before John Sargent, a classmate of Stevenson’s cousin at the Atelier Carolus-Duran in Paris, painted the author and his wife Fannie in 1885:

Stevenson later described Sargent’s painting:  

It is, I think, excellent, but is too eccentric to be exhibited.  I am at one extreme corner: my wife in this wild dress, and looking like a ghost is at the extreme other end: between us an open door exhibits my palatial entrance hall and part of my respected staircase.  All this is touched in lovely, with that witty touch of Sargent’s: but of course it looks damn queer as a whole.

In fact, there’s little about this painting that strikes me as sedative or tranquilizing.  It’s dynamic and awkward and restless—and that’s what makes it great.  I’d like to believe Stevenson would revise his opinion of painters after this experience.

I realize I’m really stepping in it here.   –  An artistic minefield.

This is an issue that I feel is worth addressing but is one of those things that artists talk about when in small groups of like-minded friends, as to not offend anyone. This is the issue that has many names, “painting for the market”, “selling out”, or “following a shtick”. It is a touchy subject with artists, like talking politics or religion. 

It is generally understood that following one’s muse or artistic desires is the highest form of artistic expression, and counter to that it is generally understood that painting simply for the all mighty dollar describes an artist who has lost his or her way artistically. As extremes, these seem pretty accurate. Everything between those bookends can be slightly more murky ground.

I am partially writing this as I have often found myself in the midst of this murky netherworld.  

There seems to be two different yet not at all unrelated realms; the realm of what we are drawn to create- “our passion”, and that which the unquantifiable market will support – “sales”. For many of us, there is a huge overlap with these two realms. With some, a much smaller part of those aspects overlap. I do not want to focus on the aspects of marketing as this is a whole different and immensely varied topic. I am more interested in what sways us as artists, what motivates us and gives us direction. 

I have found myself in an ongoing mental dilemma and it has ebbed and flowed for decades. When choosing the subject and manner of approach for each painting, are the choices based on my love for art or for the market? This sounds simple at first glance but it gets murky rather quickly upon further thought. My first answer is; well kinda both. 

As an artist whose subjects are primarily animals, it is no surprise to anyone that I just love animals. I am fascinated by their multitude of textures, colors, forms and expressions. I have painted every kind of animal imaginable, from local to exotic, winged, furred, and clawed. So this is clearly a decision of love for subject and painting. I could happily paint animals from around the world but I have primarily chosen to paint ones that live around my chosen market: the western United States. So this is clearly a market driven choice. I often explore different styles, methods and expressions of painting, so clearly this is a choice driven by art, but I often find myself revisiting tried and true motifs, techniques and subjects which to me looks as if it is market driven. 

When studying other artists’ work, I see similar traits in even the most famous and accomplished examples of our trade. With extreme technical wizardry, artists revisit tried and true motifs and subjects. I have seen even the most masterful take on subjects that are appropriate for a show they are in or new region they are painting for.  When is it “selling out” and when is it “evolving”. The lines can be as ethereal as smoke and perhaps only the artist knows the real answer.

I revel in those artists who are simply driven by the passion for art. Who will steer, with horror, away from those pieces that galleries might say “Our clients LOVE this, you might want to create something similar!’.  The purity of their passion is inspiring. I also know the intense pleasure I get from a couple who come up to me in a show and with real emotion in their eyes, express the joy they feel in a piece of mine they own, one that, though it is a unique painting, is of a subject or motif I happen to have painted dozens of times before. This is an experience that is a true gift to an artist.

As professional artists, it is almost impossible to extract the art side of things and the business side of things. We all want to be successful in what we do, both with recognition and sales. We want to be known for producing great quality work and we also want to be successful as a result of that work. 

As we thirst to soak up other artists’ techniques and be inspired by their expressions, we also, almost subconsciously, study what has sold and what has remained on gallery walls for cringe worthy amounts of time. We may make a mental note on what did not sell at a show or what seems to fly off the walls. It is good information to tuck away and does shape our decisions in the future. 

It seems to me that the best of artists are consummate craftspeople AND savvy in the knowledge of how their art is received. The best artists attempt to look at their own work through others eyes to see what might not be working, or where their vision is not coming through effectively enough. This same sense has them keenly aware of what makes their work captivate the viewer and that in itself is a form of reading the audience and drawing them in. And yes, this is a form of masterful marketing, for what is marketing if not engaging others in your vision? Effective artwork by its very nature is marketing. 

The question remains: should our decisions be based on our knowledge of what will do best in the market, or what is in our artistic best interest. The answer to this is personal and very much varies for every artist. An artist can never go wrong if they spend decent time perfecting their craft, growing as an artist and keep dipping into that well of artistic passion that is the source of all of our choices to become artists in the first place. In the midst of that, if there is also a consideration on what clients enjoy and what allows you and your family to survive and flourish, then that too has a place in every professional artist’s life.

We might ask ourselves, “Do I still have something to learn or express in this given motif?” Am I growing and challenging myself? Am I still excited to wake up and create? What do I really want to communicate?

If you think about it, we are all just making this up as we go. Much the same as we are creating our artwork, we are creating how we express ourselves in the great art world. And as there is no one way to “do” painting, there is no one way to navigate that art world. We must choose the path that works for us, redirecting our course as we see fit.