Oil Painting

As a relative newcomer to fine art, one of the biggest challenges I faced was what subject to paint. I had never painted in oil and was drawn to it by watching a local French artist who was painting wonderful French country landscapes and Italian villas with bold colors and thick palette knife strokes. I also took notice that art buyers were drawn to his French accent and his beret.  His paintings were flying off his easel. Why else would I paint, but to make the same stacks of money? 

After taking classes from him, I too became very adept at those same foreign vistas. It did not take long for this Texas native to realize I had no idea what I was trying to paint, and I was committing another sin by trying to rely on found photography. I did not want to be a big fake. I had barely left the state of Texas, let alone traveled overseas! There are tons of that kind of art being produced in factories already, and besides that, I would have looked pretty out of place wearing his French beanie.

Then I was saved by going to watch my first paint out hosted by the Outdoor Painters Society of Texas. My eyes were opened to the joys of plein air painting. Who would have thought I could find a muse just outside my own house? Joining this group is the only reason I am even writing this blog today. 

Most artists I have met are very humble and willing to share their knowledge. I love the comradery. But plein air painting is not for the weak-hearted. To put in the required work day after day, you must genuinely love your subject. Enthusiasm cannot be faked.

Being out in the landscape, you are surrounded by sky and trees, and that is what the majority of painters paint. However, I found myself looking for more intimate subjects, something that I knew. I was looking for what Texas means to me. A love for rusty old trucks, collapsing barns, ancient tractors and other rural images reminded me of my childhood. I see the strength in those subjects. 

Now, several hundred of those paintings later, I became known to many people as “the truck and tractor guy”.

It was a title that I felt was limiting. I found myself apologizing when I shared another truck painting with comments like, “I know it’s another truck but here you go”. 

I am not alone in feeling uncomfortable with my label. I hear tons of other painters say the same thing as they share their own clichéd subjects.  You know what I’m saying, all of those waterfalls, cabins nestled in the woods, and yes, the dreaded red barns. Don’t get me wrong, it is nice to be known at all among your peers, but I started to feel like that was all anyone thought about me and it was not really the vehicles that I even cared about…it was the emotions and the deep-rooted connections I had to these subjects I was painting.  

When I get in a painter’s drought, I paint my trucks and tractors. When I have only a short time to paint, I choose my default subjects. Without these subjects, I may not be painting at all. It takes motivation to get that brush mileage you need and for the majority of painters that motivation is not money. I needed my muse, I found it and it works for me. Behind most famous artists is a muse that inspires new passion and better work. When you are inspired, the dictionary states, “mentally you are stimulated to do or feel something”.  Above all, an inspired person often feels compelled to be different and do better.  Paint what your inner voice tells you. 

I have been honored to be accepted in OPA National and Regional shows. Interestingly, my selected paintings have not been of trucks and tractors, but instead were portraits, figure studies and even animals. So far, only one vehicle painting has made it in, and that was a train. But none of those paintings would have been possible without my muse work. So, learn to embrace your muse. Paint those red apples again and again. If you are good at it, others will see and feel your passion displayed in paint.  Do not paint someone else’s French countryside!

I found my muse and my reason for painting, but I’m still waiting on those stacks of money. ;?)

No clowns, no bells, no whistles.  Nothing fancy here, this is just for you and me.  January 2020 was the beginning of a life we could have never imagined.  And, now with broken hearts from actually living our worst fears, we make ready for life in a different world. 

My first sense of the oncoming tidal wave of sadness and grief came through a phone conversation with an artist who I had only known casually.  In the midst of a light conversation about galleries and traveling during a pandemic, he spontaneously mentioned losing his dad to Covid-19.  Nearly as a casual afterthought, he added he had been unable to even visit his dad in the hospital before his death.  Then, silence dropped as if from a gallows, dreadful and heavy.  

Tears, an apology for breaking down, then more gasping tears.  We then shared a long conversation. 

I am pretty sure he only knew me as a fellow artist, not a psychologist.   This first one hit me hard.   The sadness, the vulnerability, the regret, the pain… someone who needed to be held and the only lifeline between us was a satellite signal.  It hit me so hard, I found myself calling several friends that day to process it. 

A few weeks later came the next, a recent widow.  She called to let me know she would not be entering an annual show for our group because she just had lost her husband and could not muster the wherewithal to finish the piece. This time, I was the one who started with the choking up.  And again, a long conversation.  

There have been many others and there will be others, yet. Of course, I would expect such intimate moments with my friends and family but it was a bit unnerving to experience these events with casual acquaintances.  

Looking back, I should not have been surprised. Having been a practicing psychologist for my first career, I know that when people are overwhelmed,  grief chooses its own way out without regard to person, place or time.  Breaking down, feeling lost, grieving for those known and unknown, reaching out in the most unlikely circumstances — this is our new normal for a while longer.  

When I was a young mental health professional, I went to a seminar to learn about family dynamics.  The speaker asked for volunteers and my hand shot up before I thought it all the way through.  Four others and I were instructed to form a circle.  The speaker’s assistant tied my hands and feet to the hands and feet of the persons on my right and left with about 24 inches of slack rope between us.   Our circle included the speaker, who I was soon to learn,  was a strong and strapping women.  When finished, we all stood tied to one another quietly; waiting in anticipation for what was coming next. 

In what I can only describe as a “formidable fashion”, our speaker went down nearly flat to the floor dragging all of us tumbling down with her.  As each of us scrambled to gain a bit of equilibrium,  we wobbled the person next to us and finally just ended in a collective heap. I will never forget the lesson learned.

People in our lives are connected with differing lengths of relational rope.  Our most intimate relationships are tied with the shortest binds. What affects one person, ripples to affect other relationships in that person’s life.  What one does in response to the ripples, sets off its own series of relational events, for the better or for the worse.  Oddly, when something happens for the worse, I believe it ripples both ways.  I also believe that when something happens for the better, it also ripples both ways.  I have health and wellness research to support my claims, but that is not what this is about.  Today’s thoughts are only for you and me. 

So , now in this season of loss but with hope on the horizon,  my simple message is to share, disclose, and let someone in; share you heart, your losses, your fears, your regrets and sadness.  Reach out and express your losses. 

Give others the opportunity to understand, support, hope for and love you.  Open a door for them to reach back through with their own grief.  No one has lived this year unscathed.  Rather than hiding and holding heartbreak, process it and transform it into the love you felt for those injured or gone.  Like so many things in life, grieving is a process, not an event, and grief will have its way for the better or for the worse. 

When I hung up after that first conversation, I felt honored as well as sad.   Once acquaintances, when we said goodbye that day, we had become closer friends.   I felt honored to let him know I “heard” his pain.  I felt honored to acknowledge his sadness and regrets without needing to “fix” it for him.  I felt honored to let silence sit without having to fill it with words.  I felt honored to be part of the process of grieving with a response for the better – one that validated hard times and one that held hope to one day remember a well-loved father with thankfulness rather than regret.  Even the saddest of times can eventually give way to living again, if one chooses that path when it is time.  

As I have aged and lived through many things both personally and with my beloved family and friends, I have learned that to all matters there is a season;  “A  time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance”.  Funny that I first remember learning about this initially startling, but now comforting, concept from Pete Seeger’s  1962 The Bitter and the Sweet album (adapted by the Byrds’, Turn, Turn, Turn a few years later).  Seeger gave me permission to be sad, to be quiet, to take time to regain strength and to understand life was complicated and at times, very hard.  It is an understanding that I carry in my heart today. I have no idea when I realized he lifted it from Ecclesiastes 3:1-8.  

All said, emotional intelligence in life may just come down to understanding that in life, there is a season for all things;  a season to acknowledge and grieve our losses and a season to celebrate and rejoice in life.  Take heart my friends and reach out to one another.  

My color choices are based on observation, feeling, and the desire to express my experience.  My brain does not respond to rules and scientific theory. I choose to see what I see and that choice comes from my attitude about what I am painting. Color affects how we see the world, and it leaves us with a definite response. Think of the people who are given a pair of glasses allowing them to see color for the first time. They are brought to tears from the power of color. It is that power we harness in our own color choices.

An artist must experience the subject they choose to paint. In my workshops, I ask that artists bring only reference material that they have gathered firsthand through their sketches or photos, so they can draw on their experience of the scene while painting. Memory of the subject is as important, if not more important, than trying to copy a photo.

When I paint a demo for artists, I tell them, “I see blue here,” or “a warm orange there”. Some students mistakenly think they have failed if they don’t see the same colors as I do. However, that could not be further from the truth.  For example, Andrew Wyeth and Vincent Van Gogh saw color in very different ways that were both equally effective. Each artists’ color choices conveyed their attitude about their subjects. While the work showed technical skill, it also expressed vision unique to the individual. Take a look at Van Gogh’s passionate, warm-toned paintings. His shift in color began around 1888 and may have been a result of a medical condition. Imagine if he had not tried to capture what he was truthfully seeing at the time, and instead relied on color theory to compensate for his change in vision from his earlier, darker Dutch period. His work post-1888 is electrifying and instantly recognizable as Van Gogh precisely because of his personal color choices.

There are basic ideas of color that can be helpful, for example cooling a color as it recedes to convey depth, and using warm or cool mixtures to convey light and shadow or to suggest the turning of an object. Objects in shadow are generally cooler than those in light. That is not to say that a shadow may not have warmth in it. Sometimes a shadow will appear to lean to red-purple, which technically is a warm color, but the red-purple can be cooler relative to the portion of the subject in light. For me, trying to remember rules keeps me from just looking and choosing to see what I want to see.

I am often asked, “How can I see color and get the exact mixture I want?” The answer is that to see and to mix are two different things. A very helpful way to learn to mix color is to do color charts using the colors on your palette. I use a limited palette of Titanium White, Cadmium Yellow Pale, Alizarin Crimson Permanent, Ultramarine Blue and Viridian. With these colors, I can make any color I need. The limited palette is a great way to learn to mix color quickly. The limited palette is called the “mother palette,” because most color mixed using it carry a bit of the others in it. It is harder to produce a muddled painting and easier to maintain harmony. 

A great example of making color charts is in Richard Schmid’s book Alla Prima.  Creating the charts shows you how to mix a variety of colors with confidence. The completed color charts can be carried outside when working in plein air, or held up against a subject when working in the studio. You can ask yourself, “Does the color I see lean towards the warmer, or cooler version of it?” You will begin to define what it is you are actually seeing.  Because the charts also show the different values in colors, they will train your eye to see both hue (color) and value. For instance, if you see a tree with green leaves in warm light, holding up the chart of green mixes, will help you identify the subject as a warm green that is in the darker value range.

While you may see color differently than I do, or your friends do, trust what you see and put it down. Color is your personal choice. It would be boring and inauthentic if we all followed rules about which colors to paint trees, water, figures, or shadows. To learn to discern color, especially in nature, look and blink your eyes so you do not stare at the subject too long. If you stare at an area of color, it will lead your brain to give you a generalized local color.  The time to squint and stare is when you are evaluating value (light to dark.)  Squinting removes details from our subject and we are left with the darkest dark and lightest light shapes. For color, a quick impression (looking away and back again) is needed. Also, try not to see the spot of color in isolation only — look at it in relation to what’s around it. For instance, you might think you see “white” on the roof of a snow scene, but in a quick look, you might actually see a light blue, which reads white relative to its neighbors.

Try taking walks in nature and ask yourself to mentally record what you are seeing. Ask yourself if the object you are looking at is cooler, warmer, grayer, lighter or darker in relation to something else. You will build more ability to identify what you see. Also, be aware of where the light hits an object. Seeing color and value is like stretching a muscle: hard at first, but easier with use.  

When I see blinding skies and incredible waves that take my breath away, I worry that there is no way my camera will capture what I am seeing and feeling. It rarely does. However, my personal sense-memory is soaking up everything. My attitude affects what I see of the color’s energy and power. When I paint, I am communicating an experience that has moved me. I push the color on my canvas until it elicits that same feeling. 

I recently received a photograph from a fellow artist. It was of her mother and father. She wanted to commission a painting of it to give to her mother, who is an artist as well. The photo showed her mother and father at an art workshop. Her Dad was not an artist, but was her Mom’s biggest fan. He would carry her gear, set up her easel and supplies, and then sit back and admiringly watch her paint works of art. As soon as I saw the picture, I saw the painting. I took the commission and began the process of not merely copying the image, but creating a visual story of connection.

So, what were my thoughts on developing the painting? How was the information processed in my mind? It went something like this:

1. First, I noticed a natural Fibonacci spiral in the design. I realized that the line leading my eye through the painting was dependent upon the connection between the gentleman’s feet and the shadows of the chair in front of him. If this were broken, your eye would go to the strong contrast between his clothing and the background. I wanted there to be a connection between the two people, for the design as well as for the story.
2. Second, I thought about the size and placement of the subject on the canvas. I chose a 12 x 16 inch canvas because it has a longer length to width ratio than the 11 x 14 one that we had originally discussed. I communicated this with the client, and she agreed.

3. Because there were two figures, I knew that the proportion would need to be as accurate as possible. If I drew one figure perfectly and then realized I did not have enough room for the other, I would have to start over.
   
4. The placement of the figures on the canvas mattered as well. I chose to have more room to the right of female figure because the pair were facing in that direction, and I wanted the viewer to have a sense of the space outside of the canvas. This placement also helped the eye not linger on the gentleman whose sharp edges and high contrast could have stolen the show. 
   
5. The balance of the painting was also important. The canvas had more “weight” or “pull” on the right side because of the size of the artist’s gear, the detail around that figure, the action the figure is engaged in, and her darker values.
   
6. Once I had the placement of the figures noted on the canvas, I began to mix my paint. I chose the colors for my “Color Circle” — the way I premix my colors to get a wide variety of harmonious hues with a limited palette.

My limited color palette for this painting was as follows: 

1 Red: Indian Red

1 Blue: Ultramarine Blue

1 Yellow: Cadmium Yellow Light

Dark: Mixture of Ultramarine Blue and Transparent Oxide Brown

Titanium White

And to the side – Cadmium red to mix in as needed

Next, I began painting at the center of interest (the place that I wanted the attention to go the most). This area also had the darkest darks on the canvas. As I painted her head, it was important to get a background color next to her hair and skin to show the relationship of value and temperature, instead of making an isolated color choice. These relationships of color and the interactions between colorsis the way that atmosphere is created in a painting — the interconnection of all of the elements and objects working together. That is why it is important to put a sky in a landscape early, and why the colors of some objects are found in others that are nearby. There should be a definite intertwining of color and movement throughout a scene. This is what is missing many times when artists feel like their paintings are too “stiff”.

I do not paint every painting using this same method. Instead, I let the design dictate the decisions I make. I think about how to not lose the most important design elements of the scene, and try not to let anything distract from it. I also try to have my drawing accurate enough that I can be bold with my brushwork and not rework it.

In this painting, I worked around the lady’s head, then followed the background to where the gentleman was, and then blocked him in. Finally, I circled back to her and the items around her. Even in the placement of the background flowers, I was thinking about my design. I did not mind the sharp edge created by his legs because it added to the movement of the viewer’s eye through the painting, leading to the female figure. I finished the painting with detail on his face- not getting too much detail, but just enough to see the shape of his head and character as much as possible in a small painting. When it said what I wanted it to say, I called it finished.

This painting was about a gentleman, who, although taking up the most space in the painting, was the background figure. His wife was the focus — not just of this painting, but also his life. And he was glad to sit back and watch as she shined in the spotlight. He was connected to her, not just in design, but in heart and in focus. As I compiled my painting, I was doing more than artistic design. I was telling a story of connection.

Now that I refuse to board an airplane and fly across country, I miss my family and friends.  My plein air workshop at the Landgrove Inn in beautiful Vermont has been canceled, and my trips to NYC, specifically the MET, have been on hold.  I live near San Francisco with my husband and son. This has been a time of painting locally. 

My studio was relocated from Oakland to my backyard.  I have used this time for reflection and growth, integrating skills that I have spent a lifetime accumulating.  I have taken some online courses and attended virtual conventions: DrawingAmerica and Realism Live to name two.  All the while, I have tried to find a remote teaching job at the local private schools. I know one thing about this pandemic: you cannot run around and hang out with friends.  Workshops and onsite teaching opportunities have all been cancelled. This is a time of resilience, a time to consider all the diversity training available, and a time to be thankful for what is in the moment. 

During the Realism Live Convention, Patricia Watwood, Jennifer Balkan, and Alia El-Bermani discussed gender bias and the imposter syndrome which set off a bell for me.  I could write a whole article on that syndrome, but instead, with this Covid “pause,” I discovered new coping strategies which otherwise would have just blown right by me. I have always been part of an art community. However, during  the pandemic, it is no longer available. So, spiritual self-reinforcement has become necessary. 

Out in my backyard, to get beyond the blank canvas, I start with a series of questions: 

Why is that beautiful?

What are the shapes?

How can I frame that?

How many compositions/thumbnails can I make with that idea?

Which idea is best?

How varied are my value shapes and are they interesting?

What are the main colors and values, and does that affect my focal point?

(One thing I truly love and notice is how colors react next to each other…)

How should I approach my color studies?

Cast drawing and painting has humbled me to the core, and I can say I was not the best at it. I understand how difficult it is to set up a hierarchy of values and edges.  This ultimately is the greatest challenge in any painting, and the concept should be considered early. 

I find it interesting that some people have confidence right from the start and eventually catch up with their skill sets, while others are always thinking they are not good enough. My own self-doubt arises when I don’t sell my work and there is a very slow market.

The truth of my training outweighs any imposter syndrome-feeling: Pratt Institute, the Academy of Art in San Francisco and Training at Golden Gate Atelier in Oakland with Andrew Ameral from Florence Academy. But this weird world presents its own tests.

To be an artist requires grit and perseverance. Practicing art is an act of faith.  The Covid situation has made it necessary to isolate from many social activities. My creative mission became to find beauty and truth in the ordinary; to “be where I am,” even if that meant a lot of solitude. I am motivated, however, when artists such as William Merritt Chase and Adolf Menzel show me how they made masterpieces by staying local and simple.

William Merritt Chase (1849-1916) found a world to paint in his own backyard. Relentless with his education and drive, he was stylistically flexible with his portraits, landscapes, and still lifes. I appreciated Chase even before the pandemic. His works are carefully composed views of his reality. His paintings of Central Park resonate with me on a very deep level.  I have walked through the park, over the land where Chase painted. One idea, still pretty new to the US, is that we are just passing through—that the past, present and future all contain gifted and talented people to capture the same hills, lawns, trees and vistas. 

Adolf von Menzel (1815-1905), a German painter and printmaker, resonates with me especially during this time of isolation.  To some degree, Menzel was detached from others.  He became famous toward the end of his life for historical and patriotic paintings. But for me, his ability to see the beauty in common objects is a great lesson. His drawing of a comb with hair illustrates my point: find something common, a simple object to draw, and make it interesting.  

The Japanese culture embraces an idea called Wabi Sabi. The word Wabi describes loneliness, not the negative feeling of isolation from others, but rather a pleasant feeling of being alone in nature, away from society. Sabi means to be old and weathered, but in an elegant, rustic fashion. In our culture, we do not often confront loneliness. Wabi-sabi is also about appreciating simplicity, and seeing the value in small things. This past year has forced me to do so, and being “stuck” in my backyard studio turns out to be a positive: it allows me to observe detail in a new way. I would have missed the delight and creativity in the ordinary. Take a moment to look at what is around you wherever you are. I hope that it stirs and inspires you, just as it did Chase, Menzel—and me.