Category: Studio

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Oil Painting Other Art Blogs I Read Painting Still Life Studio

Red Onion, Wrench & Lighting Still Lifes

Red Onion & Wrench

Oil on panel, 8×6″ (larger)

My favorite part of this quick oil sketch are the little flag or wing-like thingees on the top of the onion. I had a variety of problems with this painting, some of which I solved and some I didn’t.

I still haven’t gotten still life lighting worked out. I was about to build a set up like I saw on Carole Marine’s blog here and here, but discovered that while the pvc pipe she used is very inexpensive, the fittings are not. It was going to cost around $50 for the fittings and pipe so I decided to go back to using my 3-sided cardboard box still life “stage.” But my overhead full-spectrum fluorescent lights are right next to the table beside my easel, so it’s hard to block out the overhead light to prevent light sources coming from different directions.

I’ve also been experimenting with different kinds of light bulbs to direct at the still life, from color balanced fluorescents and incandescents to halogen. I even bought some sheets of colored photographic “gels” to use as filters on the lights to create a warm or cool light. So far nothing has worked as well as painting outdoors;  Mother Nature is the best.But in my neighborhood near the San Francisco Bay where it’s often foggy and windy and the light changes constantly, outdoor still life painting can be frustrating.

If you have any tips on lighting still lifes, I’d be most grateful to hear about them!

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Art theory Dreams Faces Oil Painting Other Art Blogs I Read Painting People Photos Portrait Studio

Dreamt about Jack Nicholson so I painted him

Oil on canvas panel, 12×9″ (Larger)

I had a fun dream that I was on a date with Jack Nicholson so the next day I decided to paint his portrait. (I wouldn’t really want to date him–I think he’s scary but fascinating.) I downloaded some photos from the web, picked this one and set it up on my computer monitor.

In Photoshop I cropped the photo to 12″x9″ to make it the same proportions as my canvas and then set Photoshop’s grid to divided the image into thirds. Then with charcoal I drew the same grid on my canvas panel (dividing it into 9 rectangles). That made it easier to correctly sketch in the shapes that make up the face.

Here’s the set up with the painting nearly done. It so great to be able to work from the monitor instead of a printed photo though it still can’t compare to working from life:
Jack Nicholson portrait in progress
(Larger) (Alison and Pete your artwork is visible on my bulletin board, along with some other inspiring artists’ work)

When I thought I was done, I looked at both images in a mirror and saw a bunch of problems that needed fixing. I flipped the photo 180 degrees in Photoshop and turned the painting upside down too. That made it easier to spot and corrent problems as shapes instead of facial features which is harder. I wasn’t going for a perfect finished portrait, but rather was trying to have fun and continue practicing with oils.

While I was working was listening to a historical novel about Pierre-Auguste Renoir and the making of his famous painting, Luncheon of the Boating Party (my favorite impressionist painting of all time–it made me cry when I saw it in person). I’m enjoying Susan Vreeland’s book of the same name, but I can’t imagine a non-artist enjoying it as much, since it goes into great detail about colors, composition, art theory, and the struggles and joys of painting from life.

Here are a couple of great quotes by Renoir that I really loved:

“I always paint from life and never paint anything I don’t enjoy.”

“I make it a rule never to paint except out of pleasure.”

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Studio

A visit to my studio

Welcome to my newly reorganized studio. Would you like a cup of tea or coffee? My sister Marcy Voyevod, an interior designer with an amazing sense of spatial relations, came over last Wednesday night to give me some suggestions on how to rearrange things in my studio. I’d told her I wanted to move my easel so that it wasn’t in front of a window. I also wanted to be able to see my computer monitor from my easel so that if I was going to paint from a photo (or finish a plein air painting at home from a photo as I’m doing here) I could work from a more life-life image than a printed photo. As you can see from the above photo, we did it!

I was amazed when she started actually moving furniture around and coming up with one brainstorm after another. She advised me to clean out a closet in the next room (where I was storing random stuff and old clothes I don’t wear but was mostly used my by my cat for quiet napping during the day) and use that closet for all the canvases that were stacking up in the studio. Of course closet cleaning lead to the two of us trying on old clothes, deciding what she’d take and what would get donated, and lots of laughs.

Now the studio feels spacious again (without the extra furniture and clutter) and everything is organized and tidy. Click “Continue Reading” below to see more…

Continue reading “A visit to my studio”

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Drawing Other Art Blogs I Read Outdoors/Landscape Sketchbook Pages Studio

Payless Shoes from Peets Coffee


Ink in Moleskine sketchbook (Larger)

After taking a huge load of stuff to Goodwill and the recycling center (that came from three days of reorganizing the studio, which led to cleaning out my closets, cabinets and the garage) my reward was a latte at Peets (and what feels like a fabulous new, spacious studio!).

Now that I’m nearly done with this organizing/rearranging project it was great to relax and just draw what I could see out the window while I sipped my coffee.

This is another sketch inspired by Pete Sculley’s drawings with incorporated overheard snippets of conversation. (overheard: “I know you can’t make any decisions.” “My parents are here and I can’t just send them home.”)

Next time I’ll post photos of my newly organized studio.

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Art theory Oil Painting Painting Still Life Studio

Tomato Under Glass

Tomato Under Glass

Oil on gessoed Museum Board, 7.5″ x 9.25″
Larger

I did this oil sketch from life in the studio yesterday evening. One of the “rules” of oil painting is to keep your darks thin, with no texture and you can see why on the background here. Those brushstrokes catch the light and draw attention to it. Here’s the preliminary sketch with the darks blocked in first:

Continue reading “Tomato Under Glass”
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Every Day Matters Painting Sketchbook Pages Still Life Studio Watercolor

Peach: EDM 133 & A peachy new homemade sketchbook

EDM #133

Watercolor on 140 lb. Fabriano Artistico hot press paper
Click for larger view

This week’s Everyday Matters’ challenge is Draw a Peach. I’ve been eating at least one juicy sweet peach a day all summer. I start the day with a peach cut up in a bowl of cereal for breakfast and have one cut up in plain yogurt for an afternoon snack. This variety is so huge that breakfast looks more like a bowl of peach than a bowl of cereal.

New sketchbook

I made myself a new sketchbook and this painting is the first page. Here’s a photo of the sketchbook:

Homemade Sketchbook

Larger view

I didn’t have the inclination or patience to learn actual bookbinding for sketchbooks like Martha and Kate nor the budget to have them beautifully custom made for me like Laura’s. So I came up with a quick, inexpensive way to do it (mostly) myself. I tore two sheets of watercolor paper–one hot press and one cold press–in half and then in half, etc. until each piece was about 7 3/4″ by 5 3/4″. Then I sorted so that every other page is hot press/cold press, and brought the stack to Kinkos (a U.S. photocopy shop). I had them punch and bind it with a spiral wire thingee and a frosted cover and black back for which they charged about $6.00. The paper is way better than the Moleskines and Aquabees I’ve been using, the dimensions are more to my liking, it’s bound on the short side so can be used more easily in landscape format and the spiral binding lets me fold pages under (which means not easily drawing across two pages, but I rarely do that anyway).

The day after I made it I read about the way Miguel makes his own sketchbooks, using a Filofax (day planner) cover and punching three holes in the paper with a special Filofax punch. I’ll try that next, since I have a similar kind of day planner with a nice leather cover that I’m not using and could convert to a sketchbook. The only problem with that method is that when you finish the pages you remove them and box them and refill with new paper. The finished pages don’t remain an intact sketchbook.

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Every Day Matters Illustration Friday Sketchbook Pages Studio Watercolor

IF: Twist; EDM #124: Something Yellow

Twist; EDM Something Yellow

Watercolor in Moleskine large watercolor sketchbook

This week’s Illustration Friday challenge is “Twist” — there’s nothing like a nice twist of lemon in a glass of ice water (or in something more exciting, like a lemon drop martini, which I’m sure sounds better than it tastes, since I’m not a fan of martinis). And last week’s Everyday Matters challenge was to draw something yellow…so there you go.

I did this watercolor sketch yesterday but when I scanned it, my monitor display was driving me crazy. No matter what I did in Photoshop I couldn’t get an image that looked anything like the original. I tried again and again to calibrate my monitor using Adobe Gamma but just couldn’t get it right. I finally gave up around midnight, vowing to resolve the problem today one way or another.

Today I went to a great photography store in Berkeley, Looking Glass Photo. They rent and sell everything you need for digital or film photography and they’re staffed by experts who are generous with their knowledge. Initially I was going to rent a fancy set of calibration tools but a handsome, Buddha-like man named Paul (a customer who used to work there) steered me towards buying a simpler unit for not much more money than it would have cost to rent the unnecessarily fancy tools for just one day. I bought the Gretagmacbeth Eye-One Display 2 which looks like a small regular computer mouse.

I waited until it got dark out, turned on my full spectrum overhead lights only and then hung the little device over my monitor. I tried the automatic calibration which was OK, and then I tried the more detailed program, which I think did a better job. When it finished, I scanned my little lemon twist and amazingly it appeared on my screen just like the original. I have no idea how it will look on your screen, but at last, after all the changes in my studio, my monitor, scanner and printer are all working together again. Whoopee! Now I can get back to painting instead of messing with computer stuff!

P.S. If this looks washed out or too bright on your monitor, please let me know.

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Photos Studio

My studio’s new ergonomic sit-stand desk

Sitting height

Finally I have my new Workrite Sierra electric sit-stand desk. This is it in lowered position for sitting in a chair. If you click on the picture above, it will take you to Flickr where I’ve annotated all the different items (just mouse over the little boxes and the descriptions appear). Flickr also has larger sizes of both photos.

Standing height

Here it is at standing height (I’m tall). It’s so great being able to alternate between sitting and standing–it saves my back and my feet!

On the left is my main drawing table that I’ve previously posted drawings and photos of before. On the right is a drawing table that students or painting group buddies use. To the right of that is my window seat and to the right of that is my easel. Maybe I’ll take 360 degree pictures of my studio (my favorite place in the world) and post those some day.

I love the new desk but it’s been a journey getting all the computer stuff set up, including calibrating the new LCD monitor so that the colors look the same on the screen and on the printed output. I had been using an old CRT monitor that was excellent quality but too huge and heavy to use with this table. I advertised it on Craigslist for free and a nice guy who also turned out to be an artist was happy to take it home with him.

There were a series of amusing mishaps and extreme computer geeking with my good buddy Richard, who worked with me until 1:30 a.m. on Friday to get it all set up. Some of it was pretty funny and I wanted to write about them but I’m too exhausted tonight. We’re going through our busiest month at work and between the studio being all kerblooey with all the computer stuff plus the demands at work, I haven’t been able to get much posted the past week. But soon I’ll be on my birthday vacation (either next week or the following week, depending on what’s needed at work) which will be devoted to sketching and painting. So don’t give up on me. I’ll be back with regular postings very soon!

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Photos Studio Watercolor

In the studio & Wanna be tagged?

Studio - Work in Progress 2

A watercolor in progress (about 1/3 done) on my watercolor table with my helpers standing by, waiting to help (or get in the way). This is a commissioned portrait of a house with the family’s 3 cats in the window.

Studio - Work in Progress 1

An acrylic painting in progress on my easel in the opposite corner of the room.

If you click on the pictures to look at them on Flickr you’ll see little notes of what stuff is.

Tagged

Now, about this tagging business. This week I’ve been “tagged” by three different art bloggers. When you get tagged you’re supposed to list seven little known facts about yourself and then list seven blogs you like to visit and then tell each of those people they’ve been tagged. It’s sort of like a chain letter. Since I don’t know who’s already been tagged, and since I was tagged 3 times in 3 days, I have a feeling people are running out of people to tag…which makes me feel a little like I did in high school gym class where I was always the last to be picked for a team since I was such a klutz.

So instead of tagging other people, I’m going to invite people to be tagged. That way I won’t be imposing on anyone and won’t re-tag already tagged people. Will I get in trouble for breaking the chain? If you want to play and haven’t been tagged yet, just leave me a comment and I’ll toss you a tag…

Here are the 7 random facts about me:

1. I live in a house that used to be a duplex so I have 2 living/dining room rooms, 2 kitchens, 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and 2 laundry rooms. (One living/dining room/kitchen is my studio and 1 laundry room is a pantry now.)

2. I have two cats who sleep on top of my computer monitor and tv with their tail hanging over the screen.

3. I love doing dishes and cleaning the cat litter box but dislike doing other housework because it takes too long.

4. I like to read manuals for computer software and electronic gadgets and I subscribe to PC Magazine.

5. I hate shopping for clothes but love shopping for art supplies and books.

6. I download books from Audible.com to my computer and iPod and listen to them while I watercolor (but oil or acrylic painting I listen to music).

7. I have a spinning bike (exercise bike) in my living room and I like to ride it while watching American Idol on my TiVo with the sound played through my stereo.

And here are links to the lovely artists who tagged me:

Claudia of Time Passages whose garden sketches are sensational!

Kerstin Klein of Snowflakes and Black Vampires who has been participating in the portrait party where people trade doing each other’s portraits.

Dinahmow (sounds like “Dynamo”) of Idle Thoughts of an Idle Woman  whose printmaking and photography is stunning.

So, I know I’ve done this all wrong. I haven’t listed 7 new tagged people…but I’m tossing the ball to you and calling out TAG, You’re IT.  If you wanna be tagged, just leave me a comment and I’ll link you in the next post.