There are times when going out with a sketch book and pencil is more productive than going out with canvas and paints. The pencil sketches help to prepare for a painting, finding a good composition and the right time of day makes the painting a lot more successful. I've headed out to the Catalina Mountains area in Tucson, AZ to get some thumbnail sketching done.
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Frank Tenney Johnson (June 26, 1874 – January 1, 1939) was a painter of the Old American West, and he popularized a style of painting cowboys which became known as "The Johnson Moonlight Technique". He was born near Big Grove, Iowa. Raised on a farm on the old Overland Trail, he observed the western migration of people on horseback and in stage coaches and covered wagons. This exposure to the American West would prove to be an important influence and inspiration for Frank Tenney Johnson as an artist and painter of the American West. At one of Frank Tenney Johnson's exhibits at the Grand Central Art Galleries at the Biltmore Hotel in New York City, Amon Carter bought the entire exhibition.
Victor Higgins
Born William Victor Higgins in 1884 to a Shelbyville, Indiana farm family where the only art Victor was aware of as a child was his father's love of flowers. "He loved their forms and their colors, and he tended his garden as a painter might work a canvas." At the age of nine, Victor met a young artist who traveled the Indiana countryside painting advertisements on the sides of barns. He purchased paints and brushes so the young Higgins could practice his own artwork on the inside of his father's barn. He also taught Victor about art museums and especially about the new Chicago Art Institute. This information never left the young artist, and he saved his allowance until his father allowed him at the age of fifteen to attend Chicago Art Institute. He worked a variety of jobs to finance his studies both there and at the Academy of Fine Arts.
Victor Higgins traveled to New York in 1908, where he met Robert Henri, who became a significant influence by depicting every-day scenes and stressing the importance of the spirit and sense of place as important factors in painting. Higgins was also greatly affected by the New York Armory Modernism Show of Marsden Hartley in 1913.
Oils are considered the best medium for learning how to paint because there are forgiving (you can scrap them off) and you can work with them for a period of time before they dry. Acrylic and watercolor need a basic understanding of color and values first, because every stroke is permanent. The same with pastels, all the mixing and layering is on the paper.
In art school I focused on oils, but I had to do some work in acrylic, watercolor and pastels. The idea being that you reinforce, and have better understanding, of what you know by trying different mediums. When I move from oils to pastels or watercolor it helps me see that the same aspects are important in both. It keeps me from getting too caught up in technique and think more about what's important; design, values, patterns and color temperature.
Vincent van Gogh. The Bedroom, 1888. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation).
We all know Van Gogh as a person with a troubled personality, but he saw Art is a vocation not a career, something to be shared with others, not for his own glory.
Vincent van Gogh’s bedroom in Arles is arguably the most famous chamber in the history of art. It also held special significance for the artist, who created three distinct paintings of this intimate space from 1888 to 1889. The exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago brought together all three versions of The Bedroom for the first time in North America, offering a pioneering and in-depth study of their making and meaning to Van Gogh in his relentless quest for home.
Charles Movalli was a student of Emile Gruppe. In this short video he talks about finding the simple pattern in the painting and eliminating detail.
Values make our paintings work, so if the values in photographs are not always reliable we have to have a way to adjust the values in our painting. Here is an explanation at my thought process with values.
In this latest video I talk about what it takes to take a 2-dimensional surface and make it feel 3-dimensional. Since we paint on a flat surface, it’s important to understand how to create an illusion of objects receding. This is a quick look at that illusion.
It’s important to “look correctly” at a photograph so our painting doesn’t look like one. Here’s a few ideas. I’ve created a free checklist for you so it’ll be easy check your photos when you work with them. Just click the orange button below and grab your free copy now. Please SHARE if you know of other artists who might enjoy this video.
Click the button below to download your FREE "Working With Photographs" Checklist.
This is a quick look at why its helpful to think abstractly when painting representational subjects.
