Learning how to paint - The Shed - SOLD

Last week I spent the week at Cheaha State Park with several other artists and the well known artist, Julee Hutchison as our mentor and teacher.  Our goal was to learn from her and hopefully incorporate what we learned into our paintings.  I never seem to "take in" all the information while on site but today I tried to reflect back on several things she taught us.  

Some of her thoughts include:

Paint with passion
Take risks
Have fun 
Revel in the day 
Dont get discouraged - must of have miles of bad paintings behind us and often more is learned from a bad painting than a good one.  

She also told us to think of our brush like a violin bow.  Pressure changes are extremely important...direction of movement matter.  Your brush is your instrument - a bow across strings with the same pressure and the same rhythm would make for a very boring "piece".  Value - If you get the value right it really does not seem to matter about the color.  

I have also heard it said, "once you say what you want to say then quit".  As any of you who paint know, THAT IS SO HARD.  The longer you look at your painting you see something you want to change but all those added strokes take away from the spontaneity that you created with the first strokes if they were laid down with conviction.

Then, there is the need to mix colors correctly and have warm colors and cool colors vibrate when placed next to each other.  

Today I took out a picture of an old shed that was located on a farm we visited last week and I spent time mixing colors from Richard Schmid's color charts.  This practice encouraged me to use colors that I do not normally reach for so it changed up my palette.  I also made an effort to lay down color and leave it.  When we go back over our colors again and again we create mud.  So easy to do but so hard to undo.  


 I am pleased with the results and hope to keep on learning.

Learning to Paint with Roger Dale Brown

I have great intentions of completing my summaries of artists I have studied with but somehow painting gets in the way and writing the summaries feel similar to writing term papers in college so I seem to get side tracked but I do not want to leave out Roger Dale Brown, Peggy Kroll Roberts, Dreama Tolle Perry, Qiang Huang or Colley Whisson. 

Roger Dale Brown believes, as the historical master artists, such as John Carlson and Edgar Payne, that "plein air" painting is an essential element in being a great artist.  His workshop was one of the best I ever attended.  Roger is patient, a very good teacher and he provides an excellent notebook full of material for his students.  In this notebook he provides exercises for practice, his own Philosophy, and his step by step approach to a painting.  In addition he describes the steps to a successful painting and he provides several articles and other resource materials.  Roger gave an important hint in one of his articles, "Keep control of your painting by mastering the art of comparison.  Find the brightest color and relate all other colors.  Find the sharpest edge and relate all other edges.  Find the darkest value and relate all other values to it."

A valuable lesson I learned from Roger was to set goals.  He stated that setting goals has been one of the most critical aspects of his development.  He has personal goals and business goals and he provides some very specific examples to get anyone started. 

Roger paints wonderful landscapes but also paints a variety of subject matter.  You can find his website here:

http://www.rogerdalebrown.com

Color and Value in Painting

Dot Turnipseed Svendson is a master teacher of color and values.  While studying 

under Dot, I learned the true importance of values.  Dot stated that 80% of painting is

correct if value is correct. She opened my eyes to the need to place my darks first 

in a painting and then add the lights and to always keep your colors clean and your

values correct. We spent a lot of time mixing colors and comparing values and these

exercises were invaluable.   Another major lesson I learned from Dot was that there are

usually 4 planes to a painting:  (1)  the sky is the lightest, (2) the ground is next in

value (3) slanted objects next value and (4) uprights are the darkest.  During Plein Air 

Painting, Dot encouraged us to write down what we were feeling when we found a

scene so that we would remember when completing our painting.  For instance, was

it a grey day, sunny, warm,  did we feel peaceful, etc. and try and incorporate our 

feeling into our painting.  Dot referenced Carlsons Guide to Landscape Painting by 

John F. Carlson.  In his book, Mr. Carlson states “We have heard a great deal about

“simplicity” and “elimination” about “design” in painting, but we have heard little

about the how or why of it all.  It is easy to say to a student, “see nature simply” but

that means nothing to him. It is a difficult task to explain logically why or how he should

see it simply.  It is not a question of helping him to paint it simply, but rather one of 

helping him see it simply.  If he sees it simply, he will readily find a way of painting

it simply.”  Dot “sees” the painting simply and is able to tell a story without overloading 

the viewer with details.  I find that when I study with someone as great as 

this teacher I do not always come home with a finished painting but I use the opportunity 

to experiment, learn and listen  to her critiques and then I try to incorporate what I

have learned into future paintings. 

I attached an example of the four planes here that I did in the workshop.  I apologize that 

the quality is not very good but she stated it was a good example. 

You can find Dot's website here:

 http://dotturnipseedsvendson.com/about.html