Still life. Really???

Grandma's Tea Set

Original oil painting  20x16"

by Susan Roux

From a teaching point of view, I've been wanting to introduce my students to still life painting for a while now. It requires close attention to values and defined light and shadow patterns. Much like the challenge of doing a figure without the proportions being as important, so long as the overall composition still works.

I wasn't sure how to go about this. Each class meets once a week and it can take a good month to finish a painting. How could I possibly set up a still life that would last that long without being moved? Not to mention any flowers. The other problem I faced was everyone's vantage point would be different. A set-up could be very pleasing from one persons perspective, but very unattractive from another's.

One day the solution came to me.

A photo shoot. Yes, it was that simple.

I'm predominantly a studio painter. I work from images most of the time. Why having images of a still life didn't occur to me is baffling. I did still life work over a decade ago. It fascinated me and made me focus differently than painting landscapes. I enjoyed the challenge a few times a year. Each time, I'd prepare a set-up on my bay window to paint from at the same time of day. It was my time to explore painting from life and I loved the light and colors I'd see.

It came as an unusual thought to paint one from a photograph, but it seemed the perfect solution. So one day I called a student in to help me. Bring along some things that would work in a still life, I said. Much to my surprise, he arrived with a car full of unusual and interesting things. We set up a table in the hallway, the darkest place in the house. A single light source could be brought in. We worked for hours that day, setting up various things on different cloths. Click, click, click went the camera. Artifacts were strewed all over the house by the time we finished.

Those photos sat in my file for at least a month. Last week a class wanted to begin a still life. It hit me that I was perhaps not the best teacher for this, not having done one in so long myself. We began. A loose background and the objects drawn in with paint was the extent of our progress.

I found myself wanting to continue after class, but since I paint along with my students, I couldn't. The next best thing was to do another one on my own. I figured it would really help me direct the class though the process if I did. So here it is. Grandma's Tea Set.

I surprised myself. I don't know if it was the emotion around the memory of my Grandmother or the fact that artists were in and out of my house to paint that day, but something extraordinary seemed to happen.

You work for years trying to establish your own style and define yourself uniquely as an artist. It's odd when you suddenly choose a completely different subject and it falls into place so naturally. The fascination for creating still life feels awakened in me. Where has this desire been hiding all these years?

The artist journey is too complicated to describe in a few phrases. Even to the artist himself, it is full of surprises.

You can expect to see a few more still life paintings show up here. I can't promise they will all turn out like this, but time will tell.



Behind the easel, the adventure continues...

Toby and Leslie

Toby and Leslie

Original oil painting 20x16"

by Susan Roux

I can't tell you the amount of hours I put in this painting. Rest assured I was elated when I laid down my final strokes! I couldn't help but think of Carol Nelson who blogged awhile back, 100 portraits in 100 days. I'm impressed at all of you who post a daily painting. Not only are you completing a painting every day, but also taking time to blog about it. We can't all keep up that pace... Its very admirable that you do. I tip my hat to you.

I had days where I spent every moment from early morning to suppertime planted in front of my easel. My focus was so intense that every time I did this, the following day I needed to rest. It was as though my brain was empty, almost in a haze, and my spirit and energy were drained. I suppose I was really pushing myself...

Wednesday, when all my students saw it nearly done, they were baffled that I wasn't enthused with it. I didn't like the feeling it had. I wanted to capture the sense of love/admiration and all I had managed was the look of porcelain dolls. After I completed the faces, I worked with the background and succeeded a bit in capturing that emotion I wanted. Yes the colors are better in life and the feeling more apparent too.

I learned so much doing this piece. I started off expecting to spend a few days on it as an exercise and move on. As you know, that didn't happen. I hope to capture my next portrait quicker so a bit more of a painterly look will remain. The day I worked on smoothing out my color transitions to soften Leslie's features, is the day the porcelain feeling appeared. There must be a way of painting it soft without turning them to ceramic. My next subject will be a single head.

As I look at it this morning, I am kind of amazed I was able to accomplish this. Suddenly a separation from it, no longer being my lingering job, allows me to have a different perspective. Don, thanks for all your help. Even telling me to start over, though it was the last thing I wanted to hear at the moment.

I may take a few days to go paint in plein air before settling down to a new face....

Toby is my husbands son. He plays guitar in a rising band called Sparks the Rescue. He's toured the country many times and also toured in Europe. Recently they took part in the exhausting Warped Tour, where more than 70 bands played. They have a video that airs on MTV called We Love Like Vampires. You can view it at their official site by clicking their name. Please let me know if your children may have heard of them...

Enjoy your day creatively!

Neutralize, Part 2

This is a lesson and a continuation of my last post. If you haven't read it, please begin there.

Now that you understand how to neutralize color, lets talk about how to implement it into your art. I'll explain it from the perspective of a landscape, but it holds true for any composition.

First off, your sky isn't usually neutralized. Its your source of light. Clouds on the other hand can often be. The sky is a whole lesson on its own, so let's pretend your sky is painted and its time to paint the other elements in your landscape. Do you start in the distance and work forward? It isn't necessary to work like this, but for this lesson, I'll explain it in this order.

Lets start in the far distance, where trees are tiny. This is where your colors will be neutralized the most. This is where the "snowstorm's effect is heaviest", so everything about these trees will be muted, hazy and filmy. Tree edges should be loose and soft. Nothing hard and defined. Just as the color is muted, so should be your brushstroke.

If your composition has several layers, meaning subjects in varying distances from the viewer, such as background, middle ground and foreground. Make each layer gradually come into focus. Your colors should remain neutralized to a certain degree until you reach the foreground. Once you have already painted the background in very muted shades, you can add pigment to the remaining paint on your palette. So a very neutralized background yellow can be altered for the middle ground by simply adding more yellow pigment to it. Since the original mixture was already neutralized, there is no need to neutralize it again. By adding yellow, it will become less neutralized than the original and therefore it will be brighter and leap forward, by contrast.

Objects that are less neutralized will separate visually from those that are more neutralized.

Take another look at the top photo. The treetops from the middle ground read closer to us, even though we only see a small portion of them. No perspective lines are present. It is the varying degree of neutralization that causes this effect.

Your color saturation increases as it moves forward on your canvas and focus more defined on your objects. More detail is revealed in the middle ground, but edges are still a bit soft.

As we continue to the foreground, our colors become pure and not neutralized.

It is here we find the most detail. The "snowstorm" has few particles in our way. Colors are saturated. Darks are deep. Contrasts are sharp and edges are crisp.

When painting an open field or a vast ocean, make sure you neutralize the farthest portion and increase the amount of pigment, as you move forward. If your experiencing the problem of your field or ocean wanting to "stand-up", simply neutralize the distance and watch it lie down!

If you want an object to separate from another, don't overwork it until it turns to "mud". Take the object that is behind and neutralize its edge that is touching the forward one. This can be very helpful if painting a bouquet of flowers. At times merging objects is poetic and beautiful, but if separation is wanted, neutralization will achieve it every time.

This is also a useful tool for painting plein air on a sunny day. All the colors will appear so bright to you. Nothing will look hazy or muted. But do remember to neutralize your distance and your results will improve.

If its in the distance, neutralize!

Red, yellow and blue. The three primaries... Of course you could also neutralize by simply adding payne,s gray to everything, but please don't. Your painting will suffer from it. Red, yellow and blue. Its the ticket.

Please note that this is only a lesson on creating distance with neutralized color. Art is creative and there are many exceptions to every rule. This lesson is merely a tool. A tool that can help you define one layer from another while still achieving depth and a feeling of reality. This does not address the "focal point". Aside from everything I've written, the focal point holds the sharpest edge and the most contrast in your painting. It could be as little as a small stroke. A special small stroke to pull the viewers eye there. A juicy dot of color perhaps. Something that stands out above everything else you painted on your canvas. Also another lesson...

Some artists such as Richard Schmid will purposefully mute the foreground to hop the viewer directly to the middle ground. Time and time again you will see this technique used. There is nothing wrong with doing this. It is quite captivating. But please do note that though they are drawing you to the center of the canvas, the objects in the distance are muted...

If you want to show distance, neutralize!