Painting in the Park

I returned from a fabulous trip today, fresh from visiting family in Seattle and new (to me) friends in Whidby Island in the Puget Sound.  I'm dealing with jetlag - we returned on the red-eye flight via San Francisco - but wanted to continue working on fast a-la prima portraits.  It was a beautiful day, and I found Shane, who was playing great jazz in Rittenhouse Square with a good trumpet player behind him, so I painted him using my limited pallet:

Shane in Rittenhouse Square: 6x8" oil on prepared paper

On a break, Shane came over to see what I'd been doing, and fell in love with the painting.  He offered to give me half of what he'd gotten for his playing in the park for it.  I was glad to give it to him just for his playing, but he needed to come back for it later as it was too wet to handle immediately.  He did, giving me some money for it and also two beautiful bank notes from Zambia:  One is for One Hundred Trillion Dollars (Z100,000,000,000,000!  Inflation, anyone?) and the other for K100 (One Hundred Kwacha). 

I think I've set a new record for the value of a one-hour painting!

Portraits Using Limited Pallets

I've just completed an exciting and useful weeklong Color Workshop with Frances Galante.  Galante is an exceptional painter, having studied with Arthur DeCosta and Louis B Sloan at PAFA, and a very discerning tutor.  Her home base is the Woodmere Art Center, where she led the Workshop.  I just love her playful self portrait:

Frances Galante, by Frances Galante

So, the Workshop.  Jen was our model, and I began by doing a couple of sketches:

The Model

Really Quick Warmup Sketches

The next step was to paint an 11x14 grisaille of Jen using Burnt Umber:

The grayscale grisaille as a starting point

We then transferred this image to 3 more 11x14s so we would have the same image to paint four times, using 4 different limited pallets.  The transfers were made by putting a Mylar sheet on the grisaille and drawing the contours on the Mylar with ink.  Then the Mylar was turned over, the ink marks painted on the reverse side so the painted image could then be pressed onto the next canvas:

 

This painted image was impressed on four additional canvases and the shodowing filled in, on each, 

 Over the next four days we painted the canvases, using a different pallet each day.  So the goal here was not to complete an excellent portrait (although that would always be nice), but rather to use different combinations of color, and see what the impact is on the product, and how very few colors can be combined to provide the illusion of a full color range.

I had an additional interest, in that I intend to demonstrate quick portrait sketches at our Open Studios Tour, October 1 & 2 (see previous post), so anything that bears on minimizing the colors needed or on achieving an acceptable portrait image is right down my alley.  Even creating a portrait in a day, as we did in this course, is pretty fast by normal expectations.  Anyway, what resulted for me was:

Tuesday:  White, Cerulean Blue, Alizarin Crimsen, Transparent Yellow Oxide

Wednesday:  White, Transparent Yellow Oxide, Cadmium Red Medium, Alizarin Crimsen, Cool Black (Ivory Black plus Ultramarine Blue)

Thursday:  White, Yellow Ochre, Cadmium Red Medium, Raw Umber, Ivory Black

Friday:  White, Transparent Oxide Red, Venitian Red, Veridian, Ivory Black

 Yes, there are difference in the feel of these four portraits.  But what really impresses me most is how you can get a really similar range of color regardless of which pallet was being used.  Now I want to go play with the Classic limited pallet:  White, Venitian Red, Ultramarine Blue and Yellow Ochre.

Onward, to POST

Well, the FLADELFYA 4 weren't quite ready for prime time.  We still think we had a fabulous idea for the installation, of course, but obviously the jurors whoever they were did not agree.  Bummer, but life goes on.

I'm working with the same three other fabulous artists to prepare for the Philadelphia Open Studios Tour on October 1 & 2.  We're going to share space here at the Community Room of the William Penn House (1919 Chestnut Street in Philadelphia) to show together.  Here's our poster - we-re having some 1000 postcards printed that we can leave around the city to advertise it.  Consider this your invitation to come - and to make it interesting, Chick Kelly and I plan to paint portraits on the spot, during the show.  I've been working to see just how I want to do that.  Ain't easy to get something worthwhile in - hopefully - the first 30 minutes of painting!

Introducing the FLADELFYA 4

  Four of us came together in an exciting collaboration to create an Installation that both supports and celebrates the resurrection of the Lancaster Avenue Corridor in Philadelphia.  We are working together under the banner FLADELFYA 4, and this posting provides a small taste of the variety and energy that we bring with us to this project.  We are competing for the prime site, and today is the final day to submit our Project Description and supporting information.  The winners will be announced around August 12th.  Wish us success!

Charles Kelly:
David Hockney's presentations using multiple views of the subject is influencing my artwork. I work at presenting the subject as a unity of its multiple views and colors.  Examples:

 Yeoun Lee:
My work explores changing moods and emotions  caught in abstract spacial realms:

 Edna Santiago:
My paintings often focus on Philadelphia scenes, intimate moments of family life, and my deep feelings for my beloved Puerto Rico:

 

Leroy Forney:
My portraits express the unique character and humanity of the model as I perceive him/her/it, while my cityscapes plumb the significance of the built environment that is reflected in the visual
personality, adaptation of function, and significance of the vistas we so often see without seeing.