Demonstrations and other ramblings

         Today I was in the MFA and I saw the Dutch Master Show.  Really quite magnificent.  Everyone should go and see it for it's history, beauty, skills and great subject matter.   I was particularly taken with the exquisite luminous fabrics...how they were described.  One portrait would have a satin black fabric and the other black velvet.  And how distinctly different these fabrics were but so subtle that they were hard to study to see exactly what went on to create different illusions.  For one thing:  the blacks are rich, sometimes flat and sometimes luminous with other colors present in them and whites glow off the canvas.  Lead White is an amazing rich material that we don't have today.  It fills my heart to see such skill that we don't value today as a present day artist skill.  In two years of taking random classes, some people consider themselves professionals.  What ever happened to years of drawing and getting educated in the baseline skills.  I did my fair share and studied with Robert Cormier and Paul Ingbretson of the Boston School.  An excellent education.  I'd recommend this to anyone.

This week I will be doing a Demonstration for the Newton Art Association.  I have done so many throughout the years.  I am hoping it is an interested crowd with lots of feedback.  I will do either still life or landscape in oil.  A quick study.  Contact them if you would like to attend.  It is on a Thursday evening.

So many of my students have issues with understanding how to design a landscape and here I have listed some suggestions to help the understanding.  

1. Make sure you have good resources:  multiple images of the sight in varied colors and exposures in black and white.

2. Do you homework and pick a photo image of a place you are familiar with.  Have some sketches and notes.

3. Do the thumb nail sketches.  Be sure to pay attention to the division of thirds in the picture plane and don't put anything in the middle, it is challenging enough.

4.  Pay close attention to the mid ground.  This is were most peoples weakness lands.  Draw as if you are drawing a diagram...it will make your understanding clearer.

5.  Get a painter, who you can reference. Examine their pallet, design elements to help to develop your own.

6.  Keep the design simple.  Add as you go.

7.  Keep the pallet limited.  

Just a few ideas.  And at some point I will put up examples for you all to see to help your process.

Draw Draw Draw....  This is the basis of setting up a painting.