Variety of shapes in a John Carlson painting

Well, here I am again. Thanks for reading my blog. I have been writing less frequently recently. Mostly now, I do it to remind people it is all still here. I have written over a thousand posts and said most of what I wanted to say. Still I can add a little , and elaborate upon or refine some things I have taught. I have been doing this for years now, funny how the time does slip away. There is a whole art education to be found in this blog, please search back and study the myriad posts here. If you  start at the beginning and read forward, the blog is cumulative and progresses from basic to advanced, well, it wanders a bit too. Maybe you will find the woman giving birth to rabbits or the suggestions for neck tattoos. The wrenching, action packed tale of Dirk Van Asserts is a gripping page turner, ripped whining from the pages of real life and is sure to please the whimpering feckless naif, the mincing poseurs with their quivering soft abdomens, and the crudely failed, and casually avaricious  alike.

One of the important keys to designing successful landscapes is variety of shape. That is, every shape should be unique and different from its neighbor. Making repeated shapes gives a static and unnaturally symmetrical look in a landscape. Making ordinary, unconsidered shapes makes average paintings. Dynamic shapes make exciting paintings!

  People have a tendency to make repetitive shapes. It takes a deliberate effort not to. I was with a student the other day who had used repeated circular forms, all about the size of a silver dollar arrayed across his canvas. As soon as I pointed them out to him he blanched, and saw them immediately. If you don't have someone to point out the repetitive "pet" shapes in your paintings, a mirror will help you find them. But checking to see that your shapes are interesting and varied will do a lot to improve your paintings. You have to be "on" this always, watching for relapses into ordinary default and uninspired shape-making.

I make a point of "policing" my shapes. That is. I stop and carefully examine what I have done, looking for areas the same size, and repeated intervals. Intervals are the spaces in between things, sometimes they are called negative shapes.

The painting above, by John Carlson is a great example of beautifully designed negative shapes. Look at the spaces between the trees, do you see how each one is different from the rest?

I  have outlined the spaces in Photoshop and upped the contrast to make to them show. Each space occupies a different sized area. Look at how different they are, each one is of an obviously different volume,  some are flat bottomed against the snow and some end in points at their bottoms. Notice that the pointy bottomed Ones end at different levels in the painting, they don't all uniformly run to the base of the trees   I have marked these Delta and Lambda on the figure below.

 The rhythmic springy curves are arrayed in pairs, each side of the "box" formed by the negative space relates to the line across from it.

Here is the center section of the painting with some letters and arrows. Look at the two lines marked B, see how they relate to one another. The two lines have a dialogue. They are not observed separately, but work together like the sides of an arch. The same happens with the two lines marked A.

This painting, I think, was done in the studio. But if it had been observed, the artist didn't observe one side of the "negative box" and then the other as separate  entities He used the two of them to bracket the shape in between.

Look at the top of the picture, there are five spaces or apertures between the trees. Each distance or interval is markedly different from the next, no two distances are the same. This is the sort of thing that is designed into a painting rather than observed. The artist has "bent" nature to get more expressive and unique shapes. This gives a more exciting look and holds the viewers attention a little longer. It takes more time for the viewer to process all of these unusual and varied shapes than it would repeated and similar shapes. The longer you hold that viewer the better., Your painting may hang in a gallery with a hundred other pictures. You want to transfix  that viewer as long as possible, and charm them, if you can, before they move on to that next artwork.

Looking at the positive shapes for a minute, look at how the trees are deliberately grouped. Their are three units of trees here, Number 1 which consists of two trees, number 2, a single tree, and number 3 of three or four trees. Each of these groups has a different number of trees in it and a different "weight" and volume. That's three big shapes and each of those is markedly different from the others. This is great variety of shape.

I like to show Carlson's work because he so clearly designed his shapes but below is an Inness, doing the same thing. See the intervals and the variety in those three trees on the right? they are all about the same width, but they are each a unique height and carry branches that distinguish them and make each of them individual. This makes the Carlsons seem a little heavy handed and obvious in their design, so subtle is Inness. Notice how the right hand pair of trees rhythmically complement each other. The same swaying curve appears in both, albeit at different heights.There is a correspondence between the two sets of lines there.The lower half of the middle tree relates to the tree to it's right, the upper half  relates to the upper half of the tree to it's left. This is  visual poetry.

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WORKSHOPS

 I am teaching a three day workshop in Cranford, New Jersey in a couple of weeks. The workshop is now about half full and I have space if you want to come. This is part of a plein air event called "Paint the Town". As usual I will be running long, sometimes twelve hour days, we will meet for breakfast, work all day till the light fails, and then go out to dinner. At dinner I lecture on design from my computer screen, wave my arms and draw diagrams and incomprehensible glyphs on napkins.
I get a lot into a three day workshop, as much as I can, I push real hard.

 I can save you years of screwing around and promise you will leave with new ideas that will help you improve your painting. All levels of ability are welcome. I particularly enjoy helping those students who are trying to get across that line from strong amateur to professional.
 Here is the link for that.

A visit to the frame makers

I went down to Rhode Island last week and picked up a frame from  PS Art. They make most of my frames. As I have written before, I use handmade closed cornered frames on my work, except if they are going to an art association or a gallery with a record of damaging my frames. Those folks get the Chi-Com units. I have worked with PS Art for years and they have been a valuable ally in my business.

These are museum quality, handmade, closed corner frames. Some of you may not know exactly what that means, so tonight I will show you. I brought my celluloid phone and took some pictures so I could explain the process of making a fine frame.

Henry Karakula, owner, PS Art frames, Central Falls, Rhode Island

You have all probably gone into a frame shop and bought a frame. What you got was an open cornered frame. After you dropped off the painting to be framed the shop pulled out a length of prefinished moulding, that is, it was already leafed and finished. They took it over to their miter saw and chopped it to the right length, Then they glued and nailed it together to fit your picture. They might have even picked up a phone and ordered what is called a "chop" from a moulding supply house. That supplier cut the moulding to the lengths required and mailed it to the frame shop where it was then assembled to fit your picture. That frame has a visible cut at each corner where the stick of moulding was cut to make your frame. Therefore it is an open cornered frame. While that is fine for diplomas, and photos of your deceased pets, it is not good enough when you play above a certain level in the art world. When you reach a higher price level or show in a high end gallery they may expect you to use closed corner frames. A closed corner frame is assembled and joined before it is covered in gold or metal and finished. There is no visible joint at each corner.These are artisan built frames made to order in a workshop. They are a much higher level of quality than the prefinished moulding frames found in a regular frame shop or big box store. They also cost a lot more. Here is how they are made.

Here are lengths of molding in raw wood, they come from a specialty shop that has an enormous machine that mills them. Usually it is basswood. They come in lots of different profiles in "sticks" from 8 to 12 feet long. Some frames are assembled using two or three mouldings to build up a wider or more complex profile (shape).

Here's the heart of a frame shop, the miter saw. This beast cuts both sides of a 45 degree angle at the same time. This is a 30,000 dollar saw, if you want one for your basement workshop. Accuracy is real important and this sort of saw cuts to  very close tolerances. Slight inaccuracies in the angle of the cuts add up as each corner the frame is assembled. By the time you are ready to join that last  corner unless each chop is nearly perfect the corners won't meet up properly. If you pull the frame together anyway it will be skewed. That is, it will rock when set flat on a table top, and look twisted hanging on a wall. It may also come apart down the road in your collectors house, who will then return it. He might want a new frame.

After the frame is assembled, screwed and glued together, it goes to the carvers bench. Above are carving tools, called gouges, that thin one is called a veiner. A skilled craftsman using a gouge makes it look easy, but it requires a lot of skill and practice. Many of of the carvers in New England are Polish immigrants.

Here is a partially carved corner with the drawn outline of the design on the wood.

Heres a fine One, a nice wide frame is important

Above is an example of an arts and crafts style carving. The arts and crafts design period  that happened in the late nineteenth and the first part of the twentieth century was a golden era for artisan made frames and many styles of moulding and carvings popular today date from that era.

After carving, the frames are sprayed with bole, a red clay that serves as a primer upon which the gold will be laid.

The frames are sanded next, this step can be laborious, although  less so if the frame is accurately cut and joined. You can see there is plenty of hand labor involved in this. Little of it is done by computerized robots.

Another skilled craftsman, the gilder, wets the bole activating the glue included in it and gently drops the  microns thin and very fragile gold sheets called leaves onto the bole. This is done with a tool called a guilders tip, a sort of comb like flat brush made of soft hair. The gold is pounded so thin that a breath will tear it to uselessness. It cannot be picked up with your hand without disintegrating. Some frames are laid with imitation gold, sometimes called Shlagmetal, which is bronze. It is thicker and easier to lay but tarnishes eventually and doesn't have the gleam of the real thing.

Here is a finished frame that will be toned. Toning is applying a thin coat of paint or dust or any of about a zillion concoctions onto the surface of the frame to antique it. Sometimes areas, usually the high points, are rubbed back to the red bole beneath to soften up the look of the finish. Often frames are waxed after toning. Every shop has secret methods of toning frames and it is one of the things that separate a merely good frame from an excellent one.

Here is a pile of corner samples in different profiles and tones.

 The frame on the left is a copy of one that is on a Tarbell in the Boston Museum. It is about 30 by 40.

When I opened my first gallery in Rockport in 1983 I made and leafed some of my own frames, in those days there were very few framers making closed corner museum quality frames. Today almost every part of the country has someone making fine gilded frames. Along with traditional painting, frame making is enjoying a renaissance.

PS Art frames   http://psartframes.com/index.htm

Negotiating commissions for paintings

 This post was prompted by someone mentioning to me that their neighbor had a big, fancy house and maybe I should paint a picture of it because the owner might buy it. That is not something I would  do. I paint what I want, that is, unless someone is willing to pay me well to paint what they want. Even then, I have to be at least half way interested in making the picture. I am too lazy to work for money alone, I need a thrill.

 Occasionally I am asked to undertake a commission to  paint a  picture for a client though. Portrait painters do this a lot, landscape painters less often. Still, over the years I have done many. When I opened my first gallery in Rockport in 1983 I decided that I would take any job that came through the door, I figured I would learn from that. I did some crazy things, like repainting part of a circus wagon and replacing a missing head in a spurious Corot. The client loved my work! He said it looked just like Elvis. I had to do a dog portrait or two in that era too. The canid is always dead in those deals, and appears only in one out of focus photograph. It was always a copy the photo job, lots of dreary work and short pay.These days I only am willing to do landscapes and there are a lot of people out there who will paint your house or last year's pup a whole lot cheaper.

Sometimes however a commission comes along for something that falls within the  bounds of my specialty.When it does, what I tell the potential client is exactly this;

I DON'T CHARGE MORE TO DO COMMISSIONS, BUT I GET HALF UP FRONT, AND HALF UPON YOUR SATISFIED ACCEPTANCE. THAT HALF IS NONREFUNDABLE.

 You simply MUST get half up front! Don't undertake any job without it. If they are in for half, they will still want the picture when you have made it. Not getting the down payment will result in your getting stuck working for free. Maybe not the first time or the second, but sooner or later you will get stuck.  This is particularly important if you are making something that only that client would want. You will have a hard time selling a picture of their late poodle-muskrat mix sitting obediently  on  grandmas neon orange afghan to anyone else.

Never accept the entire fee upfront. I want to be rewarded when I finish the job, if I am already paid for it, I have a hard time keeping it ahead of other projects. If I know that when I deliver the piece I get paid, that serves as a carrot on the stick for me. Also, be absolutely sure they understand that the down payment is nonrefundable, you are hired to make the art and you will make it. Thats what the down payment hires you to do.The second payment is your reward for making sure they are happy with the finished piece.


I give them a rough idea of how long it will take me to do it, usually in months. I don't accept tight deadlines. Sometimes a painting can suddenly become a lot more work than I anticipated. Illustrators are skilled in turning out art on short schedules, I am not.

I always provide a frame.That picture is going to have my name on it out there in the world. A handmade closed cornered frame makes my work look best. My client might go to the local framer and get a frame that looks like the box Velveeta comes in. Generally the client is familiar with my work and expects the high quality frames I use anyway.
  
I often arrange to deliver the finished work in person.  Frequently the client wants some little thing changed. I have my paint kit  in the trunk of my car and I fix whatever it is then and there. The client then has personalized the painting and feels like it is now "theirs". I delivered a painting of Polpis harbor to a client once on Nantucket, they wanted the painting because their catboat was in it. The buyer looked at the new painting with elegant concern and explained that I had failed to include the boom crutch. That's a Y shaped piece of board that secures the boom  when the boat is moored. I installed that boom crutch in about thirty seconds and the buyer was delighted. I hate boats, they sink.

  One of the dangers of  commissions and something that portrait painters face routinely, is when the painting becomes a joint effort between the artist and a second party who knows NOTHING about art. Sometimes they will want  something done in the painting that you know will weaken it. So far I have been able to dissuade my clients from what I know are bad decisions, and they have trusted my judgement. But I have had a few scary moments and I have been lucky that my employers (for that is what they are) have respected my experience enough to defer to my opinion.

As I said above, I went through a period when I accepted every commission that came my way, and that was a great learning experience. Later I decided that it was imperative to be choosier. There were jobs that were worth more than the client was willing to pay, for instance. There were jobs that were distasteful or vulgar. I was once hired to paint a picture of a young boy pulling a sled through a woods full of new fallen snow. The man wouldn't accept the picture until I made the boys butt larger and more appealing. I made it the size of a pair of grapefruit, the child sported a fixture like Jennifer Lopez when I was done with him. But I decided that was enough of that kind of work.

 An offer of a commission is just that, a proffered deal. You are under no compulsion to enter into the arrangement, you need to compare it to the profit and enjoyment you might have from doing something else with your time. Some offered commissions will be profitable for you, and some will not. Guys who build or repair houses learn that, so should you. Picking and choosing which commissions to do can make or break you. There are plenty of people who have little respect for art, or are well meaning but have little idea of the time it takes to make a painting and they will expect you to work for  short money. You deserve to be as well paid as a carpenter.

You should reject those commissions, and wait for better offers to come along.There's an old saying " I bargained with the world for a penny, and that's all it would pay!" I did a lot of that, way too much.  You should place a high value on what you do and you are in a position to insist others to do so as well. If it takes a long time to paint a picture and then you sell it for short money, you have lost money, not made it. That was a hard lesson for me. It took me years to figure that out. Never compromise your quality for money, particularly short money. You will spend the money quickly, but that painting will bear your signature for generations, and it WILL show up on e-bay someday, count on it.

A PAINTING HAS NOTHING TO RECOMMEND IT OTHER THAN IT BE WELL MADE. IT WON'T SHINE YOUR SHOES OR  REINFLATE YOUR TIRES. ITS' ONLY VALUE LIES IN IT'S QUALITY. 

 I have worked weeks to make a 300 dollar painting, but not in a long time. I was once approached by  woman who had just been married, this was in about 1984. She had a picture of herself and her new husband that had been shot  in the later hours of their wedding reception. She hadn't hired a  photographer and wanted me to make a wedding picture from the photo. The offer was 300 bucks. I did a lot of 300 dollar deals in those days. In the picture the porcine lout was grinning foolishly and  had  consumed a drink or two. I never saw the actual groom himself. I explained to her that all I could do was reproduce the photo in paint as I had nothing else to go on. I labored on that portrait for weeks, WEEKS! It was only a 16 by 20. I changed the background to a lovely rose window so it would look look a church. I straightened his tie and removed the crimson from his scelera and the dark five 0'clock shadow from his australopithicine jaw. When she came to pick up the painting I had worked so hard to make, she practically threw the money at me and stomped out of my studio. She expected somehow that I would paint the charming Romeo she knew, rather than the sodden tongueswallower in the photo. Maybe she was unhappy with the way she looked in the photo, I know I was. The moral of this story is, if you must work from a photo, be sure it is a good one. Your client has no idea of the limitations which the bad photo places on you, and expects you to paint what they think of the subject, not what the reference they have given you shows. Regardless of what they pay, people always expect a wonderful work of art. They will never say "oh well, I only paid 300 dollars for it"
My advice is, don't work for money. The world has more ordinary paintings than it needs, work to make beautiful and excellent art. The money will follow. If you absolutely have to make money to survive by your art, make 8 by10's, on spec. But make them wonderful and sincere, sell them cheaply if you must. Sell them on the web for what the market will bear. You will be running a long term plan that will lead to excellence and pride in what you do. Look at your work as building an artist.

James Gurney show!

Here are James Gurney and I at the opening of his show in Manchester, New Hampshire. The strong down lighting of the gallery made us both look like we had no hair, so I have corrected the image to  preserve ( and enhance) my own self respect, and having done so, I couldn't leave James looking any less hirsute.

Dinotopia: The Fantastical Art of James Gurney
 New Hampshire Institute of Art  from Wednesday, Feb. 20 through Wednesday, Mar. 13, 2013.
77 Amherst St. in Manchester, New Hampshire.
Monday - Wednesday, Friday 9 am - 5 pm Thursday 9 am - 7 pm, Saturday 12 pm - 4 pm

The Norman Rockwell Museum is sponsoring a show of the jaw dropping illustrations for his Dinotopia books and it's a great One. Those of you who read this blog know that I care mostly about what a painting actually looks like. I have little interest in fantasy art, and I hate dinosaurs, (what with all of that biting and other unpleasantness). But I love James's work for its beauty and  worksmanship. I am an awestruck admirer of his drawing ability. James can draw as well as anyone alive, I think. He is able to put together pictorial compositions that are as ambitious and well realized as the salon painters of the 19th century. Only a few folks walking around today can do that.

 The pictures I am posting by James are actually in the Manchester show. They are the best known and some of the largest tours de force of his long career. James grew up in California, and after a brief stint doing background art for Hollywood, moved out into the illustration world. His book "Color and Light" has been the best selling painting book in America for 120 weeks now. Get your signed copy here.

I was introduced to James Gurney by Tom Kinkaid in the late eighties at a party in Connecticut. I had met Kinkaid at Art Expo in New York when he was just beginning his career. We got to talking about 19th century painting, which at that time was "secret" knowledge, there were virtually no books on the subject then, and no internet. Finding we had similar interests, we arranged to meet at the Metropolitan Museum the next morning. At lunch, Kinkaid leaned across the table at me and told me he was going to make a MILLION dollars! He laid  out the plan and I remember thinking, well, he probably will. He invited me to join him at a party up in Connecticut. The party was all young New York illustrators. The illustration market was rapidly collapsing around them, as magazines and book publishers began to use only photography. These young illustrators had all been doing book covers for bodice-ripper novels and magazine work. That world was ending and they were all scrambling to reinvent themselves. I was the only fine arts guy there, having been included by happenstance.

Several people did presentations of their art. I was in New York to retrieve a painting from the biannual exhibition at the National Academy of design and I had my exhibition piece with me (below).

I  showed some slides of my outdoor paintings. James remarked that I was a plein air painter. I knew the expression from books, but had never heard anyone actually use it. In those days we just painted "outside".

James had one of the very first of his illustrations for Dinotopia with him that night.  I don't think the particular illustration he showed us had yet been tethered to the Dinotopia idea which had yet to emerge. Over the intervening years we chatted a few times on the phone. When I began this blog I was inspired by James long running blog Gurney Journey. Over the last few years we have chatted more than a few times about art technique, comparing notes and philosophies. James did me the enormous honor of making me the only living artist quoted in his book, Color and Light. But we had never actually stood face to face in about 24 years. I approached him at the opening and we posed briefly in front of his magnificent picture before he was swept away for a photography line up. I heard him lecture later that night.

I never saw or heard from Kinkaid again. A funny thing happened next though. When I was spending the day with Kinkaid he asked me if I would introduce him to John Terelac, a friend of mine in Rockport, whose painting technique Kinkaid had emulated in his own art. I told Thom that Terelac was a very private guy and I couldn't do that. I could introduce him to lots of New England painters, but Terelac wasn't on that list. A few days later when I had returned home I was in my studio and the phone rang. It was John Terelac telling me " I have a friend of yours here!". I said "who?" and John told me "Thomas Kinkaid" in a perturbed voice. I told John that I had not been willing to introduce Kinkaid to him. John said "I thought so!" and hung up the phone. I don't know what happened next, but John was a former high school football star and had moonlighted as a bouncer early in his career. I suspect Thoms' exit was swift and ignoble.

It has been repeatedly pointed out to me that my punctuation is dreadful. I am sorry, sometimes I can get an editor to help me, othertimes they are disgusted by me. I dropped out of high school and  missed too many English classes. Please forgive my punctuation, someday I will figure that out too!

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I have several workshops in the offing. For instance there is;

SNOWCAMP MINNESOTA!

This workshop will take place March 9 through the 11th near between St. Paul and Stillwater. When last I taught in Minnesota several in my class asked if I would do a Minnesota snowcamp, so here it is. I have made it as late in the year as is possible to get a little milder weather and I hope there is still snow. I think there will be, but if there isn't, I will still hold the workshop but I will call it Stickcamp.

This will be a transplanted version of the yearly Snowcamp I do in New Hampshires' White Mountains. I will teach the methods of painting snow including color vibration and the planar structure in snow and the landscape itself. I intend to emphasize the idea of form in the landscape rather than a purely visual approach. I will show how to express the convex outward bulging forms that express the structural "bones" of the landscape. I think this gets ignored by some plein air painters today and taught less than it ought be. I will also show you how I build the color structure of the snow using color laid over color to assemble the structure of the snow.

There is no need to stay an any particular lodging to attend the workshop and it will be an easy commute out from Minneapolis or St. Paul. The price of the three day workshop will be three hundred dollars. As per usual with my workshops I run a twelve to thirteen hour day and try to cram as much into the three days we have as possible. I make workshops as intense as I possibly can. We will meet for breakfast and then move to the painting site and work until dusk. Then we will meet for dinner and I haul out my computer and lecture on design and other aspects of landscape painting while we await our meal. If you live in, or can visit the area I hope you will come. To sign up, click here!

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I will also be teaching in Lafayette, Louisiana from March 22nd to the 24th . You can contact Maria Randolph to sign up or get more information.

 mtrandol@gmail.com  cell phone (337) 257-0678,

 Here is the information copied from their website;

  Stapleton Kearns Plein Air Workshop – Mar 22-24

Makes no difference what kind of painting media you prefer. If you have ever been interested in plein air (in the open air) painting, please don’t miss this unique opportunity to take a plein air workshop in style with all the amenities of home—and dinner—and most importantly, with a fantastic internationally renowned artist and teacher. Sign up today!

LAFAYETTE ART ASSOCIATION PRESENTS

PLEIN AIR WORKSHOP

With Renowned Landscape Artist

STAPLETON KEARNS

MARCH 22-24, 2013

This Lafayette Art Association sponsored ‘outdoors’ plein air workshop will feature the talented teaching professional from New Hampshire, Stapleton Kearns.

Stapleton is a professional landscape painter who will fill your workshop experience with valuable techniques, ideas, and methods based on a classical impressionist approach.

This excellent workshop is open to all media areas, not just oil painting, because primary plein air painting rules concerning colors, value, lighting, etc., are essentially the same. This is not only an oil painter’s plein air workshop, although that is Stapleton’s chosen media, and all media painters are welcome to learn and enjoy!

The 3-day workshop will be conducted on privately-owned land in Cankton, LA which is approximately a 20 minute drive from downtown Lafayette. There is a cabin on the property with bathroom and kitchen facilities.

So don’t tarry and let this opportunity slip away, There are only a few seats still open so call now and register to get your name on this select list!

Click for more info… Contact the Lafayette Art Association, Lafayette, LA at 337-269-0363