Some know here that I am a painter by profession having gone back into
teaching in the past few years. I have had 20 years of rendering jot and
tittle detail with 200-300 hours of time in a single work. Over the past
six-seven years, I have left the studio to paint 90% of my paintings out of
doors, and by saying that I've done nearly 200 paintings in the past two
years to give you an idea. I paint alla prima plein airs, and am having
good success at my galleries and selling online. "Alla prima plein airs"
means that paintings are painted on location, and finished in one setting.
Usually 1-1/2 to 3 hours, and mostly in oils at about 12" x 16" size, some
6" x 9" and a few at 16" x 20."
My techniques are well documented into numerous demo's and instructionals at
Wetcanvas.com or by access to my demo's on my website-
http://www.artsmentor.org (however, mac users with Netscape are having
problems accessing my site. I'm looking at a few syntax things to see if I
can modify that problem). As a painter, that teaches...I am equipped to
help the "tight" painting students understand how far this thing can go, as
I've crawled hundreds of yards in flooded fields and swamps just to get
close enough to photograph wildlife for references, etc; As a plein air
painter, I have learned how to suggest convincing detail and realism with
placement of brushstrokes and the dynamics of light and color. The
difference comes down to where we will tolerate/allow the viewer to stand to
look at our work. If we can rest with viewers standing 3-4 paces back from
our painting...such a painterly realistic work can be done in 1/10th the
time and effort.
Since I teach in a small community school, K-12, I start my students as
early as second grade, teaching them to place colors next to and on top of
each other (similar to pointalism) with tempera paint...starting with
circles in shadow. I place a white painted basketball under a light on a
table and show kids how shadows fall, how light strikes. Then about how
complementaries work. I have found kids as young as 2-3 graders begin to
grasp quite well how complementaries neutralize, tone down, can be used to
shadow or darken, and definitely make stand out their adjacent color
neighbors. My third graders on up have learned to use negative space (such
as the white value of sky) to take a mass of green in the shape of a
triangle, poke this sky color around its edges to alter the shape of the
triangle to look like the branches of a tree. Again using tempera.
I teach the 5th graders on up how to squint the eyes to minimize interfering
details and judge masses, shapes, and color. In fact, we will be doing
figurative alla prima paintings shortly after Christmas, having students
take turns posing or using volunteers outside the classroom. The students
learn that the image they are working up close on with squinting their eyes
will appear somewhat the same as their stepping back 3-4 paces to check
their work's progress. Squinting is a substitute, since people are by
nature lazy.
By the time my students are juniors, they are painting 18" x 24" stretched
canvas landscapes, then graduate to stilllifes and portraits. My hopes are
in the future to teach them enough about the varying styles of the various
movements in painting by seeing works of masters, etc., and have them
attempt to emulate the style using it for one of their own subject choices.
Right now I have two students finishing up a 10' x 10' acrylic mural of Van
Gogh's "Starry Night" You can see the progress of that here where I was
helping a muralist-
http://www.wetcanvas.com/forums/showthread.php?s=0f182c9e1649c6b464a174ec680
9b6d8&threadid=24874&pagenumber=2
I guess in a way, I am lucky that my students have not had much exposure to
any kind of painting prior to my coming so they don't bring a great deal of
biases and preferences of their own. By the same token, since I have and do
paint both tight and loose, I can sense the natural bent of a student and
work with them. However, I stress that suggesting a great deal of detail
means you are intimating you know a great deal of detail about the subject.
That requires you to be an expert. With that, I insist if they wish to work
that way, they need to go thru many of my resources and the libraries and do
numerous sketches to show their competence in the subject. Those of you
that might have a moment might want to check out a thread I initiated on the
subject of wildlife art and what it will take to become an "expert"...it has
changed the goals and working habits of a number of artists in the Wetcanvas
artist community. The article is in fact that, "Becoming an Expert Wildlife
Artist." Here, in such a forum....I can be a bit more blunt and matter of
fact than with high school students.
http://www.wetcanvas.com/forums/showthread.php?s=0f182c9e1649c6b464a174ec680
9b6d8&threadid=24864
The big thing though is in how you approach painting. We have six of the
"Artist Series" videos on Mary Cassatt, Edgar Degas, Monet, Goya, Rembrandt,
and Winslow Homer. These are excellent in between my more detailed art
videos, and every Friday in the high school for me is "Video Friday," where
we watch and discuss. I teach students they can report every detail or
learn their is a psychology to how the viewer sees for which they can
manipulate and control. I can, but I dont' need to read and absorb Leonardo
DaVinci's book on the anatomy of trees. I don't need a botanical degree to
know what distinctions separate the white pine from the Jack pine or red
pine. I teach "artist eyes" and that we can trust them. We are experts on
shapes, color, texture, line....etc; Forget that something is water or
trees. Artist eyes only see, and knowledge of such left brained convergent
information is easy to part with when the right brained abilities to "see"
increase. Check out my demo's on painting trees using negative space and
you can see what I'm saying. My kids, even in elementary levels are
beginning to paint wonderful trees....and doing so without fear, with
limited "knowledge" about trees, but learning to see light poking thru
masse. In time...what happens and is happening, is that my students are
opting to paint a bit looser because the goals of realism can be attained
quicker and more convincingly than the very limited time we have in a school
day accumulated throughout the week.
It takes the taskmaster of a lifetime of studies to become masterful of
literal rendered detail, and especially in these days...kids are far too
impatient. My feeling aesthetically is that I'm out to win these kids over.
My main job is art appreciation and I want them to have a "feel" of painting
before they leave. I am hard on them....and many complain of painting being
difficult, and I with glee I laugh, and say, "Good!" ...because....I am not
afraid of their struggles so that they will connect when one day they see
wonderful paintings they can stand there and say, "wow....I tried painting,
and it was difficult. But, I learned enough to know that this is awesome!"
To me, THAT is art appreciation. Yet, at the same time...I want some sense
of gratification and success by the students and I have learned by
experience that they will arrive at a more mature painting by squinting eyes
and suggesting detail than painting tight. At the end of each quarter....I
put about 8-10 students work on an international artist's community where
they get exposure and critiques. I am working with the host and founder of
Wetcanvas.com where perhaps one day we can have a secure site where students
around the country and international community can share their work and
critique and encourage each other, and become a useful tool for art
educators. I have a couple students up now you can see as an example, but
in a few weeks I'll have about 10 more just now completing their paintings.
Ashley painting an elk-
http://www.wetcanvas.com/forums/showthread.php?s=0f182c9e1649c6b464a174ec680
9b6d8&threadid=22206
Finally, I am one that is fond of sayings...and post them on walls from time
to time. Such as Edgar Degas saying this- "Painting is easy when you don't
know how, but very difficult when you do!"
Also, as a painter and one that teaches adult artists...I let them know that
it takes doing about 120 bad paintings to learn something about being a
painter. That making good art is a process of making lots of bad art, and
weeding out the bad along the way. These kids know something of the
commitment demanded of athletes, and I don't hesitate to let kids know they
can take art as far, as wide, and as high as they would like with the same
kind of commitment. After having said all that, I'll set minds at ease and
say my goals are to give kids enough understanding about painting that if
they wish to explore abstract methods of self-expression they will be free
to, realism, expressionism, etc; but I first came and saw a real lack of
basics and am building. -Larry
