LIGHT & COLOR

Sea And Rock

2012-03-01T11:10:00.000-08:00

This painting was last week's demo for my in-studio landscape painting class.

To become good at this painting stuff, you have to practice. A lot. There's no way around that one... sorry folks, there are no formulas or recipes.

However, we can learn a tremendous amount by watching how it's done, and that's what the demos are for. You know the old adage, a picture is worth a thousand words? I dare say, watching a picture being made, and hearing the explanation for every decision made in real time, is worth a lot more than a thousand words!

Here at the school, there are a lot of opportunities to "see how it's done". Not just in my class, either. Take advantage of them!

Terry Miura Challenge - Final

2012-02-27T20:32:00.002-08:00

Painting is 18x18x1.5" - Linen

I had fun with this. Each car has it's own personality and shape. As much as I wanted to leave more abstract shapes, I feel that I went a little too far on the cars. This was a great learning experience for me, and I enjoyed keeping it SIMPLE. I try to do this with all my paintings by starting each shape with only two values, and going from there. It is like a building block. Or as I say to my students, start with the silver dollar, on top of that put the fifty cent piece, then the quarter, and only if it is necessary, add more detail. Detail should be only the last 5% of a painting at most.....

Be sure to go to http://terrymiura.blogspot.com/ to check out the rest of the entries for this challenge. Terry is one of the best blogger's out there because he shares his thought process in a very honest and generous way. Much for you to learn on this site. And Terry, let's do this again soon!

Terry's Challenge - Progress...

2012-02-24T14:37:00.003-08:00

Here is my attempt at painting from Terry Miura's photo. The challenge is to simplify, and because I am on this path lately to simplify and paint with the concept in mind (rather than to copy), I couldn't pass up the opportunity. I haven't had a lot of studio time lately, but I started with the under painting a few days back. I don't always start a painting the same way, and to me this one called for breaking down the value shapes into no more than "two" values - why not? I've been using a varnish medium to wash in my under paintings and decided to try it for the block in. The result is nice and transparent. My goal here, other than to simplify and stay out of the details, is to paint the "idea". I love street scenes, and have been admiring Terry's new Street Series.

In fact, I just finished a new street piece, but it had people and not cars. So I decided that I could do this in the same manner, kind of. Or I was hoping for the same type of result, where I would paint "shapes" not people, and "shapes", not cars.

Okay, for the concept. I was in Carmel last weekend where I got to get up close to some large paintings by Ken Auster. I just love the way he can take a city scene in San Francisco and guess what-- SIMPLIFY.

I bought his book and in it he talks about the way he will use warm and cool to bring life into a gray painting. So, I wanted to paint this piece with that in mind. Cool shadows, warm light. I want to do it without going crazy with color, which I have a tendency to do.

Today I had a chance to get back to the piece finally. I wanted to establish the values again buy comparing the foreground to the middle ground to the background. To create distance you want to be careful to use the tools of a painter - cooler, softer, grayer, smaller, etc., as to painting recedes.

I'm hoping to finish this up and I'll post the final asap.

Collector's Insight

2012-02-21T19:47:00.001-08:00

Within Reach, 14 x 11 inches, oil on linen

Today we return to Collector's Insights, this time we ask Brenda, who recently added Within Reach to her growing collection of original art, a bunch of questions to get her take on collecting art. Enjoy~

What attracted you to this particular painting?

The grace and lines, the fluidity and movement in the painting.

What made you have to have it?

This painting simply "sings" to me. It's the mood, the feeling and sense of rythm and the sensuality of the painting. I just had to have it!

Are you new to collecting original art? or do you have a growing collection?

I have a growing collection. This is only my third piece.

If you are new to buying art, can you share your thoughts on your first acquisition?

The reason I bought my first piece was very similar to this one though the subject matter is different. The first painting, of a bull elk in the morning mist on the water also "sang" to me. It also had mood, movement and grace that captured me.

For you, how is collecting original art different from other collectibles?

Original art is very personal. In some ways, it is like having a private intimate conversation or understanding with the artist. It's as if I could catch a glimpse of the essense of what he/she was trying to convey in the piece. Or as if the artist could read my emotions or thoughts.

Do you collect (or would like to) works of a particular artist, or subject matter, style... what do you look for in your potential acquisitions?

I'm still discovering what matters to me in art. However, whatever piece I chose must move me at my core. As my knowledge of art grows so does what I like. I used to be and still am in love with anything having to do with nature and wildlife. However currently I'm fascinated by figure paintings. I'm finding that the most important thing about art is that the piece must move me, in a positive way, regardless of the subject matter. It will ususlly be calming, delightful or give a sense of wonder and awe, or sensual and fluid. I do however prefer impressionism as opossed to realism. I am more moved by this style. It is not so confining and restrictive.

Did you have a place to hang in mind before you bought the painting? or did you decide where to hang once
you brought it home?

No I didn't have a particular place in mind when I bought the painting. I'm still trying to decide where it needs be. I may have to rearrange somethings to give it an appropriate home.

It's a fact that a lot of would-be collectors shy away from making acquisitions because they feel they
lack the expertise to know whether the artwork is actually worth the price. Do you have any words of advice?

If it speaks to you on an emotional level, just listen and accept it. Art is very personal it's what you value that matters most. It also never hurts to educate yourself either. There are many ways to learn about art, through museums, the internet, books, art classes, etc.

Simplify! - The First Contributions Are In!

2012-02-21T15:19:00.002-08:00

Almost as soon as I posted the reference photo, I received the first contributions. I haven't quite figured out what the best way to share these is yet. I will make a page with all the images indexed, but in the meantime I wanted to share them here on the blog too - I plan on posting them as I get them, with the artist's comments if I have them, but as I don't know how many I'll get, I don't want to commit to a format. We'll just play it by ear.

You are invited to leave comments on your fellow artists' work, but if you do, please remember to be nice. This isn't a competition and we're not here to discourage anyone from trying to improve their craft. If you're not feeling confident and are a little shy to share your efforts, remember NONE of the great masters knew how to paint in the beginning!

So here we go; the first three~

I've enclosed my try at your Simplify challenge.

I started oils last September. Your challenge is a great idea!! Thanks a bunch!

Jeff, NH

Hello, Terry:
Done! Oil on a small ragged piece of canvas I had around the studio, about 20 minutes. Here the simplification came mostly from the urge to paint -it is some sort of addiction. Maybe in the future I´ll add some detail, maybe not.
Good idea, waiting forward to see yours and the paintings of the rest of the artists. Best from the country of Velasquez and Picasso
Luis, Spain

My contribution to your great challenge. I loved it.
I don't know if to laugh or cry...The instructions are "to simplify. NOT to try and render every damn detail."
I do try.....
http://iritbourla.blogspot.com/2012/02/in-city.html
Thanks again, Irit, Santa Monica

By the way, when you email me your images, it would be great if you can also share some thoughts about your painting. It can be technical, anecdotal, or just how you felt trying this little exercise. I think other artists will enjoy hearing about it - I'll edit your commentary before posting so no personal information will be made public.

If you'd rather not see your commentary posted (or certain parts of it), just let me know and I'll fix it right away.

Thanks again for contributing to our little challenge, and I hope you find seeing others' efforts inspiring, educational, and fun!

Love your enthusiasm! and keep 'em coming~

Simplify! - A Cityscape Challenge

2012-02-18T19:07:00.001-08:00

OK! Looks like we have a bunch of takers! WooHOO~!

I'm glad so many of you want to try this. I think it'll be very interesting and instructive not only to do an exercise like this, but to see how others solve the same problems. How exciting~

OK, so the photo above is the reference we will all use to do a painting. Everyone is welcome to try - this is just for fun, remember, so don't even worry if you feel like you're too much of a beginner. Just give it a try. I guarantee you'll learn something!

I think we ought to have some basic guidelines.

Use the reference photo above. If you click on it, you'll get a larger version on your screen. Feel free to download it to your desktop to print it out or whatever you need to do to make it easier for you to paint from.
Deadline. Let's say three weeks. You have to have it done and posted by March 11th.
By "posted" I mean you can send me a jpeg via email, or if you're a blogger and you'd like to post your efforts on your own blog, just email me the link.
Any medium.
Any size.
Remember the point is to simplify. NOT to try and render every damn detail.
You may use some or all of the "rules" that I talked about in my last post. You don't have to use any of them. You can come up with your own set of rules. You don't have to have any rules at all.

Again, this is just for fun so do it in the way you feel comfortable. There are no rules as to technique or methods or sequences. I just want to see how different (or similar) our solutions are.

If you're a blogger, you might post the work-in-progress on your blogs. Might be fun, and your readers may want to try, too. If you do post your progress, please send me the link.

I think that's it for now. Good luck and have fun~

Oh. One tip; CROP! Cropping is one of the main tools of editing and simplification. Use it!

Simplify?

2012-02-17T20:38:00.000-08:00

That beautiful top painting of road and eucalyptus is an oil by Susan Sarback, and the second is my watercolor interpretation of it. This was last week's exercise in my "Controlling The Flood" watercolor class. Copying an admired artist's work is indeed a time honored tradition, and I thought it a fun exercise! The bottom painting is a watercolor interpretation from a photograph that one of my students brought to class about three weeks ago. So . . . What do all three paintings have in common? They have all been exorcised of fussy details. Want fussiness? Snap a 20,000 mega pixel photo!!! Maybe I shouldn't get so over heated about this, because I know that there are artists out there that paint some pretty damn fine photo realistic works. I just prefer the more abstracty (have I coined a new word here?) impressionistic style. I'm in Terry Miura's court . . . Simplify.

Simplify!

2012-02-17T20:04:00.001-08:00

Study for "Bay Blue", 12 x 16 inches, oil on linen

Cityscapes are hard to paint not only because everything has to be drawn well, but also because there's just an overwhelming amount of information that needs to be processed. Simplification is key, but arbitrary editing of detail can easily end up with a weak painting that lack a sense of intent. With so much "stuff", it's not easy to know what to include and what to edit out, especially because you know all that detail contributes to the texture of the city clutter.

One way to approach it is to have rules for editing –and you know by now I like rules. This way, you can do it systematically (more or less) and it helps me to get the painting going in the right direction. Here are some that I use often;

Decide on a dominant color theme (in this case, blue green) and mix every color as a variation of it. (you want violet? start with blue green and bend it towards violet. Think of it as a violet-er version of the original blue green)
Paint every element (car, tree, asphalt, etc.) in just two values. Later on you can add a third value to the more important elements.
Link all similar valued adjacent shapes.
Have a large passive area. (Forces me to have an area with NO detail, juxtaposed against which the more active areas need less "stuff" in order to look detailed)
Treat super sharp edges as exclamation points. Don't shout everywhere.

These are not rules for all painting nor are they for every painter. They're just rules that guide me to do what I do, and they work well for me. With another painting, I may have a completely different set of rules. The point is, having this type of structure is helpful in keeping my mind organized and focused. It helps me avoid making arbitrary and thoughtless decisions.

I had this idea of inviting anyone who wants try this way of approaching the cityscape to give it a go, and sharing your results and thoughts on the experience. I would post a reference photo for us to use - we'd all use the same photo so that we can compare and contrast how we each respond to the same problems. Wouldn't that be interesting? Challenging, to be sure, but nothing ventured, nothing gained, right? I will of course post my own efforts as well. What do you think? Anyone up for it? Shall I put a deadline so we don't drag on and on? Is two weeks enough? A month?

Let me know via comment box if anyone is interested. I'll go ahead and post a ref. photo if there's enough interest.

Sketch It Out!

2012-02-10T21:08:00.000-08:00

Chillin', 16 x 12 inches, oil on linen

From last week's figure session. If I'm painting from a model, I usually do a couple of sketches in my sketchbook first. Though I'm not picky about materials when it comes to sketchbook stuff, I find I use a regular ol' ballpoint pen a lot.

When I start the painting, I need to have a concept, otherwise I end up with a painting with no impact. So the pen sketch helps me to be clear about my intent, find a direction and a specific idea that I want to focus on.

Sometimes I don't have a clear idea when I just look at the model. But when I start drawing, the ideas start forming. It has something to do with the fact that I'm doing these sketches quickly, which forces me to just visually jot down the essentials and edit away the unnecessary detail stuff.

Once I know which direction to take it, I can start the painting with a certain amount of confidence and intent. And you know, confidence, whether warranted or not, shows in the brushwork. And brushwork communicates intent. And communicating my intent, is the bottom line.

So it boils down to this; before you dip that brush into paint, do a sketch or four. It may take ten or fifteen minutes, but you will be able solve a lot of fundamental problems before you start painting, which means a lot less confusion and frustration at the painting stage.

If you're in the habit of doing this already, you know the enormous benefits of doing sketches and thumbs. If you're not, just ask anyone who is. But you don't have to take my or anyone else's word for it. Try it!

Lots of detail oft times is not necessary

2012-01-30T20:27:00.000-08:00

I love watercolors that lack a lot of detail. Let those watery, flooding washes be free. The only thing you need to be concerned with is strong value contrasts. One of my students in my Tuesday watercolor class that I teach sent me a photo of aspens along side a country road. I felt that it would be a wonderful reference photo from which to work and learn how to LEAVE OUT detail. Our next project will follow the same idea, except we will be working from a masterful oil painting by -------------------. Can you guess who the artist is? Seeya at my Tuesday "Controlling The Flood" watercolor class!

An Alluring Balance

2012-01-30T09:57:00.001-08:00

Purple Haze, 40 x 30 inches, oil on linen

Got a nice mention in FASO's Informed Collector. Whoever wrote it - thank you very much!!

Smoldering atmospheric conditions, a myriad of shapes, and a cool color palate with just the right touch of warmth, combine to form an alluring balance amidst the busyness of the urban landscape.

"Smoldering". I love that adjective.

Homework

2012-01-28T22:57:00.000-08:00

Self Portrait in Ultramarine, Magic Brown and White, by Raulin

Last week I assigned homework for my figure class; do a self portrait from observation, single direct light source, using Ultramarine, Transparent Oxide Red (or similar) and White. I also told everyone to post them on the School's Facebook page. I know, I know, it's scary to share your efforts with the public at large. For this reason I didn't think anyone would actually post it even if they did do the painting.

Raulin surprised me by doing the homework and sending it to me (since he doesn't use Facebook) for me to post. Raulin, you da man!

Now let's see if anyone else will be brave enough to follow his example!

To post to the School's Facebook page, I believe you have to first "Like" the page. I could be wrong but I'm sure someone will let me know if I am.

If you're too shy to post the homework, you can always share your efforts from class or a workshop, or even stuff you're doing on your own. Let everyone enjoy what you're doing! As they say, creativity doesn't happen in a vacuum!

Nocturn Demo

2012-01-28T00:54:00.000-08:00

This is the demo I did for my Landscape Concepts class this past week. Actually, I spent another two hours on it, mostly just shaping the trees. If you were there you'll remember that toward the end it degenerated quickly into a stupid little mess. Well, that sort of thing happens sometimes when you're on live performance, as it were.

No matter, I went back into it and resuscitated it. It's only a 20 x 10 painting and it's not a complex picture, but it's taken two hours of shaping and reshaping the trees (after the demo) to get this far. I'm still working on it, but I think it's getting close. As I have said many times in class, shaping trees can happen very quickly, or it can take hours on end. I always assume it's going to take hours so that when I do get lucky and it happens quickly, it's a pleasant surprise. When it doesn't happen right away, I'm not disappointed or frustrated, because I expected it to take a long time.

I just want to remind my students that. Don't expect your trees to look good just because you spent ten minutes on it. Chances are, it'll take a lot longer than that so be patient and you'll avoid unnecessary frustration. Painting isn't automatic, nor formulaic. It sure as hell ain't magic!

Hemingway wrote and rewrote sentences over and over until he was satisfied. It is said that he rewrote the last page of Farewell to Arms 39 times. How realistic is it to expect perfect trees to flow out of our brush the first time we put them down in a painting?

2012-01-20T21:29:00.000-08:00

Terry Miura's manipulation of edges in his high sierra oil painting (see Terry's previous post) is spectacular and ever so deftly executed . . . in my humble opinion. . . and he is so, so right about the importance and usage of them. I love his sharp edges in the foreground rock formation. It makes for, as he calls it, a dramatic "punctuation point" that completes the composition!
My watercolor/conte painting here has what I call broken edges. My subject's right cheek and left jaw lines are broken with swabs of blue, pink, orange, and green. They are kind of like points of interruption that give the outline of her face a slightly softer look as well as adding some energy to the portrait. Super hard lines, especially in her eyes, punctuates them to draw in the viewer's eyes and complete my painting. Yes, edge handling is something for all of us to be aware of!

Last Week's Demo - Edges

2012-01-19T07:34:00.001-08:00

Sierra Rocks, 9 x 12 oil on linen

This is my first demo of the year, which I did for my landscape concepts class last week. I used a photo that I took last summer during my trip to the Eastern Sierras with a bunch of unruly ~~hooligans~~ artists.

Among other things, I wanted to emphasize using edges effectively. The basic idea is this; we have at our disposal a couple of options when it comes to edges –sharp, soft, and lost – and we need to use them deliberately, intentionally, and strategically. There are reasons why we use one type of edge over another, and it should never be done arbitrarily or thoughtlessly.

So when do we use sharp edges? In general;

The thing you're painting has a hard surface - rocks, glass, metal are much harder than grass, foliage and fabric.
Focal point. Sharp edges draw the eye.
Cast shadow edges are generally sharper than form shadow edges. (There are a lot of exceptions to this)

And soft edges;

The thing you're painting is soft.
Away from the center of interest, so you want to play down its presence.
Form shadow edges are generally softer than cast shadow edges.

Lost edges;

Simplifying a cluttered area by connecting shapes
You want to deemphasize an area even more than the soft edged areas.
Separation of adjacent "things" isn't part of the story so it's unnecessary. (If you lose an edge and it still makes visual sense, you probably didn't need that edge to begin with)

I'm sure there are other reasons to use hard/soft/lost edges, but these are the biggies.

and of course, there are exceptions to all rules and it boils down to whether a particular decision makes good compositional and conceptual sense, in the context of your picture.

In the context of my picture above, I might point out a few things to illustrate what I mean;

The rocks in the front and the rocks in the back are both hard surfaces, but the front rocks have a much sharper edge because they're the focal areas. The rocks in the back are "supporting cast".
Trees near the middle have sharper edges (though not enough take away from the rocks) than the trees away from the center of interest. Trees in the back have hardly any defined shapes or edges.
The edge between water and the rocks are lost. The separation of the two were unnecessary because the picture makes sense without that separation. It also simplifies that area into one shape, not two.
The reflection of the rock is softer than the rock itself.
Edges of the rocks where the form is turning away from us, is softer than the edges in the front. The sharp edge helps to bring it forward.
Trees all connect at some point or another - lost edges to combine multiple shapes into one. Simplify.
The water's edge against the lit part of the land mass is pretty sharp because there's quite a bit of value contrast there. As opposed to the shadowy areas. If I made all the edges along the water soft, it would look fuzzy and lose that glassy quality (even with the reflections present).
The front edge on the rocks where it turns from light to shadow is actually a form shadow edge, but it's supa sharp because the turning radius is so sharp. That's one of the exceptions to the rule.
Sharp edges contribute to the general crispness of the picture, which, in turn gives it a more colorful feel than it actually is. Subtle color differences lose their identities when the strokes are mushy.
The contrast between sharp and soft edges enhance each other's characteristic. Sharp edges are more meaningfully sharp when surrounded by (or played next to) soft edges, and vice versa. Arbitrary placements of sharp edges don't have the same sense of purpose and intent. (Well, duh!)

It may be helpful to think of sharp edges as exclamation points. When you're verbally expressing yourself, if you were to shout every word, no word is more important than the rest. Similarly, if you speak softly from start to finish, nothing in particular is emphasized. In order to communicate effectively, you'll want to know when to speak softly and when to punctuate with a !.

Metamorphosis

2012-01-17T09:12:00.001-08:00

No, not Kafka. I'm talking about making big changes to a painting and giving it a new lease on life.

This painting is not finished but I've spent quite a lot of time on it. I've been thinking about my decision making processes on this particular painting. There's so much going on (which was, now that I look at it, the main problem with the picture) that many conflicting ideas had be resolved. I got confused at every turn, but in rare moments of clarity I told myself "this is important. I need to write this down before I forget and become confused again".

And so here are some of my thoughts as the painting went through drastic changes.

This is where the change started. It was finished, hung in a show two or three years ago, and came back to me. It wasn't a bad painting, but my painting style has changed and it no longer looked like it should have my name on it. Too tight, too literal, too Hopper, too narrative, too cute.

At first I thought the tightness was what was bothering me the most, so I went over every surface, doing a looser version of it on top. If you've ever tried to loosen up an already finished tight painting, you know it's not easy to do. Much, much easier to tighten a loose painting than to go the other way. (there's a lesson in there somewhere)

But I knew it had to be done, and it could be done - I just had to keep going till the entire painting was loosened up because only then will I have a "loose context". A little bit of looseness in an otherwise tight context only looks like a mistake.

And then I decided that this painting relied too much on the narrative. The story there, like a scene from a novel. Nothing wrong with that, except I didn't want a narrative-driven painting. So I took out the car and the figures, the main players of the story.

Now I'm left with the set, without the actors. The visual elements such as the fire escape shadows and the striped awning became more important, and I noticed that there were actually a bunch of strong elements competing for attention. Is it about the fire escape, the cast shadows, the awning, the sign... Too many good things crammed into one picture. Too many statements.

As much as I hated to do it, I had to get rid of the awning. That was a tough decision (I really liked the awning!) but I think it was the right thing to do. It felt right immediately afterwards.

Once that was cleaned up, I noticed another BIG problem. Actually, I had noticed it long ago but was in denial, hoping that drastic editing of the elements would somehow solve my problem or may be help me fake it. No such luck.

What's the problem, you ask. It's the color vs. tone structure. Look at the cast shadows of the fire escape in the earlier versions. They have a lot of blue in them, and feel much lighter and airier. Toward the bottom of the painting, the shadowy areas are much more tonal, dark, and moody. This is a conflict of light conditions that doesn't make very good sense, even accounting for artistic license.

Do I want tonal and moody, or light and airy? Can't have it both ways. The tonal approach will give me a grittier, more somber, and perhaps a more timeless feel. On the other hand, the lighter, bluer shadows imply that I have a blue sky above the buildings, contrasting with the orange afternoon light. It implies a particular time of day, a particular kind of light, and that my intent would have to be to suggest that that's important. Is it about the color temperature shifts, or the patterns and shapes of the shadows?

I concluded that it was the latter. With considerable doubt, I took out most of the blue in the cast shadows. And I really liked the result. It's still got that warm afternoon light, but without making a big statement about color. The painting wasn't about pretty colors, after all.

Now I could see the overall mood coming forth, that of the afternoon sun, a mundane urban street, the familiar, comfortable yet slightly anxious feeling of living in the not-so-slick part of the city.

Yes, this is what I want. But the emptiness of the street seemed to be making too much of a statement. Why is it empty? Is it a ghost town? Did the plague wipe out the population? Am I making a statement about death and abandonment?

Hardly. But you see how my mind makes one association after another. Anyway, I put a pedestrian back into the picture, taking care not to overplay his presence. No bright colors or contrast on him. Let him lose some edges and be integrated into the scene rather than be the center of another narrative. Give us a sense of life but don't let the painting be about this particular person.

So this is where I am right now. I'm still working on it, but all the main issues are resolved, so I'm just tweaking edges and refining shapes and strokes. I like it very much.

Dunes

2012-01-13T17:21:00.000-08:00

I'm teaching a workshop in Florida next month, so I began tothink about beaches and dunes...

These two paintings were from the same location about 30feet apart . It was a sunny, humid day which means there was plenty of moisturein the air - a typical southern, atmospheric, beach day. To paint under this light key, I used several toolswhich are a bit generalized but work in this situation. I usually dislike "rules" but inthis case they hold true...but there's always that exception so beattentive!

The composition is clearly one-point perspective - pretty easy and rather obvious. Even though this isn't a street scene thesame perspective applies to create depth. Value - there's highercontrast in the foreground and less contrast in the distance - shadows aredarker in the foreground and lighter in the distance Color- brighter colors in the foreground, more muted, subdued colors in thebackground. Temperature - warmercolors in the foreground and cooler in the distance capturing more of the skyreflection. Just look at the sand to seethis. It's brighter and more yellow inthe foreground and light red with blue sky reflections as it recedes. Paintstrokes - larger and more decisive in the foreground and less in the background - the grasses are longer and bolder in thefront, smaller in the background.

These are just some of the tools that can be used to createatmosphere, space, air and distance. Butmost of all, be observant.

I once believed . . .

2012-01-06T16:52:00.000-08:00

I once believed that the best watercolor paintings are painted in a spontaneous manner without too much reliance on corrective measures such as patting with kleenex or scrubbing with paper towels and bristle brushes . . . but . . . as we all know, "rules" are meant to be broken. I debated with Mike Bailey (president of the National Watercolor Association) last year about the use of Mr. Clean Sponges as a watercolor painting tool. I did not use a Mr. Clean Sponge here . . . too excessively . . . neither did I use a bristle brush and #11 Exacto knife on this painting . . . too excessively . . . but I'll fess up that I did indeed use ALL three items. I now must ask myself, "am I headed down the sinful road to perdition?

NO COLOR WATERCOLOR

2012-01-05T19:46:00.000-08:00

This new year, my Tuesday "Controlling The Flood" watercolor class will be doing a lot of studies in beautiful Paynes Gray. We started our first one last Tuesday. So why am I doing this? Read Terry Miura's December post on this blog titled "Stripped". Gotta tellya, he explains the value of black and white painting so well that I have nothing to add except an "amen, brother!"

Happy New Year!!!

2012-01-02T09:46:00.001-08:00

Happy New Year! May this one be filled with art and inspiration. And peace. and love. and some really good wine.

I'm happy to kick off the new year with momentum; Urban Aria is featured currently featured in the online magazine, A Hopeful Sign. Check it out~

Happy Holidays From The School of Light & Color

2011-12-22T15:14:00.000-08:00

Happy Holidays
from The School of Light & Color

A California Winter Oil 12" x 16" Susan Sarback

2011 has been a great year! We've had new

classes, exciting workshops, and a bunch of

great students. Thank you all for our best

year yet at the school and we hope to continue

this momentum for 2012.

Have a Happy Holiday,

Susan and Staff

Christmas on a Silver Platter

2011-12-21T17:13:00.000-08:00

This past week at the School of Light and Color, the students in my beginning oil painting class wanted to paint something for the holidays. This turned out to be a terrific set up. We had fun with it. I found this cute little live poinsettia at the Whole Foods Market in Folsom, It was only about 5 inches tall, in a little vase that was the shape of an ornament. I loved the reclections on the platter and the highlights in the balls. Hopefully the Poinsettia still comes off as the point of interest. I started with a darker block in and with that done I began to add the lights. I find that if I "sneak up" on the lights I have a better idea when to stop.

This year has been my first teaching at the School. I have loved every minute of it, but most of all have made some wonderful new relationships. It is such a blessing to see a person come into the class and fall in love with Oil Painting. It reminds me of the joy that I first felt when I began. If you can overcome the fear of showing up in a new classroom, and make a decision to continue to show up, I believe you will begin to see the world in a whole new way.....and you will never want to go back.

Merry Christmas to all of you and a Happy New Year. Can't wait to start again on Tuesday evening the 10th of January from 6 to 9 pm and Wednesday the 11th from 9:30 to 12:15. Come join us....

Light & Color Classes and Workshops

2011-12-16T16:44:00.000-08:00

At my weekly Light & Color classes and my Color

Intensive Workshop you'll learn how

color creates form. You'll gain the foundation needed to paint greater color harmony and light key in any subject. Through a clear 4 stage process you'll see how color relationships are more important than accuracy of local color.

We start by painting still life subjects under

halogen lights. After the initial still lifes are painted we can then apply this understanding of color to other

subjects like landscapes. You'll see the

major color relationships as well as the subtle color distinctions that willgive your paintings greater form, depth, and atmosphere.

At first we start with a palette knife since this

is an easier way to study color. Recently

I've added the option of using brushes after the initial studies are completed

with a palette knife.

Seeing

color accurately is not unlike seeing form accurately;

everything

must be observed in relationship. With color we're always comparing masses and

asking the questions:

•Which color is lighter or darker?

•Which color is warmer or cooler?

•Which color is brighter or duller?

All of the parts must relate to each other. Through accurate color

relationships, harmony and the quality of light begin to emerge in a painting.

The weekly Light & Color classes begin again

in January on Mondays afternoon and

evenings and Thursday afternoons. The

next Color Intensive 5 day workshop is

January 14 -18, 2012 .

These classes and workshops set the foundation

for working with color in a clear

understandable way that will transform all

your paintings - still life, landscape and figures.

Classes and workshops are limited to 12 people so that you get lots of personal attention!

Stripped!

2011-12-16T09:17:00.001-08:00

Stripped...of color, that is.

I'm a great believer in simple value structures. The fewer values you use to make your statement, the more impact you'll have.

These paintings are, obviously, done in black and white. Without color you're left with only values. I find it much easier because quite simply, there's less information to deal with. It also means that you can't rely on color changes to define one area from another, so you really have to be sensitive to value modulations. Beginning painters sometimes find this very challenging, but it's as basic as understanding sentence structures. A noun and a verb will make a sentence. Addition of adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, conjugations, etc. will make a more complex sentence, but it can be very confusing, right?

Anyway, just a couple of values and no color to worry about. You can really (and you have to) pay attention to edges, brushwork, drawing and design. It might open your eyes to where you are weak. (And you thought color was the problem!)

Color is difficult to master, to be sure, but without solid understanding of the bones underneath it all, you're only faking it. So get your value groove on, Do some black and white studies (of any subject - doesn't have to be figures) and see how comfortable you are with the limited parameters.

You know what else is so great about just painting with black and white? It's cheap!

A Figure Painting Process

2011-12-13T09:19:00.001-08:00

As it is very difficult to convey what I mean by thinking abstractly , I thought I'd share process shots of one of my recent figure paintings. I think, even if I can't articulate all that's happening in my head and on the canvas, these shots will help to illustrate some of what I'm talking about better than showing you just the finished image.

This painting is fairly typical of the direction my figure paintings have taken in the past several months. My brushwork had been (slowly) moving towards becoming freer and more expressive for years, but this year it sort of made the jump from "describing body parts" to just plain "expressing".

Here's how I started the painting;

On the left is a charcoal drawing I did a few years ago. Probably a five minute drawing from the looks of it. I taped a piece of linen (Claessens #66) on board and loosely drew the figure with a pencil. The original drawing had a nice gestural quality, which I wanted to push further. I thought leaning her body a little bit more would add grace, so that's what I focused on.

Using black and Liquin, I drew over the pencil lines and mapped out the shadows. My aim here is to separate light and shadow clearly. Organizing the figure into two values simplifies the problem. (Hair mass represents a third value here, but that's not a function of light and shadow)

Now that I have my values organized, I'm ready to go in with opaque colors. (up to now I've just used black and painted transparently with the help of Liquin) I blocked in the shadows with a single color, for simplicity's sake. I didn't get into local color shifts at this point, because that would be moving towards literal description. Besides, I'm working from a charcoal drawing so any local color shifts would have to be made up.

I did the same with the light side of the figure. Single color, very simply blocked in.

I wanted to see what it looked like with a dark background, so I quickly filled it in, paying close attention to shaping the figure from outside.

This is what my palette looked like at this point. You can see the four colors I've used so far; a dark color for the back ground, the black w/ Liquin for the underpainting, the light side of the figure, and the shadow side of the figure. Nothing really tricky so far.

The colors that I actually have around the edge of the palette are, clockwise from the bottom left;

Ultramarine
Cerulean (this is where I put a greenish blue. Sometimes Cerulean, sometimes Prussian, Sometimes Phthalo)
Ivory Black
Titanium White
Cadmium Lemon,
Warm Yellow (a mixture of Cad Lem and Transparent Earth Red)
Yellow Ochre
Permanent Red
Alizarin
Transparent Earth Red

I have filled in the rest of the background, and now sneaking in color variations into the figure. I have no references other than the charcoal drawing, so everything other than the construct of the figure is invented. This includes all colors, suggestions of environments. This contributes greatly to making abstract decisions.

Working variations into all areas of the painting, losing edges and finding them, pushing and pulling the paint. It's starting to look like a painting.

Finished. If I were working with a live model or a photograph, I'd be influenced a lot more by what I saw. The colors would probably conform more to actual colors, and shapes would likely be based on existing things around the figure.

As it is, the temperature shifts on the figure are sort of generic - at least, they start out that way and slowly become less literal as I respond to subjective color decisions I'd made outside of the figure.

I'll post more figures like this soon~

Have a rollicking merry holiday season!

2011-12-06T16:38:00.001-08:00

I'll be back teaching my Tuesday "Controlling the Flood" watercolor class from 1:30 to 4:00 p.m. January 3, 2012. Meanwhile, easy on the nog and stay warm.

Before & After

2011-12-02T17:31:00.000-08:00

For my in-studio landscape painting class, I usually spend about 45 minutes to an hour doing a demo on a different subject each week. Obviously, that's not a lot of time and I don't expect to do fully resolved paintings on the spot. I'm usually talking about some specific aspect or another, and I'll paint and talk until I make my point.

If I think my unresolved painting has potential, I'll work on it later in my studio and bring to to a satisfactory finish. This may take an additional hour or five, for a 9 x 12 painting (my usual demo size).

When I did this particular demo (above), my topic was simplifying complex things like cars, using atmosphere. I didn't spend too much time on composition or drawing, as you can plainly see. But I thought there was potential and I didn't want to let it go so I started reworking it later, when I was alone in my studio and away from any pressure to perform.

This is what I ended up with. It's changed quite a bit. I love the medium's capacity and tolerance for making big changes!

The placement of the figure is unconventional, and I kept moving it around but couldn't resist playing with fire. In the original demo, it's placed more predictably, and while it's sloppily safe, it was boring to me. I kept edging it to the left a little at a time (as if she was walking) and in the end, I decided to stick it right near the edge, but by manipulating the edges and directions of the strokes, I hoped it would work; or at least look intentional.

Anyway, a fun demo and a rewarding reworking experience.

2012 workshop and class schedule

2011-11-29T18:04:00.000-08:00

Check out our new classes and workshops for 2012! click on
this link http://www.lightandcolor.com/2012jan.pdf
There's something for everyone at all levels so come and join us!

Urban Aria Exhibition Catalogue

2011-11-27T13:56:00.001-08:00

I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving and didn't suffer too much from overeating like I did!

Now, it's time to get back to art before another onset of feasting and craziness.

I'm excited to announce that the Urban Aria exhibition has so far been received very positively. I continue to receive great feedback from people who visit the gallery. So here's a big Thank You to everybody who has taken the time to see the show, both in person and online! Your continued support and enthusiasm really helps me motivated.

So in connection with the show, I'm announcing that the exhibition catalogue for Urban Aria is now available directly from Blurb.com. Every painting in the show is included, plus a few "earlier versions" that may give you a glimpse into my process. I'm very happy with how the images printed, too; the colors look pretty damn close to what they should be, which, if you know anything about print publishing, is no easy task.

Anyway, here's a preview of the first 15 pages -

URBAN ARIA by TERRY MIURA | Make Your Own Book

The exhibition will be up through December, so if you haven't seen it and you find yourself in San Francisco, please check it out~

Thomas Reynolds Gallery
2291 Pine Street @ Fillmore
San Francisco, CA
(415)441-4093

Yes, clouds count.

2011-11-18T18:16:00.001-08:00

People you see on the street, people you see in a park, or wherever you see people, oft times should be seen in your paintings as well. A painting can look more natural with people in it and provide an extra "it" factor that attracts a viewer's eye. The same can hold true with clouds . Whether they be icy, high flying cirrus, low, rain sodden stratus, or tall, billowing cumulus, painting clouds in your sky can add that extra "it" factor.

Next January, when I re-start my Tuesday "Controlling the Flood" watercolor sessions, clouds will play an important role in some of the assignments. These three watercolors were painted yesterday. Only three colors where used in the clouds and sky, and they were painted wet-on-wet. What do you think . . . do the clouds provide a little "it" factor?

Class Demos: Landscape

2011-11-16T21:37:00.000-08:00

Here are a couple of recent demos from my landscape painting (in-studio) class. I usually do a 45 min - 1 hr demo at the beginning of the class. The subject varies, but mostly I'm responding to students' requests.

That means I sometimes (and increasingly,) do demos on motifs that I wouldn't normally paint – especially not in front of a bunch of people! It gets to be pretty challenging, and my students seem to enjoy watching me struggle. (you know who you are.)

The vineyard is one such motif. I can count the times I've painted rows of vines on one hand! I love the wine country but I'm more inclined to go there for wine than to paint vineyards. No matter. It is a subject that many painters love, and if seeing me risk humiliation and tackle this unfamiliar genre under their scrutiny helps them to paint vineyards better, so be it.

Painting rows of vines (or any other crop) is a matter of paying attention to the vanishing points – it changes with topography, you see. The lines need to be carefully drawn, and then painted to disguise the fact that it was carefully drawn.

A demo request on painting buildings. I was a little reluctant not because I don't like painting buildings, (are you kidding me? it's one of my favorite subjects!) but I didn't think I could do a decent sketch in under an hour. I like to keep my demos under an hour so that everyone has time to paint in class, too. After all, it is a painting class.

So for this demo I used a B/W photo I took in Winters, Ca. that featured a street corner. By focusing on a limited area (as opposed to painting a complex facade) I thought I could do it within the alloted time and still touch upon important points like perspective, simplifying the clutter, editing, and temperature shifts to show plane changes.

It came out pretty good.

Incidentally, I'll be leading a workshop at this very location in April (27 - 29) If you want to try this view en plein air, join the workshop! Call the school to sign up; (916) 966 7517.

Recent Brush Paintings

2011-11-15T16:50:00.000-08:00

Here are some of my recent brush paintings. The color may not be as accurate as painting
with a palette knife but painting with a brush allows you to control edges more
easily, create softer transitions between masses and color variations within
masses, and to more easily develop a cohesive harmony throughout the painting.

Urban Aria; Painting What's Not There

2011-11-13T08:57:00.003-08:00

The following is an interview about Urban Aria which appeared in Art Matters. I hope you find it interesting.

URBAN ARIA

Painting What’s Not There; A Conversation with Terry Miura

The title of your upcoming exhibition is Urban Aria. What is the significance of the title, and how did you arrive at it?

The word aria has a couple of definitions, one of which is Italian for air. As this series of paintings has heavy emphasis on atmosphere and its effects, I thought it was an appropriate title. The other reference for the word is musical – an aria is a melody, often a complex song in an opera. I often have musical references for titles of my paintings and shows (an earlier exhibition at Thomas Reynolds Gallery was entitled Andante) because I feel there’s a strong relationship between imagery and music, and I often think of my painting in terms of musical concepts. Harmony and rhythms are two of the more obvious examples.

Is this a new direction for you?

The genre isn’t new to me. I started out painting cityscapes a long time ago. There was a period of several years during which time I focused on learning the craft of landscape painting en plein air, but the city never left me. What is new this time, is that my work has become more abstract, both in terms of how I paint and what I paint.

What do you mean by that, and how did that come about?

Well, the brushwork is looser and freer than it has ever been. I don’t paint a lot of detail, so the shapes are simpler and less descriptive. Objects are merely suggested, not defined. I’ve been struggling to paint more abstractly for years and years, but being an extremely analytical person, I’ve always needed rigid structure. Rules of representational painting gave me that structure and I had a hard time leaving it. Consequently, abstraction eluded me for years. I mean, an abstract stroke made no sense to me, and I needed everything to make logical sense. Perhaps that’s why abstraction has always fascinated me; it was mysterious and out of reach.

It wasn’t until earlier this year that things began to change. I was painting on a street corner during the Sonoma Plein Air Festival. My subjects were cars and pedestrians, more or less familiar motifs. What was different for me this time, was the fact that I was looking into the sun. The backlit cars and figures...in fact everything in view became very simplified because you really can’t see any detail when you’re staring into the sun. I was forced to simplify, working with minimal amount of description. I have painted hundreds of backlit views before, but I believe this was the first time I tried it with moving targets. The simplicity forced upon my view by the back lighting, and the figures and cars in motion made it impossible for me to render anything. The only way for me to paint the scene was if I just tried to capture the impressions of things, and not the things themselves. Many an artist talk about this idea, and in fact I tell my students to do that too, but I hadn’t really grasped the full meaning of this way of seeing the world until I realized I was painting motion, not pedestrians.

Back in the studio, I pondered on this concept of painting the intangible, and I started a bunch of new canvases. I wanted to see if I could come up with other concepts which were intangible, abstract notions and paint them. Concepts such as airiness, noise, anonymity, and mood. When I focused on these ideas and not cars and buildings, the cars and buildings looked more like cars and buildings. And to my delight, the painting became more and more abstract.

Atmosphere plays a part in this, right?

A huge part. I’ve always loved atmospheric perspective and its ability to create mood. My landscapes are typically very atmospheric. In back lighting, because the sunlight has to travel through all that stuff in the air– smog, dust, etc. – the atmospheric effects are very much accentuated. And it bathes everything in a single unifying color theme, which, again, is a great simplifier. The fact that you can tell a backlit car is a car, tells me that you don’t need any detail. A silhouette will do. Adding detail doesn’t make my statement any more eloquent, so what would be the point in making that car more defined? Less really is more.

You mentioned musical concepts. Can you elaborate?

Right. In many ways ideas in music are very similar to thos in picturemaking. Even the words are the same; composition, rhythm, harmony, key. Those are formal concepts. It’s easy to see color harmonies as being similar to chords on a piano, and pleasing placements of visual elements translating to tempo and cadence. I’ve always been a big fan of jazz, particularly Miles Davis’ music from the late fifties. Not only that the tunes are very moody and atmospheric, but I love that he says so much with so little. It’s pure poetry. I identify with jazz, I think, because of its improvisational nature. The music has to have structure, like representational painting, but with jazz, you’re allowed to abstract and express, sometimes sticking close to the score, and sometimes going way off. Coltrane sometimes played entire songs without ever hitting the note as written, and yet, the tunes are identifiable. That to me is exactly what I try to do with my painting. I realize I have a long, long ways to go, but I feel I’m making progress. When I get stuck on a painting, I often ask, what would Miles do? And I answer myself with a famous Miles quote, “Don’t play what’s there, play what’s not there.”

Can you talk about your process? Do you use photo references or paint on site?

About half of this series of paintings are done using photo references. The other half are imaginary, composed from scratch. None are done on location. To me, plein air sketches are more like studies. I often bring them to a satisfactory finish, but my intent is usually to study and explore something specific; light’s effects, or the construct of a car or a building or a tree, for example. In the studio, I often just start with random washes on a small canvas, looking for shapes to spark a composition. I think of these as doodles, almost. I then tighten up the design and introduce some sort of structure, correct perspective and believable spatial relationships, all the while moving things around to try different placements. A great thing about painting cars is that I can move them around anywhere to suit the composition, as long as the perspective is consistent with the context. Once I have a design to sink my teeth into, I paint thicker and more decisively. I do many of these small paintings and have them all around my studio to give me more ideas. Not all of them are good but many will have a potential to be made into larger, more thought-through paintings. I may combine elements from two or more smaller paintings, recompose, and edit. In terms of actual application of paint on the larger canvases, it’s pretty much the same as small ones. The difference being with the larger one, I know where I’m going whereas with the smaller paintings, I don’t. It is hit or miss–and I have a lot of misses– but I like the spontenaity and improvisational nature of starting with doodley washes.

Is that the same thing as painting from memory?

I don’t have photographic memory, so it’s not as if I can paint exactly what I visualize in my head. But I tap into my memory for general feeling of being in a certain environment. I can remember whether it was busy or empty, tall buildings or a big open sky, many trees or few. That sort of thing. The rest is constructing the image on canvas with some attention to perspective. I always thought this was a good way to work because I can only actualize what I can remember, and I can only remember what I noticed, the composition is pre-edited to an extent. By definition, what I remember must have been worth remembering. I don’t remember colors too well beyond simple hues, so perhaps that contributes my palette being muted.

You’re known as a tonalist. Why do you paint tonally?

You know, I don’t even know what that means, really. I have nothing against bright colors, if the painting is executed well. I’m just drawn to a more quiet, muted palettte. I think it’s an effective way to create mood, and besides it’s a lot simpler. Colors of things are information, as with any other detail. If I can communicate what that thing is without local color information, why do I need it? It makes it more colorful, sure, but that has nothing to do with what I’m trying to express. Bringing a tuba into a sring quartet would make it more colorful, but it doesn’t make it better, does it? That’s not to say that I paint monochromatically. I do actually use a range of hues, just not very saturated. A strong single-color theme unifies the painting and if I throw in a few color accents in the foreground, I find that’s enough color for me. Any more would start to fragment the image.

A few of these paintings depict recognizeable buildings, but many are just ordinary, everyday type of views. Is that intentional?

Absolutely. It goes back to painting the intangiable. A recognizeable building would have to be painted...recognizeably. That is to say, the visual information not only has to be there, but also more or less accurate. The painting becomes more about the building than about, say city rhythms. I don’t really want to paint a portrait of a building or a car. I want to convey a mood. The more information I paint, the more specific the subject becomes. Keeping my views more ambiguous allows more room for the viewer to interpret, to complete the picture in their own mind, in the context of their own experiences and memories, and I think that is a far more powerful interaction than a realistic depiction of a recognizeable street corner can offer.

Since your subject matter is ordinary streetscapes, do you find that you see potential paintings everywhere you go?

Sometimes, when my brain is in that mode. Like right after a painting session. But most of the time it takes conscious effort for me to mentally translate what I see into a possible painting. It’s a lot of work, and since I have a habit of doing that while driving in the city, it can be dangerous! I prefer it if someone else were driving, but then I get car sick so that’s not good either.

Your figures too, are non-specific.

I’m painting motion, not pedestrians, remember? But seriously, I try to keep my figures less defined for the same reason. I want to identify with the figures in my paintings, and if they’re specific individuals, it’s not so easy to find resonance. I wouldn’t necessarily care about that person, because I don’t know him. But I can relate to Everyman, and keeping him anonymous by painting him abstractly, I can see myself being him. Not every viewer will identify with him the same way I do, but If I painted him with more detail and definition, I’m sure even fewer will be able to relate to him.

So this has been a particularly important series of paintings for you?

Working on this series was a completely eye-opening journey for me, unlike any other stage in my development as an artist, because I feel I discovered something very important. I feel like I finally understand how to break the rules of representational painting without violating my analytical self, and it’s absolutely liberating. I love how abstract my paintings have become in such a short time, and I love that I feel right at home after all these years of struggling to find my voice. I’m not there yet, but I believe I’ve found a piece of the puzzle. A corner piece, even.

Urban Aria is on view through December at Thomas Reynolds Gallery in San Francisco. Check it out!

Palette Knife vs. Brush

2011-11-09T10:30:00.001-08:00

Here are some recent demo's that I painted at workshops over
the past few months. In the approach
that I'm teaching based on the French Impressionists, the best tool to use when
learning about color is a palette knife.
After 20+ years of only using a knife, I decided I needed a new
challenge and went back to the brush. At
workshops I paint the demos with a knife since that's what most of the students
will use. Using a knife you can mix
and layer colors more accurately . Brushes require the use of medium. Keeping brushes clean from color to color is
difficult because the previous color mixes with the medium and stays in the
bristles of the brushes. With a palette
knife no medium is required so the colors stay pure and your control of color
mixing is more exacting. After the
initial painting studies, a student can paint with a brush if they choose to. But, most stay with the knife for a while
just for better color studies.
At first, painting with a palette knife is awkward to use
but within a few weeks it becomes easier in some ways than a brush. In fact when I went back to a brush it took a
long time to get used to the lack of color accuracy that I could get. Now, I often
combine knife and brush work in the same painting.

Urban Aria Opening was a Blast!!

2011-11-07T09:59:00.000-08:00

The opening for my show was this past Saturday, and it was a lot of fun! Very well attended despite the gloomy weather. Thank you so much to those of you who made it to the opening - your presence there made the show!!

Thanks especially to my students who made the trip even though you've already seen all these paintings in my studio! your support is much appreciated!!

above: Me about to knock out the paparazzo. In the back is my good friend and artist Cindy Lemmon.

Fellow artists Sergio Lopez, Philippe Gandiol and Jimmie G. Jimmie, are you reading this? Let me know your website/blog address.

Richard Lindenberg discusses something with Michael Reardon (Might be something about art. or the bear market. I dunno)

Sergio and Philippe contemplate (somethin). James and Nancy in the back.

Me and James. We're kinda tonal.

My buddy from the sixth grade, Brad, flew up for the opening. He snatches the title piece from the show, too. Thanks Brad!!

Casual snapshot captures Michael Reardon, Sergio Lopez and Paul Kratter. Paul and I wore the same shoes. I thought you'd want to know.

This is my littlest fan, artist Skye Miura.

Erik Tiemmens and I went to art school together back in the late eighties. Always inspiring.

Ernesto Nemesio and Erik talk shop.

Christin Coy and Richard Lindenberg; always fun to hang out with.

Bill Cone, Paul Kratter and Philippe Gandiol. I didn't get to thank you for the beer afterwards Bill - so thanks!

Here's Sergio again. He's been tearing up the plein air circuit lately.

The show will be up through December so if you couldn't make the opening, there's plenty of time to see the paintings. If you get around to SF, please stop by the gallery and check 'em out.

Thanks again for all your support!

Now, on to the next project!

The Beauty of Small Simple Studies.....

2011-11-06T12:34:00.000-08:00

Starting this week in the beginning oil painting classes at the School of Light and Color we will begin a new series of studies. Our purpose is to start and finish a painting in one class, while learning to simplify shapes, color and value. If you want to start oil painting, this is a good time to start.

There are a lot of advantages to painting small. You will learn to really simplify a composition, first by painting one small object in the light. You will learn to see large value shapes, cast shadow, reflections and highlights. You will begin to see values and how they relate to one another, and you will learn to paint simple color schemes.
We will be using 6x6, 8x8 or 6x8 panels. Call Debbie at the school 916-966-7517 or go to this link to register.

We have a space or two open on Wednesday mornings, and plenty of openings on Tuesday evening.

Without Atmosphere...

2011-11-04T09:31:00.001-07:00

Purple Haze, 40 x 30 inches, oil on linen

"Without atmosphere, a painting is nothing."

-Rembrandt van Rijn

That's one of my favorite quotes. Not surprising, eh?

The painting above is entirely invented. The atmosphere is the real subject matter, and the cars are er...vehicles... to express the atmosphere. In order to keep it that way, I made a concerted effort to keep the cars, pedestrians, and other "things" in this painting as simple as possible.

Dark values, highest contrast, visual activity are all concentrated in the foreground. As we move back into space everything becomes simpler, until light and shadow become so close in value that everything gets obscured. Buildings don't have any detail on them, and for the most part I rely on strong, recognizable silhouettes for visual clutter such as pedestrians and street light posts.

The idea there is this; it is much simpler to paint an object with two values than, say, ten. It is even simpler to do it with one value. But can I paint something with just one value and still make it recognizable? Yes, if it has a strong silhouette. When does a mere silhouette make sense? In heavy atmospheric conditions, and also when the object is back lit. Think of cinematic effects when silhouettes are used effectively. The first thing that comes to my mind is when Darth Vader emerges from the depth of a smoke filled corridor. What does that say about me? LOL But kidding aside, the next time you watch a movie, pay close attention to how a scene is designed. You'll find lots of beautifully executed scenes which are surprisingly simple, and heavily reliant on atmosphere and silhouettes.

Urban Aria opens tomorrow (Saturday, Nov 5. Reception; 5 - 7 pm) ! If you come to the opening, be sure to say hello~ I'd love to meet you!

Feather Man

2011-10-31T22:28:00.001-07:00

A little hot color and some tight cropping can make a watercolor real entertaining. Come join me every Tuesday to explore the medium and control the flood.

Something Wicked This Way Comes....

2011-10-31T09:14:00.001-07:00

Happy Halloween! And that means... yes, carving pumpkins! I've always enjoyed this part of the tradition, but I've never really done anything complicated. My Jack-O-lanterns have always been pretty much traditional.

This year, I decided to do something a little different. I don't know why - may be because I had just delivered all my paintings for the show and was feeling relieved and relaxed. May be because this year my daughter is old enough to really be excited about Halloween and that enthusiasm is contagious.

And probably too, because I had been talking with a friend about illustration, the occupation I am no longer in and miss a little bit every time I read a beautifully illustrated children's book at my daughter's bedtime.

Anyway, I decided to try the - I don't know what the proper term is - woodblock type of carving where you don't penetrate the wall all the way. Making use of the variation in the depth of the carving to achieve a light / dark value pattern but not cutting holes, it's a lot easier to do more complex images than the traditional method.

I had a cheap set of woodblock / lino cutting tools which worked just fine. I tried my Dremel, but it didn't have a pumpkin bit so it was just like using a clunky electric drill. Way too clumsy. Next year, I think I'll buy a Dremel specifically made for carving pumpkins and give that a try. But I have a soft spot for old fashioned tools, so I'll probably end up using the knives more.

The cat is Mooner, my trusty sidekick who had been with me for 18 years, during my entire illustration career and left us when I completed the transition to painting full time. This part of the Jack O Lantern is in honor of his memory. 'Hope you're having a good time Mooner, wherever you are!

Skye drew me a thumbnail - I'll post it later if I can locate it - of a spider that she wanted me to carve.

I didn't have a design to start with. This is all just ad lib, stream of consciousness. Not very different from my doodles that I do while mindlessly talking on the phone.

When I was a freelance illustrator, I had two distinctly different styles. One of them was gritty, newsy, digital collage with which I worked for clients such as SI, Rollingstone and Washington Post, and the other was like this pumpkin; whimsical and fun. The two styles balanced one another in terms of my need to be both serious and goofy.

Gotta have a witch! Elphaba lives! I love Gregory Maguire's work.

Another one of my daughter's requests; "Daddy, you need to put in a bunny!"

Skye's head on the spider; it's a "Skyeder"! Get it?

And here's the best part. This is Skye's pumpkin. She drew the face, and got a little help carving from ol' dad. Looks pretty awesome!

Class Demo

2011-10-27T16:21:00.000-07:00

Ch-ch-ch-Changes~

2011-10-27T10:02:00.001-07:00

A.M., 12 x 16 inches, oil on linen

One of the beautiful things about thick paint oil painting is that it is almost infinitely editable. I say almost because if it gets too thick, surface texture becomes more and more a problem. Or an issue, anyway.

But my paint application usually stay within a manageable range in terms of paint buildup and texture, so I can make changes whether it's still wet or after it's dry.

The painting above is one that will be in my upcoming show Urban Aria at Thomas Reynolds Gallery (Opening reception; Nov 5th, 5 - 7pm). It says it's 12 x 16 inches, and it is, but it started out a little bit bigger.

Above is the same painting, at an earlier stage. It was 12 x 21 inches and while it had a nice back lit thing going, I felt it was a little too simple (less was not more in this case) and unresolved. So I went back in and worked on the main figure, which led to repainting everything around it because I needed all edges of shapes to be integrated. In turn, I had to repaint everything else too, for the same reason.

In essence, I repainted the whole thing over, which seems like a lot of work but it's pretty typical of the process when making changes on top of a dry surface. I brush on a thin coat of Liquin before I make changes on a dried surface and it sort of makes it feel like I'm painting wet into wet, but not really since there's no interaction between the dried strokes and the wet ones on top. However the coat of Liquin brings back the richness of the darks and brilliance of the colors, which helps me to judge colors and values accurately. This is pretty much what retouch varnish does. I use Liquin instead of retouch varnish because the varnish fumes make me sick.

Here's the detail of the pedestrian. The edges and brushwork are absolutely critical, and there's no way I can get the new layer to look integrated into the dried surface of the painting, so I have to repaint everything. When I point this out to my students when they want to make changes to their already-dry paintings, often I get a groan because they feel its a lot of unnecessary work and they don't want to cover up everything they've already done. Why should they repaint what's already working? But here again, is the notion of feeling too precious with the painting getting in the way of taking risks.

The plain fact is that if you want the look of wet-into-wet edges, the only way to paint them is wet into wet. And if that means painting the whole thing over, that's what you do. It's just a process. Nothing to groan about.

Oh and while I was reworking this painting, it became clear to me that the left side of the painting wasn't contributing anything to my statement so I took the panel to the table saw and BBZZZZzzzzzz!! Voila! problem solved!

Painting on Paper

2011-10-24T09:29:00.001-07:00

Lately I have been doing my figure studies on paper rather than canvas or linen. Typically, I use thick vellum which is smooth (with a little bit of tooth), translucent and a lot cheaper than linen.

I used to paint on this surface a lot when I was in art school since I couldn't afford more expensive materials for mere studies and exercises. I just recently rediscovered it, and am delighted at the fact that it works beautifully with my thick paint application of late.

It doesn't take washes well at all –not in the way I like, anyway– but I find I can build the surface toward thick paint without getting muddy. Paint responds to the brush in a more fluid way. It sort of forces me to be more aware of each stroke since I don't have the canvas texture to help me fake it.

These are all 11 x 14 and done in about an hour. In our three hour figure sessions, I do three of them. I just tape the corners of a sheet of paper to a board, and am ready to go. The paper itself is archival, if you were wondering, but I'm not worried about that - these are just exercises and studies and I do a lot of them. I'd go broke if I painted on linen all the time!

One thing that slows down a student's advancement is when he feels too precious about every little painting. Yes, it's important to try your best every time, but not every painting is going to end up worthy of a gallery wall or even a frame. In my case, for every one painting that ends up in a gallery, there's probably five or ten that do not. And if I start a painting knowing this one isn't gallery bound, I'm more likely to take risks. A lot of them fail and end up in the garbage, but so what? Can you imagine a musician recording every scale exercise for posterity?

Because the material is cheap, I don't feel bad about doing a ton of them. Set a time limit, focus on one issue, do it, and move on to the next one. As long as you are focused on a particular issue and you're not just going through the motions, you are getting better. And much, much faster than if you were trying to solve all problems in a painting every time you face the easel.

By the way, I'm Tweeting. Not sure if this is a worthwhile pursuit, but I thought I'd give it a try~ Follow me if you feel like it!

More Recent Demos

2011-10-21T22:30:00.000-07:00

Here are more recent demos from my Thursday landscape class. I sometimes think ahead and prepare my demos to make sure I don't crash and burn. Other times, I take requests –often students have questions about specific issues that they're trying to figure out in their own projects– and try to do my best on the spot. Riskier, but that makes it interesting too.

The pic at the top is my latest demo, done just last night. Among other things, I wanted to emphasize two things. The importance of paying attention to brushwork, and keeping temperature shifts between light and shadow subtle and under control. I used a pen sketch out of my sketchbook as my reference, so the colors are invented. Which was not a big deal in this case - both the tree trunk and the ground are kind of gray so there's no critical local color to worry about.

China Camp, I think? Gail was working from a photo and asked me if I could do a demo with it. My first reaction was, "hell no, that looks like a recipe for a crash and burn demo!" I didn't say that, but I thought it. Then upon closer inspection, I decided to give it a go. The clutter in the middle really was the only tricky part, and that was all in the drawing. Once I resolved that, the peripheral stuff was just back drop for the main dish. I believe that "strategy" of defining a few recognizable elements in a grouped clutter and leaving everything else loose, is what I focused on in the demo.

Here's one from a few weeks ago. I decided to do a street scape out of my head. The main theme here was how to simplify complex stuff like cars. I demonstrated how atmosphere and edge control can be used to accomplish this. It isn't about how to paint cars. It's about how to edit. Or more precisely, how to think in order to edit effectively. As you know, there's a whole lotta thinking required when you're painting but most of it has good logical reasoning to back it up.

Fog demo from two weeks ago. It's all about atmosphere, baby~ Organizing your values logically, I dare say fog isn't hard to paint (compared to some other climate conditions, that is). What's difficult is shaping the trees so that they're both interesting and convincing. Mine is just hastily done (these class demos are done in 30min to an hour usually) so it doesn't quite work, but another couple of hours would do the trick.

It's true that sometimes, reading or hearing about the hows and the whys of painting doesn't translate to problem at hand, even if the information makes perfect sense to us. But seeing it done right in front of our eyes is a whole different experience and we hear lots of "Ohhhh that's what you meant!" A picture really is worth a thousand words!

Clouds

2011-10-17T13:01:00.000-07:00

The Journey 48" x 60"

Moving Forward 18" x 24 "

When you get a commission to do a large painting of a subject you don't

frequently paint, it takes more work than you might think. I was asked to

paint a 48" x 60" sky painting with dramtic clouds. I've been painting for years but
never did I focus on skies and clouds. So, for several months I looked up a
lot! Fortunately here in California we had a very wet year with lots of large
cumulus clouds tumbling through on a seemingly regular schedule. So, for months
I've been painting lots of clouds.

I did small and medium size studies/paintings and plenty of

sketches just to figure it out. Here are a few of the studies.
Now I understand clouds enough to do a fairly decent painting and to teach it
as well! I'll be showing you more about painting skies and clouds in my classes
and workshops. Just ask me!

My client asked for an uplifting painting that created a sense of light, space
and most of all freedom. The challenge was to paint a dynamic, dramatic
painting without too many dark values (that was the request). To create a sense
of vast space. Value contrast was minimal in the sky but I used temperature
differences and chroma (bright/dull) variations. It was quite a challenge. For
the final painting my client wanted the dark cloud on the left to be lighter
and to see more of the yellow sunlight.

12" x 16"

Some Recent Demos

2011-10-11T13:16:00.000-07:00

Under the Cottonball Sky, 9 x 12 inches, oil on linen $400

Here are some recent demos from my landscape class and workshop, to add to your collection!

Because they're demos, I'm able to offer them at a much lower price point than the pieces that I slave over for hours on end. It doesn't mean that their inferior– it means they're more immediate and spontaneous. Sort of a difference between a composed piece of music vs. a spontaneous jam.

I'm a collector myself, but many of the pieces that I would want to own are just plain out of reach. So I look for gems in an artist's demos, sketches, and small works, which are often not seen in public, and yet reveal so much of the artist's creative process and intent. Sometimes, the studies speak more to me than the finishes simply because they're so much fresher, and I can see the struggle... or lack there of, in them.

Coffeeshop, 9 x 12, oil on linen, $400

You might recognize Coffeeshop. It's the deli right across the street from our own Fair Oaks Village park, where I recently did a plein air workshop. This is the first demo of the weekend, and as I started, I thought may be I had bitten off more than I can chew, but it turned out to be a good "how to approach a complex view" demo. The car parked in the front left during the demo, but that was anticipated so I painted it first – just a small bit of plein air strategy.

Palm Shadow, 12 x 9 inches, oil on linen, $400

This one was painted the following day, also in the park. Do you remember in an earlier post I showed a photo of me painting, surrounded by a harp ensemble? This is the sketch I was working on. Again, I knew that the shadow wasn't going to stay there for the duration of the painting and neither was the truck, so I blocked those in first. The pedestrian is a composite of many that walked past me.

Old Trail, 9 x 12 inches, oil on linen, $400

On the third day of the plein air workshop, I painted this view at William Pond park. But this isn't that painting. I used that plein air sketch as a reference to paint this during my landscape class, to demonstrate a muted, tonal palette often seen in the Early California painters such as Arthur Matthews.

I do have the original plein air sketch too, but it's not yet mounted and framed.

Alpine Stream, 12 x 9 inches, oil on linen, $400

Here's one from class. I believe we were talking about water, and how reflections work. And how to simplify a complex visual problem by organizing the value structure effectively.

Late Afternoon, 9 x 12 inches, oil on linen, $400

Another class demo. Lots of discussion on clouds and how temperature shifts behave. Also a key lesson in achieving color harmony by paying attention to the color of the light.

Let me know if you are interested in adding any of these to your art collection!

This week, I'm going to do my demo on painting fog. Don't miss it~

Lobenberg Collects

2011-10-10T09:34:00.000-07:00

Many artists are also collectors of art. And why not? Who appreciates good paintings more than painters themselves, right?

This one is from David's collection. Here's what he had to say about it;

I love the sharp and soft edges on this painting as well as its loose, impressionistic sketchy quality.

The painting has a very spontaneous feel to it accomplished with bold, spontaneous brush strokes.

The background textural quality is fabulous. I love the scratch mark just to the left of the box. The warmth of the inside of the open flaps contrasting with the cooler neutral front of the box is lovely.

I am happy to have this in my collection as inspiration for myself and my students.

If you have a painting in your collection you'd like to share, send me an image and tell me all about it. We'll share it with the world!

On Collecting Art

2011-10-06T10:04:00.000-07:00

Continuing on the topic of collecting art - here's a beautiful gem of a painting by Ovanes Berbarian that Randy just added to her growing collection. Isn't this a gorgeous sketch?

Here's what Randy had to say;

I just bought this piece from Ovanes Berberian last weekend. It is only 6x9”. I picked it out and made the deal with his assistant. She then went to get Ovanes to show him which painting I had purchased. He says, Oh! That’s my favorite. (He had set out a few wet ones from the day). Then he told us that he has actually had it for about ten years, but took it out and added a few new strokes and created a masterpiece. I’m not sure he wanted to let it go but told me it would be in good hands. He said “you know when you have done something special”.

This was only my third acquisition. The first two are paintings by my teachers as well, Jim Smyth and Brigitte Curt. (These are the folks I went to France with).

I am now a collector and I believe it is always a good idea to buy from artists that inspire you, but if you are an artist yourself, you will learn from.

If you have a painting in your collection that you'd like to share, email me a pic and tell me something about it. I'll post it on this blog so everyone can see your treasure.

Beer Stop No.3 Goes Home with Stephanie!

2011-10-02T09:53:00.000-07:00

Beer Stop No.3 (12 x 24 inches, oil on linen), one of my personal favorite paintings found a good home today! I'm so glad this piece is going to someone who just had to have it and not because it matched the couch. In her own words;

I'm so happy to bring Beer Stop No. 3 home! I first saw this painting in Terry's studio three months ago when I took his landscape painting class (I'm a painter myself). I've thought about ever since. And I've learned that when you keep thinking about something, you should just go for it. Otherwise, you'll always regret that you didn't.

I'm always looking for paintings that give you the feeling of the temperature of the day. I love the way this one feels like a warm summer evening. You can almost smell the dry grasses and hear the cars going by.

Dark frames aren't my first choice for paintings, but this one sets the painting off very nicely. At least I won't have to get a new couch. That's how things should work, after all: the couch needs to coordinate with the painting, not the other way around.

People collect paintings for all kinds of reasons, but "can't stop thinking about it" is, in my opinion, the best reason. It's about finding a painting that resonates with you at an emotional level. The experience is a personal one, and not just because it would look pretty in the dining room - though I'm sure that couldn't hurt!

A lot of would-be collectors are hesitant about purchasing original art because they just don't trust their own sense of what is good art. I say, if it makes you feel good, happy, brings back fond memories, calms you, excites you, enriches your soul, or otherwise impacts you in a positive way every time you look at it, that piece of artwork is good. Don't kid yourself – true art has that kind of power. And a painting that connects with you, the viewer, in that way may or may not connect with the next viewer in the same way. So the bottom line is, trust your heart. After all, you have to live with it :-D

Do you collect art? What do you look for in art you like to collect? What was your first piece? What's your favorite? What advice do YOU have for new collectors? Let's hear from you, dear readers; use the comment box below, or if you want to share a pic or two, email them to me and I will post them on this blog!

Two women and two men in blazing monotone

2011-09-27T22:20:00.000-07:00

Want to paint watercolor portraits? Start first in monotone. Practice doing A LOT of monotone portraits! Once you are comfortable with your painting approach and such things as edge control, value balance, and facial structure, you will be ready to juggle another ball in the air (or should I call this one a running chain saw)...COLOR!
I'll be back at the school next tuesday to teach my on-going watercolor class, "Controlling The Flood".
Think monotone. Besides, monotone is beautiful, especially when you paint with Winsor Newton payne.s grey!

I'm a-tweetin!

2011-09-26T13:01:00.001-07:00

Follow me.

URBAN ARIA - OPENING DATE CHANGE!!

2011-09-26T09:22:00.000-07:00

There has been a change in plans - My solo exhibition, Urban Aria will open a couple of weeks later than previously planned. It will now open on Saturday, November 5th, 5 to 7 pm. Please make a note of it. If you are in the area (San Francisco) I hope to see you at the opening!!!

Urban Aria

New Paintings by Terry Miura

November 5th through December, 2011

Opening Reception: Saturday, November 5th, 5 to 7 pm

Thomas Reynolds Gallery

2291 Pine Street @ Fillmore, San Francisco

(415)441-4093

American River Kayaker

2011-09-17T23:26:00.001-07:00

This will be next painting in my Controlling The Flood, Tuesday water color class...a fun (and challenging) study of water, granite, color, and value.

Their Swan Song

2011-09-14T23:10:00.001-07:00

This was one of the very last paintings for several of these watercolorists in my first six week "Controlling The Flood" session. We now have a few empty spots by golly, and I hope some of you out there might want to fill them. We are currently working on an American River scene with dramatic shoreline, granite rock formations and a lone kayaker paddling down stream. I'll be posting this within the next week or so. That bearded fellow in the photo as well as that somewhat impish-looking dude looking over the rim of his spectacles is yours truly.

Paintings from 11,000 ft

2011-09-14T08:51:00.000-07:00

I recently had an opportunity to spend a week up in the high Sierras with a bunch of artists. We hiked in from Rock Creek (bet. Mammoth and Bishop) to our base camp at Chickenfoot Lake, elev. 10,500 ft. We had a team of mules to carry all our camping and art supplies for us, and also had a cook to do feed us the entire time, so we could focus on painting. Each day, we hiked up higher up the mountain to Gem Lakes, (with 30 lbs of gear on our backs) worked all day and hiked down again. We slept, we ate, we painted, we drank good wine. Doesn't get much better than this!

Here are all my paintings from the trip - check out the other team members' blogs and websites to see how they handled a similar view. Fascinating to see the differences~

I've also posted a day-by-day, blow-by-blow of our painting adventure on my other blog. Check it out if you're interested~

All of these paintings (as of this posting) are in my studio - come by and see them in person~ And they are available for purchase, (all 9 x 12, oil on linen, $500 framed). Email me if you're interested. They won't be around for long :-D

Music While You Paint

2011-09-10T20:58:00.001-07:00

Some artists, when painting on location, listen to music through their earbuds or headphones using an iPod or similar device. Me, I usually bring my ten-piece harp ensemble with me when I paint en plein air. Something about the angelic background music triggers Divine inspiration.

....which doesn't necessarily translate to a better painting unfortunately, but I find it soothing nonetheless. Except when you're painting here in the Fair Oaks Village, periodic interruption by roosters crowing at the top of their lungs sort of ruins the effect.

Figure DRAWING starting October!

2011-09-06T10:03:00.000-07:00

OK I'm excited to give you this news - we will be offering a figure drawing class at SLC starting October!

I've been teaching a weekly figure painting class on Wednesday afternoons for a while now, and I get asked all the time why isn't there a figure drawing class?

The fact is, it's bothered me too, that we don't have a figure drawing class. I'd love to teach it but I've already got two weekly classes and I can't handle another class. (I wouldn't get my own work done!)

Then I had an idea!

Why don't I do a rotation of figure painting and drawing? Say, three months at a time? That seemed like the perfect solution, since I wanted to teach it myself, and it offers a nice transition into figure painting when the student feels ready. More experienced painters can always, and I mean always, use more practice drawing from the model.

So starting October, I will be teaching drawing on Wednesdays, 1- 4pm. It will be mostly short poses, from 2 - 20 minutes. We may have even shorter poses on specific exercises. Longer ones on more involved anatomy studies. But all will be based on the tried and true approaches of the Italian Renaissance masters.

Materials list will be provided when you sign up, but basically you just need charcoal pencils, pad of paper, drawing board, and your portable easel (we have drawing benches at school, too). And maybe a few clips to hold the pad in place.

You don't need paints, palettes, brushes, canvases or turp. (Shoot. There goes one of your excuses!)

The drawing I've posted here are typical short pose gesture drawings. the b/w ones are 2 to 10 minutes. The sanguin / white on colored paper is 10 to 20 minutes.

In class I emphasize gesture and form. Proportions are important, but that comes naturally when you learn to see the whole figure (easier said than done) so it's not emphasized, unless you're drawing big.

Another extremely important aspect that you'll learn in this class is shorthanding (no, it doesn't mean you draw short hands) light, shadow and the form it reveals. Needless to say, this is enormously helpful in painting, not only of the figure but trees and rocks and vases as well. (How often has a painting failed because your light and shadow didn't separate enough?)

Anyway, that's the gist of it. I look forward to having you join me in figure drawing class come October. If you want to get started sooner, you can sign up and start now - although we won't be doing short poses till October, you're welcome to use your drawing materials to work on one long pose. (You can always move your easel or drawing bench.)

So to recap, the schedule will look something like this;

October - December; Figure Drawing
January - March; Figure Painting
April - July; Figure Drawing
June - September; Figure Painting

Tuition; $40 / Single Session or $144 / Four Sessions.

Call Debbie at the office and sign up today!

(916) 966-7517 email:sarback@lightandcolor.com

2011-09-03T21:16:00.001-07:00

We interrupt this program to bring you news of a plein air painting workshop happening next weekend! (Friday, September 9 - 11)

I still have spots open for this workshop, which will take place locally here in Fair Oaks. We'll be painting in and around the quaint Fair Oaks Village, plus an additional location for a more landscape-y subject matter. There'll be demos and plenty of one-on-one at the easels.

Many students have expressed interest in painting city scenes - Fair Oaks Village is not exactly urban, but it has some neat old storefronts and street charm, as well as a nice park with big trees so there is good variety to paint, both man-made structures and more organic, natural motifs.

One nice thing about doing a workshop locally is that should the weather get too hot (a distinct possibility in this part of the world) we just go indoors into the SLC's classroom and work from studies and photos. And my studio is right there next door too, you can check out in person all that you've seen on this blog recently and I'll be glad to talk about studio processes (working from photos, the role of the computer, scaling up a study, making panels and stretching canvases, etc. etc.) should any student be interested.

And yes, the elusive book En Plein Air, 80 pp of full color, fully illutrated painting secrets (OK, there are no secrets. Just stuff I learned from experience) is included in the workshop!

This book is only available as a part of my workshop. To many of you who has written me inquiring about purchasing the book, I'm sorry - I only print enough for each workshop so there are no extras and I don't have plans to make it available for purchase at this point. May be at some point in the future, but no immediate plans.

The workshop will start on Friday afternoon, to give students time to get here. We'll do a 3 hr demo first thing, and should you want to stick around and paint, there's plenty of light left yet. Alternatively, we can go back to my studio (just a block away) and examine some ~~wine~~ paintings. Either way, we'll have a good time.

On Saturday, we'll paint all day outside, unless it gets too hot in the afternoon - then we can work indoors. At the end of the day we'll do a crit, and have some more ~~wine~~ art discussions.

On Sunday, we'll drive out to a different location - 10 minutes away - for a change of scenery. I'm thinking...water and reflections...

Anyway, that's the plan. If you want to join me for this workshop, please contact the School of Light and Color.

Plein Air Painting Workshop with Terry Miura
September 9, 10, 11 (Friday afternoon, all day Saturday and Sunday)
$325

The School of Light and Color
10030 Fair Oaks Blvd Fair Oaks, Ca 95628

(916) 966-7517 email:sarback@lightandcolor.com

Surf's up and here we sit like bumps on a lily pad

2011-08-27T10:35:00.000-07:00

Remember that old summer camp, around the camp fire song? This is our next controlling the flood subject in my Tuesday water color class from 2 to 4:30p.m. It will be a great exercise in wet-on-wet, wet-on-dry, paint pull off, and color harmony. Remember "100 bottles of beer on the wall"? Oh, and not to be out done by the hurricane back east, here is a California storm surge, water color style. Can you spot the surfer??

Melons Today at School of Light and Color

2011-08-24T16:12:00.000-07:00

Last night and this morning in my beginning oil painting classes at the School of Light and Color we painted melons.......
This class had a chance to practice their angles and proportions in the sketch and then learned some about the light on a dark surface. Also it was a good lesson in changing values in light and shadow within the red of the melons and also the rind.
Great Day!

My Tuesday "controlling The Flood" assignment

2011-08-19T22:45:00.000-07:00

It often takes a well thought out strategy to commence and complete a painting, especially with the medium of water color. With such a strategy, one can control the flood on Swan Lake! Tuesday of next week, at The School of Light and Color, my students and I will discuss what our Swan Lake strategy will be to duplicate this painting. I did it last week at Studio L (my studio in East Sacramento). Painted on 140lb. Arches cold press. A little more than a quarter sheet in size.

Napa Valley Art Festival

2011-08-11T11:05:00.000-07:00

Hey gang! Napa Valley Art Festival happens next Saturday, (August 20th) in Yountville. I will be one of 27 artists participating this year.

If you are in the area and are looking for a great way to spend a Saturday, come on out to Napa and check it out. There'll be some beautiful paintings by some of the top painters of Northern California (and beyond).

If you are in the market for collecting, don't miss this opportunity to get your hands on some quality works by your favorite artists. This is not a plein air show, so you will see many studio works as well as those done on location.

So grab your friends and come enjoy a day of art and wine!

Napa Valley Art Festival
Saturday, August 20th, 2011
6516 Washington Street, Yountville, CA

psst. If you mention this blog post, I'll give you a discount on one of my paintings!

Mindscape

2011-08-10T08:09:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, in my on-going Tuesday "Controlling The Flood" watercolor class, we painted "mindscapes", a cross between abstract and representational paintings. We made good use of both pigment and water. We painted tea consistency washes up to thick honey consistency washes. We weren't copying anything real out there. We were listening to some beautifully ethereal music and letting ourselves go. Not out-of-control-go but controlling-the-flood-go, if you catch my drift ( pun intended ). My student watercolor crew were so into this that they didn't want to pack up and leave as our class came to an end at 4:30! I'll post some of their mindscapes next week. I'd like to get some comments from you, dear readers. What do you see here???

Cityscape

2011-08-03T10:02:00.000-07:00

City Noises, 12 x 24 inches, oil on linen

Another one for my fall show in San Francisco. This one went through some big changes. Read all about it on Studio Notes.

My on-going "Controlling The Flood" Tuesday water color class is off and running.

2011-08-01T19:33:00.000-07:00

Every Tuesday from 2 to 4:30PM, fourteen intrepid water color students follow my step-by-step painting leads and learn how to "control the flood" with h2o, a large water color brush (round), subtle and vibrant colors, and strong, contrasting values. Other than some non-representational warm up exercises two weeks ago (the first session), this is our first landscape painting completed last Tuesday. The sky and water was painted wet-on-wet with a few very subtle, light value sunset colors. After thoroughly drying, the shoreline foliage was painted in wet-on-dry with several dark value colors. I like to call this combination of values and colors, "valhues". Up to this point, the paintings looked rather abstract, but the finishing touches of trees, reflections, and water ripples brought them all together for an evocative, watery scene...perfect for our first effort to "control the flood"!

Learning to See Shapes and Values

2011-07-28T12:19:00.000-07:00

This week at the School of Light and Color beginning classes my Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning class started a painting of "shapes". As beginners we don't yet see these shapes as well as seasoned painters. We want to paint flowers and stems and vases and table cloths. In order to help our brains to learn to see in a new way it helps to paint upside down. We need to teach our eyes and brains to see VALUE SHAPES. To do this we had to paint from a photograph that I took the week before.

We started this week with the under-painting and block in phase of the painting. I started to get the dark's in first using transparent paint. Next week we will continue this project and we can see how it all works out. It is usually pretty surprising to turn the finished piece right side up and see that it really works!
Because it is a beginning class many of the students who come in have never before picked up a brush - or at least not since high school. I like the way the class has begun to take on a life of it's own and what has turned out to work the best is for me to begin a painting demonstration while explaining the process as I go. I leave it open for questions. I'll get to a certain point, let's say I might start with the toning of the canvas and then do the under-painting. At this point I will usually stop and allow the class to catch up to this point. Not everybody works at exactly the same pace but I will wait until most of the class has caught up with my demo piece and then paint the next phase of the painting which is the block in. It helps to break it down into steps.
Next week I'll post the finished piece - if it is finished. If not I'll post what we have done so far. Also next week I'm encouraging the class to bring in a painting or two for a classroom critique.

Controlling the flood

2011-07-14T22:23:00.000-07:00

Pigment plus water plus flow equals watercolor painting. Learn the techniques and put in MUCHO painting time and you can learn to control the flood. I am really looking forward to my watercolor classes starting next Tuesday. Time to dust off the Wellintons!

New class - "Controlling The Flood"

2011-07-03T10:14:00.000-07:00

Starting July 19, I will be teaching "Controlling The Flood" here at The School of Light and Color. This is an on-going Tuesday afternoon class on a subject near and dear to my heart...h2o painting or in a more common vernacular, water color painting. I first put my toe into the water in 1964 when I was still wet behind the ears (puns intended). I have built up a reputation through my long years as a water color artist for deftly mingling pigment with h2o and apply marks onto paper with verve. In this class, you will learn the skill sets it takes to accomplish this beginning with palette management and water/pigment mixing and ending with paper preparation and brush ballet. Through a series of exercises and assignments, you'll bring these skills together to create super juicy, flood controlled water colors.
When: July 19 and every Tuesday thereafter. Each afternoon class goes from 2 to 4:40pm.
Cost: $180 for six Tuesday class sessions.
Grab your wellingtons, and join me in controlling the flood.

A Figure Sketch

2011-07-02T11:28:00.001-07:00

click on the image to see the video a little bit larger.

During the figure session yesterday, I remembered (wow!) to take snapshots of the work in progress. I thought it would be neat to put it all together in a little slide show. It certain does open my eyes when I see the sequence after the fact.

I haven't edited video in years, and it turns out the current version of iMovie is nothing like what I was using three years ago, and I couldn't make heads or tails out of it. My teenage son is the expert now, but being a teenager, he's got no time!

So I resorted to doing the dumbed down version in iPhoto, which is still pretty cool given the fact that my knowledge of technology is quickly becoming obsolete.

Anyway, a little bit about the painting; the sketch is done on a piece of linen taped to a board, and it's about 12 x 14 or thereabouts.

The painting took probably 1.5hrs or 2hrs at most, including the time I took to do thumbnails.

The photos were taken with my iPhone under classroom lighting conditions, which is my way of saying cut me some slack on the quality of the photos!

The method you see in this clip is what I call my "messy method", where I go in with very vague, abstract, loose washes and try to find shapes in them, gradually tightening up as I go. This is in contrast to my "orderly method", where I do a more careful drawing first.

I tend to go with the "messy method" when I want to focus on the abstract things like gesture, atmosphere, and mood. I use the "orderly method" when specific types of information has more importance. For example, the likeness of the model for a portrait treatment, or if I were painting a landscape feature that needs to be recognizable, or an identifiable architecture or a car model.

This painting was not about the identity of the model, so a tight drawing in the beginning wasn't necessary. I was more interested in the gesture and abstraction, so the "messy method" suited me well.

I hope you enjoy the little slide show!

A Happy, Colorful Picture For Y'all

2011-06-30T11:12:00.000-07:00

Winged Sentry, 16 x 20 inches, oil on linen WIP

As promised, here's a really colorful painting of mine. OK, OK, I'll keep tryin'....