Fresh off my easel —

Here's an impressionistic painting I just finished! 40x48 oil on homemade canvas. Lots of texture instantly creates an antiquated feel. "The Woman Ironing", originally by Degas. 

This shows the colors better & awesome texture that is throughout the painting. 

Teaching art: Patterns & Details

As a part-time art teacher & artist, things are always busy for me! (Hence, the lack of regular blogging these past months.) Some days are fast & exciting, other days are more challenging, but it's always fun. I love what I do.  This post is on what I taught my Kindergarteners - 6th graders. Last week I found myself in a last-minute pull-off situation. Thankfully everything worked out really well, I had fun, students had fun, & everyone learned something. Here's what I taught—
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Prep work: Teachers! Go forging! Gather up leaves, pinecones, thorny wood, bark, driftwood, seashells & good-sized rocks; looking for textures or stripes. I arranged everything on the tables where students would be working. I made (& stressed) the rule "look with your eyes, not your hands" otherwise, the kids would have been all over everything. Here are some pics of things I used for drawing inspiration, in addition to everything I had. (Teaching art is the probably the only profession where you steal things from home & bring them to work!) I felt funny as I toated my huge canvas bag into the school - it probably weighed 30 pounds - all the rocks & wood.

Art I Admire —

Blue Canyon, by Edgar Payne (1883-1947)
What I love about it: The feeling of great distance. The hugeness of the rocks. The beautiful rich colors- you can never have enough purple tones within a painting! The composition & subject matter are great too. And I really like his brush style.

Cousins' Retreat, by Tyler Murphy. What I love about it: It's people, doing what they do! The highlights & contrasts are superb; it really captures that intense afternoon mountain sunlight. Just close your eyes are lay there... This painting is even more vivid, in person.

North Country Morning, by Josh Elliott  What I love about it: This kind of impressionism! There's almost a sense of urgency to it, but it looks so bright & real too. 

Glacial Carvings, by Josh Elliott   What I love it: Everything about this painting is EPIC. Bright colors & shadow tones. Mountains, snow in shadow, the bright sunlit colors… Mmm

I am always moved by bold, colorful painterly landscapes. This style is frequently found among plein air painters. Those who paint to live in the open air. Big fan of Jill Carver. 

Cheese! This piece of art was not titled, it's by Pecorino Ginepro. I have no idea how I found his website - But I really like all of his "cheesy" paintings, & have admired them for quite some time! They are really fun, he paints on wood, & always gets some nice textures. 

Ponte San Giuseppe di Castello, by John Singer Sargent (1856-1925)
There is NO getting around it. In my option, Sargent is the best ever watercolor artist! I simply LOVE his watercolors! He captures things beautifully. There are excellent complementary color uses; warm tones & cool. The composition is suburb, as is the placement of brush strokes... 

Painting in the Mountains

Recently I had the awesome privilege to be painted by three amazing artists: Daniel Keys, Tyler Murphy & Ryan Mellody. You should totally look them & their art up, if you don't know who they are. Here is Key's painting of me:

The whole experience was a lot of fun! We drove to the top of a nearby mountain range, then trudged about 1/4 mile off the road, near some cliffs. They painted me while I held the pose for about 3 hours. (It's a lot harder to do then you think it is!) Then I got to do some painting of my own too. And a large herd of mountain goats decided to stop by. Got some really good pictures of them. This is my fav -

Mountain goat next to Ryan's painting. 

-GB

Summer Art Academy!

The classroom I had, was on the 2nd floor of an old unair-conditioned building.
I taught four 1.5 hour classes a day, I was also outside teaching too.

This past week, has been a wonderful blur of excitement. God's blessings are so abundant! It was my second year of teaching for the Summer Art Academy. There were 75+ students at the camp, 26 of them were mine for the week! I taught Basic Drawing & Urban Art - A fun class that covered the challenging basics of drawing, while working indoors/outdoors, using various tools to achieve detailed, realistic & stylized sketches. Students used ink, pencil & charcoal for their drawing mediums. We explored the campus grounds, sketching buildings and landscapes. I focussed primarily on teaching composition: good vs. poor, shading & dramatization,  developing a critical eye, learning perspective, being selective & creative, while having fun! 

I believe I had about as much fun as all the students did! Teaching to a group of kids aged 8-14 is fun & challenging. A lot of work too. I had a classroom to myself, were I did about 1/2 my teaching, the rest of the time I was outside on campus grounds teaching. It was truly amazing to be part of so many kid's lives, sharing the gift of art! 

Students working hard, drawing what they see: buildings, statues, landscapes, etc. exploring the beautiful campus. 

Talented young artists, sketching away! 

-GB

Ps. Here be a link to last year's post on the Academy. :)

Drawing: A realization & inspiration to do more

ART - It's everywhere, isn't it?! Some art is good, some is bad. I think good art is a work that truly captures what excites people, a drawing or painting that holds memory, an adventure! I saw this poster & had to share it. You can never sketch enough. Draw everything & keep your curiosity fresh. Ya never know when inspiration will strike you! Sometimes I'll be driving & have had to pull off the road to do a quick sketch, or take a photo to reference later. Seek out beautiful places. I almost always have my handy-dandy moleskine journal with a few pencils, eraser & ink pen buried somewhere in the depths of my pocketbook. We all should draw (& paint) more often. I sure know I need to! Make time for yourself. We need to see the beautiful creation God has made for us. Sketching is fun, & exciting. It's a way to truly capture a moment, an experience that can't be repeated. It creates something special. A little memory that will last. 

• When you draw something you spend more time looking at the raw beauty of the object. 
• Open your eyes!
• Observe the small things. 
• Create a journal with your drawings that says "Been there, drawn that!"
• A sketch captures a moment, an experience that can never be repeated. 
• In taking the time to see, look & create (instead of taking a photograph) a sketch has the ability to bring back stronger memories. 
• A good sketch has the ability to elevate even the least picturesque location into something worth looking at & reflection upon. 
• Draw what you see & not what you think you see! 
• Drawings tell stories of our surroundings, where we travel & where we live. 
• Always have direct observation. Get out in the streets, explore your world. 
• Urban sketching is a raw & pure form of art that requires drawing from life. 
• Life! It is everywhere, draw it, rather then drawing something from a photograph or imagination. 
• When sketching your skills will become shaper, you will notice your surroundings with a new appreciation. 
• Drawing something forces you to really look at it. 
• Capture relationships! 
• Drawing a building or place isn't just capturing in on paper, its about getting to know it, to feel it, to make it your own. 
• There is always movement everywhere. Draw what you want and dismiss the rest. 
• Be selective. 
• Be creative. 
• Think outside the box. 
• Translate what you see into something that communicates to you & teaches you about yourself & your reasons for creating art. 
• Draw what you witness firsthand, see what is around you. 
• Find the beauty in the ordinary. 
• Don't draw it if it's boring. 
• Sometimes vagueness of details & usage of lines adds depth to a drawing or painting. 
• People love to watch you draw, most of the them secretly want to be drawn. 
• Lightly plan out the entire drawing, before diving in & getting caught up in the details. 
• Keep it simple.
• Start shading with the darkest places first. 
• Dramatize things. 
• Always date your sketch.
• And have fun!  

-GB

Art Workshop with Loren Entz

Here's a pic from a workshop I took recently. Loren Entz was the teacher. If you don't know who Entz is, you should look him up! He's a phenomenal artist & really great person. I've been fortunate to be able to take a couple workshops from him. I'm the second from the right, painting on my Open Box M easel. The class was a lot of fun! Below are some of Entz' work! Enjoy ——

"A Helping Hand" by Loren Entz

"Lazy Days" by Loren Entz

"Shipping Day" by Loren Entz

"Solid Rock" by Loren Entz

Painting En Plein Air

This has gotta be one of my fav pics - It's of me painting. :) My uncle took it last summer. We had spent the day kayacking on a beautiful alpine lake nestled in and at the foot of the Beartooth Rocky Mountains. En plein air, is a French expression which means "in the open air".

On Edgar Alwin Payne

Payne was an American Western landscape painter. He grew up in the Southwest, & left home at the age of 14. He traveled all over the States, painting portraits, signs, murals, & local theatre stage sets, to pay his way. Payne was self-taught after attending (& disliking) only two weeks of the Art Institute of Chicago. He made it to California in 1909 & met commercial artist Elsie Palmer (1884-1971) - they were wed three years later. Their daughter Evelyn was born in 1914. Later, Payne (with his wife & daughter) painted his way through Canada, & then the trio spent two years (1922-1924) touring & painting Europe. He had a studio setup in Paris. Sometimes their trips would be on horseback or hiking through the backcountry, looking for undisturbed places of raw, & rare beauty, to paint, sometimes for weeks. After traveling the world, Payne settled for the wild western parts of America. He spent 4 months painting landscapes of Canyon de Chelly in Arizona. Pretty intense. Payne was a member of 10 art associations. A total of 17 galleries can boast of having his work to display.

Edgar Alwin Payne 1883- 1947 (Paris)

Payne was a man who loved the outdoors, & spent most of his life painting, or thinking about painting, landscapes. His drawings were records of his thoughts, his notes to himself. His paintings reflect an amazing perspective, selection talent, & premeditation.

In 1941 he wrote "Composition of Outdoor Painting" 
-A great book on painting techniques, color, repetition, rhythm, composition, scale & value. (If ya ever see it- buy it!)  I got my copy of the book from Amazon, for about $50. It is worth every penny. 

Here are some of his works— 

Sunset, Canyon De Chelly, 1916

Sentinels of the Coast, Monterey. c.  Oil on Canvas

Eternal Surge, c. 1920 Oil on Canvas

Canyon Mission Viejo, c. 19?? Oil on Canvas

Sardine Boats, c. 1923. Oil on Canvas.  

Sierra Trail, c. 19 Oil on Canvas 

Rendezvous Santa Cruz Island, c. 1915 Oil on Canvas

Canyon de Chelly Oil on board

Shadow Slope Oil on Canvas 36” x 46”

Sierra Divide, 1921. Oil on Canvas

Trees on a California Hillside, c.  Oil on Canvas 

California Mountain, High Sierras
Oil on panel 17"x21

Whenever I go out landscape painting, I try to paint in the style of this quicker work, imaged directly above. Using thick paint, & a large brush…  Really laying each stroke on, & letting it do the work for you. Using the brush to 'draw', & then you can see the reflected light off of each angular stroke. I really like this picture. The mass shapes of the trees. It's so directional. You can really feel the depth & the height of those hills too. 

—Payne is one of my favorite artists—  

Examples of compositions, taken from his book.
 (Click & view in new window for larger size.)

No matter what we do, or where we go, isn't it always awesome to look back &  say- I was out there, I was alive, I did that. God made all of us exactly like we are, with talents, & weaknesses. Embrace your gifts, create a memory, do something special. Enjoy life. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a painting is worth a lot more. Generations will reap what we sew; we can pass on a curse or a blessing to those we will never know. (Deut. 11:26-28) Let's leave a history that generations to come will be proud of!

-GB