Out and About on a Saturday

Yesterday was another reminder that Spring is almost here. After some work around the house, I loaded the easel and headed out to paint. Now I could have found some secluded spot in the woods or an old farm field, but after mostly working in the studio, I decided that I would go where there are people!

The Café
8 x 10 Oil on Canvas
$350.

This building is in a nearby town. I liked the afternoon sun on the brick and the shape of the copper roof. I did misjudge the weather. When you walk out of our house in the winter, the wind is blocked by the house and the trees that form a windbreak behind it. The sun shines on the porch. When I set up my easel it was in the shade and the wind, under-dressed would be the word. Can you get hypothermia at 50 degrees F? Actually you can, not that I did.
So here is the latest plein air (French for Outside) painting. I will be returning to town to paint again, the combined paintings to create a portrait of the area.

's painting will be someplace a bit more rural, maybe the view for the side of a busy highway. I try to capture those little vignettes of landscape that are in our commonplace views.
So I will add a jacket to the supply list this morning, and not set up in the shade...

Evolution of a Painting - Two Cows Too

I have always intended to show sort of a step by step, work in progress series of photos of a painting from beginning to end. Usually what happens is I take a photo of two and the beginning and then the painting takes over and when I am almost finished,I realize that I forgot to continue with the photographs. BUT NOT THIS TIME!
I managed to paint and photograph as the same time yesterday. Rather than a series of photos, I put them into a short ( 25 sec.) video. (The music is from the editing program )

The painting (it's for sale is a 4 x 6 oil on canvas will be posted on my other blog,

http://www.1hundredpaintings.blogspot.com

Painting a Series Leadline Class at Horseshow

I don't think this would be considered a series just yet.. I am working on a painting, 12 x 16 that I originally did as a 4 x 6 oil for the 1hundredpaintings blog. Here is a look at that painting. You can click on it to see the original blog post.

Here is a photo of the 9 x 12 painting in it's early stages

Here we are a bit further along. The trick here is not to lose the spontaneity of the little painting while refining the details. Her expression is rather tricky to paint also. It doesn't take but a dab of paint of the wrong value and she will be pouting.

January already Website and Workshop

The Christmas portrait and painting rush is over and now its time to get down and get organized. Taking care of the business. Updating our client and collector list. We moved the website to another hosting company and the names to another name registrar.




We will be updating the paintings on our portrait website. Most of the work we did the last three months were given as gifts, so we didn't want to ruin any suprizes by posting the images on our website.

We have added a couple of videos and a downloadable brochure on choosing a portrait artist. I am also posting paintings on my 1hundredpaintings blog:
http://www.1hundredpaintings.blogspot.com

WORKSHOPS
More workshops this year:
http://www.portraitsnc.com/whatsnew.html
I will be leading workshops in Wake Forest and Theresa and I will be conductiong seminars in "art as a profession, how to make a living" at the Jerry's Artarama store in Raleigh.

Off to the studio...

Varnishing Oil Paintings

The photo below is a detail from one of Theresa's portrait paintings. It is a 32 x 48 oil painting of a woman and four horses. She finished it this past summer and we have been displaying it at shows ever since. A couple of weeks ago, between shows, I got the chance to varnish the painting. This is not polyurethane or a varnish you get at the hardware store. Picture varnish is an entirely different animal. First, it is clear. Second, while it protects the painting, it is delicate compared to modern wood varnishes. Third, it is reversible. It can be removed at a later date without damaging the painting.

What it does do it take the painting to another level. The darks become richer and the lights pop out. Think of the difference between a car with a beautiful shiny paint job and one painted with flat grey primer.

Look at the difference between the horse's head on the right and the one on the left. The fence board really shows the difference between the dull unvarnished and the varnished side. Note the girl hair, the side on her left has been varnished the right side not.

Working on a Series of Paintings

Here is an ongoing series of paintings of a woman leading two horses out to pasture. So far, three different size paintings have been finished.These paintings are based a fews photos I took in the middle of portrait painting reference photo session. Actually, that does make sense, I was with my wife, portrait artist, Theresa Brown,we taking photos for her to use as reference in painting a portrait that she was commissioned to do of a woman and her horse at Chadale Farm in Cary, NC.

We had finished one session and Theresa and the client were reviewing the photos, so I prowled around with the camera. I almost missed the trio below, fumbling around trying to change lenses. I think that I was able to get about five shots.

The first painting of the series is a small thumbnail, 3 x 5 on panel, to explore the color and light and placement of the figures on the canvas. Sorry to tell you that it is already sold.

Here is a larger small study, 4 x 6 on canvas.

This is the largest painting of the series so far, 9 x 12 oil on canvas. You can see I have gone back to the first study for reference, but placed them more definitely in a location.

What's next? I am not sure. I might do an even larger, 16 x 20 or 18 x 24. It's really a lot of fun, So many variables to work with. Location of figures in the landscape and within the painting. The interaction of the woman and the horses. The amount of detail. The color of the late afternoon -evening light.

Or I might stay with this one and possibly publish prints of it and work on another series. I have already had a request for a similar painting with a blonde instead of a brunette.

The painting above is available for sale, $425. shipping included. Go to: http://www.smfilarsky.com/Recent-Paintings.html

Behind the Scenes

As I was removing duplicate image files from my backup hard drive, I came across a couple of photos of "works in progress" Here are three paintings in various stages. Unfortunately, it seems that after I take a photo and start painting again, I get caught up in the process. The next thing you know, I have finished the painting with no photos of intermediate steps.

These three paintings show different stages in the creation of a painting.

Layout of the subject

Above and below show two different approaches to a painting. In the painting of the three corgis, I have gone directly to the subjects, while in the painting of the two jack russells, I worked on the background along with the subjects. The first method stems from my watercolor portraits. With watercolor it can be very difficult make corrections, so when working on a portrait it is important to get the likeness of the subject down before spending time on the background, clothing etc. Oil gives a bit more leeway since wiping off and repainting passages are much easier.

Here are the finished paintings.

Yogi at Blowing Rock, 9 x 12 oil

Three Corgis, 12 x 16 oil

Two Jacks, 8 x 10 oil