Jamie's Wyeth's Box

Jamie Wyeth painting in Maine, 1994. Photo by David Alan Harvey

Painting outside is a public spectacle. People like to stop and watch and chat, which can be OK most of the time. But what do you do when you want to screen out those distractions? Jamie Wyeth has a novel solution, according to Daniel Grant:

'Perhaps winning the prize for oddest looking is Jamie Wyeth who kneels inside a four-foot high, seven-foot long three-sided wooden bait box when he goes outside to paint on Monhegan Island, Maine. (He puts a heater in during cold weather.) “My box is mainly for privacy,” he said, noting that “I find it extremely bothersome when people talk to me while I’m painting. If I don’t say anything to them when they ask a question, or if I tell them I don’t like to talk while I’m working, then I feel terrible that I’ve been rude. Inside the box, people see that I clearly don’t want to talk, and they eventually scurry away.'

Related posts:
Top Ten Ways to Deal with Curious Spectators 
The Problem of Curious Spectators
'Can I Borrow Your Paintbrush?'
Your Experiences with Spectators

Boldini's French Plein-Airs

I'm wondering how Giovanni Boldini (1842-1931) painted these pictures of dynamic street life. I assume they're painted from observation and not from photos. 

If I was tackling such a subject. I would rough in the composition on location. In another session I would have the model pose on a patio or sidewalk, then go back and finish up the background on the spot.

Same with this one. You could do it in sections. A groom could hold the harnessed horses in the same lighting as the background scene.

It's possible that this scene came readymade, but it's also possible he painted the house and trees of the river scene, and then grabbed the steamboats, rowboats, and ducks in other places and added them to the half finished painting.

I love the way Boldini is so playful and daring in his paint application. He appears to be using a variety of brushes: big ones, small ones, new ones, and old ones.



Sometimes students want their set of brushes to be all new and fresh, but experienced painters also cherish their worn, splayed brushes.

 This painting of a riverside laundry appears to be a plein-air study.

This related work is also small (13 x 20 inches), but it might have been completed in the studio using plein air sketches as reference notes. I'm just guessing here, and if anyone knows more about this, please share in the comments.

If indeed Boldini composited elements in these paintings, he would have started with the idea in sketch stage, and then built the picture from elements he found. It's like what Ansel Adams said about camera work: "You don't take a photograph, you make it."
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Book about the exhibit of Boldini's French Landscapes: Giovanni Boldini in Impressionist Paris (Sterling & Francine Clark Art Institute)

Gouache on a Colored Underpainting

Here's a tip for painting in gouache. You can prep some pages in your sketchbook with various colored underpaintings.



When you're choosing a subject to paint, study it first to see if a certain color pops up throughout, and then pick an underpainting with that color. The priming color will influence later passages and will unify the painting.

For such underpaintings, you can use Acryla Gouache, matte acrylics, or Casein.

You'll also notice the maiden voyage of my reflector system, which bounces light back into a shadowed painting when facing contre jour.

Linkistics
(Link to video on YouTube)
Gumroad tutorial "Gouache in the Wild."
Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter (James Gurney Art)

East Oaks Studio

East Oaks Studio is a new collaborative workspace and business venture in North Carolina established by a group of academically trained artists: Louis Carr, Michael Klein and Joshua LaRock, together with videographer Joe Hawkins.



They have launched a successful Kickstarter campaign which features videos and prints of their seascape, floral, and portrait paintings.



I've watched the Michael Klein video, and it's a well-shot, well-paced, and thorough documentation of Klein's process for capturing an oil still life in the studio over a three day period.

They were kind enough to answer a few interview questions:

[Gurney] Congratulations on getting your Kickstarter funded already. What three tips could you offer about conducting a successful Kickstarter campaign?
[East Oaks Studio] Thank you! The response to our project has been so encouraging and we hope to keep it going! Here is what we think has helped:

• Develop a strong following or “tribe” before launching a campaign - a good email list and active social media are key.
• Have a diversified offering of rewards but also, a “bundle” deal - we have seen that the group of all three videos is by far our best seller and provides a good value to our backers.
• Have a clear vision and idea, and communicate it well through an inspiring video.

Joshua LaRock paints a portrait from a live model

2. Why did you decide to set up a studio in North Carolina?
We found New York City to be a difficult place to sustain margins (time, money, socially, etc.) and wanted to relocate to a place where we could find a higher quality of life. We researched a number of vibrant cities and Raleigh, North Carolina simply seemed the best fit for us.

3. How is your teaching program different from other studios?
We are aiming for our content to cover the entire gamut of the artistic endeavor - the raw skills and techniques are paramount and foundational but we hope to add to these by discussing ideas many of us struggle with such as taste, poetry and developing a clear sense of why painting is needed and relevant in our contemporary world. We have also found that many students ask us about their struggle with the reality that, as artists, they are entrepreneurs, and so we want to provide our experience and insights as active professional artists.

Louis Carr painting a seascape

4. What's the best way to teach the technical side of art? How is teaching the philosophical side different?
Like any skill, learning to draw and paint requires time, practice and repetition - the role we play as teachers is to guide that process in a clear and logical manner, usually saying the same things in different ways until it “sticks”. Our videos will be aimed at this , but in truth, they should always be supplemented by in-person instruction and critique.

We’ve found the philosophical side of art to require many of the same teachable elements as above, but also to require a greater sense of storytelling rather than statements of reasoning. It necessitates inviting others into a personal dialogue and building upon commonly held values and shaping desires.

Portrait by Joshua LaRock

5. What principles guide your choice about using photography and the internet as practical aids in your work? 

We certainly value working from life as much as possible and enjoy it the most. However, we recognize that as long as an artist’s development and common practice is well founded in working from life, then photography could become a tool without being a crutch - but should always be used with caution. The internet is an incredible aide for researching information from techniques and finding inspiration, to trying to solve compositional problems and connecting with others across the world.

6. Please describe the kind of free videos you want to offer. For your premium content, what parameters have you set in terms of length, style, and cost?
All our content is aimed at inviting a wide audience into the daily life of our studio, much like a friend and apprentice would. So some of the free videos are a look into the spontaneous conversations and discussions that break out: this might include short technical questions and answers, discussions of philosophy during breaks, and timelapses. One series idea, (which we’ve already filmed the first three episodes) is titled “The Line” (Link to video on Vimeo)

Similar to Michael Klein’s former company, “APVM”, the idea behind this series is to develop a conversation around why a painting is done well and what makes it valuable, regardless of how the market sees it. The name of the show is a reference to the coveted eye-level hanging line at the Salon and implies we are trying to develop a standard through the contemporary artists we feature. Inspired by shows like "Fake or Fortune," "Chef's Table" and others, we are attempting to use good cinematography to weave together the popularity of Instagram and YouTube/Vimeo for the artist, connoisseur and collector.

Our premium content will be longer-form, tending toward a documentary style and covering the full creation of a piece of art. We are looking to cover a variety of genres and invite guest artists. We also hope to make these offerings in a range of price points.

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East Oaks Studio website

Individual websites for Louis Carr, Michael Klein and Joshua LaRock

Kickstarter campaign

Excavator Bucket

One of the pages in my watercolor sketchbook has a random orange underpainting in casein.



It matches the orange color of the rust on this excavator bucket. I love the fact that the iron oxide of that rust is the same mineral in my raw sienna color that I use as I paint it. The wear straps and side plates are covered with mud and rust and seems to belong to the bare rocks and dirt.



The teeth of the digger bucket are made from a different kind of steel. They catch blue highlights from the sky.

The stiltgrass and mullein belong to another realm, one of upward growth and green.
(Link to video)

House Under Scaffolding

Grand house under scaffolding.
Note reflector system for bouncing light into the painting on a contre-jour angle.

Grand house under scaffolding, gouache, 5 x 8 inches.

(Link to video on FB)

Christy's "Signing of the Constitution"

Howard Chandler Christy's painting called "Scene at the Signing of the Constitution of the United States" shows George Washington standing at the dais and Benjamin Franklin seated at center.

Christy researched the subject for five years and spent seven months painting it. He studied portraits of almost all of the people represented, and he looked for whatever authentic props he could find.

The Smithsonian Institution lent him George Washington's breeches, and The Library of Congress let him borrow some of Thomas Jefferson's books, which appear next to Franklin’s chair. The painting hangs in the Capitol building in the east stairway of the House of Representatives.

Dictionary of Color Combinations

A Dictionary Of Color Combinations is a collection of flat color squares placed in over 300 side-by-side combinations.



The book is published in Japan and is based on the 6-volume work of kimono designer and teacher Sanzo Wada in the 1930s, a time when Japan was between wars, and was absorbing Western influences.

Japan has over 1000 traditional colors, based initially on the Chinese color system. Each named with reference to the seasons, and to plants, and animals, and the colors are often associated with social ranking.


The book starts with two-color combinations, and then proceeds to three- and four-color combinations. The back of the book is more like a Pantone book, with each of the colors presented in swatches (with CYMK numbers). The swatches can be cut out and placed in whatever combinations you want.

The only English language in the book are the color names; there is no other context, nor suggestions on how to use it.

I enjoy looking through the book purely in abstract terms, with the intention of trying some of the combinations in actual designs. I like the fact that it doesn't direct the user how to react to the color pairings.
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Resources

Book at Amazon: A Dictionary Of Color Combinations
Previously: Translating "Color and Light" into Japanese
Wikipedia: Japan's Traditional Colors and Japan's 12 Cap and Rank System
Thanks, Steve.

Tinkerbell Reference

Disney Studios went to great lengths to shoot photo reference for Tinker Bell in their 1953 feature Peter Pan.

Animator Marc Davis brought in pantomime actor Margaret Kerry to pose with larger than life props.

Footage of her kicking a feather pillow informed a scene where she kicked a dandelion. Animators put reference films into a frame-by-frame viewer to study timing, spacing, and action.

While the reference helped make the action more believable, Marc Davis kept the look of the character aligned with his imagination.

The Disney Studios were using filmed reference in their earliest features, such as Snow White and Pinocchio. (Link to video on YouTube) But the impression they usually gave in their behind-the-scenes marketing was that they merely sketched from living models. They did that, too, but it's only fairly recently that the photos of the early video reference have come to light. 

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Previously: Cinderella's Live Action Reference

Tinker Bell's Live Action Origin

Via Ronnie del Carmen

Andrew Wyeth Centennial

This will be a good summer for fans of Andrew Wyeth's work.

On July 12, to honor what would have been his 100th birthday, The US Postal Service will release a pane of stamps of his artwork, including this slightly cropped version of Christina's World.

There's an exhibit of his original art called "Andrew Wyeth at 100: A Family Remembrance" at the Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown, New York. The curator is his granddaughter Victoria, who included some artwork, ephemera, and photos that haven't been seen before.

The Brandywine River Museum in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania is hosting a large exhibition called "Andrew Wyeth: In Retrospect," showcasing some of his best known portraits, landscapes, and interiors from Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, where he lived, and from Maine, where he spent his summers.

Along with that exhibit is a catalog published by Yale University Press called Andrew Wyeth: In Retrospect. The book is heavy with academic writing, and as one Amazon review put it, "I bought it for the pictures. Who really reads these things?"

For those who want a slim, affordable book with lots of artwork, I recommend the new book by Rizzoli publishers book called Andrew Wyeth: People and Places. This compact book (8 x 7 inches, softcover) features highlights from his seven decade career. After a short biographical introduction, the rest of the book is all his most famous artwork.

Rizzoli has also released a book American Treasures: The Brandywine River Museum of Art featuring the highlights of the Brandywine River Museum, with photos, artwork, and stories about the artistic heritage of the Pennsylvania valley.

If you want a book that gets into Wyeth's thought process, I recommend Andrew Wyeth: A Spoken Self-Portrait, based on extensive interviews with his biographer Richard Meryman. Meryman's definitive biography Andrew Wyeth: A Secret Life is also a must read. Wyeth himself picked out Meryman to be his biographer, told him everything, and encouraged him not to spare any of the hard truths.


One of the best video documentaries about Wyeth's life is the one produced by former Python Michael Palin. (Link to YouTube)
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Links
Cooperstown, New York: Fenimore Art Museum "Andrew Wyeth at 100: A Family Remembrance"
will be on view through September 4, 2017.
Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania: The Brandywine River Museum, "Andrew Wyeth: In Retrospect" will be on view through September 17.
Books
Andrew Wyeth: In Retrospect
Andrew Wyeth: People and Places
American Treasures: The Brandywine River Museum of Art
Andrew Wyeth: A Spoken Self-Portrait
Andrew Wyeth: A Secret Life