September at the County Fair

September will be a busy and interesting month. Labor Day has a different feel to it, now that the kids go back to school in August. Even if you don't have school age children, you may have noticed a change in the neighborhood patterns and social scheduling. The groups to which I belong are dormant during July and August. They all start up again in September with art club meetings, painting groups, charity work, singing, and teaching. (I love being retired!)

The Los Angeles County Fair opens every year in September. This year I have work on display there in the Millard Sheets Gallery with my colleagues from the Mid Valley Art League (MVAL). I remember visits to the Fair in past years as being fun-filled, energetic, endurance tests! I never even realized there was an art gallery. Too bad, because I would have loved the chance to take a break in a lovely, calm, air-conditioned space filled with beautiful and curious pictures to admire. This is my first year there. I am not sure if I will find the busy flow of people that I remember from my own visits, or if the art gallery will be as foreign to most Fair-goers as it was to me.

They asked each of us from MVAL to lead a one-hour workshop. I was hesitant. My oil paintings take much longer than an hour, and you need quite a bit of set-up materials.

What can I teach in an hour? I realized that I have taught drawing lessons to all ages of school children for many years. My lessons all fit within a 40 to 60 minute time frame because that's all the schedule would allow. Okay. I agreed. The children use pencil, fine line markers, and/or crayons. For this workshop we will use colored pencils which allow for more sophisticated use of color blending. So, if you are headed to the County Fair on Friday, September 18th, head on over to the Sheets Art Gallery. I'll be starting at 1pm and you will be taking home your drawing masterpiece in an hour. You will also take home an increased understanding of some basic artistic guidelines such as how to compose a picture, how to create a sense of depth and distance in your picture, and how to make use of the color wheel.

Most of my time at the Fair will be as an artist demonstrator. This will be a great time for me to get some work done! I will set up my plein air easel and work on paintings in the same way that I do when I am outside. I will have to work from photos, but the plein air work will have already been started when I gather my source materials.

September 19th will be the most interesting day. The California Art Club is organizing a daylong "paint-out" at the Fair. CAC artists will paint wherever they choose at the Fair throughout the day. They will bring their work to the Gallery in the afternoon for a showing. This is similar to my regular schedule on Thursdays, when I paint out with Mid Valley and we gather to show our work at lunch. The difference of course is that the showing at the Fair will be judged and awards given. I am looking forward to seeing which artists accept this challenge. Their paintings are sure to be an explosion of that fun-filled energetic endurance test that sums up the exerience of attending the County Fair.

Hope to see you there!

Recent Works

Eaton Canyon

18x24 oil

 Desert Reeds

12x9 oil

 Daisies

12x9 watercolor

Hello Everyone
I have been working on keeping my website current at rosinamaize.com. Sorry to have been quiet for so long on this blog

I decided that I really need to learn how to get my work out of the house and into locations where they can be seen. My art seen now! I spent the spring months figuring out what to do and applying to places. I put almost all of my paintings in the La Canada Public Library in July. They wanted some "playful, child-friendly" works to decorate the children's section of the library. I didn't have much time, so I pulled out my watercolors and did about 6 watercolor sketches. It reminded me how much fun watercolor is!

I have a busy schedule for Fall also. I was accepted as an exhibiting member of the California Art League. I have entered several pieces into their Gold Medal Show. Now I wait to hear if the juror accepts any of them. Through the Verdugo Hills Art League, we have a chance to show a few pieces at White's Gallery in Montrose. My teacher and mentor, Margot Lennartz has shown her work there for years. I consider it an honor to be able to put my work up there! Also through an art club, I will be an artist demonstrator at the Sheets Gallery at the LA County Fair. The Mid Valley Art League has several walls of paintings on display there, including four of my paintings. I am going to be there painting on September 17th, 18th, and 19th, and the following week on the 25th and 27th. Plenty of people should be coming through the gallery because it is indoors and air-conditioned!! Stop by and say hello when you visit the Fair. (Check my website for the exact times.)

Later in the Fall, I have been accepted to show my work in Sierra Madre at the Fall Festival hosted by the Foothill Creative Arts group. That will be on November 6, 7, and 8. I was also accepted to put up a booth at the Montrose Artwalk on November 21st.

Meanwhile, I am keeping a steady schedule of drawing, sketching, and painting. I am going to have to make a major resolve to finish a number of these paintings that are so close to being done. For now, I am being patient with myself and doing as much as I can. I look forward to posting them here and on my website. Stay tuned!

A New Stage

 The Blue Vase 16x12
This painting is in the "Splendors from the Garden" show at La Galeria Gitana. I am really proud that it made the cut to be included!

 Apple Basket 16x20
I have seen others paint a large basket with apples, but this one is my version. I was really happy with the way the basket has both the rough texture of the woven slats and the smooth texture of the polished wooden handles. I put it in a gorgeous ornate gold frame. It is so satisfying to sign, frame, and hang these pictures. Yay!

 Back Bay, Los Osos 18x24
This painting is still not where I want it to be. I have adjusted it since I took this photo. I got rid of the huge signature, for one thing! I also pushed back those distant trees to show them more as a unified mass in silhouette. I enhanced the sense of a beam of light coming from the left. I am tempted to try doing the dramatic, Renaissance thing with a huge obvious shaft of light. The setting sun was shining on the painting, creating the effect naturally. I might destroy the painting, but it would be a great learning experience. Do you think I should go for it??

Yellow Lilies 16x12
This is a beautiful painting with deep rich colors. I am still touching up small areas to bring up the details a bit and to make everything pop just a little more. I don't want to lose the fresh feel of the initial painting though. I'm happy with the way I organized the composition. It is a companion piece to the Blue Vase, but I like this one a bit better. I did a better job of showing the point of interest while downplaying the rest without being too "messy". This one also looks great in its frame - very professional! Which one do you prefer?

So why do I call this a "new stage"? These paintings look "ready" to me. There are about a dozen signed, framed, and ready to be sold. They look as good or better than many of the pieces being shown in galleries and art shows, in my humble opinion. So now the focus has to include developing a business plan - some way to connect with people who are interested in collecting art of this style. More on that in another post perhaps.

The Arroyo Seco Bridge

I began painting with oil a little over a year ago, starting with a class at Art Center At Night. Anne Seitzyk was a wonderful first teacher. We moved through all the stages of starting with oils, from materials to set-up, equipment to color mixing. We painted still-lifes, portraits, figures, and plein air.

Our first plein air class was at the Arroyo. Although I did not paint the bridge during class, I was motivated to go back and try it on my own. Here is the result:

I was pretty pleased with the result. It looks like a bridge, for one thing. And I will always remember the process of painting it because my daughter went into labor about halfway through the painting. As the phone calls went back and forth between us (...headed to the hospital... measuring contractions... going to be admitted...) I painted faster and faster just to get this little 9x12 covered.

I made it to the hospital in time to see my granddaughter's birth :)!

That granddaughter just celebrated her first birthday. Our Thursday En Plein Air group was scheduled to go to the Arroyo last week. So, once again, I set up and painted the bridge. Here is the result from this year:

I felt much more confident. I believe I chose a more interesting composition. I have better equipment so that I can go farther from my car. And I felt confident that I knew how to approach the whole process of creating a plein air painting. To the jaded artists and viewers who make a reference to how many paintings there are of this bridge, I say that it is a necessary rite of passage.

How many times did Monet paint his bridge?

Critique

I showed my plein aire paintings to Margot. She used to work outside, but now paints in the studio only. She really didn't like them. She was critical of the choice of the bridge - it looks like a sewer - and the strong hook shape of the composition. She told me to push the color when working outside. Hmmm. I really enjoyed working outside. I guess I wasn't so concerned about the final product as I was about the process of getting set up and painting. I liked working with the other painters. I got good feedback at the onsite critique for the Deukmejian trail.

I should demand more of myself. Even though each plein aire experience is an exercise, I guess I need to try harder to construct a complete painting.

Matt Smith said a good painting is a good painting, whether it was done en plein aire or in the studio. We should not set a separate standard for ourselves depending on when/how we painted. Matt also said we need to find the balance between working outside and working in the studio. Each experience should strengthen the other.

En Plein Aire

Here are some recent paintings I did with the Thursday painters. The first one is the bridge at York Street over the Arroyo Seco beside the stables. I was almost done when I heard that we could go into the stables to look around. The barn there was built in 1906!  There were a number of really interesting horses - unique breeds: a polo pony, a huge draft horse,  a smaller horse with a what looked like a huge head head of hair,  an ancient mule. I grabbed another panel and quickly sketched part of the barn in the time we had left. I took a number of pictures so maybe I will go back or work more on images from this site.

 

Another site where we painted was Deukmejian Park way up in La Crescenta. It was an interesting day, cool but warming up quickly as the morning went on. I was glad I could shift my gear into a backpack and head away from the parking lot without dragging my cart. This is another place where I would love to paint again. I chose a view looking up the trail towards an old oak. It would be fun to hike farther up, and paint the same area looking down towards the valley. We still have winter shrubbery on the hills. I don't know if Spring will bring many wildflowers since we haven't had any rain.

I didn't have a camera or my phone so no pictures to work from. I love the support of being with the paint-out group. With no phone, I wasn't worried at all about being out of touch or on my own. There were other painters all over the park nearby.

 

Busy schedule

I have been going out with the Thursday painters each week for about a month or more. It has really put pressure on my schedule. I paint with Margot on Wednesdays, en plein air on Thursdays, and with Sonny on Sundays. I can tell that I am gaining confidence as a painter. The more I learn the more I realize I have to learn.

I am fortunate that Margot and Sonny are like minded. I don't feel a conflict between their styles or their instruction. That said, they give different feedback on the same painting. It helps me realize something is wrong, and there are choices about how to fix it. I rarely ask for critique from both of them on the same painting. Margot does landscapes, and Sonny does still life and portraits.

I will photograph my plein air pieces to have a record of them. It is too late and dark outside to do that now. None of them is a finished painting. As Laura Wamsgans told me, it's like going to the gym. The goal is exercise not a performance. Chuck Kovacik manages to cover his canvas with conviction. It looks like he is aiming for a finished piece in the two/three hour painting time. He's a great resource and role model.

I'm also reading, reading, reading. Margaret Kessler, Chris Saper, Gregg Kreutz, Richard Scott, and of course, John Carlson. Some of it sticks in my head and some of it looks brand new the next time I look at the book! Richard Scott is doing a demo nearby in a couple of weeks. I look forward to meeting him. It turns out he is neighbors with one of Margot's other students.

It's daunting to realize that artists can't really be known until they publish and/or start teaching. Back to teaching! Maybe I need to publish my drawing book for the elementary classroom. Just like when I was writing that material, I'm too busy to put it all together!

Still life painting

I am going back to doing some still life subjects. It's a bit discouraging. It takes me ages to set up a still life that I think I will like. Then I start painting and realize I don't like the set up at all.

I did manage to put some oranges in a bowl and paint them for the "garden" show at a local gallery. I would have given up on that one without the help of Margot and my fellow painters in her workshop. With their feedback I realized I had come much closer to creating a good painting with just my initial work. I needed to fix the background and then it all came together.

Now I am painting some backyard flowers. Ugh. Again, I think the problem is the background. I hung a yellowish cloth behind the flowers, but the yellow and the green of the leaves combines to look sickly. I'll probably scrape it and start over.

I know that I'm putting a lot of pressure on myself to create quality, completed paintings with every canvas I start. Sometimes I am at a loss for what to paint next. Right now I am confused by which started painting I should try to finish!

Sigh.

Sante Fe Dam

I did most of this painting plein air at the Sante Fe Dam. I am really enjoying the practice and discipline of getting outside each week. At home I struggled trying to get it to look the way I wanted. I finally realized that the red roof on the building was the problem. I changed it to this color scheme and I like it much better.

Here it is with the red roof. Which do you prefer?

 I think Edgar Payne would call this a steelyard composition. There are the two strong verticals created by the two pines in back and the yellow bush in front. These are connected and balanced by the horizontal of the little pier. If you are an artist, maybe you can give me more guidance on this. I think the composition of plein air paintings makes all the difference between a successful piece and a "nice try."

What you can't see is the amazing sound of the laughing ducks and geese that were wandering all over the lawns.

Winter in Lacy Park

Winter in Lacy Park

Hello everyone. Happy New Year!

I had a wonderful holiday season, with lots of celebrations visiting with family and friends. Thanks to all of you who were at my house and gave positive feedback on the work that I have up. It's exciting to have them on display!

Now I am glad to get back to a routine schedule. I have decided on a pretty rigorous schedule of painting.This 9x12 panel is the result of my first outing with the "Thursdays en Plein Air" group. It was a gorgeous day in the park, with warm sun and hardly any breeze. The trees are almost bare for the winter. I am happy that I was able to decide on a scene and more or less complete it in the two hours we painted. I'm not sure I'll keep this one, though. There is something about it that isn't right. I'm still not sure exactly what! Regardless, I am looking forward to painting with this group each week.

I also plan to attend Margot's workshop as I have been doing. And I will go to Sunny's weekend workshop when it starts up again in a few weeks. Sunny does more with still life and live models, which is what I need to study. My goal for this year is to put together a sizable body of completed works that I can present and sell. Between all of these opportunities, I should be able to do that.

Thanks for visiting this blog! I hope to post more frequently now (and to exercise more and lose weight and remember everyone's birthdays and ...).

Signed, Framed, and Hung!

I have not been painting as much as I would like to, with holiday events taking up a lot of my time. However I am very excited to have framed and hung a small collection of my paintings. Each step was a choice I had to think through carefully, starting with choosing a signature. I am fortunate that Margot has Harry come by her house fairly often with a van filled with frames. I chose four 12x16's and two 9x12's. I learned how to use the drill to attach the clips, and to set the hooks for the wire.

It was very rewarding to get positive feedback from our Holiday party guests. But I will admit that I think a couple of the black frames look too severe on our walls, even though they set off the paintings nicely. This gold frame looks great against the oak paneled wall.

Even when I can't actually paint, I try to move forward in some way to improve my art.

Early Morning Walk

Early Morning Walk

This painting was really fun to do. The backlighting was so soft and lovely in the early morning. I wanted to try to keep it to just two values, like day and night. I know that's probably breaking some rules somewhere. I might do it again, and bring out more of the subtleties in the shadows. I hope you can see it from this photo.

Ancient Gorilla

I visited my husband's office and saw this watercolor that I did many years ago. Still fun and playful. When people see my name, they ask my husband if this is a family member. They are referring to the signature, but he likes to think it refers to his family tree.

Moving Forward

I haven't posted for awhile, but that doesn't mean I haven't been busy!

I am studying with Margot Lennartz, attending a weekly workshop. Margot loves landscapes, particularly California scenes. Her career spans decades of successful painting. Her home is filled with her work, and she still enters and wins juried shows on a regular basis. She has an amazing ability to help each of her students regardless of the many different styles. It's a fun and supportive environment. I am loving it!

I also feel that I have "arrived" and can now do my own art the way I want. I thought this painting of a ranch near Cayucos was done. Now that I look again, I see several small things I still need to do. I love the overall feel of it, though.

Okay, so you want to know what I'm going to change...
It needs a small indication of a shadow to the left of the red trough in the foreground. The two trees on the left need better highlights and shadows in the branches. And I have to do something with the yellow patch in the center above the purple trough. That brushstroke has bothered me since the minute I put it on! I think the yellow color is too bright for that place in the picture, or maybe it's the contrast with the purple is too strong. I also have too much blue showing through from the underpainting - easy to fix.

I love the sky. Margot encouraged me to paint the sky yellow,  rather than the even, mid-tone blue of my source photos. (This photo of the painting makes the purple on the left stand out more than it actually does in the painting.) The yellow sky softens and unifies the entire atmosphere of the scene. Now that I have done it, I understand it. The sky area is so narrow that there isn't space to develop into the deep blue of the overhead sky. All that shows is the pale light near the horizon.

Sunny at 3Kicks Art Studio

Our term has ended at 3Kicks Studio. I wanted to sign up for the next term, but I would miss too many classes to make it worth it. Sunny has  helped me a lot. I felt so awkward and unsure of myself at the first class. I didn't know how to lay out my palette or to begin to design my painting. In the ten weeks of the class, I have definitely gained confidence as well as skill. 

I painted these flowers on the last day, getting the painting this far in one session. Actually, the vase had a pretty lopsided arrangement in it, with the flowers in a circle poking toward the outside. I added the large flower in the middle when I got home. It was just greenery and stems in life. This is a 9x12 canvas. I think the apple is the star of the show. Like many students,  I have probably painted more apples than any other subject! Doing this still life made me realize I need to paint more flowers, and fabric folds too!

Sunny helped us by commenting as we worked. He also would show students techniques by painting on their canvas, with permission of course. It really helped to see exactly how to do something. I look forward to signing up with him again in January. I love it that we can do both still life and portraits in his class.

 Sunny can make sense of anyone's painting! He goes from one canvas to the next, looking, evaluating, and moving the piece forward somehow.

Portrait of a Pensive Girl

I am really enjoying my Sunday morning classes with Sonny Apinchapong. I can tell that I am growing and learning. He believes that still life studies are the key to good portraits and landscapes. I love being able to go straight to the portrait with a live model. I learned a lot from doing this portrait. It looks a bit boring as a piece of art, but I have to recognize that this is my time to learn, not constantly evaluate. Despite its flaws, Sonny pronounced it "a good likeness".

Back to the Drawing Board

   

Left: Value study of twins from a photograph

Right: Copy from a Sargeant drawing of Mrs. Horace Webber

Here is my drawing board. Both of these were basically quick studies, done in less than 30 minutes (I think). The Sargeant portrait is from the Dover book of his drawings which are black and white studies. It makes it pretty easy to copy exactly what he did, although if you compare mine to his you will see how many places need to be fixed.  I need to work on how to do the nose and mouth, so this is really helpful.

The value study from the photograph presents a completely different set of challenges and learning. First of all, I had to find a photo that lends itself to becoming a portrait. Then I realized that I don't have much experience drawing from photos. I chose this one because the two boys are identical twins, but don't actually look exactly alike. I wanted to see if I could capture the difference. Shane is pretty close but Nathan got lost back in the shadows. Those shadows again!!

It is also interesting to put these side by side. Clearly Sargeant had an eye for composition and contrast. He knew how to accentuate the features that he wanted to describe. Striking.

Flowers in a Blue Vase

 Flowers in a Blue Vase

I had fun with this painting done in class. The challenge was to represent the bright light. The colors were all over the place. I thought I wasn't going to like the set up - I was itching to reposition the flowers into a better arrangement. But as I painted I found I liked the balance and the confusion of the huge blossoms. Sonny, the teacher, helped me to simplify the shadows on the wall behind the flowers. It reminded me of Anne's caution: "Don't stare into the shadows!'

The teacher's overall comment was to continue to paint more and practice better drawing skills. Hmmm. I thought drawing was a relative strength. I guess it is, relative to anything else I can do! 

So, I need to work on my drawing and hope it will draw the rest of my skills along with it:)

Fruit with Pitcher

Cropped to show the part that I like best

 I have started a workshop class at 3Kicks Studio in Pasadena. Here is the first still life set-up that I painted. There was another still life choice and also a live model. I will do those in future weeks.

I got good feedback from the teacher. The challenge, of course, was to paint gray on gray, with very subtle value and temperature differences. He wasn't too impressed with this, but not too critical either. He guided us along, suggesting ways to keep it simple and focus on what was important. Mostly he said to "just keep painting and you'll be able to train your eye..." I feel like my eye is okay, it's my ability to render what my eye sees that is the problem!

Classwork

 

I may still go back and fix up the parts that are weak, or I may just move on and paint something different. I haven't decided yet.

I did two homework paintings of a gray on gray set-up. The teacher liked the set-up with the silver tray, and liked the solid feel of the objects. But the fruit looks flat - not enough light contrast - and the bottle highlights are too much. You can see that I kept this in mind as I finished my painting in class. Nice round fruit and not too much on the bottle. As for the wobbly lines, such as the edge of the plate, that's just me getting used to oil paint. It doesn't stay where you put it! I started with a nice even curve, but by the time I got the shadows in there and added the print to the fabric, the plate was a wobbly mess!

Homework

I will definitely move on in class to the next still life set-up. Enough of the gray on gray.

Color and Light

Ugh.
I am glad this class on color is over! I did learn a few things. But mostly I wasted a lot of paint.