The Dirty Palette Club Back In Action

After a spell yesterday the DPCC got back together at mi casa for an afternoon of jokes, goofing, art-talk and of course painting a crazy still life! It had been a while since we gathered in my house to paint, our last gatherings had been to see art or plein air paint, so it was fun to hang with the gang and paint away like we started a few years back now. Will did a handsome portrait of me and you can see an in-progress of it abouve.

Dave and Will have a few laughs...

Dave painting away

Here is our crazy still life setup-we called it the Two Towers.

Here is the start of my painting block-in.

This pictures is was taken as a little while later as I started slapping on the paint.

This is the final painting, I had to bum paint off Dave and Will as I left all my paints at school, so I will need to put a little retouch varnish on this to bring up the colors even as the darker colors sunk in a bit. There was so much fun stuff to paint in this piece, from the little Mickey head to the pig yp the faint blue reflected light on the wall next to the ecroche.

Dave's painting of my Lost In Space Robot.

Will's final painting of me. We plan on getting together weekly now like we did in the past to just hangout and paint in the looser and congenial atmosphere of the DPC.

Studio Incamminati Demonstration (Burlington, NJ)

Studio Incamminati and the Burlington Lyceum Hall have come together to introduce a new series of painting classes. As a promotional event, Robin Frey, Stephen Early and Peter Kelsey have come together under one roof to do a live painting demonstration.

Since the event seemed like a great chance to pick up a few tips and meet some new faces, my friends and I decided to drive in and check it out. The demonstrations were set up quite well, and those running the show held no expense when it came to treating guests with hospitality.

Daniel Murano and Kathryn Vaughan talking to the lovely Robin Frey.

Stephen Early's Figure Demonstration

Peter Kelsey's Portrait Demonstration

Robin Frey's Figure Demonstration

THE DPC takes in a Demo

Yesterday the DPC made a little road trip over the river to Willingboro, NJ and took in a portrait demo by John Ennis. It was a short demo where Ennis demonstrated his underpainting technique.





Working with an burnt umber mixture he toned the canvas and then basically did a modified wipeout. Ennis went a little further than he would in the studio for the purposes of the demo for the crowd last night.
Ennis stopped along the way and answered questions from the audience and then gave a nice slide show talk about his work and career as a national portrait artist and his transition from being an illustrator.
Will and Alina squint like good painters...

Ennis' painting gear.


Afterwards the DPC stopped a diner for some dinner and discussion about what we saw and about the issues with painting we all have gong on. then we parted ways in the rain looking forward to our next painting outing as a group.

Brandywine

With the break in the current heatwave which had been baking almost the entire country it seems the DPC or Alina and I decided to hit the road and paint. I decided to drive down to the Brandywine and along the river in Chadds Ford, know for being the homestead of the Wyeth clan. in fact we were just a short distance from the Brandywine River Museum. We came along Brandywine Picnic Park and set up and got ready to paint.

Alina checking out the spot. We couldn't have asked for a better day really, just perfect blue, blue summer skies and it was cool in the shade. We saw several people canoeing or floating down on big inner tubes.

There was so much good here to paint it was more of a choice of what not to try and paint, so many good views--so we'll deninitely be going back!
Alina searches for a composition and settled on the bridge.

Alina painting away.




Alina's progress as the day wore on. She say right down on the river bed because the water level is pretty low due to the fact we have had so little rain.


I settled on the dynamic composition of the two trees arching over the riverbank, and here is my initial block-in.











Here is my final painting. Since we kind of got a late start we had less time before the sun changed the shadows too much, but I'd say we still got near 4 hours of painting time in. I'm really trying to both add more paint and more color into the shadows to really paint the light. Looking at Sorolla and Sargent to really see the masters at work and to try and take their lessons into my own thinking, yet I always want to be open and responsive and if I find if I get unclear, I wipe it off or scrape it off or re-mass it all back. I am also really looking at and studying the Russian Social Realist painters too, I love how they handle light and the dash of their paint application.




The stream makes and handy wash if you remember to bring soap!



Alina with her wonderful painting, her best yet.

A close-up of Alina's painting. So it's back in the studio for a few days but I am really charged and plan to head back out next week and engage nature again!