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.

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.

DPC Summer on the Go!

The DPC has really been having a lot o fun so far since school is out and the summer has kicked off. We have still been meeting weekly to paint and to do our group trips around the city and region to museums shows and First Fridays. We hit the Woodmere Museum to see the Violet oakley exhibition and then had a nice BBQ after at Jane's place.
I finished my painting I had going in our session at school.
Lexi working--er-joking away.
Two happy campers before their coffee break. We stopped in the Good Karma Cafe on Pine Street in Philly where we saw several painting hanging by PAFA alum Joseph Lozano.
Then this saturday Will and Jane and I went landscape painting over in Havertown, just down the road from me and I painted this little landscape.

here is Jane painting away.
Here is Jane's painting--she was on fire and finished her painting in about 90 minutes!
Will meet the owner of the farm or land and they invited us to come and paint any time.
here is Will's painting--a beaut!!

Friday Dave and lexi and I did the gallery walk for First friday--and i do mean walk--we walked just about the entire city it seems and hit all the major galleries from Gross Mccleaf, Seraphin, Rodger LaPelle, FAN and Artist house.

Lexi being stalked by a tree.....

Next week we plan on getting back out to landscape paint and work from the model.

Dirty Palette Club Summer 2

On what ended up being is very hot and humid day in Philly the DPC got together for our second summer session at PAFA. It was our second pose with our model Jessica. Some members like Alina didn't come this week but Lexi joined in to keep the balance of the force. We have two more sessions with the model and then we'll see what's nest, maybe some landscapes or even a still life. the nice weather-even if a bit warm makes us want to take it on the road and paint some landscapes and embrace the sunny dyas after an incredibly rainy Spring.
Dave with his painting.
Will started a new painting this week and here is his block-in.
Lexi started out strong with a great block-in.
Joel always looks comfortable as he paints away.
Here is my second pass on the painting, i went in and repainted and repainted again and again all over trying to dig in deeper and match values better and not worry about the details until later. It's always great to paint with the group, sometimes we laugh so hard it's hard to not mess up your painting or see through the tears of laughter! It is so incredibly important to have a great support group of friends as an artist out there swinging for the fences every day.

The DPC Summer Kick-off!

With the PAFA ASE a week past we decided as a group to keep things hot and the palettes flying by getting the group back for painting at least once a week as a group. We want to keep each other going and challenged too. So i booked a model for a few weeks to start the whole thing off and we'll be getting outside to do some landscapes as soon as this dreadful rainy spring weather get's better.
Here is William's start.
Joel's painting.
Dave is off to a strong start.
Joel talks with our model.
Alina's strong start.
Here is my painting after about 90 minutes or so. This week we'll all gather again and go at it---the summer is just beginning!

Annual Student Exhibition (ASE)

Hello Everyone,

In response to David's last post, I decided to add a few photos from this years ASE, held at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. I hope you enjoy, for it was a wonderful time for all of us. Please stop by the School if you are in town, the show will be up for quite some time.

This set of photos were taken the week before the show. Below you will see Mike, Joel, Dave and Jane, working to prepare there wall space.

This set of photos were taken during opening night. Below, are the DPC's members standing in front of their walls.

Jane Winter

Joel Shambe

Mike Manley

David Golas

If you have any questions about the shows location, or the duration of its hanging feel free to check out the schools web site.