Goodbye Darby Road

The DPC returned to our spot this week, though only Lexi and I made it this week. The bugs were not as bad but the day heated up and got hot by the end. I decided since the light was so striking to paint the creek again. Lexi decided to paint the horse barn.

Lexi blessed the days painting events with a bubble pipe.
Here is my initial wash-in, trying to keep big shapes and an interesting design.
Here is a shot of my palette, I guess it's really a primary palette, my usual approach is to look at what I see and choose colors that match pretty close to start off.




A happy Lexi with her painting.
Lexi's awesome final painting.
Here is my final painting, this was more of a race that last week as we got started later and the sun's position changed earlier. I think we'll take a break from this spot for a bit and move to a new spot next week.

Darby Road A-Go-Go

Here is my finished Plein Air of the bridge across the Darby Road Creek from today's paint-out with the DPC. We hit the road early in hopes of beating the rain that was promised in the afternoon, returning to our new favorite spot along darby road at the invite of the gracious host we met last week.
Here is my start on my painting. I kept my palette pretty limited until later on in the painting. White, Van Dyke Brown, Maganese blue, Cad Green and and an Earth Green.
Will and I set up along the river while the gals set up across the road in the field.

Jane setting up.
Our friend Brie from school joined us this week. Brie setting up far back in the field. This time next week I'll be painting in Arizona!

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.

DPC at the PAFA Graduation!

I snapped this pic tonight of the DPC crew at PAFA's ASE show after the graduation ceremony. Joel Shambe and I, David Golas, graduated today and all four of us: Joel, Jane Winter, Mike Manley and I exhibited at the Annual Student Exhibition. I am very glad to have shared this experience with my friends and I think we all have a lot to be proud of. More pics to come soon!

Jon Foster Show / Portrait Painting

The DPC decided to start the new year off strong and start up our weekly painting/drawing sessions. Today we met up early to see the Jon Foster show, held at The University of The Arts. For anyone who has not seen this show, it's a collection of his digital work. As much as I enjoyed the show, I was kind of hoping to see some of his traditional paintings. Looking at a digital print has no hold over me like a painting. After that we grabbed some lunch and moved along to our painting session.

The photo taken above is of Scott Noel, one of PaFa's greatest professors. Here you can see him working on a large city landscape from observation. Its always quite an inspiration to catch him working on one of his drawings or paintings.



Mike Manley and David Golas grabbing some grub.



Here we have Christine who was initially just visiting us, but instead became our model for the day since our previous model could not make it.



David and Mike painting away



Mike Manley's Painting - Oil on Canvas



William Sentman's (Myself) Painting - Oil on Canvas



David Golas's Painting - Oil on Canvas

DPC Summer Studio-- Session 4

The DPC started our summer session this last week in the studio. It wasn't a full tilt group as two or three of our regular members either haven't moved in yet or couldn't make it, but Dave, Lexi and I set up a little still life and went about painting into the evening in the new gang studio. The shot above is of my side of the studio which has great views of the city and south light.


Here is Dave's rough in
Lexi was trying acrylics while Dave and I used oil.
Here is my painting after I got it pretty well blocked in--still a ways to go on this but I feel its a good start. Once again its a great thing to have the energy and camaraderie of good friends around when working. I like the energy and flow of ideas you get as well as the laughter. I want to employ some of the "thinking" on creating a space and an arrangement of values and atmosphere I got from the workshop I just took with Peter Van Dyke. i can't wait to get back into the studio this week!
Lexi painting away
Dave mixing colors before starting.

Meeting 14-Semester's End

Well the Spring sememster at school has come to it's flaming end, it just blew right by, each week seemigly faster than the last. In the last few weeks between freelance, school work and the weather it really wasn'y possible for us to hold our weekly meetings as a group. But once the sememster ended we DPCers decided to hold our second annual group critique.

We did this lasts semester where we put up a bunch of our work and gave each other a good crit on the semester's progress. Often we feel a bit slighted in our regular end of semester class crits because they really tend to be group crits at school, and in my experience that means the crit is way too long and not very useful. Honestly, I prefer the teacher to give me a critique, not my peers who often just don't give me much useful to use, or even make any comments at all about my work and besides I paying for the teacher's imput and knowledge, not my peers. In the two years at Pafa so far I find that the group crit to be a waste of time, as a teacher i understand why you want to do it, but so often the energy just drags and the process leaves most feeling boared and watching the clock. The tracks I am in seem to also have a lot of very quite or shy types who don't have much to say anyway. I know the other DPC members feel the same way, so we decided to give ourselves a really good crit, the one we really wished we got.
We set up in studio 1021 and piled our work up on the easels. I have to say it's very encouraging to see so much work lined up. I didn't have as much as the other members as I had already taken a lot of work home when I cleaned out my locker.




Being honest with your friends is important and taking a crit is usually looked at as a negative process by many when in fact it's a great thing. It's a way to learn what's working and what's not--and possible solutions to improving what's not. I think all of us shared a great deal of frustration this semester and really look forward to getting into the studio at school to do our own thing.

To be frank, I had a very mixed semester myself. I know I grew as a painter but I found much of the process to be frustrating and disjointed at times. There were some classes I just felt could have been more intense and better organized. Freelance was brutal at times too, the balance was harsh. But I can't use that as an excuse for any failings on my end. The bottom line is whether I have made progress, and I have, though I admit, I have a bad case of Second Year itch. Now with the summer here I know I look forward to just doing my own thing and painting and I am really looking forward to drawing an painting a lot with the DPC and on my own. Having a great group of friends on the same path as you makes the journey a better experience.

Meeting 13

This last Thursday was our 13th meeting of the Dirty Palette Club and we gathered after our late Thursday classes in the cast hall in the HLB (Historic Landmark Building) as they call the old school these days. the hard core members were in attendance and we spent the evening drawing and painting away. I am working on a big painting for my Figure Comp class that has to have two rooms in it and a figure. I made pretty good progress on it and figure another 2-3 passes should finish it. I laid into it quick with the palette knife to load in the big masses of paint I need to cover the canvas. I am really trying to go for the atmosphere in this painting and the cast hall has such great mood and lighting. We only have 3 more weeks in the semester and then we are done with classes but the DPC then will take it on the road over the summer and explore painting in and around the city.
Here is my setup in the cast hall and you can see early progress on the painting.


Joel working on a drawing of Brutus by Michelangelo.

Dave and will, mock me...