Market Day - and handy hints.

Market Day

6x6in oil on canvas panel  $100. SOLD

A family enjoying our award winning Farmers and Craft
Market here in sunny Las Cruces, NM


Artist Note.
This is another re-post.
This one is from three years ago.
I am recovering from a bug but thought i could pick
up some old posts with good information in them.


The monthly focus is the Figure in Landscape at the
Artist Guild this month. We are a mixed group so
to help the ones without much access to live models
I find it easy to use the tried and true "Stick Figure "
method.
It is easy to find figures in magazines or newspapers to

use a magic marker and do the following
exercise. You can use photos you care
about by placing a piece of glass over
them and draw on it. ( I use a photo
frame piece of glass and tape the edges)
When you do a couple a day you get
used to the basic proportions of the
body - the spine, where the elbows
and knees have a joint,
and the important line of action.
(The movement angle)


I have an exercise where I draw
the stick figure in different positions and
then show how easy it is to use a simple stroke of 
the brush to make the clothes.    

First the drawings.
I spray fixative
over the charcoal
so it can be used
many times and
washed off
afterwards.

Add the paint
using single
strokes for arms
and pants. I paint
a stroke to a joint,
say elbow, stop,
and then start again
I press harder so
the brush gets wider
for the torso

Add all the clothes,
shadows,
and background
and you have a decent
painted figure to go
into a landscape

The artists all
take turns to
paint over the
figures on this
same canvas.
They choose the
the clothes and
background.


This is not about perfection, but it is about finding
a way to grow an understanding of the basics of placing
a figure in the painting.

The top painting was a demo starting with stick figures.

Sorry about not being able to remove the old comments.

Fracturing from the Imagination ll -Demo

Flowers from the Imagination

6x8in  oil on canvas panel  $125.

After scrutinizing fruit for the last few days I needed to do something for the
pure pleasure of using paint.
I am receiving more and more inquiries about the
fracturing technique and this is another way of starting than the one I showed here
http://juliefordoliver.blogspot.com/2012_05_01_archive.html


Artist Note.

Painting from the imagination is a lot of fun and you can make alterations
all the way through because you respond to what happens.
I started with flat shapes of color on oil primed linen.

I picked up what was on the palette
from yesterday's painting of fruit.
Using a knife I pressed and twisted
until the random shapes suggested
something to me. The green next to the
orange suggested the center of a flower.

Still not committed, but working with
flowers in mind, I started to add
more colors remembering to
neutralize some with
complementary colors
so the pure colors would pop.

Okay - I could really see the flowers
now so the commitment was made
and the thinking had to begin.
The negative shapes at the left I
liked so I kept them and added color.
Filling in the backgroundwith transparent dark colors
to bring it together. I do not usually
paint this way and I was enjoying
responding and making decisions to what was happening.
After this stage, I worked all over with my angle brush and
handy tool, but a shaper will do. It is easy to see the surface marks I made
on the finished piece. I decided to take the vase right out at the bottom.

Please let me know if you enjoyed this or have any questions.