New Category: Quick Oil Sketches

I've been thinking about the fall, October, when I'll participate in Philadelphia's OPEN STUDIO PROGRAM.  I've got some great artists, friends, who will join me in a show here in my building.  To make a bigger event out of it, I/we could do some quick oil portraits of visitors, say 20-min paintings.  Maybe call them Quick Oil Sketches.  It would give us something to advertise, and a way to keep visitors in our show longer  -  and it would be fun.  and scary.  and challenging.  and it would force me to overcome my reluctance to actually approach somebody and say "Can I paint your portrait?"  I don't know why that is so scary to say, but it is.  It means putting yourself out there, risking failurem in public.

So I need practice making 20-minute portraits.  Can I really do it?  What do you emphasize, what do you leave out in 20 minutes?  If not a likeness, can I at least get a resemblance?  Here is one of my first attempts, of another artist at a Sketch Club workshop:

At the Sketch Club.  9 x12, oil on Canva-Paper

 In addition, during a Plein-air Group Paintout at Atlantic City, I asked a cute 9-yr old girl if I could paint her.  She was surprised and pleased, and that resulted in:

Ariane.  12 x16", oil on Canva-Paper

Her favorite color was red, so that became the dominant color.  I would have liked to spend more time, correcting adjusting and improving, but that wasn't the point of this exercise.  In any case, she did like it, and her parents were impressed enough to buy it, on the spot.  That was a surprise, it felt great (!).

From these first attempts, I do see the obvious ways that I need to change my technique to take advantage of what you can and cannot do in a Quick Oil Sketch.  Now - bravery and practice!

The other painting to come out of that plein-air session was of a couple of boats in the marina.  Here too, I have a lot to learn.  Water!  Reflections!  Loose diagonals!  the Mid-Field!  Oh my!

Gardner's Basin Mooring.  12 x16", Oil on Canva-Paper

Summer Painting

The summer is slipping by too rapidly.  The days fill up with activities, and I am not spending as much time painting as I want to / need to.  Nobody to blame but myself, but that's the way it is.  My intention was, and is, to create a series of Philadelphia Cityscapes during the summer that showcase the city, but not the all-too-familiar icons - or do those icons, but bring new viewpoint or vision to them.

Still, I have completed a Study for a painting I envisioned, Welcome to the Boyd.

Study for the Boyd,  12 x12"

Background:  The Boyd was a Grand Movie Palace of the first order in Philadelphia that, after about 1950 or so, passed its prime and suffered increasing disuse, misuse, neglect and decay.  Now it is just a hulk, and I wanted to paint it for what it meant and what it has become.  BUT.... there is no longer anything picturesque about its exterior.  There isn't even any decent graffiti on it.  I tried to get inside to paint the interior, but The Boyd is now controlled by lawyers in NYC and even the Preservationists can't get access.  However, when I discovered the stage doors to the Boyd I knew I'd found the way to incorporate all this in a strong visual image:

So after that study, I undertook the painting on the larger scale it needed:

Welcome to the Boyd,  24 x40"  Oil on canvas

These two paintings of the Boyd also continue my exploration of the contrast between transparent paint (the doors) and opaque paint (the bricks and the sign), and I like what is happening there.   These paintings also introduced yet another feature, by painting on a metallic ground.
In addition to those paintings, Donald Leang organized a group of us from the Sketch Club to paint at the Logan Circle, facing the challenge of depicting an urban fountain a la prima.  Here's the result of that effort, after a little touch-up in the studio:

The Fountain at Logan Circle.  9 x12"  Oil on canvas

Now I've got to find time to execute some other ideas I have for the Cityscape series - like the piano player in Reading Terminal Market, the Frank Rizzo mural in the Italian Market, and the towers of Liberty Place, and the Liberty Place towers in the afternoon sun.