Fall classes starting now!

The model's eye point of view...

Studio in Art

Saturday, 10-1
Tuesday, 2:30-5:30

(Oil, pastel, acrylic, watercolor)This class focuses on still life as a fundamental tool for developing drawing and painting technique. It is appropriate for both beginning and advanced students. Instruction emphasizes direct painting, where paint is applied solidly rather than through glazing. For watercolor and acrylic, the emphasis is on alla prima techniques.

High school juniors and seniors interested in pursuing a BFA are especially encouraged to sign up for this class. I have an excellent track record in helping students develop outstanding college portfolios.

$100/month

Open Model Sessions, by invitation only

Our open model sessions are moved to Friday afternoons. Please contact me if you want more information.


Autumn is always a difficult time to schedule, since I have obligations elsewhere and there is a surfeit of holidays. If your class is cancelled, you have the option of taking the other class that week, receiving a refund, or taking a private lesson. Just ask me.


The schedule, as it currently appears

Note: we will still be painting outside, as long as the weather permits.

September, 2012  

Tuesday 9/11/2012 Open studio class 2:30-5:30 PM

Saturday 9/15/2012 Open studio class 10 AM-1 PM

Tuesday 9/18/2012 Open studio class 2:30-5:30 PM

Saturday 9/22/2012 Open studio class 10 AM-1 PM

Tuesday 9/25/2012 Open studio class 2:30-5:30 PM

Saturday 9/29/2012 NO CLASS: workshop 10 AM-1 PM

October, 2012  

Tuesday 10/2/2012 NO CLASS: workshop 2:30-5:30 PM

Saturday 10/6/2012 Open studio class 10 AM-1 PM

Tuesday 10/9/2012 Open studio class 2:30-5:30 PM

Friday 10/12/2012 Model  2 to 5 PM

Saturday 10/13/2012 Open studio class 10 AM-1 PM

Tuesday 10/16/2012 Open studio class 2:30-5:30 PM

Saturday 10/20/2012 Open studio class 10 AM-1 PM

Tuesday 10/23/2012 Open studio class 2:30-5:30 PM

Friday 10/26/2012 Model  2 to 5 PM

Saturday 10/27/2012 No CLASS 10 AM-1 PM

Tuesday 10/30/2012 Open studio class 2:30-5:30 PM

November, 2012  

Saturday 11/3/2012 Open studio class 10 AM-1 PM

Tuesday 11/6/2012 Open studio class 2:30-5:30 PM

Friday 11/9/2012 Model  2 to 5 PM

Saturday 11/10/2012 Open studio class 10 AM-1 PM

Tuesday 11/13/2012 Open studio class 2:30-5:30 PM

Saturday 11/17/2012 Open studio class 10 AM-1 PM

Tuesday 11/20/2012 Open studio class 2:30-5:30 PM

Saturday 11/24/2012 NO CLASS: Thanksgiving 10 AM-1 PM

Tuesday 11/27/2012 Open studio class 2:30-5:30 PM

Friday 11/30/2012 Model  2 to 5 PM

December, 2012  

Saturday 12/1/2012 Open studio class 10 AM-1 PM

Tuesday 12/4/2012 Open studio class 2:30-5:30 PM

Friday 12/7/2012 Model  2 to 5 PM

Saturday 12/8/2012 Open studio class 10 AM-1 PM

Tuesday 12/11/2012 Open studio class 2:30-5:30 PM

Friday 12/14/2012 Model  2 to 5 PM

Saturday 12/15/2012 Open studio class 10 AM-1 PM

Tuesday 12/18/2012 Open studio class 2:30-5:30 PM

Friday 12/21/2012 Model  2 to 5 PM

Saturday 12/22/2012 Open studio class 10 AM-1 PM

Tuesday 12/25/2012 NO CLASS: Christmas 2:30-5:30 PM

Saturday 12/29/2012 NO CLASS: Holiday 10 AM-1 PM

Tuesday 1/1/2013 NO CLASS: Holiday 2:30-5:30 PM

Why am I quoting Joyce Kilmer?

There is something about this show that is a milestone for me; I've finally realized that painting is not perfectible, and in fact I LIKE it that way. I felt no compulsion to "hide my mistakes" or even finish this work. It's very raw work, and because of that, it is in some way very powerful. I'm actually thrilled with how it's come out.

And of course you're invited. If you can't read the above, it says:

Please join us Saturday evening

for the opening of

ImPERFECTION

Figure and landscape paintings of Carol L. Douglas

Gallery Salon and Spa
780 University Avenue
Rochester, NY 14607
(585) 271-8340

September and October, 2012

Opening reception:
Saturday, September 1, 2012
6 to 10 PM

Oh, the glamorous life of an artist

Carol L. Douglas: Nudes and Other Work

Gallery Salon and Spa, 

780 University Avenue, Rochester

Opening Saturday, September 1, 2012

6 PM-10 PM

Isn't this a happy vision? A whole bunch of paintings varnished and drying. I wish I had a spot for them in the shade, but will put them away before I go out this afternoon to teach.

I’m prepping work for a show this week, at Gallery Salon and Spa. My neighbor stopped by yesterday, when I was covered in sawdust. She said, “Boy, the life of an artist is really glamorous, isn’t it?”

A few weeks ago, Erika Sorbello-Schramm stopped by my house and selected work for the show. This is the most interesting part of the process for me, since curators seldom see my work the way I do. We agreed that this show would include some of the nudes I’ve been working on for the past several years, which meant they needed varnishing and framing.

And frames for same, awaiting their paintings.

To look its best, an oil painting should be finished with a conservation-grade varnish after it’s had a year or so for the paint to fully cure and oxidize. The goals are protection and reversibility (because we start with the presumption that we’ve created a masterpiece which will need future conservation work).

Clamped with double ratchet tie-downs.

Like every artist I know, I’m a tinkerer. So I cut Winsor-Newton’s matte conservation varnish with a small amount of their gloss varnish, giving me a slightly satin finish. I warm the matte varnish in hot water so the beeswax in it dissolves… easy on a hot August day.

Ratchet gives precise tightening.

I love making frames. Light frames hold together easily with glue; heavier frames sometimes need reinforcement. I have long coveted a biscuit joiner, and went out last week to buy one. However, a clerk at the local woodworking store talked me out of it, encouraging me to buy a pricey drill jig instead. He showed me a video of it being used to join miters, and my resistance was overcome.  However, my intuition was correct; the bit skips on hardwood mitered corners.

It's very easy to ding the corners.

I did meet a new glue at my local hardware store, and it may obviate the need for a mechanical joiner. It’s Titebond Molding and Trim Glue. It stays “open” long enough that one can reposition the joins without panicking, but it only needs to be clamped for about half an hour (is fully dry after 24 hours). That makes mass-producing frames much easier.

The glue.

I have about four different corner-clamp systems, but I ended up using ratchet tie-downs for this because of the size of the frames. Honestly, they work as well as anything, and cost about a fraction of what corner clamps usually run.

Tomorrow I’ll insert the paintings into their frames and package them for delivery. And then package myself for the glamorous life of an artist.

Oh, my! What should I buy?

My basic palette in my pochade box. 

I am happy to share my plein air supply lists with both my own students and others:

·         Watercolor supply list.

·         Oil painting supply list.

·         Pastel supply list.

I have friends who are tremendously efficient plein air packers. I freely admit I’m not up to their standard, but I do paint outdoors a lot, and successfully. Consider these lists not as gospels, but as starting points.

There is no one “best” palette for plein air (or any other kind of) painting. There are so many pigments available today that the artist is faced with—literally—millions of possible combinations. The medium you’re using, your own taste in color , what you want in opacity and drying time all affect your final choices.

And the exact same paints being used for figure painting.

A little knowledge of pigment development is helpful in whittling down selections. The newer the pigment, the more intense and more durable it will be. A palette of earth tones might have a hard time coping with the addition of dioxazine purple or phthalo blue, whereas a vivid 20^th century palette will fail to notice a delicate Renaissance lake color.

This is not to say that you should choose only an “Old-Masters” or an “Impressionist” palette—my own palette has paints from every period. But you can avoid a lot of waste by avoiding obvious mismatches.

The earths and earliest synthesized colors:

The oldest pigments are the earth pigments: the ochres, siennas, umbers and carbon blacks. These have been in use more than 15,000 years. They are as solid and everlasting as dirt. Over time artists have been tremendously wily about expanding their narrow range.

The Egyptians created the first chemical pigment, Egyptian Blue, around 5000 years ago. They also pioneered the use of minerals as pigments with malachite, azurite and cinnabar, and devised a method of fixing dyes to solids (“lake making”) which is still in use today. The Chinese created vermilion and the Romans gave us lead white.

Renaissance alchemists must have been more focused on turning lead into gold, because although they made a few refinements to paints, they left the fundamental kit unchanged.

The industrial revolution:

The Industrial Revolution brought us a pigment revolution. Just a few examples are:

Cobalt Blue – 1802

Cerulean Blue – 1805

French Ultramarine – 1828

Zinc White – 1834

Cadmium Yellow – 1846  

Aureolin – 1862

Alizarin Crimson – 1868

Without the explosion of brilliant color in the 19^th century, there could have been no Impressionism, no modern art.

Modern pigments:

The third tier of pigments are the highest-stain, most durable of colors, developed mainly for industry: “Hansa” yellows, titanium white, synthetic iron oxides (the “Mars” colors) phthalocyanines, quinacridones, perylenes, and pyrrols. Some have replaced 19^th century colors that have proven to be fugitive (such as quinacridone violet to make “permanent” alizarin crimson). Some have an uneasy place on the palette because of their extremely high stain, such as phthalo blue.

My basic field kit.

References: “Bright Earth: Art and the Invention of Color,” by Phillip Ball. It is certainly the most fun book about color ever printed.

Gamblin Artist Colors has optional palettes here. (What is true for oils is generally true for acrylics.)

The most comprehensive guide to watercolor pigments I know of is here.

And my favorite resource for pastels is here.

The nature of Nature

"Keuka Lake Vineyard," oil on canvasboard, 9X12

This year I am teaching plein air painting in two venues. I believe that all aspiring painters should study plein air. Why?

Character: The strength of plein air painting lies in its relationship to reality, but that is also its greatest weakness. Slavish homage to what one sees is a dangerous trap, even more deadly than the same tendency in figure or still-life painting.

Our appreciation of place is not entirely visual: it also encompasses sound and smell and spatial awareness. There are certain experiences in nature—such as standing in the sand on an elliptical shoreline—that are tremendously appealing in real life, but which make for weak paintings. A literal rendering of them is worse than banal: it lies about the character of the place.

The challenge for the plein air painter is to portray the place in a way that gives a sense of the non-visual cues—the warmth of the wind, drumming of the waves, crickets in dry grass. Either the non-representational aspects of painting become more dominant, or you fail. This happens in ways that figure or still-life never force you to consider.

Composition: We know intellectually that paintings built upon a strong, simple schematic project more powerfully than those pieced together from innumerable details. Nature, however, is essentially an infinite layering of innumerable details. With landscape painting, there is no solution but to fall back on the basic tools of composition: thumbnails, value studies, and shape studies. Painting students who rely on their instructors’ model poses or still lives will never learn to compose the way a plein air student—picking and choosing from the environment’s complexities—will learn to compose.

Communication: Painting is pointless if it is devoid of any emotional or intellectual content. Despite that, it is surprisingly easy to “phone it in” at times, especially in the controlled environment of the studio. We’ve all done it. But everyone has an emotional relationship of some kind with nature, and it is impossible to avoid expressing that.

"Piseco Outlet," oil on canvasboard, 9X12

Upcoming classes

The two venues I’m teaching in are convenient for both the local student who wants to study in Rochester and the out-of-town student who wants to take a single, intensive class:

1. Weekly classes in the Rochester area, every Wednesday from 5:30-8:30 PM, meeting in some of the loveliest parts of Monroe County, from the pier at Charlotte to High Falls to Genesee Valley and more. The tuition is $100 a month. Email me here for more information.
2. “Adirondack Wild,” a plein air painting workshop at the Irondequoit Inn in Piseco from September 30 to October 5, 2012. The Adirondack preserve is the biggest, wildest park in the Lower 48, and at $775 all-inclusive (room and board) for five days and nights, this is the deal of the century. Download a brochure here.