Innholdsfortegnelse for October 2016 i Artists Magazine

1. INSPIRATIONAL OIL STUDY: I’d made a few studies along the banks of a nearby creek over the years but never captured the full sense of the water and the canyon it runs through. Spring Shallows (image 1; oil on panel, 9x12) is one of my studies. I liked the feeling created by the submerged rocks in the shallow water and thought this piece could inspire a good studio painting, especially if I included more of the canyon. 2. SMALL WATERFALL STUDY: With my studio painting in mind, I went on location to make a couple of 6x8 oil studies. Image 2 is the study of the waterfall that cascades from the canyon top. 3. SMALL CREEK STUDY: Ultimately, I decided not to use my second 6x8 oil field study…

MONEY MAY BE THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL, BUT IT’S ALSO THE INSPIRATION FOR MANY ACCOMPLISHED ARTISTS. Among them is the British painter Tom Martin, who is fascinated by all aspects of money: its power in commerce, its dominance in our everyday lives, and its physicality as small, intricately patterned pieces of paper. In Martin’s recent works the currencies of the world metamorphose into all manner of things—trees and flowers, textiles and even people. Martin’s paintings—which, for the most part, he creates with airbrushed acrylic paint on handmade aluminum panels—draw us in with their bright colors and impressive details, then compel us to reflect on the metaphor, meaning and uses of money. “Earlier in my career I was making paintings about my daily routine,” the artist says. “This progressed to…

I asked the illustrator, Robin Ewers Carnes (rewersdesigns.com), to join me in trying out the Strathmore 400 Series Marker Paper. “I loved this paper,” Carnes said. “Strathmore’s 400 Series Marker Paper is not too heavy, not too light. Markers glide on like butter. Sharpies tend to bleed a little bit, but my calligraphy brush pens worked on it amazingly well. Pencil guidelines erase easily, but the marker surface must be completely dry before you can erase the pencil. Kneaded erasers left some gray marks, but then I switched to a Prismacolor Magic Rub eraser, and that worked perfectly. For my calligraphy below, I used four types of markers/pens. The pink is a Crayola marker. The gray shadow lines are a 30% gray Prismacolor marker. The black calligraphy is a Pentel…

I CONSIDER MYSELF A MIXED MEDIA ARTIST, but only colored pencils stay on my desk permanently. I combine them with various media depending on the project and, in turn, I’m able to achieve richer results than I could with colored pencil alone. I’m the artist continually looking for the perfect formula in drawings. At first I was using gouache to cover flat areas; later, I experimented with oil sticks, watercolor, ink, airbrushes and even oil paint. This process of finding a mixed media formula began when I started a new series of drawings called No Evil. At the time, the works of Michael Parkes fascinated me. I loved the seamless gradients and transparency of his drawings. To get a similar look, I used the Copic Airbrush System, which allows artists…

There is no accomplishment so easy to acquire as politeness, and none more profitable.GEORGE BERNARD SHAW QI’ve been invited to participate in a plein air festival. I’ve painted with my plein air group for years, but never in a festival, so I’m a bit nervous. What can I expect, and what will be expected of me? APlein air festivals come in all shapes and sizes. Some are more casual, such as one put on by a local organization with a modest goal, like raising awareness for a cause. With these festivals, often there’s no jurying process for entry, and artists of any level are allowed to participate. Other festivals may have a more ambitious goal, such as supporting a museum, and the organizers expect to raise substantial funds. These festivals…

A motion capture studio is a creative workshop of the digital age, a place where human movement is recorded to provide a basis for animating the figures used in video games and films. The process is highly technical. Models are fitted with small reflectors placed at key points on their bodies (you can see them above and within this article). They then perform movements in a space that’s encircled with infrared lights and cameras. This equipment records the spatial position of each reflector at each moment in time, providing a blueprint for actions that can be used to endow a digitized creature with credible movement. When an avatar in a video game leaps, crouches or raises a weapon, the movement is built on this practice.…

MCKENZIE GRAHAM (MG): How did you approach this sensitive task? LAUREN TILDEN (LT): It was difficult for all artists involved. While painting my portrait of Susie Jackson, I decided to focus on who she was. Her family said she was a bundle of energy at 87 years. Her favorite Bible verse was Proverbs 22:6, which she often quoted: “Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it.” Sunday dinner at her house was an event. She had a beautiful smile that could warm a room. These are the things I wanted to capture in paint. I wanted the emphasis of this project to be on remembering these heroic people. MG: Did the artists choose their own subjects? LT:…

“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.”Thomas Merton We mourn the death of a superb painter, Harriet Shorr, who grew up at Sea Gate in Brooklyn, studied with Alex Katz at Yale School of Art, showed at Masters & Pelavin in New York City, and taught at the School of Art & Design at Purchase College, State University of New York. Her gorgeous pictures, in oil that seemed the equivalent of transparent watercolor, show an array of odd objects in lyrical juxtapositions; the color is pure and shimmering, and the overall effect is one of joy. Talking to Rick Stull for an article in the January/February 2011 issue, she said: “I derive my colors from my perceptions. I don’t have any real interest in…

FOR MANY OF US, painting en plein air is an addiction—but one with benefits. On site, you can see much in the landscape that the camera simply can’t capture. Also, as much as you may dislike racing with light that changes by the hour, those shifting light conditions push you to record only essentials—a real plus if you’re a painter tempted to add unnecessary detail. But working en plein air has drawbacks, too. It may tempt you to be lazy about composition. One more exploratory thumbnail sketch might have yielded a better design, but you skipped it because it would have stolen from your brush time. Another danger is falling under the seduction of lighting effects. Capturing the feeling of a hazy summer day is a noble pursuit, but maybe…

The first step in preparing an aluminum panel is creating a wooden armature, often with one or two cross braces, depending on the panel’s intended size. Using an adhesive gun, I adhere a sheet of aluminum composite to the armature. I’ll then trim the edges of the aluminum sheet to be flush with the edges of the armature. I treat the wooden part of the panel with a sanding sealer, which I apply with a cloth, and then sand the wood to a smooth finish. Next, I sand the aluminum face (the side I’ll later paint on), giving it a fine tooth to promote the adhesion of two coats of etch primer (a cellulose-based product by U-Pol). This primer is fairly unpleasant stuff, so I apply it with a brush,…

STRATHMORE SENT ME SAMPLES of its 400 Series Marker Paper, made in the USA and developed “for fine artists who create finished art using markers.” The 400 Series Marker Paper is heavy weight with an extra smooth surface, intended, Strathmore says, “for marker sketches, designs, renderings and finished works.” Although the paper works well with a range of marker types, Strathmore notes that it was created specifically for alcohol-based markers. For the flower illustration above I used Winsor & Newton ProMarkers that are alcohol based; I found the paper’s finish to be quite nice. The 400 Series Marker Paper absorbed a fair amount of the pigment, but didn’t dry out the markers in the process. The markers flowed with ease, and drawing felt effortless. In addition, I liked the results…

I EARNED MY DEGREES from Tyler School of Art at Temple University, in Pennsylvania, and Ohio University, in Athens, during a time when there was little interest in traditional oil techniques. To get the information I needed, I depended on instructional DVDs, especially Richard Schmid’s wonderful one on alla prima painting. As it is with old memories, things get twisted and changed. It’s hard to know what’s real and what’s a story — these are the images in my series “The Alone Together Family.” All That Glitters is part of that series. I paint in oil, using traditional glazing techniques. This process involves up to 30 thin, translucent layers. Glazing produces the luminosity that I like to see in my paintings. I start these glazed works with an underpainting, which…