Innholdsfortegnelse for May/June 2021 i Artists Magazine

It’s always interesting to me when—as an issue of the magazine is taking shape—a theme emerges that wasn’t part of the planning. In this case, that unexpected motif is that of the artist’s journey. Michelle Wooderson who picks up the topic directly in “So You Wanna Be an Artist” (page 6), emphasizes that there’s no final destination at which an artist finally arrives; the path is open-ended. The point is in the journey itself, and—especially if you’re on the getting-started leg of the voyage—her article is an excellent guide to what to do next. For Amy Ringholz (page 68)—known for dynamic depictions of western wildlife—the path has been successful, due in part to the artist’s sense of adventure. She enjoys using various media—acrylic, ink, watercolor—to stay creatively nimble. Not knowing…

As a college student, Karen Blackwood loved to body surf in the Atlantic. One crashing memory sticks with her decades later. “I got whipped into a wave and swept up on top of it,” she recalls. “It felt like being in a wash cycle!” She was carried aloft and unceremoniously dumped headfirst onto the beach. “When you’re hit by a wave, it’s heavy—it’s a ton of water!” She crawled out of the ocean, coughing up saltwater, hair caked with sand, and with a newfound respect for the power of the sea. That epiphany—that water has weight and mass, that it’s a force—is key to understanding her maritime paintings. It’s what sets them apart. “When I’m painting in the studio, I sometimes find myself doing the motion of the wave. I…

Karen Blackwood trained in the classical tradition, painting many portraits and figures before turning to landscapes. The coastal scenery near her home provides endless inspiration for her award-winning paintings. A member of the Oil Painters of America and a Signature Member of the American Society of Marine Artists, Blackwood has had work featured in many nationally juried exhibitions, such as the Marine Art Society National Marine Exhibition, which toured six museums across the country, as well as various solo shows. She also teaches painting workshops in locations across the country.…

After receiving a B.S. in biology from the University of Miami, where he also studied art, Philip Smallwood became a furniture artisan before transitioning to a full-time art career in the 1990s. His work has appeared in numerous gallery and museum exhibitions, especially along the East Coast. In addition to his personal work, Smallwood receives many portrait commissions, attracting clients mostly through exhibitions and word-of-mouth. His memberships include the Watercolor Honors Society and the New Jersey Watercolor Society, for which he serves as Chair of Fundraising and Awards.…

1 For ink-and-oil paintings, my style is generated with expressive line work. I begin with a charcoal sketch. 2 Using the charcoal sketch as a guide, I create a quick, gestural ink drawing applied with droppers or a medical bulb syringe, as seen in image 2A. The syringe gives me excellent control and holds the perfect amount of ink. I spend only a few minutes on the inking because I find that the tighter I get with the drawing, the less interesting the piece is to me. When the ink dries, I add color with oils. 3 Applying the color in oil can take anywhere from days to weeks to get all the elements to work together. For the fur, I applied thick, textured patches of color. The background color…

Art Auctions Thrive in the Virtual World “Bonhams, Sotheby’s, Christie’s—all the blue chip players in the business of art sales are experiencing a massive shift to online auctions, spurred on by the impact of a worldwide pandemic. “It’s been an opportunity to transform the industry,” said Bruno Vinciguerra, global CEO of Bonhams art auction house, as cited in a New York Times article at the end of the last auction season. Dealing in high stakes art is traditionally a face-to-face business in which prestige and schmoozing are part of the package. Auction houses worried that their older clients who are more comfortable viewing art in person—especially when the asking price is north of $1 million—would not participate when presented with a more technological process. Results of recent online auctions indicate…

My quick sketches, like the one here done in soft graphite pencil, serve three purposes: 1) They “audition” the composition for a subsequent painting; 2) they help me work out the unforgiving proportions of the structure; 3) they provide a road map for the application of light and dark values in the final watercolor paintings. In this case, capturing the proportions of the rectangular window bays was critical. Lightly drawn diagonal construction lines helped me depict them accurately as they diminished in size along the lines of perspective. The essence of the Farnsworth house is the way it seems to hover above the ground—an effect conveyed in both my drawing and my studio painting through the use of light and dark values. Another key concept of the design, seen more…

I was taken by the overall blue palette of the interior, especially the Delft-tiled fireplace, which I decided to make the focal point of the composition. Along the lines of Sargent, I wanted to convey a casual quality in both the composition and the paint application. (After all, I was on vacation.) 2 I drew the scene using vine charcoal, focusing on the rectangular planes at various angles within the room. 1 I painted a simple chart to see how many colors could be derived from my five-color palette. It demonstrates how complementary hues on the color wheel produce neutral, earth-tone colors when mixed together in varied amounts. 1. I painted alizarin crimson on the left and green on the right. I mixed red and green to the near black…

For her Alla Prima series, Blackwood painted directly from photo references, trusting her instinct and working intuitively. She’s now treating these small paintings as studies for larger works. Typically, she develops a composition from thumbnail sketches. “By making thumbnails,” she says, “I start to see things within a photo that I wouldn’t see if I just took the photo and started to paint from it.” She might see a shape that will, as she puts it, “define the whole energy,” for example. “The sketch gets me away from the photo and more into my memory so that I treat it as a painting.” While she keeps a photo reference on hand, the sketch is the more important reference. Whether teaching en plein air or in the studio, she emphasizes sketching…

What may be the first thing to strike viewers of Philip Smallwood’s watercolor images is the degree of informality. Figures may be staring directly at the viewer, but generally they’re not positioned in some standard pose or picturesque setting, let alone smiling for the camera—and Smallwood relies on a camera. He sometimes takes up to 50 or 60 shots of an individual and then composes elements of many of those images at his home studio in New Milford, N.J., to form a portrait that feels impromptu, as though the figures were not altogether ready or expecting to be portrayed. CLOSER LOOKS Smallwood describes his art as “contemporary realism,” which sounds a bit self-evident—he’s a contemporary artist who paints in a realistic manner. As a further descriptor, however, he has coined…

Borbay is committed. Every year for the past 12 years, the artist has laid the visage of the Guggenheim down on canvas, honoring Frank Lloyd Wright’s architectural masterpiece. As a location painter who seeks to release the unheard voice of a structure, this ongoing project best captures the development of his work over time. Each year’s effort is unique in style, allowing the viewer to perceive the context of this familiar design in unexpected ways. A former resident of New York City, Borbay’s attachment to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is symbolic of his love for architecture in general, but the decision to use it as his subject for over a decade is happenstance. “I passed the Guggenheim daily on my way to Central Park,” he admits. The simple act…

STAGE 1 To start this large painting of New York’s Central Park (roughly 4x4½ feet), I first blocked in the main shapes. I like to deconstruct an image to its most essential forms. STAGE 2 A warm underpainting activates the surface color. In this case, I underpainted the sky, the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir and the Hudson River. STAGE 3 With a canvas this large, taking the time to block out more essential shapes was mandatory—and required a great deal of patience. STAGE 4 By this stage the majority of the major forms had been identified and established. STAGE 5 Then the fun began! I painted in the Upper West Side and identified light on the Great Lawn. STAGE 6 Bob Ross painted happy trees—I painted a few hundred with…

Jackson Hole, Wyoming, stands as an outpost of the American West that beckons National Park fans, hardcore outdoor sports enthusiasts and art collectors. Resting in the shadows of the Teton Mountains, this high-altitude burg holds its own cachet for admirers of a dramatic painted landscape. Here, among these traditional themes in Western art, Amy Ringholz seeks to capture the energy and imagination behind the wildlife that share her neighborhood. Ringholz Studios sits a short walk from Jackson Hole’s famous Town Square, where tourists often gather for a photo op under archways built from elk antlers or to watch the reenactment of a Western shootout. The gallery, however, beckons visitors with a different appeal, standing apart as Western modern. Dark wood and clean metal accents allow Ringholz’s work to shine, her…

Occasionally Ringholz holds an extensive interactive show at different large venues, a full-immersion, ticketed experience that takes about two years to prepare. This photo, with its tangle of wires and decorative lights, was taken during the somewhat wild planning phase. “I basically use everything I have to create the ambiance for the show,” says Ringholz. When actually creating art in the studio, Ringholz relies on daylight bulbs. “I’m pretty nocturnal,” she admits. “I’ve always felt the most creative in the middle of the night.…

since 1987, the Artists Rights Society (ARS) has been supporting artists by protecting their rights here and abroad. Adrienne Fields, Director of Legal Affairs at ARS, oversees the organization’s licensing work as well as their extensive advocacy efforts to improve laws for artists. She spoke with me about their extensive efforts on behalf of artists. Help for All: The society is known for representing the estates or foundations of deceased notables, such as Andy Warhol, Mark Rothko and Willem de Kooning, as well as celebrated living artists, such as Frank Stella and Faith Ringgold. Fields is adamant, however, that the mission of ARS is not only to serve prominent artists or their estates but also artists at all stages of their careers. “A large number of our members would be…

“In this sweeping landscape, Charles-François Daubigny (French, 1817–78) places the viewer in the middle of the river itself; the placid water spreads nearly from edge to edge of the canvas. This panoramic view is typical of the work that earned the artist much acclaim and wealth. Daubigny achieved this immersive composition through his inventive use of a boat repurposed as a floating studio—a practice later taken up by Claude Monet. The delicate shimmer of light upon the river quietly reflects the surrounding riverbanks and clouds above, connecting water, earth and sky to poetic effect.”JULIA WELCH Assistant Curator, Art of Europe Museum of Fine Arts, Boston…

This kit includes everything needed to start oil painting—two kraft sketchbooks, a white-paper sketchbook for value sketches, Rosemary & Co paintbrushes, Copic gray markers, a Guerrilla Painter composition finder, pencils, a palette knife, small tubes of oil paint, a small retrofitted paint palette (madebymish.bigcartel.com), Gamblin solvent-free gel (to help the oil paint to flow), a jar of turpentine, paper towels, a date stamp and an ink pad. This gear easily fits in a small backpack. or both? What do I want to paint? What media do I want to use? Where will I paint? How will I dedicate time to paint? 4. Make detailed plans and set short-and long-term goals. 5. Be realistic and give yourself some grace. Your favorite artist didn’t paint that landscape in a day. It took…

To make a mark on paper is such a primary act, and yet a mark can say so much. Do the dots and dashes, squiggles and smudges in your sketchbook carry intent and energy? Do they convey a mood or a feeling? Here are five inspiring ways to think afresh about line. WALK YOUR LINE ACROSS YOUR PAGE Choose a simple drawing tool. Start anywhere, and walk around the contours of your scene with your eyes, letting your hand record that path on paper as you do. Celebrate every twist and turn, every bump and imperfection you come across. Notice the nature of your line. If it had been a walk, were you running or strolling? Did you skip and jump along a path or saunter slowly around your page?…

No. 1 Tip You’re in charge—NOT the reference photo. Interpretation, not copying, is key, and there’s no single “correct” way to present visual information. Be Choosy Not every photo is a good art reference. Look for well-defined big shapes, clear value relationships and the right amount of detail. You can convert a color digital photo to black-and-white to see whether the value structure holds together and the image is clear. If so, that’s a source photo worth using. Refine and Merge Photos have fixed colors and compositions—but you can change them in your art. Crop, leave out or enhance elements. You can even merge two or more photos into a single composition. Color Correction Be aware! Photos often leach out vibrant color. Solutions: ● Work from a black-and-white photo so…

Although I occasionally add Naples yellow light and cerulean, I complete most paintings using a limited palette of titanium white, cadmium yellow pale, alizarin crimson, ultramarine blue and viridian, laid out on my palette in that order. I use a pencil, smudge stick and sketchbook for preliminary thumbnails, which help me work out composition, value design and a painting’s general mood. I use odorless Gamsol mineral spirits to clean brushes between colors. My go-to brushes are natural bristle brushes; my favorite is a filbert.…

The subjects of Smallwood’s portraits and figurative works tend to be people of color, but not exclusively so. In fact, about one-third of Smallwood’s work consists of portraits commissioned by both individuals and corporations—and the subjects present a full range of skin tones. The artists says that a lot of his students ask him about the different colors he uses to paint various skin tones. “I tell them that they’re the same colors,” says the artist. “It’s just the intensity of pigment. I use the very same skin palette for white folks as I do for Black folks.”…

As a drawing major in college, I loved the expressiveness of pencil. I found a way to unleash my drawing skills again by working on birch panels. These pieces have morphed over the past few years. Originally I was doing a lot of drawing and let the pencil line play the main role of the piece, but as time moves forward, I find myself adding more color, texture and wood stain and acrylic washes to allow each piece to reach its full potential.…

Chicago TOULOUSELAUTREC AND THE CELEBRITY CULTURE OF PARIS THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO THROUGH JUNE 28, 2021 ARTIC.EDU In late 19th-century Paris, the outlying neighborhood of Montmartre—known for it’s caberets and dance halls—exploded with flamboyant nightlife. Among the artists, performers and entrepreneurs who called this bohemian community home was painter and printmaker Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864–1901), who made a career depicting its most colorful personalities, using the relatively new advertising medium of large-scale posters. The Art Institute of Chicago’s exhibition of Lautrec’s works focuses on the role of the artist’s posters in promoting many of the quarter’s most familiar figures, such as performer Jane Avril. Through cutting-edge experiments in lithography, Lautrec emphasized the distinctive traits of his subjects in order to distinguish them from their competition. By using a medium…

5 Summer Favorites for Artists to Explore Bask in a summer’s worth of creativity. These seasonal art-starts sizzle with inspiration. artistsnetwork.com/go/summerfaves Step-by-Step to Radio City Follow featured artist Borbay (page 50) in his painting demonstration of a dramatic view of a New York City landmark. artistsnetwork.com/go/radiocity Make Your Art Sing Learn how to manipulate your colors, shapes and forms for a harmonious painting. artistsnetwork.com/go/harmony…