Portrait Boot Camp - with Rob Howard

Click Title to View Slide Show




Haverhill, Massachusetts - June 6-10, 2008

Rob agrees with the philosophy of the military: recruits learn best under intense pressure. I attended the third art boot camp and once again came away a much improved artist. This was art school on steroids along the Merrimac (River).

What I had to do was swallow my ego and face my fears of failure....accept the pressure of painting about six and half hours for four straight days as fast as I could. It was going to be good for me and I was going to learn a lot and I did.

This was a very special camp. George, Susan, and I had Rob to ourselves for four straight days. (Frankly I was shocked that the camp wasn't packed out....and also thankful Rob decided to put it on anyway. How fortunate for us. Later Rob said that he didn't usually teach such a small class but wanted to try out some new ideas on us.)

Over the next four days, we all worked so hard that we literally broke out in a sweat at the easel. Everyday we made plans to go out to dinner together after camp only to cancel due to exhaustion but we did get to know each other over our lunches.

We were to experience a different challenge just about every four hours over the next four days.
Day one went fairly well for me. I was painting fast for me and encouraged. Once again, Rob showed us what great colors we can get with simple palettes.

We all know what a master Rob is at the easel but there is something about seeing him in action before your own eyes that brings a new appreciation for what he can do.

The first day we learned about lighting, the importance of a plumb bob, the importance of representing the range of values, the importance of edges, the "bump" and anatomy of shade and light. A draped mannequin was to be painted with the view of glazing her on day 3. The afternoon we moved to the next mannequin to study further the effects of light and more study of the anatomy of shadow and highlight and mass tones.

This was my attempt. Note how far to the left I placed the head on the canvas a mistake. Need lots more thinking before I start. Rob reminded me, "we are not making art we are studying." I felt better and kept going. Learned so much about lighting, shading.
All week, Rob set the standards high expecting our best effort, and gently he guided us individually with our unique needs.

Day two we were pressed under a deadline with a new setup that concentrated on drapery.
The day flew by with a second setup in the afternoon and more demos.

This is my attempt at drapery and glazing.

Day three we were glazing.... Rob demonstrated the proper way to apply a glazes to a grisaille (left & below) and a verdaccio (center) under-painting methods.














Then we moved on to the "beauty" ... a contemporary fashion model mannequin with a plaid hat. This time we were painting directly. Oh boy I will shine today...I can do that I thought.
Unfortunately, I made a huge mistake on my palette ... mixing the wrong white (titanium) into the mass tone and watched my skin tones die before me turning into a chalky dead mess...(oh no!!! I know better than that. What was I thinking?) Then I couldn't get the drawing right ... it was so far off I just cringed and no time to correct it. She looked deformed. UGH!! I felt totally the fool thinking "why did I think I could draw anything?"

Seeing our discouragement, Rob ... (with that impish grin said) ... "so you hit the wall did you?" And everyone agreed; it was a brick wall....an ugly end of the day for me.

Rob began blocking in the little "beauty" in pastel. He worked very quickly blocking in the shapes with fast broad strokes, then slowing, corrected the drawing, and before long had the thing knocked out.

Oh. He was teaching us something very important namely ... to start off loose and slowly tighten as you go to the finish. We had all been tight from the beginning....

Day 3 was over thankfully.
Walking back to our cars Susan, George, and I all were realizing that tomorrow was live model day ... ... well no guts no glory ... nothing to lose. Yet we all had come to the conclusion that lessons learned on that day would never be forgotten.

Day 4 ....we began the day minus our egos and performance anxiety since that was dealt with the previous day all residing at the bottom of Rob's two trash cans. I remember standing in front of that easel ... thinking about Rob's demo at the end of the day ... start loose ... and I started....verrrry loose.

Live Model Setup ... the final day. It was going well much better than the day before. I blocked in the whole canvas and drew the model fairly accurately..
I was moving forward making little corrections and looking for big shapes...

What I had been learning was clicking and the fear was gone. As Rob promised, any fear I had of painting a live model was completely gone.

In fact, it felt easier.

I know this is not a great portrait; that wasn't the point. What is impressive that this is just four hours of work. This was I there to learn. I know now, that I can take this now and finish it and when it is finished it will represent the model quite well. THAT is the point.

It was on that day that Rob came up to my painting and took my brush and applied the ever so slightly warmed tone to the "bump" to the cheek and then the very palest of pinks for the highlight and stroked it perfectly. He took that brush and confidently placed it, then deftly swept it to a feathered end in one long artful swoop.

Wow. I truly understood. That is what I need to learn to do and I know I can do it. Camp was over. We all put down our brushes, cleaned up, packed up, and went over to one of Haverhill's great pubs for lunch and enjoyed a relaxed time chatting with Rob and the model ... and saying our farewells.

I came away from camp grateful and a little sad.

Like the oileo verdi basking in the sun (left) sometimes ya need a little heat from the sun to clear up the cloudiness. That is what the camps have done for me.

This was my third boot camp and Lord willing I will be going to the Landscape Camp this fall. With each camp my skills are growing.

This is a year that I shall never ever forget ... and I know George, Susan joins me in thanking Rob from the bottom of our hearts. I hope more advanced camps will develop...if so I'll be there.

Bluejay On Ground

This is not officially finished but I am pleased with how I am painting. I'm not please with the photo. The brush strokes are very soft and subtle on the original but not on this jpg but it's the best I can do. The bird is done with very few strokes and it says just what I want it to. I haven't decided if and what I will do next but I will not touch the bird.

All that I have learned from Cennini Forum and Boot Camps are beginning to pay off. I am encouraged.

Preparing for Protrait Boot Camp

This is a Work In Progress (WIP)... a Graiselle underpainting technique where the painting is done in monochrome gray. Once it is finished and dry, glazes will be added to color it. This is the first task we will be required to do at the upcoming Portrait Boot Camp (Haverhill Ma - June 6) and I want to be able to finish it. This is a bust of Michanelo's David (plaster casts are used at camp for this) .... I wanted to see how long it would take me. Hopefully I will be able to paint faster as a result and complete the assignment.

I will post updates in the progress.

Painting Mediums - Fantastic Stuff!

Studio Products has three great painting mediums that I am loving. The catalog copy says:

Contains 50ml each of our fast drying Underpainting Medium (Base #9), our pre-mixed Maroger's Medium (pronounced Mair•ro•jay), a smooth gel for all-around painting, and our unique Glazing Medium. These three mediums will clear the confusion about painting mediums by providing a specifically formulated medium for each step of the painting.

Where can you buy it? Only on line.
https://store.studioproducts.com/3-Part-Painting-Mediums-Kit-p-16157.html

For the past few weeks I've been working with all three mediums and now I wonder how on earth I could ever paint without them. There are other mediums I want to try out but they are for specific effects.

The Raphael Painting Medium is another essential medium for working in details and is making my brush work sing.

I LOVE STUDIO PRODUCTS!

Iris Against Wall

Watercolor pencils 11x16 Strathmore Cold Press 400 Series Heavy Weight

Watercolor pencils are rather difficult to control when it comes to the chroma (the green leaves). I tried to add some red and gray over the green to tone it down but it is still too intense and I fear going further would deaden it.

Still, for some reason I like this one though it is not technically where I would like to be on it. The reddish purple is not reading in the photo but it is a subtle color that I really like on the iris.

I'd like to do this in oils.


This is same paper and water color pencils.

"Sitting on couch: Whats Before Me"
Not a great piece ... the chroma is still not right but that is water color pencils for ya. Good practice however. Piano, egg collection, antiques, kids, art books, crystal, art, plastic bag wadded up, coffee, wine, and doing art sitting on my arse -- my life.

Be "Expelled" today...

http://www.expelledthemovie.com/home.php

I just saw Ben Stein's "Expelled" documentary that reveals how political correctness is building a wall of silence around the whole academic community. Academic freedom even free speech is being suppressed through intimidation, loss of tenure, and black balling professors and researchers at the mention of ID who simply want the freedom to research findings that seem to be taking scientific knowledge in a new direction. The argument is "we don't have time for this." Apparently a whole lot of professionals are willing to risk their careers and seem to desire to spend time studing this concept.

This is equivalent to banning and burning books in America.

No matter which side of the argument regarding Darwin's origins and intelligent design you are on, I urge everyone to see the documentary. I hope you will ask the same simple questions Ben has asked in his movie and judge for yourself.

If people insist on the argument that "intelligent design" is only a nonsensical religious or philosophical argument rather then a legitimate scientific subject of research, then I say these people have not read what some pretty brilliant molecular scientists have found through the eyepiece of their microscopes nor have they been made aware of what some outstanding astrologers have discovered as they look into the universe eyeballing areas never seen before using the Hubble telescope and the astonishing information that has been uncovered about our very unique planet and the universe.

That should make you curious shouldn't it?

This research convinced a very smart Jew - Ben - to risk his career and reputation to go against the tide. It is in fact, the findings coming from new research that is being suppressed because "these findings are inconvenient information" that may point science away from Darwin's theory of origin. It is casting a new light to bear on the conventional wisdom that has been embraced setting aside Darwin's chaotic theory of life's origins and replacing them with the idea that it is impossible for this high form of design to have evolved into such ir-reducible complexity of design. (This is about origins and not evolution ... changes in species.)

The odds are three trillion to one that a single cell could have been put together any more than all the parts of an automobile could also have organized itself and put itself together correctly in order. It is simply not possible.

Now. Shall we figure out the designs?

As Stein shows in his documentary, scientists cannot talk about their findings without fear of being censured and losing financial support. In the film, Stein presents just one little bit of the research and if that doesn't "wow" the viewer, I would wonder if any gray matter were up there.

Why not just look at the findings?

No one can deny that this is a controversial debate and has a religious component to it but should that stop the investigation? However, let the evidence take science where it leads?

Scientists can't bring themselves label their findings as "the discovery of an intelligent design." Apparently it is too politically incorrect to say call it "the discovery of an intelligent designer?" They won't call it "the handy work of God" because they simply don't know what they have found yet.

Refusing to even entertain that evidence is simply many smart minds with doctorates that have become sealed with intellectual glue.

Suppression of new ideas is nothing new?

When Charles Darwin's hypothesis led away from "conventional thinking" of the day regarding life's origin, a great effort was made to suppress his ideas when religious people of faith aghast at Darwin's ideas attempted to quash these ideas and ban them from the schools. The academics types however, were gleeful and hoped for secularizing both science, education, and government had finally a catalysist. Should it not then be surprising that the same thing might happen in reverse when today's scientific community's "conventional wisdom" is a bit challenged. Now it is people of faith who are gleeful while the scientific community are aghast and trying to quash these ideas?

What are they afraid of?

Ben Stein's "Expelled" is trying to drill a small hole in that very solid academic wall of suppression and intimidation. All he wants is academic freedom to allow the research to go forward freely where ever it takes these scientists.

I'm not a smart person but even I can see and understand this science. With this revelation, isn't the whole world being called into accountability.

How wonderful of the Lord to do that!

It's that pesky DNA and all those 150 different proteins ... those essential tiny entities necessary for building a single living organism ... that's got smart men rethinking Darwin's theories of origins, and it's not creationism or religious fanatics pushing the debate now. These are extraordinary extremely brilliant scientists with credentials out the wazoo.

The evidence is this: it takes over 250 different kinds of proteins, all cooperating together ... doing their unique tasks precisely at the right time in a perfect order to create one cell. Now ponder that. Over 250 separate proteins must line up perfectly in a certain order ... all 250 of those little critters ... did you get that? They must assemble themselves very much like one would assemble a car on an assembly line ... just as an engineer would have designed an automobile and made specific plans to put together.

For that to happen to create just one cell by accident is 2 trillion to one odds. Okay if you did make one, how would you make another? Hum....

One molecular scientist made this statement,"we need the engineering department to help us understand cell structure. The thing looks like a combustion engine."

Logically, a cell is clearly built by a design that has to have had a plan ... and the most intelligent conclusion is that the origin of life could not have occurred by accident. There goes the Darwin's Origins theory of a self evolving living cell. (We are speaking of origin not evolution.)

Instead of less debate there should be more... lots more questions and research. So why not look for more logical intelligent design in research? No. We're going to deny that idea? How absurd.

Scientists are not saying "God's is the designer" ...they can't do that. Therefore, they are saying ... let's leave the god thing open and just call it intelligent designing. The debate is coming from the obvious evidence of intelligent design present in both the biological sciences and the planetary sciences.

Truth shall eventually prevail. Religious people and academics can't stop it. This debate continues to refuse to go away because molecular scientists around the globe are not going to shut up. These scientists cannot deny what they recognize under their microscopes for they are seeing "complex designed structures" in the simplest forms of life. They can no more be quiet about this than could Christopher Columbus.

Please go see this film. It makes a compelling point and it shows all sides of the argument and then you can decide if we need to burn books and destroy a lot of very brilliant careers in science.

If you want to actually see the research, I will direct you to two DVD's and I guarantee you will never ever believe in Darwin's theories of origin again. I will never accept that science because the evidence is so clear.

I challenge you to read this article from a Japanese researcher (hardly a Christian influence there); here is a one paragraph from this article:
"Prof. Namba first saw an electron micrograph of the bacterial flagellum and its motor when he was a graduate student.

He was surprised to see such complex and sophisticated structure exist in living organisms. It impressed him deep enough to switch his research from muscle to flagella after a while.

“Looking at the shape of the flagellar basal body, it is obviously designed to rotate. Looking at a picture of the flagellar motor on the wall every day, I feel up towards revealing the mystery by any means.” The design concepts of protein molecules to realize various functional mechanisms by their three-dimensional architecture are quite different from those we design by our engineering technique with bulk materials.

Folding of single polymer chain into some three-dimensional structures gives a huge amount of freedom and flexibility in both function and structure. Individual atoms are used as functional parts, and this is the essential feature that makes biological macromolecules distinct from artificial machines at present. The design concepts have to be well understood and learned for future nanotechnology applications.

So far, for the flagellar motor, the deeper our insights get into the mechanism, the deeper the mystery becomes. Now the mystery of conformational switching of the filament has been solved, and in terms of the number of protein molecules, the filament makes up 99% of the entire flagellum, it does not mean 99% of the mystery is solved. It is the motor mechanism that is even more difficult to understand."


http://www.nanonet.go.jp/english/mailmag/2004/011a.html

Or google: flagellum

Merlin Revisited

Oh I hate this assignment BECAUSE I am so totally inept. It just reminds me of how average I am and I don't like being reminded of that fact.

This is first of all, a "little boys" assignment. I hate dragons that are right there with snakes .... and everything I do looks like a stupid cartoon. Ugh.

Line Drawing of Times Square

While in New York, I drew this from my hotel window. Times Square NYC. Felt tip pen, 9x12 sketchbook 400 series Strathmore.

Machine Made versus Hand Made

This is a close-up detail of an appliqued coverlet commissioned in 1937 ... to be made as a matching pair of twin bed appliqued coverlets which is quite an ambitious project that takes months to complete. These are heirloom quality by today's standards because they have handmade 12-to-the-inch stitches and the precision of the parallel quilting is wonderful and difficult. They have intrinsically value, at least to me. No one does this any more by hand that I know of.

A seamstress today could recreate this same art work with a machine and it would be made with even smaller stitches with more perfection, and completed in a fraction of the time with relatively little skill requirement on the part of the seamstress but would it have the same intrinsic value as these handmade ones?

I rather doubt it. Why is that, if the machine made ones are more perfect with even smaller stitches?

It must be the human factor of imperfection.

The best digital images ... no matter how spectacular ... just do not move me as a handmade one does. They are just too perfect. I have the same reaction to retouched photos of famous people or models on magazine covers. It is all so phony and plastic.

Honestly, I would not buy a digital image, frame it, and hang it in my home. I'm not being a snob. It just doesn't say "human workmanship" to me and so it has less intrinsic value. I would value an oil portrait over a photo portrait. Why is that? The photo has to be more accurate.

I've thought about this a lot lately and wondered if I am just resisting change. I don't think so. The too perfect images feel inhuman.

When I have had to create digital images in the past it seemed always a fight to make the image the way I wanted, and there is always the temptation to do things the way the computer wants to do it. Usually it seems that the computer wins because it's tools always render more perfectly than I and that is not satisfying to me as an artist.

To be sure there is a market for digital art, and it will probably grow but it is not for me.

I say, why not just pick up a brush and paint the image? My image will represent the time I have invested to develop my skills, and my imperfections in the painting will be identifiable that it was indeed handmade.

Current Art Work - In Progress

WIP 8x10 oil sketch on canvas board. I hope to do this for mself on on large canvas as soon as I work all the kinks out.  

The picture (face soon to be added when it is dryer) is of son, Darren when he was a little kid and the silver baby cup a family heirloom (Poppie's), and the teddy bear is just there to introduce the magic of "make-believe" associated with childhood; the red background is there to give the feeling of childhood should be like ... full of energy and joy.  I think Darren's childhood was like that.

Here is aWC pencil sketch of Darren, now a fully grown man from a snap shot.  Watercolor pencil 5x8 Heavy WC paper.

Brenden from photo. Watercolor pencil 5x8.


Still working on eggs .... the setup needs something I think.  I wanted to project the simplicity and perfection of form; how something so small and insignificant could bring such great culinary delights to the planet; how it is so strong as a binder for "egg tempera" (it makes a paint film that is strong as iron) and an essential ingredient in many art masterpieces that the world cherishes; how it is used in the drug industry to make life saving antibiotics; how it can produce the little chick who feeds literally the whole world. Something to think about.   I need to find a way to create a visual image...  "In Praise of the Egg."