Open Doors of DT Milford Open House Report

The Open Doors of Milford Open House on Friday night was a busy night for artists and shop owners. There were many people who came out to enjoy the perfect summer weather, packing the restaurants and bars, and taking in the tour of the doors. I had the perfect location, a very bustling corner with lots of traffic. I met some nice people, including artists, friends of the shop owner who came by to visit, and many area residents. My door got a lot of attention and admiration. The brownies went quickly, though I got no takers on my paintings. The shop owner, Martha Reed, was fun to work with. She did a lot of business that evening. We both encouraged people to fill out the application for People’s Choice for favorite door.

Now until the week of the auction, people can walk the tour on their own or take a guided tour on Saturdays up until Sept 11th. The doors will be inside the stores. After that, the doors will go to MFAC building. The doors will be auctioned on September 19th. It should be a lot of fun. I’m hoping for a big crowd.

Canvas Patch, where my door is located.

Open Doors of Downtown Milford Art Exhibit

This is the door that I will be entering in the Open Doors of Downtown Milford Art Exhibit. I started my design and study in May by doing small studies of places in Milford that I enjoy and find interesting. Once I decided on the scenes that I wanted to use for the door, I chose a base color for the door, painted it, and started drawing my scenes using charcoal directly on the door. I decided to combine two themes that are prevalent in Milford.

One is the river that flows through the city to the ocean, along which a pastoral pond and park have been the site for numerous visits by residents. For many years, wedding photos were taken at the falls with its gorgeous pastoral view, and parents and their children come by to feed the ducks and geese.

The other theme is the sea, with the Milford Marina filled with all types of boats, and the sailboats out in the open sea on the bottom panel, and the popular Silver Sands Beach with Charles Island in the distance on the top panel.

I attached sound cards on each side, with recordings of geese and ducks quacking for Tranquil Waters and ocean waves and seagulls singing for Sea Breezes.

Please come by and visit me on August 20th. I will be there with my door and some additional paintings of Milford for sale. The auction in September is an exciting event as well. There will be food and refreshments and a lively crowd.

The finished door.

The falls in progress and then finished.

Closeups of each panel.

My Portraits From Liberace Workshop

Here's three of the portraits that I did while in Brattleboro, during Robert Liberace's workshop. I feel like I did pretty well, considering that I have not done many portraits as of yet. I hope to do more, though. I bought his video and find it very helpful. I will refer to it over and over as I progress. His teaching is very precise and easy to follow.

Robert Liberace Workshop

The Robert Liberace workshop in Brattleboro, Vermont was great. Robert shared his brilliant skills as a portrait artist with about 18 students at High Street Painters Studio for five rather hot days in June. The studio was divided into two areas, with two striking models per day. Setup positions for the students were picked by lottery out of fairness to all, though there were very few bad positions to speak of. Robert gave demonstrations each morning, for about two hours.

He lectured and demonstrated, all the time waving his arms in enthusiastic gestures. The students sat their attention rapt in his words, and soaked up as much information as they could. When it was their turn to work, Robert would come around and give pointers, all the while giving positive reinforcement and encouragement. Time flew by as day after day, students labored over their work, until all five portraits gradually appeared.

Robert did these two.  I won the lottery for them, so I was able to purchase them. It will be great help when studying brushwork and value relationships.

Artist Workshop at North River Arts Society

I took at workshop with Stapleton Kearns in Marshfield Hills, Mass last weekend at the North River Arts Society. The area was an old New England town with original houses from the 17th and 18th centuries. It is very close to the ocean with lots of salt marshes and wonderful views of islands off of the mainland.

The first day, we headed to the beach just south of Scituate. It was a test of wills with the wind, and somehow I managed to keep my easel upright, though I did have problems with the painting from the start. I was amazed at the stability Stape's Gloucester easel  in the 59 mph wind. It didn't move at all. His setup looked stable and seemed light to carry. The Take-it-easel is a similar design.

The next day, we headed over to some salt marshes, as tried to quickly capture the view before the water drained down at low tide. The scenery was gorgeous, and you could see for miles across the water and marshes to an island in the distance.

Stape gave me some good pointers in design. He said to divide up the space into three spaces, Papa Bear, Moma Bear, and Baby Bear. Make one area the largest and most important, another secondary, and another, the smallest. Also, he warned against leading the eye off or too close to the edge. Think first of design, where the eye leads within the picture. He also tried over and over to get us to hold our brushes at the ends, with thumb pointed up for upward or side motions. For downward motions, hold at the end and pull down. But, pull and push the brush for light, easy strokes that don't destroy the work underneath.

For my sky, he had me take some very light peach and pull across in small patches to illuminate the sky and give it life. This is over the blue and white areas. In one painting in the beginning, he also took light peach and used it on the horizon line in a large swath, then mingled in blue and white at the top edges of this. He seems to have a lot of sky in his landscapes, but he never cuts the picture in half. To get the horizon line correct, he uses a stick or a brush to measure down from the top of the canvas.

I seem to make my distant land a bit too dark. Stape corrected this for me. I have to watch out for this. Also, put a line of lighter blue across the water near the horizon line to give the water some glimmer. Add darker tones for water ripples here and there, to counteract flatness.

The last day was spent at World's End, a nice island set in Nantasket. It was a wonderful day there, though the hike to the painting spot was hard work. I will definitely have to replace my glass palette with plexiglass or wood for large treks. We had a nice breeze off of the water that helped to displace the hot air.

The group was fun, and because it was small, we had great input from Stape and lots of attention. He liked to ask us what we learned, after each visit and day. It kept us thinking.

I think that the hardest thing when learning how to paint is to remember everything while you are out there. It has to become intuitive. I think that it takes years to develop this skill.

Tilcon Rock Crusher

Last year, I went on a tour of the Tilcon facility in Northford and got an eye opener view of what has been one of the town’s largest industries for many years. Tilcon Connecticut Inc. is a leading supplier of crushed stone, hot mix asphalt, and ready mix concrete in Connecticut.

Giant rock slicers pierce big slabs of rock in the nearby quarry. Using monster front loaders, workers load the rock into huge dump trucks. The dump trucks deposit their loads into the rock crushers at the top and collect it at the bottom. I have long wanted to paint this enormous rock crusher, one of two in this location. It is a huge iron green machine, able to crush very large blocks of rock into various sizes of stone, depending on the order. Workers are able to enter and climb the rock crusher through a system of doors and stairways.

I was unable to get access to paint en plein air, so I was restricted to photos that I took from the bus and from across the street. I made up a couple of drawings before I started to paint just to get a feeling for the composition. I tinted the background with a mix of thalo green, ultra marine blue, and transparent oxide brown. I began by blocking in shapes starting with the darks. The overcast sky and serenity of the scene belied the powerful force of the rock crushing jaws, and heightened the strength of the greens and shadows of the structure. The American flag, the only spot of bright color, is a tribute to patriotism probably put there just after 9/11.

Painting: Rock Crusher, 12x20, Oil on Canvas, $350.

Rembrandt Exhibit at Wadsworth Antheneum

I went to see the Rembrandt exhibit at least three times at the Wadsworth Antheneum in Hartford. It is small but really special. As you might expect, you get so much more out of viewing a painting in person as opposed to looking at books or other reproductions.  The brightness and livliness of the colors is incomparable. And, even more important, you get to see the brush strokes, which are quite deliberate and facinating. His self portraits are my favorites, the colors and design really stand out and demonstrate his brilliance. I bought the museum book on Rembrandt, which has wonderful photos of many of his works and details his life and experience as an artist.  The museum also played an old movie of Rembrandt, starring Charles Laughton. The film takes you to 1642 at the height of Rembrandt's career and follows his life until his last year. It was pretty old and quite amateurish by today's standards, but the details were not that far off from official accounts of his life. What an interesting man he must have been.

This exhibit is going on through January 24, 2010. If you have a chance, go and see it.