How about this for keeping your painting momentum and enthusiasm up during the bleak mid-winter?….

WINTER CRITIQUE GROUP
3 Wednesdays | December 14  |  January 18 | February 15

Anderson, Indiana
10 am – 1 pm

No painting supplies needed.
Bring 2-3 paintings to critique

Think of it as a mini painting workshop–

• Individualized instruction & feedback
• Master works decoded
• Key principles of visual communication which can be found in great paintings of every time period and style applied to your work
• Demos
• Power Point presentations

As always, my goal is not to teach you how to paint like me, but to help you paint like you with more expressive power.  You can bring whatever you are working on – abstract, realist, impressionist, watercolor, pastel or oil painting.

Throughout history, one of the secret weapons of top artists has always been community.  Here’s a chance to meet with like-minded people who are serious about growing artistically.

This is going to be FUN -  lots of laughter, camaraderie, and encouragement.  I will do all I can to make sure you leave inspired and equipped to take your work to the next level.

• $75 per session.  You can attend one, two, or all three.  Those who pay first have first dibs.
• $210 if you pay for all three in advance.

To register please use the contact page.  I’ll send payment info.

Looking forward to beating the winter blues together-

Cezanne

Degas

Diebenkorn

Rembrandt

Blue Pools, Yellowstone (28 x 40)

FALL MENTORING WORKSHOP with David Slonim

*** THERE ARE A FEW SPOTS LEFT.   IS ONE OF THEM YOURS? ***

Six Sessions, meeting every two weeks.  This allows time in between to practice the things we discuss.
Many students have found that this format helps them absorb and make use of more information.

First Merchant’s Bank Building

To reserve a spot please use the contact page.

Full payment secures your spot (first come, first served basis).  I will email my mailing address to you.

By the Pond (16 x 20)

The goal:  To inspire you with personalized coaching.  I want to help you create the best work you’ve ever done.

How? By applying time-tested principles of visual communication to your own work, your working process, and your mindset.
Time-tested what?? The masters of every time period and style used rock-solid principles.  Their work is structured.   The good news is we can learn the same principles.

You can paint abstract, impressionistic, or realist.  The principles apply to every type of visual communication.  Want to work in pastel or watercolor?  Fine!   This is not a technique course, so it applies to all mediums.

Ready to take your work to the next level?

Come ready to laugh, learn, and work hard in a fun, relaxed environment where risk- taking is encouraged and celebrated.   You can paint better than you think you can.
I promise to work my tail off to prove it to you.

I hope you can join us!

David

Composition in Green (worksop demo) 20 x 24

NOTE:   This workshop is designed as a follow up to “Oil Painting:  Principles of Visual Communication”.  If you have taken any workshop with me previously, you are welcome to sign up for this one.
If you have not, you are still welcome, but you need to understand up front that I won’t be able to go back and cover all the material as thoroughly as I do in the “Principles” class.   You WILL be exposed to review of the principles taught in the “Principles” workshop,  but with fewer extended power point lectures and excercises.  The ‘Principles” course  is intensive delivery of information, the “Mentoring” workshop is intensive studio application of those principles.

My goal is to present the material in the most beneficial way.  I’m not trying to leave anybody out, but if you sign up for this, you just need to know what to expect.

Yellowstone Remembered (60 x 48)

I will send out directions, parking info, and a supply list once you are registered.

Feel free to contact me with any questions using the contact page.

“If you aren’t solving a problem, you are not making ART.”

Golden Pools (12 x 9)

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Feedback from past students:

“The best workshop I’ve ever taken.”  – J.K.

“You are very encouraging.  I appreciate the tone you set and the atmosphere.”  -J.D.

The strength of the design and composition in these classes has not been equaled or even approached in other classes and workshops I’ve taken.”  – G.H.

“Strengths as a teacher:  intelligence, hard work, sense of humor, humility.  I told Bonnie on the last day of class that I feel very lucky to study with you.”  – L.W.

I can’t begin to tell you how helpful this class has been for me. – S.G.

Thanks for being such a generous and outstanding teacher. C. N.

Dude, you’re  seriously bending my mind – P.K.

Here’s something I try to ask myself as I create images:
Did I create a harmony of form that conveys one visual idea?

Picasso

What’s a harmony of form?
One of the key principles of design derived from nature is that FORM FOLLOWS FUNCTION.
The design of anything in nature is based on it’s purpose.  Good art is shaped by it’s purpose, or function.  FORM in painting means what the thing looks like.

To put it another way–
What you are trying to say determines how you will say it.

This is why a Picasso looks so different from a Rembrandt, and why both look different from a Van Gogh.  These artists were painting IDEAS, and developed visual forms to convey them.

Rembrandt 1660

Van Gogh

So the form (what the painting looks like) is determined by the BIG IDEA.

WHAT’S THE BIG IDEA?
On the visual level, this means having one dominant VISUAL IDEA.   Concept is another word for the same thing.
In visual terms, is the painting mainly about color, or spacial relationships, or value relationships, or line, etc?   Is it an exploration of volume vs flatness?  Filled space vs. empty space?

HARMONY of form means that everything holds together as a unified expression of ONE IDEA.  The elements of design are skillfully handled according to the principles of design to produce a unified statement.

Elements of design- point, line, shape, space, value, color, and texture
Principles of design- hierarchy (order), rhythm, balance, unity.

>  How do you arrive at a BIG IDEA?  or CONCEPT?

Sometimes you have the idea up front, but for me most often it is a process of discovery.
Time and energy invested in a sketchbook is never wasted.   Often it’s where the magic begins.
Painted value studies and color studies also pay back more than they cost.

THE HARDEST PART OF PAINTING IS FIGURING OUT WHAT IT IS YOU ARE TRYING TO SAY.

This is true for all the arts- writers, filmmakers, musical composers– anybody who is trying to create art to express ideas.

Beethoven would sometimes do 20 attempts for a musical phrase before settling on the best solution, (according to Leonard Bernstein in The Joy of Music.)
Andrew Wyeth would sometimes do 30-40 pencil studies and watercolor studies before beginning work on a finished tempera painting. (The Two Worlds of Andrew Wyeth by Thomas Hoving)
Edward Hopper would also do up to 40 pencil studies before putting brush to canvas.
Norman Rockwell did multiple pencil studies, and miniature color studies before beginning work on his large canvases.

Treasure is always buried.  Great artists are willing to dig.

>  Once you have your concept or controlling IDEA, everything must either serve it or get out of the way.
The meat cleaver must come out.   TRIM THE FAT.  Anything that doesn’t fit has to go.

You can buy a 9 x 12 painting panel from an art supply catalog for about $7.00.  Or you can make them yourself for about $  .50 each.   (Yep, 50 cents!)  Here’s how:

1)  Buy hardboard (masonite) at Lowe’s, Menard’s or any other lumber supply store.  A 4′ x 8′ sheet is about $7.00.  At Lowe’s they cut it down for me on the in-store saw at no charge.  I had one sheet cut into 10 x 12′s, the other into 9 x 12′s.

2)  lightly sand the panels, to help the gesso adhere better.

3)  Dilute 1 pint of professional grade acrylic gesso ($9.00) with water until it’s roughly the consistency of pea soup

4)  Using a paint roller ($3.00), roll the diluted gesso onto the panels.  I do 3 coats.

Expenses:

$ 7.00   4′ x 8′ masonite sheet, cut into smaller panels

$9.00 1 Pint of acrylic gesso (I get mine from Utrecht.com)

$3.00   disposable paint roller cover

$.99    disposable plastic paint roller tray liner

……………………………………………………

$20.00  Total cost

From one sheet of masonite, you can get 40 9 x 12′s at $ .50 each, or 36 10 x 12′s for $ .57 each.  (BTW- You can cut them to any size you want!)

Forty 9 x 12′s from the art supply catalog would cost $280.00 plus shipping instead of the $20.57 we spent.

Now the hard part -

what will you do with the $259.00 you just saved?

Here’s a demo portrait painted last Thursday for a workshop.   24 x 18 inches, oil on cheap stretched canvas.

Since I didn’t have a model stand, which would have put his eye level even with mine or slightly higher, I compensated by holding the camera low to get the angle I wanted, printed out the photos, then drew a quick charcoal study from them.  

The charcoal study is a crucial step. If the goal is to not merely “paint what you see,” but create a harmony on the canvas, it really helps to do a drawing first.  Right away you are already in the realm of a translation of the subject into line and mass, light and dark.    Hierarchy is established, along with the suggestion of transitions and linking positive and negative space.  It’s almost cheating!

Vine charcoal flows easily on tracing paper.     As always, examples of great paintings are pinned up where I can see them easily.   Sooner or later something good is bound to filter into my work from them!

vine charcoal on tracing paper (24 x 18)

The model is my friend Red, who has posed for me before.    Natural north light is the light source, bounced off a white board as a “fill” light on the shadow side of his face.  The overhead lights are turned off.  I did aim a halogen flood at the canvas set low on a dimmer switch  to add a hint of warmth, since the finished piece will be viewed under mixed lighting conditions.

Demo on easel (24 x 18)

The block-in is done mostly with a wadded piece of paper towel which makes it possible to

• paint thinly without using paint thinner
• block in large masses without getting hung up on “detail”   (It forces you to paint from the shoulder instead of the wrist)
• cover a lot of area very quickly

Don’t tell anyone, but the block-in of this painting was done without looking at the model.   It was painted from the charcoal drawing and from memory.  “Why”, you ask, “are you paying a model to sit there if you don’t have the sense to look at him?”

Robert Henri says in “The Art Spirit” that the ideal art school would have the model in one room and the easels in another.   Degas and Pissaro said that too much exposure to the model is detrimental.  Isaac Levitan pretty much came out and said that if you aren’t painting from memory, you aren’t really painting.   John F. Carlson said that all good work is done from memory.  (Don’t get mad at me, I’m just passing on what the big guns said).  So I’m trying to take their advice and grow by painting from memory.

The model is there as reference for color, form, mood, personality etc.   But the painting is based on how Red looked at one fleeting moment.  That’s where memory painting comes in.

My goal was to create form out of chunks of paint rather than rendering detail.

Etiquette for using a model:

1)  They are your guest of honor and should be treated like it

2)  Always pay the model, even if they put up a fight (Norman Rockwell taught me that in one of his books)

3)  Set a timer to give the model regular breaks.  (20 minutes works well with most models, with a 5 minute break).

If you are like me, painting people can be intimidating.  So, instead of painting people, I’ve made up my mind to paint colored shapes.  THAT I can paint.  I can’t paint hair, or a nose, or a shirt, but I can paint a colored shape.

To my fall 2010 Oil Painting Class, Anderson -

What to Paint??

Bring photo reference to paint from.  You can also bring field studies, drawings, plein air pieces, etc.,  which you would like to develop into studio pieces.  We may paint outside some, but mainly you should expect to paint indoors.  The reason for this is to maximize my ability to impart a significant amount of information as well as to spend a good amount of time with each student helping you work out the principles on your canvases.   This is not like those workshops we’ve all been to where you go off and paint alone and if you’re lucky the instructor comes around once or twice during the day, makes a suggestion or two and moves on.

I’m eager to TEACH you things that will fan your talent into a raging flame.

What makes this exciting for me is that I know the information I will be sharing with you is VALUABLE and will make a huge difference in your painting.

If you would like to paint a still life from life, bring objects.  There are folding tables (6 ft long) at the building.  If you would like a smaller table, you’ll need to bring it.   Bring any drapes, props, spot lights or anything else you typically use for your still life set ups.  It will be easy to unload and load your vehicle right at the door of the building.

I do not have any desire to teach you to paint like I do.  That’s another reason not to impose my choice of subject matter on you.  My goal is to help you learn sound, time-tested principles of visual communication used by all the masters in every style and time period, so that you will paint like you – with more expressive power.
My job is to work my tail off to help you become the best artist you are capable of being.  Your job is to work your tail off becoming the artist you want to become.  Together we’re going to have a blast.

See you October 7th!

We’ll be meeting in the pavilion at Mounds State Park.

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This workshop is sold out.  If you would like information on David’s upcoming workshops, please contact the studio at david@davidslonim.com.