New work, step by step paintings, and painting how to tips from my teaching experience

When I work on a painting, I step back frequently to see how things are progressing. I can't make good judgments and decisions about what the painting needs if I am always right on top of it at the easel. It's so important to step back and assess, thereby avoiding unwanted problems that are difficult to resolve.

 

As the painting nears completion, the time spent observing and looking increases. I might make a mark or two and then step back, make another mark and then step back again. In the early stages, it's easy to correct any missteps, but closer to completion, it is important to make marks that have definite purpose and are needed for the painting. Without stepping back, it's easy to be mindlessly making marks that are superfluous or that head in the wrong direction.

 

When I am not sure if the painting needs more work, or if I know it needs more work but don't know what the resolution is, the painting is in what I call the "look at" stage." At this stage, I spend a lot of time just loooking at my painting without pastel or paintbrush in hand. I look and think, look and ponder, and look some more. This may take days with off and on looking. Sometimes, this stage has lasted a few months. I won't go back to work on the painting unless I am certain I know what I want to do. Occasionally, I will find there is nothing more to be done, but invariably, there is a little finessing here, a little finessing there that is needed.

 

Shadows on the Road, a 30 x 30 oil painting has gone through many stages. In the iPhone photo above, it is in the look at stage and not yet finished. Here are some earlier stages, all captured with my iPhone:

 

One of the early stages. You can still see parts of my underpainting.

 

This photo is about mid-way through the painting. I decided the diagonal line of the green trees on the left was too severe.

 

Here is the same scene from a different photograph, painted over a year ago as a 9 x 12" oil. I've also done two 6 x 6" pastel versions before exploring the image further in the current 30 x 30" oil.

A comment on my last blog, Working Through Personal Challenges, provoked my thinking about artists' work rhythms. The commenter said something about giving ourselves permission to rest.

 

This idea of allowing ourselves permission to rest morphed into my thinking about all those words I've read and discussions I've heard about artists needing to work everyday. I've learned first hand this does not work for me, but I often felt guilty about it. You know, those awful "should" thoughts. As in "I should be painting" or "I should paint and work through this fatigue instead of taking a nap." I thought I had overcome those negative thoughts, but now and then, they have a way of cropping up again.

 

There are two sides to the debate, I suppose. Those who believe artists need to work regardless of being inspired or not and those who think artists have personal rhythms that need to be honored. Of course, there is something to be said about discipline and practice, but I think that is different than honoring your own ingrained rhythm.

 

I've often wondered if the artists who say they paint every day actually are at the easel painting every day or if some of their studio time is working on bookkeeping or framing but they lump it with painting. For me, I have them separate in my mind and usually do them on separate days from painting days and don't include them in "painting work."

 

The oil painting I have been currently doing after a forced hiatus feels like it is going well. Maybe this rest has been good for my creative energy. I do know giving myself permission to rest and not feeling guilty about not working every day make a difference in my mental outlook. And I do know not painting at the easel every day works best with my personal creative rhythm, whether or not that's what I think my creative rhythm should be. I continue to work on minimizing those voices in my head that say "you should be painting every day."

 

A Soft Light, 20 x 16 oil, is currently in the "look at" stage. It might be finished, but the more I look at it, I am not sure. This photo is a snapshot taken with my iphone and it doesn't show the subtle variations of the foreground grasses. I'll post a better quality photo when I am sure the painting is finished.

I've thought about writing this blog post for quite a while. Initially, I was hesitant to talk about this topic, but decided it may be helpful to those going through similar situations. For the last six months, I have not been able to work in my studio as often as I have wanted. I haven't been out plein air painting since early October when I was at the Plein Air Moab event. I canceled teaching my winter 8 week classes. I haven't been blogging as much as I had intended.

 

But an artist's block is not what has prevented me from working. Instead, I have been dealing with chronic back pain. It's been going on for almost a year, but until 6 months ago, it was not preventing me from working and interfered only sometimes. I was able to participate in Plein Air Moab in Utah in early October and had a wonderful productive time. (and my first painting of that trip won a special recognition award for pastel in the competition) After the competition was over, I went for a hike in Arches National Monument. I thought I was being careful, but my back problems became worse on that hike.

 

I used to look at the goals I was not meeting and what I was not doing regarding my artwork. This perspective caused a lot of beating up on myself. Not a good thing! Thankfully, over time, I've learned to recognize and celebrate what I do accomplish and minimize the importance of not getting some things done. To reinforce this change of perspective, I've found meditation, affirmations, and talking to encouraging friends has helped.

 

While I have not painted or blogged as much as I would prefer, I was able to work sometimes. When I look at what I have done, I am proud and pleased. It feels so much better to focus on the positive. When dealing with adversity, we do what we can. Some days for me may not include art and may be resting instead. Taking care of oneself is just as important as work. On better days, I am thankful for feeling better and do what I can.

 

I currently have seven oil paintings on view at New Mexico Cancer Center's Gallery with a Cause. It's a fund raising art show with some of the proceeds from painting sales going to help families in need while a family member undergoes cancer treatment. This is the first time I have shown a group of my oil paintings. I have to admit, I thought they looked very good hanging together in the show. Since most of them were painted after my back pain became worse, seeing them on display helped me recognize that I did get more work done than I had realized. I wish I had thought to take a photo of my wall of paintings when I was at the opening reception. You can see my work in the show by clicking on the Gallery link at www.nmcancercenterfoundation.org  

 

Here are three of my favorites of my seven oil paintings on view at NMCC:

 

                                        

Taos Evening Light  20 x 20"  oil  $1500

 

San Lorenzo Arroyo  20 x 20"  oil  $1500

 

Arroyo  36 x 36"  oil  $3000

 

I am very thankful I am now improving with physical therapy, acupuncture and chiropractic help. Good plein air weather is arriving in New Mexico and I want to be able to take advantage of it. Plus, I have lots of ideas percolating for new oils and new pastel paintings. Things are looking up and that is what I want to focus on. Yay!!

 

The painting at the top of this post is in its "look at" stage. It may be finished or I may decide it needs a little finessing here and there. Arroyo Light is a 20 x 20" oil and was painted this month. My easel now has another oil on it that is nearly in the look at stage.

I was recently asked to be part of a three person demo for a Pastel Society of New Mexico. The program coordinator wanted three signature members to participate by using one reference photo that we would each interpret in our own way. The other artists were Jeff Potter and Katherine Irish Henry. We three have very different styles and visions for the landscape.

 

We chose a photo I had taken when on a painting trip to Taos last spring. Here's our reference photo:

 

 

I chose a square format for my painting and used  a 12 x 12" 400 grit UART sanded paper which I mounted onto museum board using Grafix Double Tack.  I was attracted to the light patterns as well as the diagonal lines in the mountains and the horizontals on the road. I thought the road going back in space connected the two areas of interest.

 

The painting set up I used on stage is the one I use while plein air painting. (Heilman pastel box with its easel and a tripod.) Since we only had an hour to work on our paintings, none of us were able to totally complete our paintings but we all felt we had good starts. After the demo, I worked on my painting at home to bring it to a more completed stage.

 

                        

My painting set up                                  Working on the first layer of pastel on the underpainting

 

              

The three of us at the end of the demo                          My painting at the end of the demo time

 

My demo painting in the look at stage in my studio

 

When my paintings might be finished, I tack them to my studio wall and spend time looking and thinking so I call this "the look at" stage. The paintings might be finished at this stage, but invariably, I will see something that I want to finesse even more. I'm still looking at this one, but I've chosen a title for it: Day's End, Mountain Light.

 

 

Unlike oil painters who can mix the colors and values they need from a limited number of oil tubes, pastelists need to have each color and value available in the pastel sticks. I've accumulated quite a collection of pastels. The boxes of pastel colors look so gorgeous and I love seeing the vivid hues, the soft values, and the intense darks. I have more pastels than I really use, so you would think I don't need to buy more. I don't NEED to, but sometimes they are so irresistible that I do buy more pastels. Sometimes, I am so attracted to a particular color that I buy the pastel stick, only to find I already have that color because my attraction to the color was so strong the last time I was at the art store. Will I ever think I have enough pastels and not buy more? 

 

A photo of my main studio box is above and below is a photo of the extra pastel sticks I use on a side table. There was once a good organization to the main box. I have the sticks arranged by color and value. I'm not always careful to put pastels back in their proper place. The extra pastels that were bought as open stock have never been organized because I enjoy how the various colors and values of pastels look in their boxes.

 

Readers who use pastels will recognize the Terry Ludwig Pastels. Besides having Terry Ludwig pastels, my main studio box also has a good assortment of Unison, Schminke, Sennelier, Mount Vision, Girault, and Diane Townsend pastels. My main box is a medium size wooden Heilman box. I use a Heilman backpack size filled with more pastels for plein air painting.

 

Every now and then, I reread books that have had an impact on me. Finding Water by Julia Cameron is one of them. There are many ideas and suggestions in the book that I had put into my routine and then over time started to neglect. I had never read The Artist's Way, her earlier book that speaks about writing morning pages. Finding Water reviews this concept in enough detail so not reading the earlier book was not a hindrance.

 

While I like many of the suggestions Cameron offers, writing morning pages is one I have a great deal of difficulty with. I kept a journal for many years, but now I dislike that sort of writing and have a great deal of resistance towards it. Maybe it is because my thoughts and my hand work at very different speeds. My mind races ahead and in an effort to keep up, my handwriting becomes henscratching that even I can not read.

 

Writing morning pages seems to call for a ritual of consistency and a routine in the morning. I don't have a morning routine. Some mornings, I check email first thing as I have breakfast. Some mornings I don't wake up quickly, so I stay in bed and day dream or meditate or even watch the morning TV news shows. Some days, I get up and exercise right away. I've often wondered if I should impose a routine onto my morning, but I had a routine for so many years in my career as a teacher that I think I still have resistance to the idea of one now.

 

During my first time reading Finding Water, I tried to do morning pages and I did write regularly for several weeks. It always felt like an unpleasant chore. Then writing became sporadic for a while, and after a while, I stopped. I just really don't like writing in the morning even though I know many artists find benefit in the practice.

 

Finding Water has many worthwhile suggestions. Having an artist date with yourself and making lists of beautiful things are two that I find particularly whorthwhile. The full title is Finding Water, The Art of Perseverence. I do recommend the book if you haven't read it.

 

Do any of you write morning pages? Do you enjoy it? I'd love to read any comments you may have regarding your experience with morning pages.

 

Ghost Ranch Cloudscape is a 9 x 12 pastel on 320 grit Uart paper. It was done en plein air on a September afternoon during a multi-day painting retreat I organized for 7 artists at Ghost Ranch. The painting will be on display at Framing Concepts in a group show of work from our Ghost Ranch stay from February 1 - 28, 2013. Framing Concepts is located at 5809 B Juan Tabo NE in Albuquerque.

I was introduced to the Word of the Year in Christine Kane's blogs. It's a word you pick to guide your actions through out the year. I've been choosing a word or words for each year for about 4 years. Last year my word was focus.

 

I think I did a great job using focus to guide my actions through out the year until October. Then I fell off the cliff of focus. Several things were left undone as I went through the busy-ness of daily life, forgetting about my plan to be focused. Oh, I have lots of excuses. I had several busy plein air trips, I had show deadlines, and more. I haven't written a blog post in over a month, my inventory database and inventory book (I like keeping both a database and a hard copy version) were only sporadically updated. I don't need to give you a list of all the things I left undone. Suffice it to say, I was not happy with the way things were going.

 

My goal-minding buddy introduced me to the book, The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks. In this, he talks about renewing and recommitting to your goals every day. I was going to use focus as my word for 2013 but after re-reading the chapter about recommitting, I decided my word for 2013 will be commitment. Focus will naturally come into play if I commit to my goals and intentions every day.

 

I have a lot of deadlines in the next two months. My intention is with commitment, I will do well meeting them without letting other things slide.

 

Trees on the Arroyo Bank, 8 x 6 pastel, above left, was started en plein air in May 2012. This image of it was photographed as it looked straight from the field. At that time, I hadn't determined if it is finished or not. My plan now is to do a larger version in oil

Most of my trips are plein air painting trips. I think of them as vacations, but some people would argue that a painting trip is not a true vacation because I am working at painting. This past June, I took a real vacation to Block Island, Rhode Island to visit family.

 

I didn't even bring my camera to take landscape photos to use as painting reference. This was going to be a real vacation without any art related work. For a week, I simply enjoyed visiting family, eating, relaxing, reading, and napping. I did end up borrowing my uncle's camera for a few photos because this was before I had my iPhone. Even though I thought I could get through the week without taking photos, I regretted my decision not to bring a camera.

 

My uncle's computer monitor screen saver has photos from their last southwestern visit when I took them to several of the landmarks in Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico. I saw this beautiful landscape in the background again and again as we chatted. Maybe it was seeing those images, or maybe it was a full week completely away from my own environment with no art related work that made me very itchy and eager to get back to painting when I returned home.

 

The first week back home, I painted four 12 x 16 pastels in one week's time. The first one, Echo's Last Light, felt like it flowed from my fingertips. I felt it was successful from the start and would be a good entry into juried shows. The first three paintings done that week were all accepted into the Pastel Society of New Mexico National Painting Exhibition, and Echo's Last Light won an award in that show. I entered Echo's Last Light into the International Association of Pastel Societies (IAPS) annual juried web show and it was accepted. I suspect these are not easy shows to get into since a large number of artists enter them, so I am deeply honored to have been included.

 

I've concluded that real vacations are very important for creativity. They allow time for unloading stress that accumulates within us and for an incubation of ideas for more paintings. I should take a real vacation (as opposed to a painting trip/vacation) at least once a year, or maybe more.

 

Arroyo and Chamisa, above left, is one of my three paintings accepted into the Pastel Society of New Mexico National Painting Exhibition. Below are Echo's Last Light, Afternoon Light on the River and Road in Springtime at Noon.

 

 

 

 

 

I don't normally give up on projects. Sometimes the decision is made by default because I simply abandon a project. This time, I made a conscious decision to give up on a project I have worked on for 7 years. I decided to no longer be a coordinator Open Space: A View with Room and Little Gems, two fund-raising shows to help support the Open Space Alliance of Albuquerque's protected Open Space lands.

 

In 2005, the seeds for this show were planted. My artist friend, Marilyn Drake, knew the manager of the visitor center and saw what a great opportunity the visitor center's gallery space would be for local plein air painters to show their artwork done on open space lands. After the idea of having a show for plein air artists came up a few times in my conversations with Marilyn, I said let's do it! Let's not have it be just an idea, but let's make it happen and coordinate the show. Open Space: A View with Room was the inaugural gallery show when the Open Space Visitor Center first opened.

 

Marilyn, Joshua Willis of Open Space, and I were the main coordinators and organizers of the exhibits. In the main gallery room, we organized an invitational show. Three years later, we added a juried Little Gems show in the lobby. All work celebrated the various protected open space lands owned by the City of Albuquerque.

 

It's a lot of work over several months to plan these shows and both Marilyn and I felt the pressure from other commitments was making it harder to work on the Open Space show each year. So, with mixed feelings of regret and relief, both Marilyn and I decided to pass this responsibility on to someone else for next year.

 

We are very fortunate to have these beautiful areas protected and open for hikers, mountain bikers, and artists to use for recreation and for plein air painting. I was happy to give my time and effort to work on a show that benefited both Open Space and the artists who use the land. I enjoy organizing shows and giving back to the community. But now, it feels more important to work on my own personal painting goals and relinquish this role of coordinator and organizer.

 

Here are some of the paintings I had on display in the 2012 shows:

 

   

Rio Grande Sandbar 6 x 6" Pastel        Oxbow, Cloudy Morning 6 x 8"

 

   

October's Colors 12 x 16" Pastel                           Autumn Wetlands 12 x 16" Pastel

All artwork © Lee McVey

I'm delighted I won an award at Plein Air Moab this past week in Moab, Utah. This is the first award I've won at a plein air event and I've only particpated in three, so it feels very good. Judges Lorenzo Chavez and Donna Poulton gave a talk about the award winning paintings. They were very informative and articulate about their choices.

 

I've heard judges make general comments at awards ceremonies, but this was the first time I had the pleasure of hearing comments regarding each of the top awards. I don't always agree with the choices judges make. Hearing them speak about what attracted them to paintings that I would have overlooked helped me understand their choices and see aspects of the paintings I hadn't originally noticed.

 

My award was a special recognition award and I didn't know exactly what that meant since honorable mentions were separate awards and were not talked about in the judges' comments. The judges gave me special recognition for outstanding work in the pastel medium. They both made positive comments about the handling of the pastel, the composition, and the values. I noticed they did not give this award in the watercolor category, just in pastel/dry media and in oil.

 

I'm honored to have won this award and it certainly makes a memorable plein air trip more memorable.

 

Below are photos of my painting in progress and of me while working.