Portrait Artist of the Year

A week or so ago while searching online I ran across an enjoyable art series that some readers of the blog might enjoy. The program is a competition called Portrait Artist of the Year, from the U.K. So far as I know it hasn't been broadcast here in the states, but has been available online. In any event, the program has been through at least six previous series which are viewable on YouTube and are well worth the time. 

The premise is a competition among painters to determine who can produce the best portrait from life in four hours while being watched and filmed. The format is rather like many talent reality shows on television. A group of artists are chosen from a pool of applicants online, based on a painted (or drawn) self-portrait. Each segment spotlights nine artists who are tasked with making a portrait of a celebrity. There is a panel of artist-judges who circulate during the filming, interviewing the artists and showing them working. When the time is up, the celebrity has an opportunity to see their portraits for the first time and choose one to take home. The judges line up all nine portraits, choose three finalists and then make a big reveal of the winner. Each week's winner is part of the finals; the eventual Portrait Artist of the Year wins a high-paying commission. An individual episode is about fifty minutes long.

For a painter, the program is an unusual chance to see a number of other artists at work through an entire painting. Here you have a chance to see how a particular painter starts a portrait and goes through whatever steps needed to complete it. Although they aren't emphasized, materials and medium are easy to discern. Most of the artists use oil paint but a few are acrylic or watercolor painters. Techniques are very interesting too--everything from brushwork to edge control to draftsmanship are on full display.  

A week or so ago while searching online I ran across an enjoyable art series that some readers of the blog might enjoy. The program is a competition called Portrait Artist of the Year, from the U.K. So far as I know it hasn't been broadcast here in the states, but has been available online. In any event, the program has been through at least six previous series which are viewable on YouTube and are well worth the time. 

Portrait Artist of the Year

 

A Summer Series

Although snow and winter have been on my mind lately, I've had memories of summer to melt their icy grip. One of the things that most visual artists have to do is document their work photographically and I'm no exception. The body of outdoor paintings since last spring isn't completely photographed yet, and summer paintings are a big part. The series began back in early spring, but much of it was in the summer months. Painting in series has interested me for years, mostly because of the example of Claude Monet. Anyone who has read this blog will probably remember media-specific watercolors series as well as seasonal series that have been posted earlier. 

Here are a handful of plein air oil paintings, all done at Gray's Lake, less than a mile away. The recurring subject in these four is a spot along the north shore of the lake (it's actually an old quarry) with a point of land jutting into the center of the body of water. These were all done on the spot on 9x12 panels.

Hoff, "July 2020"

July was the first time I painted the copse of trees along the point. At that time everything around the lake was green and lush, and unlike moving bodies of water the lake surface was mostly flat. This work was the result of nearly four hours spent on the shore during two sessions. The composition interested me because of how the tree trunks are silhouetted by the far reaches of the lake. 

Hoff, "August 2020"

From that first painting came a number of of others. This one was in August, but I shifted my attention to a footbridge across the lake, beyond the point. The lake is set in park land that has a number of amenities that include a circumferential  pedestrian/cycling path with a bridge along the south shore. At night there are colored lights that reflect beautifully. The bridge disappears into the trees beyond the point, so here my intent was to again show depth. There are eight or nine levels of depth, front to back, in this particular painting, so it felt like a success to me.

"Early September 2020"

In September, as summer began to wane, there were subtle changes in the foliage of the south side of the lake. The color change was quite subtle at first, a change from dark green to lighter yellow-greens along the tops of some of the trees. The undergrowth had a few touches of yellow, too. The scene is essentially the same view as in August, but modified to include a longer span of trees. The bridge shows up again; the distant building is probably a mile and a half in the distance. The lake was smooth and unruffled once again, and here I included a small stretch of the north shore beach.

"Late September, 2020"

The final painting in this summer sample of plein air work was finished near the end of September, probably ten days after the first September work. Showing essentially the same view, more tightly focused. The point still figures in the composition, mostly as a way to capture depth in the painting. There are eight levels of depth discernible here, including sky.

In November I'll mount a complete retrospective of this year's plein air work, as a virtual exhibition on my website.

 

 

Winter

It's only October but here in the upper Midwest we've already had a fairly significant snow. A few days back Des Moines received about two inches officially, although one of the northern suburbs got an eye-popping nine inches of new snow. Happily, it was very brief and the snow vanished very quickly. Nonetheless, the white stuff got me thinking about winter. 

A lot of artists have painted winter--snow can be a very challenging subject, and so can bare trees and ground. Most artists who have painted winter scenes probably did so in the warmth of the studio. That's not to say artists in the past didn't work outside even in the worst weather, but it seems unlikely that very many paintings were completed, bare canvas to signature, en plein air. One who did work in snow is Claude Monet, who worked the streets and countryside before 1870. One my favorites is "The Magpie," painted in 1868. In this fairly large work Monet has shown one of the ways to depict snow using value and color temperature. The magpie is perched on a wooden gate in a wattle fence topped with a thick snowfall. The sun washes the snow in the distance behind the magpie with a warm yellow-white light. The snow on the fence top is a value step darker and a cooler pale dull violet. Throughout the work the value range is kept fairly narrow and the snow layers and shape differentiated by color temperatures. For me, this is a brilliant work.

Claude Monet, "The Magpie," 1868

Hoff, "Winter Study," oil, 5x7 2018

Although I've yet to paint anything outdoors in winter, that's not to say I've ignored the season. Instead whatever winter subjects I've done are based on personal reference photos, observation and memory, and other sources. Once in a while, before I began plein air work I managed a quick sketch of a snowy view from the studio (right) where I experimented with the same idea as Mr. Monet.

Hoff, "Winter Walk," oil on canvas, 20x24

One winter cityscape from years ago remained in our home collection for quite a while and employed a similar stratagem in colors. The sky has begun to clear after a snowfall has covered the street and sidewalks at least several inches deep.

This year I may try to complete some winter paintings outdoors. At least that's my current plan, but with any luck at all, perhaps a few more sunny and warmer days will intervene.

Machines in Memories

Vintage automobiles from the early and middle of the last century have intrigued me since I was learning to drive them almost 60 years ago. If you've read this blog you've seen posts about my love for old cars. Although the mechanical side of things doesn't interest me much, the look and feel of those beautiful machines has kept me drawing them. I went back and pulled up a few digitalia of favorites.

Hoff, "1950 DeSoto," digital

In those days, the late 1950s and early 60s, just before the Mustang and muscle cars and sports cars and all that, I learned to drive in a 1950 DeSoto sedan (above). It had a very early version of automatic transmissions called fluid drive, a very confusing way to shift gears. DeSotos were mid- to upper range cars, solid and smooth and tank-like. And it had a separate visor just like the drawing above. Ours was Navy blue with white sidewalls. 

Hoff, "'58 VW," digital

Another cherished memory is a late '50s Volkswagen Beetle (although they weren't called that much). Unlike later models there were two small, matching rear windows. The engine was in the rear, one of the few cars built that way with weight over the drive wheels, so the VW would travel more easily on slippery pavement. Mine, like many, had virtually no heat in winter and of course air conditioned cars were rare. Nonetheless, I remember it like a teenage crush.

Hoff, "1950 Ford F-1," digital

Ol pickup trucks are wonderful, particularly those like my 1950 Ford (above). That one was a metallic emerald green with an oak bed, chrome wheels, and a souped-up engine. I actually saw it on a car lot, stopped and bought it. Because it was so old it was exempt from many safety regulations, notably seat belts. It had stiff, mechanical steering and old-style brakes. Although I loved it, in the end, with no place to store it in winter (you don't think I'd drive that on ice?) I traded it in. But I would love to have it yet.                                                                                                                                                         

More Indian Summer

Warm sunny weather has continued to the time of this writing. The skies have been sparkling, clear to partly cloudy for the most part. By now, since the equinox, sunlight slants more, slicing through the bright yellows and orange-reds of almost all trees and shrubs. Black walnuts stay green longer, and of course so do conifers, dotting the otherwise bright swathes of color along Gray's Lake. 

"North Shore, Autumn," oil on panel, 9x12

I spent two days a couple of weeks ago painting "North Shore, Autumn" standing almost on the same spot on the shore as I when painting not long ago. The big tree in the foreground is bright yellow with flashing highlights, the unmown grasses alongshore have become golden brown, and the distant trees are now a molten yellow-gold in places. The light has changed in two weeks so that it looks a bit yellow, too. Although we all know that cold weather and the rest are coming, we can bask in these few days of gold. 

It's been a privilege to spend time studying these things.

Watercolor in Fall

 Fall is a great time to be a watercolorist. The brilliance of the trees and shrubs is breathtaking when the light slants through. And although capturing the actual brilliance is beyond paint, for physical reasons, a watercolorist has a great chance to imitate the real world. 

Last Saturday I spent some time in a park on the east side of Des Moines, sketching the fall colors. The park is usually a quiet place to paint but the pandemic has chased a lot of people outdoors. There were several families picnicking, their children playing and shouting. Nonetheless it was a beautiful afternoon, sunny and warm. I sat on the ground and sketched with ink and watercolor."Grandview Park, Fall," is 8x10 in one of my watercolor sketchbooks. 

"Grandview Park, Fall," watercolor and ink

Indian Summer

The past couple of weeks have amounted to a spell of Indian Summer in Iowa. We've had mostly sun and warm temperatures, breezes but not many fro the north. It has been perfect for the plein air painter and I've managed to spend a lot of time painting at Gray's Lake, a couple of miles from my home studio. 

 The trees around the park and on the lakefront are still the dark green of deep summer but the intensity is fading. Here and there ancients with trunks five feet across are changing. A couple of weeks back the very earliest of autumn colors began to peep through, but now there are bright yellows, butter yellows, bright reds, dull reds, and rusts. And because there has been abundant rainfall not long ago, most of the leaves are still in place. 

"North Shore, Gray's Lake," oil on panel

It took two sessions of two hours each to finish "North Shore" because the light changes so quickly. This big survivor stands tall on the north side of the lake and seems firmly rooted, unlike its neighbor. The autumn light streaming across the scene left to right made the yellowing foliage more striking. 

True Indian Summer is said to follow a frost, but we've yet to have an overnight low below 38 degrees, so if our luck holds, this may only be the first of more warm weeks. Fingers crossed.

Artemisia Gentileschi

Artemisia Gentileschi, "Susannah and the Elders," 1610

A new exhibition of works by one of my favorite painters just opened in London. The painter, Artemisia Gentileschi (1593-1656), lived and worked in her native Italy during the first half of the 17th century. She was trained by her father Orazio, successful painter in Rome. Orazio Gentileschi doubtless knew the work of Caravaggio, as revealed in his own paintings, a style he passed to his daughter. He boasted of her ability while she was still very young, and that shows in her earliest known work, "Susannah and the Elders," wherein a young woman is spied upon by two dirty old men. The subject is a Bible story that has been used many times, but Ms. Gentileschi was startlingly only seventeen when she painted her version. Despite her youth, the expression she gives Susannah is masterly. I would love to attend just to see this work.

 She went on to a very successful career as a painter, but for some, it is her story that makes her art compelling, a different but analogous way to reactions to van Gogh or perhaps Frida Kahlo. The year after she painted Susannah, Artemisia was raped by two men, one of whom was working with her father. Orazio Gentileschi demanded that he marry her, but the man refused and was charged and convicted of her violation. However, it was only after Artemisia had been subjected to physical torture to ascertain her truthfulness. (We know all of this from court records.)

"Judith Beheading Holofernes," 1614-18

In any event, following the trial she married and moved to Florence, where she produced some of her more . She stayed in Florence for more than a decade, and produced some of her most dramatic works. Included in this exhibition are two versions she did of the story of Judith and Holofernes, another Bible tale wherein Judith is able to behead a drunken Assyrian general. Many artists have depicted the beheading scene, from Caravaggio to Rembrandt. The story would naturally attract a woman who had suffered as Ms. Gentileschi had, and she makes the most of the chance (above). In her version, Judith has seized a sword to behead the general, her jaw set and her brow determined. A maidservant helps. Viewing the image through the prism of her life, it seems to me you see her rage and need for revenge. 

"Cleopatra," ca 1634

Although she was very successful in Florence (she was first woman inducted into the prestigious Accademia di Arte del Disegno) she and her husband returned to Rome in 1620. She worked hard there but eventually moved to Naples a decade later, where she lived for most of the remainder of her life, with side excursions to Venice and London. In Venice her work became more colorful as she absorbed the works of masters like Titian. In London she worked with her father, who was court painter to the English king. She may have fulfilled some of his commissions there but had returned to Naples before the start of the English civil war in 1642.

She specialized in strong female subjects from myth and the Bible, portraits, and figures. A good example of her late work is "Cleopatra," dating from her Naples years. In her figurative works of that time, the tenebrism of caravaggism is less apparent, but her use of color is masterful. 

Her known output is so small--fewer than sixty paintings in all--and because this exhibition is the first of her work in years, how I wish I could see it.  

A Season in the Sun

These past weeks painting outdoors have been eye-opening. Until a little over a year ago my plein air work was almost all watercolor. But last year I made a tentative start with oil painting outdoors. It isn't as easy as it sounds, mostly because of equipment. I have a French easel, which is basically a wooden box with collapsible legs that you can fill with supplies and brushes and carry outside. It's bulky and heavy and using it was discouraging. In the end I bought an Open Box M easel that combines with a tripod. You load the easel (inside the box) first--it doesn't accommodate tubes--and so it's lighter and more portable. Since the weather began to clear in very early springtime, I've made it a point to paint outdoors. Below is the first plein air painting of this year, done very early in March when the Raccoon River was ice-free but before a speck of green peeped out.

"The Raccoon River," oil on panel

Most of my work has been on 9x12 panels. Stretched canvas is too troublesome and it's hard to get much done on larger sizes except with multiple trips to the same spot. And the panels are light and easy to transport, even when wet. 

It wasn't long before I moved closer to my home studio, mostly because of convenience (it's closer), and began painting from various spots around Gray's Lake. The lake features bike/hike trails, picnic tables, playground equipment, and a beach. The trees surround the water are ancient, some with girths more than six feet. The capitol of Iowa is distantly visible from the lake, too. I painted the capitol dome from lakeside in mid-March (below) before the weather or trees had changed much.

"The View from Gray's Lake," oil on panel

Although I spent time on the river, much of my work during the late summer was at the lake. The trees provide welcome shade, cool breezes come off the water, and it's easier to distance oneself there than at many spots. 

"The Point," oil on panel

By late summer I had painted at a number of locations in the area, but kept coming back to the lake for sustenance. One of my favorite views is from the north side where a point of land juts almost to the center of the lake, making it bi-lobed. Across the trees in the distance you can see an apartment building, and along the lake shore is a pedestrian bridge, built for walkers, who show up almost regardless of the weather. I like the view above so well I've done a series of paintings using nearly the same spot. In part I did these because now, as autumn advances, there is a constantly changing view. A look at one of the series (below) shows how fast the colors are changing now. The Point was done in the third week of August.

"The Point, Autumn," oil on panel

As you can see in The Point, Autumn, the near rank of trees, just beyond the walking bridge had begun to change when I painted it in mid-September, about three weeks after the first one. It's instructive and deeply pleasurable to spend time outdoors, studying deeply and living in the now. 

Some time this fall or winter I plan a private show of the season's output.