Patricia Watwood: Myths and Individuals - Solo Show

As part of our ongoing series of engaging Teaching Studios faculty about what is happening in their careers: Workshop and Visiting Instructor  Patricia Watwood has agreed to share some thoughts about and images of artwork from her solo show at the Forbes Galleries that opens this week.
	Patricia Watwood: Myths and Individuals Notes from the Artist Myths and narratives are important tools that humans use for sorting out our relationships to each other and to the world. In this body of work, I am seeking the individual and personal contained within our myths, and conversely, seeking the universal within the individual. I construct images that invite the viewer to contemplate, connect, and find relationships. I wish my paintings to be visual poems awaiting your interpretation.
	Tradition has nothing to do with the past. To follow a tradition is to embrace a manner of working in which the values and aspirations of the past are continuous with those of the future. I do not chase the past. I chase what artists in the past have also chased—a celebration of the human form, a passion for and humility before nature, a belief that metaphor and narrative can help us puzzle out the mysteries of our time here on earth, and a belief in the emotional power of the common visual language of representation.
	My figures and portraits are designed to convey the beauty and stillness of the visual world. My paintings travel through worlds of mythology, allegory, and contemporary human life. They reflect my search for meaning, and fulfill my desire for spiritual connection with my subjects and viewers. The exhibit shows over 30 paintings and six drawings, spanning over 10 years of time. Patricia Watwood: Myths and Individuals February 17 to June 9, 2012 The Forbes Galleries 60 Fifth Avenue at 12th St. Manhattan Free, open to the public 10:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. Tues-Sat. Thursdays open to groups by appt. 212-206-5548 Catalogues are available from her 2011 solo show at the St Louis Universtity Museum of Art, $20 each (plus tax and shipping). Please contact us at info@teachingstudios.com for more information.

The Urban Landscape with Bennett Vadnais

As part of our ongoing series of engaging Teaching Studios faculty on what they are working on in their studios, Bennett Vadnais has agreed to share some images and thoughts from one of his latest paintings. This one is still very much in-progress.

I began this painting by doing many studies of the subject outdoors. This included quick color studies to capture the light effect as well as several pencil drawings that explore the form and structure of the architecture.

After gathering this material I enlarged the composition to my canvas and painted it in monochrome. For landscape subjects I’ll often use Mars Violet with white. I work out drawing and value patterns in this monochrome before applying color in many layers that range from transparent to opaque.

The Living Portrait with Maria Kreyn

	The Living Portrait (in graphite) with Maria Kreyn A workshop at our Brooklyn location on December 17 and 18. The Living Portrait workshop consisted of two days of drawing from the live model with Maria Kreyn. It was designed for artists of all skill levels. This workshop focused on creating both the likeness of the model and also emotional expression, bringing the portrait to life using the special beauty and simplicity of the graphite medium. Pictured: Kreyn beginning her demonstration.
Kreyn placed emphasis on developing expression, elegant line quality, edges, atmosphere, and internal gesture. By working from general to specific, students learned a process of drawing that focuses on quickly laying down a large amount of information, and then honing and focusing it--like a lens--to a high finish of detail and clarity. Kreyn offered both critiques and an in-class demonstration.
	The instructor's demo Jason, by Maria Kreyn
	The work produced by the workshop artists was of a very high quality. The Bushwick Poet, by Kate Savage
	Portrait of Jason, by Rob Zeller
	Works in progress by Stephan Pokorny and Barbara Leonardi

A December to Remember

	A Christmas Party/ Open Studio/ Registration Drive kind of a thing... Thursday night, December 8th, 7-9pm Free and Open to the public* You are welcome to bring food and beverages, though, and that also includes baked goods! It's Christmas time, its Hanukkah, its time to register for new classes, and Adam Miller has an enormous 7 ft painting he is working on for his solo show this spring. Those are all reasons enough to open our doors to the public and have a party. You will certainly enjoy meeting some our faculty and touring the facilities. And Adam's painting is quite a spectacle, even at this early stage.
This 7 foot high work in progress by Adam Miller will be on display for our holiday party December 8th.
John Morra's Open Studio and Sale Saturday December 10, 3-8pm 56 Church St. Stuyvessant, NY come and see over 100 paintings and drawings by faculty member John Morra in his converted church studio Holiday Food and Drinks will be served.

A Baroque Portrait with Adam Miller

	In this post I will give a brief account of a Baroque approach to painting a portrait. This is a much shortened explanation of the method I will be teaching in my upcoming workshop at Teaching Studios of Art- Oyster Bay, in December 2011. The example used here is my painting, Self Portrait With a Cold. The first consideration when painting in a layered technique is your ground and the color you apply to it. This painting is primed and underpainted in a mixture of Raw umber and ultramarine blue. The monochrome underpainting was applyed thinly over a finished drawing, slightly thicker in the lights to give a sense of texture.
	Once the monchrome stage was dry color could be glazed over the under painting. Two considerations need to be remembered at this point. One: You have already created a unifying color in the under painting and the more it can be left, the more harmony will be introduced to the finished painting. Two: to take advantage of the layering technique of painting it is important to not add to much thick paint and hide your under layer completely. The beautiful contrast of transparent glazes and opaque lights is the particular beauty of this approach to painting .
	Another very important consideration for this technique is your ground and canvas. as you will be leaving much of the painting in the first wash application and finishing only key ares of interest.The canvas or board must have a non absorbent ground so your washes will look attractive and float on top of the surface. Of course, there is much more to this technique than I have posted here. If you are interested in learning more, please join us this December at Teaching Studios - Oyster Bay. Thursday, Friday and Saturday December 15, 16 and 17th. $375 Register here: http://www.teachingstudios.com/index.php/the-baroque-portrait

Portrait bust of Cecily- Rob Zeller

Since I teach both the figure and portrait at our Oyster Bay location, I find myself often wanting to try something new, something other than the working method than I teach. Partly stemming from boredom, partly a hunger for the new, this desire can be healthy, if channeled the right way.  So I have added charcoal to my repetiore. The figure to the left is a charcoal drawing on toned paper of Cecily, and was begun as a demo for our OB figure class. I try to work from the model in class, to constntly demonstrate how the act of painting for our students. This piece has since turned into a singular mission for me, as I have hired her privately on several occasions to try new techniques of charcoal and in "massing in" of forms in oil paint.
In focusing on her face, I tried to capture the big wash of light on her skull, and then all of the minor sub-forms (eggs) of her face, as they turn into and away from the light source. This is the most fun I have as a draftsman. Cecily lends herself to a rather dream-like, ethereal expression, so I went for that aspect, as well.
In the image above, you can see that I am working from a color study and the drawing, and working on the face first.
Here is where we stand at present. Almost finished.

The 2 Day Still Life with John Morra

	On two weekends in October 2011, John Morra taught a workshop at both of our locations titled The Two Day Still Life where painters confronted a healthy urgency: each artist arranged and executed a complete painting in 12 hours. By following Morra’s painting demonstrations, they learned how to set up a grid system, grab their palette, mix piles of paint, focus and “floor it.”
Students ended each day with boosted confidence, and with a sharper ability to attack the essential “big picture” parts of any subject. As Morra said "Fast still-life painting helps you to capture those roving clouds in a plein air sketch, or that fidgety child in that portrait you’ve been promising. And the discipline of painting fast will greatly improve the over-all quality of one’s more ambitious, carefully drawn, slow paintings."