2 New Workshops in April and May

I will be teaching two workshops at the Chesterton Art Center over the next couple months. They are both 2-day courses, though the days are on consecutive Saturdays. Here is the information on them both:

Class #1:
Composing the Landscape — A 2-day workshop
Cost: $150 members
When: Saturday April 27th, 9 am – 4 pm and Saturday May 4th, 9 am – 4 pm

Description: A 2-day course focusing on the underlying principles that make a painting’s composition succeed. There will be a lot of exercises and one on one instruction in this class. This 2-day course will take place on consecutive Saturdays of April 27 and May 4th from 9 am to 4 pm (with a break for lunch).

Day 1 will cover the foundation principles of composition with exercises to help further understand and practice them. Topics covered will include how to look for paintings in nature, utilizing focal areas, leading the eye into and through a painting, seeing the underlying abstract pattern, and creating unity and balance.

Day 2 After a brief overview of the previous class, we will take the knowledge from Day 1 and apply it to an artwork of the student’s choice with plenty of personal instruction.

This course is open to all painting and drawing media, including oils, acrylics, watercolor and pastel. Because each media has its own techniques and approach, some knowledge and previous experience in your media of choice is requested. This class is not for the absolute beginner. To sign up contact the Chesterton Art Center at (219) 926-4711. For questions regarding materials and other aspects of the course, please contact Mark at markv@vandervinnestudio.com or (219) 241-1392.



Class #2:
Understanding Color — A 2-day workshop
Cost: $150 members
When: Saturday May 11th, 9 am – 4 pm and Saturday May 18th, 9 am – 4 pm

Description: This is a 2-day workshop for understanding how to see, mix and use color to create harmony and emotion in your art work. This 2-day course will take place on consecutive Saturdays of May 11th and May 18th.

Day 1 will cover the four properties of color and use exercises to better understand them. We will also discuss how artists use color to accentuate mood and focal areas.

Day 2 After a brief overview of the previous class, we will take the knowledge from Day 1 and apply it to an artwork of the student’s choice with plenty of personal instruction.

This course is open to all painting and drawing media, including oils, acrylics, watercolor and pastel. Because each media has its own techniques and approach, some knowledge and previous experience in your media of choice is requested. This class is not for the absolute beginner. To sign up contact the Chesterton Art Center at (219) 926-4711. For questions regarding materials and other aspects of the course, please contact Mark at markv@vandervinnestudio.com or 219-241-1392.


For materials in both classes, it will vary depending on what media the student is using. That’s why I want the student to be familiar with the media they use. That said, they will definitely need a few materials across the board, such as 3–4 photographs to work from, sketchbook, pencils and at least a limited palette of paint. (Pastels will need a full palette.) Black and white paint or pastels will be needed for the composition class. I hope you can attend since it's always a fun and informational time.

Value Palette

My palette is made of glass and sits on a taboret. Sure, it's not the epitome of a set-up, but neither is my studio. But we do what we need to do to make things work. I love the glass palette, because it is easier to scrape off the paint when it dries. Which it sometimes does. Also, with a wood palette you oil and oil it to create a glass-like surface. Well, then why not just go with glass? 

Anyway, if you notice on the palette I set up my paints the same way every time, from lightest color to darkest color, going from left to right. The set-up is the exact same on my field easel. I do this so I can instinctively reach for the color without having to look for it each time I want it. Painting is hard enough, so I try to set things up to make the little things easier and simpler.

Underneath the palette are white gripper sheets found at the local superstore. Because I usually don't tone my canvases, I want to be able to see the color as pure as possible against white. I have thought about putting down a middle gray underneath, too. But right now it's still white.

Because I have been wanting to understand and work with values better, I have printed out two 9-step value strips and placed them underneath the glass. So when I mix a value, I can compare it to the strip to see approximately what value I have mixed. It's interesting how sometimes I'll mix a 6 or 7 and believe it's a 4 or 5. This also helps to keep the overall value relationship of the painting. I don't really use it once I have a set value for the painting, as all subsequent values will be compared to the first one I mixed. As an example, in the first photo I have begun to mix color piles for the painting that is now on my easel. Because these are for the sky of the painting, I want to make sure I keep the values the same, but have different hues to mix in the sky (see my post on Color Variation.) The color to the far right is a near black and not intended for the sky. I usually mix it early so I have a comparison of the full spectrum of value.

Creating a Quality Focal Area

The Given Place

All composition is based around placement and delineation of the center of focus, or focal area. The decision of what you want to be your focal area is as personal as the subject matter. Whatever you decide, there are several ways to make sure it remains the focal area.

Here are 9 ways to create a focal area. It is probably best to use more than one of these. Too many though and you may create a bullseye effect, where the eye doesn’t leave the focal area and wander around the rest of the painting.

• Placement in the Picture Plane. Where the focal area is placed can help to naturally lead the eye to it. The grids discussed earlier are beneficial in understanding where to place the focal area.
• Highest Contrast of Values. Placing the highest contrast of values next to each other in a painting. This does not have do be the lightest light and the darkest dark in the painting (though often is), just the highest contrast between values.
• Most Intense Color. Where the purest and most intense color is used.
• Hardest/Sharpest Edge. Where the hardest, or sharpest edge in the painting are placed. (This commonly is used along with high contrast.)
• Highest Level of Detail. The place where the most detail in the painting is found.
• Alien Color. The eye is naturally drawn to things that are not like other things. So a color not used anywhere else in the painting will automatically differentiate an area and draw the eye to it.
• Alien Shape. Using the same idea as Alien Color, it's a shape that is not used anywhere else in the painting. (i.e. a geometric shaped barn in the middle of a grouping of organically shaped trees.)
• Face Factor/Building Factor. Our mind create faces in objects that aren't human (i.e. the man in the moon, or Nixon on a potato chip.) A face will immediately draw the eye to it, whether it is human or animal. Single man made structures, like barns, signs and such will do the same thing.
• Texture. The place where the thickest amount of paint is used (impasto)

While some of these have a stronger visual pull than others, the key to making all of these work is making sure that areas of interest in other parts of the painting are subordinate to the center of focus. When looking at paintings, try to figure out which elements the artist has used to create a center of focus.

Below are some paintings by past and present masters. Also, the last few are mine, and I'll let you judge whether or not I'm succeeding in creating a gquality focal area. See if you can find out which of the 9 ways are being utilized (texture will be more difficult because you can't really see it in a photo of the work).

Lupine by Dan Gerhartz

Romeo and Juliet by Frederick Leighton

Seascape by Frederick Judd Waugh

by Edgar Payne

Inner Light

Farm on 450E

Last Vestige

Color Variation

On the Way Home (detail)

Color Variation is the use of a variety of color within a specific value range. This adds interest and realism to a piece. A key to color variation is not to overdo it, for you must maintain the local color of the object, and it's easy to shift that too much to another color.

In the detail above, of my painting On The Way Home, you can see all the subtle changes of color within the barn roof on the right, and the road coming in from the bottom.

Here are a couple more examples of my work for you to see how I use color variation. 

Near the Edge (full painting)

Overcast & Singing (full painting)

Overcast & Singing (detail)

Zhaoming Wu is incredible at pushing the limits of color variation within his pieces. Check out his color variations in this piece titled Pale Light, especially in the shadows:

Pale Light by Zhaoming Wu

Sometimes you can make it more extreme, and other times, you can make it pretty subtle. (I usually prefer the subtlety.) And remember, you can shift color variations subtly by simply changing the color temperature of your local color at first, and then you can add similar colors you have used elsewhere in the painting to push them even further.

On The Way Home

Since I usually do medium key paintings or low key paintings (night scenes) I wanted to push myself and do a higher key painting. The foreground is a series of washes (something else I don't normally do), with only a few places of some opaque painting. My intent was to paint over it completely with opaque paint, but I really liked the way it looked as is, so I kept it.

It's a 12 x 16 painting of a Door County farm that I passed on my way home from the 2011 Door County Plein Air Festival. (Though this one was not done en plein air.) I'll be taking it up to Cottage Row Gallery tomorrow along with a handful of other new pieces.

Art Camaraderie

A group of fellow artists and friends got together last night to hang out at a local Restaurant/Sports Bar. I got to catch up with friends who I haven't seen in years, some not since art school days, some new acquaintances who I just met last night. What a great time we had just talking art and shooting the bull.

It reminded me how important having an art camaraderie is to our well being as artists, not as a business endeavor, but simply to feed the artist soul. We weren't all fine artists focused on one medium or practice. We were illustrators, comic book artists, sculptors and modellers, teachers and painters. I learned a ton last night just by chit chatting and had a lot of laughs. And most importantly, it reminded me that while art is often difficult and keeps you busy until late in the night (or early, early morning), the rewards aren't always monetary, but can be personal. While we may not share the same political views, like the same things, or live a similar lifestyle, it's this connection with others — through something we all share and are passionate about — that makes it all worthwhile.

PS. Wish I had a photo of it all.

A Fresh Start

I realize I haven't been keeping up with this blog the way I would like to do. In fact, I was shocked when I took a look and realized how long it had truly been. A lot has happened, and I will try to keep you up-to-date as best I can.

So, to start things off again, here is a recent 16 x 20 piece of a misty morning field. This was done in the spring, before the drought and had just rained the night before. Something we have seen very little of in recent weeks (months?). It's nice looking at this now and remembering the feel of the thick air — humid yet cool — and how you couldn't see too far into the distance clearly. I hadn't named this piece until just now. I believe I'll title it "A Fresh Start".