Red Pear

Red Pear
Oil on panel, 2009
5" x 8"

Winter sketch-from my window

Winter sketch-from my window
Oil on panel, 2008-09
9" x 12"

Vermont/Late Afternoon

Vermont/Late Afternoon
Oil on Linen
16" x 18"

I did this painting from a few sketches, and took a lot of liberties making it more of a variation on a theme(s).

Ipswich Salt Marsh, Late Afternoon

Ipswich Salt Marsh, Late Afternoon
Oil on linen, 2009
19" x 13"

Frank Herbert Mason (1921-2009)

Frank Mason passed away this week on June 16, 2009 at the age of 88. He was the my painting teacher when I studied at the Art Students League in New York. Frank taught at the league from 1951 (taking over the class from Frank Vincent DuMond, Mason's teacher) until 2008 when he retired from teaching. His dedication to teaching mopes like to paint was unwavering. He was inspiring and I remember watching him paint crits and thinking this man is a magician. It was not magic however, but great technique infused with love of the old masters and life. One of the many things he instilled in me was a love for painting. Frank was force of nature, an amazing painter of great passion.
I never forget his infectious laugh and the those huge hands which would slap you on the back sending you forward foot or two afterword he would say, "so Jeffrey what do you think?" He was free spirit and one hell of a painter and will be remembered for his dedication to teaching and to preserving the legacy of the great masters.
Rest in peace Maestro.

Route 15, Vermont, AM

Route 15, early morning, Vermont.
Oil on linen
9" x 12"

Blue Hills-Pond AM

Blue Hills, MA
Pond, morning.
Oil on linen panel
8" x 10"

Blue Hills, Pond PM

Blue Hills, Pond,
early evening.
Oil on linen panel.
8" x 10"

Isaac Ilyich Levitan, Evening Bells-1892

Isaac Ilyich Levitan, Evening Bells-1892
Oil on Canvas

I have recently been looking at some Russian painters from the late 19th and early 20th century. Issak Levitan is one of them. I first discovered him through Marc Dalessio's blog.www.marcdalessio.com
Marc also happens to be one amazing painter as well, check out his work.

This landscape by Levitan is one hell of a landscape painting. For students of landscape painting this work has a lot great things to study. How he massed the middle ground trees to how the painting is pitched. Check out how he uses different brush strokes to create the illusion of the grasses and bushes and the simplicity of the river bank lead up to the horizon. Not to mention the reflections on the water.

The work of Isaac Ilyich Levitan belongs to the highest achievements of Russian culture. Its significance is compared with the works of such classics as Anton Chekhov, Pyotr Tchaikovsky and Konstantin Stanislavsky.

Levitan was born in 1860 into a poor but educated Jewish family. In the late 1860s, the family moved to Moscow, where Isaac studied at the Moscow School of Painting and Sculpture from 1873 till 1883. He lost his mother in 1875 and his father two years later. He was left penniless and homeless in Moscow, sleeping alternately in the homes of relatives and friends, sometimes spending the night in the empty classrooms of the school. A nightwatch took pity on the youth and let him sleep in his cubicle. The School waived his tuition fee “because of extreme poverty and in recognition of his singular success in art”.

For more of Isaac Ilyich Levitan work check out Olga's Gallery

Blood Oranges and Lemons

Blood Oranges and Lemons
Oil on Panel, 2009
11" x 14"

I used Munsell chips to find the averages and then I used my palette knife with the hues to check on the HVC of the objects. This takes some time to do but is well worth it. It trains your eye and it is amazing how your eye can fool you. Munsell offers a tool to check your averages and from there you can mix a controlled palette for the painting. I don't do this all the time, I mostly use what is called a full spectrum palette that comes from Frank Vincent DuMond through Frank Mason. In this palette Cad Orange is the middle value of the palette. Now since I have been using Munsell it has struck me that not all Cadmium Oranges are the same value. I have two brands, OH and Williamsburg. The WB was 2.5YR,6/16 in Munsell color space. The OH was 10R,5/16!
A huge difference. So here's the problem with the DuMond/Mason palette: if you don't use the same brand of paint all the time your Orange value is going to shift, and in the case of the WB and OH it's a whole value step. The OH is one value lower than the WB. I tested W&N and it was 2.5YR,6/16. I don't have any other brands of Cad Orange so I can't say for sure about which is the most consistent, but it seems to me that OH is leaning to much towards red. Frank Mason had his students buy all the same brand for the palette, which I now see as a way to control this problem of shifting values.

In the DuMond/Mason palette you have to mix a string of gray scales that are the same value as the Cadmium's, such as Orange value gray. I find that Munsell is more accurate and mixing the gray scales to specific color values means you have to adjust.

Pond trail, late afternoon

Pond trail, late afternoon
Oil on linen panel
10" x 12"

This is a sketch from a nice spot near my house, first of the spring season. 2.5 hours give or take.

Ipswich Salt Marshes 3 PM; sketch

Ipswich Salt marsh: 3 PM 4-29-09
Oil on linen panel
8" x 10"

I went out to Ipswich to paint and found this nice spot which part of the state park system. There was not a soul around, which was great and parking was free. I did this sketch in about 2 hours.
The problem with this area is that there is no place to park and go painting. The entire place is posted with no parking signs.
I will be going back as there is this really nice bunch of old apple trees that are crying out to be painted.

I was also was bitten by a tick which was not fun. The doctor thinks it will be alright as it takes 24 hours or more for the disease to pass from this vile insect to humans, and I removed it within 6 hours. I should know in about 10 days if I have Lyme's disease which will mean a course of antibiotics. I was wearing long pants and a long sleeve shirt and the little bugger still found a way to my flesh.

I will have to add Deet to my outdoor painting kit.

Frank Duveneck

Bavarian Brigand
Oil on wood panel, 20 x 15 inches
by Frank Duveneck.

I found this image on the Vose gallery web site and I pinched it.
Sorry Vose.
I love this painting, it's tells this man's story and the expression on his face is great.
Frank Duveneck has always been a painter I admired for his ability to get a good painting done and to do it with a lot of economy.

This is from Wikipedia. Frank Duveneck
Duveneck was born in Covington, Kentucky, the son of a German immigrant Bernard Decker. Decker died when Frank was only a year old and his widow remarried Joseph Duveneck. By the age of fifteen Frank had begun the study of art under the tutelage of a local painter, Johann Schmitt and had been apprenticed to a German firm of church decorators. While having grown up in Covington, Duveneck was a part of the German community in Cincinnati, Ohio. However, due to his Catholic beliefs and German heritage, he was an outsider as far as the artistic community of Cincinnati was concerned. In 1869 he went abroad to study with Wilhelm von Diez and Wilhelm Leibl at the Royal Academy of Münich, where he learned a dark, realistic and direct style of painting. He subsequently became one of the young American painters — others were William Merritt Chase, John Henry Twachtman, and Walter Shirlaw — who in the 1870s overturned the traditions of the Hudson River School and started a new art movement characterized by a greater freedom of paint application.

Lemon and Clementine

Lemon and Clementine
Oil on panel
8" x 10"
2009

life drawing, the block in

I am taking a drawing class with Dennis Cheaney who teaches the ideas of Ted Seth Jacobs.
This is a new idea on drawing for me and I love it. It has opened my mind to a way of drawing that I was aware of for years, but for some reason I never tried. Better late then never.

This is the block in stage, this is first time I tried this and it's real learning experience for me.

It's 2H pencil on paper, 14" x 17"
2009

life drawing, the block in 2

In this drawing I later noticed some issues with proportions.
The interesting thing about doing this kind of straight line block in is that you can see the problems right away. The other thing is that you can find the angles, tilts and gestures in the figure pretty quickly.

Life drawing

Nude Study, work in progress.
Pencil on 14" x 17" paper

Cecilia Beaux

"Art is not born of beauty, It is born of life—and in one form or another, vigorous, developed life always turns toward beauty."

"I can say I have a passionate determination to overcome every obstacle. Work is a struggle to conquer something. And I do my own work with a refusal to accept defeat that might almost be called pitiful."
- Cecilia Beaux

Cecilia Beaux is a painter whom I admire and who is very under rated in my view. She rivals Sargent and Chase and many others of her generation.
Here is a link to Armand Cabrera's (who's blog is well worth checking as he's a fine painter) blog and some more info on Cecilia.
Cecilia Beaux

Vermont, early morning, fall 2008

Fall in Vermont
Oil on Linen
14" x 20"

I have been working on this on and off for a while, I think it's done.