Solving the workspace lighting conundrum

While Northern light definitely provides the most beautiful soft light, being in South Florida, I found that it also varied significantly in intensity throughout the year and with additional daily fluctuations due to the weather and time of day. My window is large and perfectly due North yet relying on the light that it provided was problematic. Over the years I have tried many different solutions for finding consistent lighting for my painting workspace. Solux track lighting has been my absolute favorite. I can add and subtract fixtures and reposition them for any size project. 

“I use their MR-16 bulb with the following specifications: a 4700K 36 Degree (widest beamspread) 35 and 50 watt black backed bulbs.”

With this lighting configuration I have consistent beautiful lighting all day long that closely approximates 5000K northern light. The 4700 Kelvin bulbs are in my Goldilocks zone... neither too cool nor too warm for my liking. The color rendering index, or CRI, for this bulb is 99.35. Meaning that it is 99.35% similar when comparing it to daylight across the visible spectrum produced by our sun. That is close enough for my discerning eyes and no other bulb currently manufactured comes as close!

International Guild of Realism Museum Tour

I'm thrilled to announce that my oil painting Athena In Spring was selected to be a part of the MASTERWORKS FROM THE INTERNATIONAL GUILD OF REALISM traveling museum exhibition. Congratulations to all the other artists! For more information check out the link... http://realismguild.com/CurrentExhibitions.html

Tour Itinerary
  
May 19, 2015 - July 26, 2015 
The R.W. Norton Art Gallery 
Shreveport, LA

September 1 - October 31, 2015 
Appleton Museum of Art 
Ocala, FL

February 6 - June 11, 2016 
Albany Museum of Art 
Albany, GA

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Athena In Spring, Oil and 23.5K Gold leaf on Aluminum Panel 20"x20"

To ship my work to the exhibitions I participate in, I prefer to use Airfloat's lined boxes. It's so much simpler and far less time consuming than building a crate myself. I've used them for years and find that in addition to their convenience, they provide wonderfully reliable protection for my works. I add some white mat board or gatorboard to the front surface of the painting to keep even the foam from touching it, securing it in place with shrink wrap. I do this because when a painting gets hot in the shipping truck, anything touching the surface can become embedded in the varnish and mar the surface. The mat board barrier, kept away from the painting's surface by the higher edges of the frame,  prevents this from happening. You can learn more about airfloat here: airfloatsys.com.

Strokes of Genius 7: Depth, Dimension & Space! & Drawing Demonstration

I'm pleased to announce that my drawing "Quiet Reflection" has been awarded a spot in North Light Books' hardbound showcase of the best in contemporary drawing: Strokes of Genius 7: Depth, Dimension & Space!  The book is scheduled to be released later in 2015. In the mean time, please enjoy the below demonstration of my methods and materials for this drawing.

"Quiet Reflection" 6"x4" Pastel and Charcoal on Paper

I began this drawing by first selecting my main subject, a beautiful murex shell. I then staged it in a couple of different rooms but found that it was best showcased in the dining room with its dramatic light and reflective glass tabletop. With my china cabinet behind, and the addition of one of my ornate lamps it helped to add a little something special to the mix. I found the composition to be quite meditative and peaceful; just what I was looking for and so I photographed the scene and began to draw.  

Materials:

For this drawing I used a Strathmore 500 paper, a kneaded eraser, a mahl stick, a drawing board, acid free masking tape, General's 6B and 4B charcoal, General's white charcoal, Ritmo 3B charcoal pencil, Caran d-Ache soft charcoal pencil for only my darkest darks, and Cretacolor permanent white pastel for the lightest whites.

Earlier Steps in the drawing; Left: The initial grid and line drawing. Right: Early into the process of the drawing where I have begun massing in the preliminary values.

Process:

My process at the time involved lightly drawing a grid to help locate major landmarks on the drawing and then connecting them to match the angles and shapes I observed in the shell and other elements. I then proceeded to add layer upon layer of charcoal in order to achieve the appropriate light or dark values of the objects you see in the drawing. During each subsequent layer, I added more charcoal with more pressure, being careful not to burnish the paper so that it would continue to accept more charcoal and pastel yet attaining full coverage of the paper. With each pass of the materials I brought the drawing's values, gradations and textures closer and closer to the desired final appearance. To finish, I sharpened my Cretacolor white pastel to a very fine point and carefully added my lightest highlights with a tiny yet thick impasto of the pastel much in the same way that you would add an impasto highlight in oil paint.

A Book in Realist Techniques

Image credit: Veronica Winters.

Art Lessons in Realist Drawing, Painting, and Beyond includes insightful interviews and demonstrations by internationally known artists such as Daniel Sprick, Anne-Marie Kornachuk, K. Henderson, Linda Lucas Hardy, Tanja Gant, David Gluck and many more. I'm so honored to be counted among them in this beautiful book and even on the cover!

You can purchase a hard copy or digital copy on Veronica's website: http://veronicasart.com

Please enjoy the following excerpt of my demonstration of "Recipe for A Beautiful Day" included in the book. 

Workspace Setup

Before beginning I placed my shadowbox and black velvet curtain on a bookcase and aligned my easel and painting panel with the still life stage in front of a northern facing window as shown in the picture. (A shadowbox is a wonderful way to have complete control over your lighting in your still life composition.)

Step 1: Designing the Still Life Composition

In this step I will discuss the thought process behind composing the objects in my still life.

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First, I placed weathered barn wood and a slate roof tile into my shadowbox for the background and stage for my still life. The colors of these two natural items harmonized well and I felt that also created a nice ambiance for the story. Next, I added all the bottles and seashells I thought that I would be using onto the stage and arranged them in a visually pleasing manner.

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I felt that the story could be best told if I added labels to the bottles to imply their contents. I also changed the size of the recipe card as I felt it was too large for the composition. Although they were relevant to creating a recipe, visually I found the metal measuring spoons to be visually distracting and so I removed them and added coral.

Because this was a story about the sea, I needed a couple more sea creatures, and therefore, I added the small white and pink Murex Ramosus shell. I like to repeat textures, shapes, and colors throughout my compositions in order to both lead the eye and create more visual harmony. The coral was a good match for repeating the spikes of the Murex shell as well as being similar in color and texture to the sea urchin. The pink in the Murex shell also complemented the pinks in the bottle labeled "Liquid Sun Set" as well as the subtle pink in the sea urchin carapace. The brown in the shell I used to symbolize a mixing bowl harmonized nicely with the cork that I had tinted to match in a bottle across from it in the composition. The brown sea urchin spike in the same shell was also useful for symbolizing a mixing spoon. I replaced the small white and brown murex shell for one that was more conical to lead the eye back into the composition and also repeat the similar shape of one of the glass stoppers. Finally, I moved the bottle labeled powdered beach to the left side of the composition to balance the bottles in both color and texture.

I then adjusted my black velvet curtain over part of the front of my shadow box so that it created a more interesting lighting effect on the objects. I made sure that both the visually busy recipe card and highly textured weathered wood panels were in more shadow and would recede into the background making the foreground objects more pronounced. At this point I felt satisfied with my still life composition and was ready to move onto the next step...

I hope you enjoyed this excerpt. In the book I go on to discuss in detail my materials, drawing, underpainting, final color layers and my in depth approach to achieving many convincing textures found in this still life as well as varnishing techniques. 

You can purchase a hard copy or digital copy on Veronica's website: http://veronicasart.com

Portrait Painting Demo at my Studio

Portrait Painting Demo in Oil and Technique Discussion

This Wednesday evening, December 4th, 2013 from 5pm to 8pm at my studio at 5760 Shirley Street, Suite 15, Naples, FL. I will be presenting underpainting techniques to set up your portrait painting starting with an underpainting technique called an Ebauche. I will also demonstrate the second layer of my process that creates beautiful translucent skin tones. 

Painting: "Study of Lauren" for the large scale work "Companionship: A Journey Into the Unknown" 16"x12" Oil on Linen Panel