Shannon - 2 fingers and some hair further....

Eek that last post was a bit red. This pic looks very different in different lighting situations... and the automatic settings on my camera tend to pull in light which makes the color brighter.

Anyway 2 fingers and some hair further..... and me in there for scale.

Edit: 5pm I brought this home for the weekend because I didn't want to wait until Tuesday to work on it again... and I've looked at it in several lighting situations and it is so different in different light. Actually even from different angles; from the side view it reads redder than the front view. It also looks much different on my monitor at home... yesterdays post (on my home computer) is accurate in color I would say, but too red from my studio computer! Oh well... I guess this is how it goes, especially with red. 

Thank you everyone for the congratualtions!

Just a little update today and I'm showing it in greyscale too... just for kicks.

Shannon update & more great news!

 for the news -  I submitted 'Zen" to the National Portrait Society of America's 2008 Members Showcase Competition and won 3rd Place in the Children's Portrait Category!!!! The winners will be posted on their site soon, but they aren't up there yet. www.portraitsociety.org I really really can't believe it! I took the certificate I got in the mail and hung it on the fridge next to the kids' spelling tests. :)

Update finally! I had to take the photo after dark, so unfortunately its with a flash.. and not really accurate. For a progress report it works though. 

This portrait is really an experiment in  dramatic lighting. The more I put in the more the dramatic lights I hope will make sense. 

One thing you can't get from a photo on the web is scale. This is the first time I'm doing something so much larger than life-size. It really complicates things! I usually work flat on a table, and with the scale of this I'm having to tack it up on the wall more often to make sure I'm on track. 

OMG!

OMG!

My piece 'Zen" won Best of Show at the Thorne Sagendorph Biennial Regional Juried Show!

It is a regional juried show open to artists living within 30 miles of Keene and is one of those shows that you are just happy to get your piece accepted in. My hope was to get in (my fingers were crossed as well as my stomach in knots waiting to find out if I got in) and have a piece that, this year, people might stop and look at instead of walk past. The last two times I got in, my pieces were small or insignificant next to the amazing art in the show and it hit a nerve when it seemed no one even stopped to take a look at my drawings. So this time, I just hoped my pieces would command a little looksee from the viewers of the show.

BUT to win Best of Show was beyond my expectations!

Seriously, just getting in the show had me excited. The gallery space is such a phenomenal space & they really know how to hang and light work. Just to see my pieces hanging, lit up better than when I was working on them was a thrill I was looking forward to.

If you remember I did the piece Zen with the intention of entering it in this show and one other - the CPSA national show... and if you remember more... I found out that it is too big to be entered in the CPSA show. :-( Oh well........ I would have liked to have had the chance to get it in an all colored pencil show.

Here are some pics from the opening last night.

Another piece of mine got in the show, and here it is with me and my model posing in front of it. People kept on coming up to her during the opening asking her "Haven't I seen you before."

Here's me with my beautiful older daughter who is the model in Zen. :-)

& look! People stopped and looked at it, lol!

If you didn't have a chance to go to the opening -

the show runs January 24 - February 26, 2009.

The gallery hours are:

Saturday – Wednesday noon to 4 p.m.
Thursday and Friday noon to 7 p.m.

The Thorne Sagendorph Gallery is on the Keene State College campus on Wyman Way (off of Main St.)

If anyone would like to look back at 'Zen' being made - it is in my October archive (link below) Just scroll down the page:

http://nicolecaulfieldfineart.blogspot.com/2008_10_01_archive.html

Shannon 1

Here is that new project. It is probably double life-size and will be somewhere around 18" x 24" when finished. So far I have used Polychromos colored pencils on Fisher 400 paper.

The first two images are from yesterday and are very rough, so you can see how I'm going about it. I started with using pompeian red in my darker side of the face because that is the color I saw coming through the shadows in most of that side of the face. I know it looks very red and disasturous - but trust me!

On the light side of the face I am first layering light flesh which is often the color I use for the first coat.

Day 2 working on this is below. & look how much more natural the colors are looking already. & you doubted that red, didn't you? The big surprise colors during this phase was touches of raw umber in the dark side. It seems like an icky color for flesh tones, but there's a bit of green in it which suitably knocks back that pompeian red. I don't want to knock back all the red in the dark side - just in some places.

the surprise color on the light side is cold grey 1 which could be considered a very light blue. SHe was lit from the window on a very cold winter day, so I think that is why it was needed.

The face is not finished yet so don't worry about some strange areas at the moment.

I've put my snow scene aside for now... and started something new. Just barely started something new, so I'll show you all soon.

I found out yesterday my piece Brown Eyed Girl won First Place People's Choice in the Jaffrey Civic Center Fall Show in Jaffrey, NH! I'm trotting over there later today to get my picture taken with the other winners and our pieces, so when I get back I'll repost with a photograph of us! One of the other winners was my friend Gary Ruuska who I will actually be having a show with at that very gallery later this year! Go colored pencil, lol.

& I want to invite any of you from the area to the opening of the Thorne Sagendorph Gallery Biennial Regional Jurors Choice Competition opening reception this Friday. Its a big show in a wonderful large space and always a treat to see. The reception usually gets a lot of people so if you want snacks, get there early! I have 2 pieces that got in this year, so I'm anxious to see them on the big white walls of the gallery space.

Public Reception:Friday, January 23, 5:30-7:30 p.m., hosted by Friends of the
Thorne.

Chuck Close & Colored Pencil?

In addition to the portrait show at the Brattleboro Art Museum is the show Chuck Close: Self-Portrait/Scribble/Etching Portfolio, 2000, which is open until February 22nd.

The fun thing is that the show has a colored pencil connection!

It is a show based on one small self-portrait done in soft-ground etching - a medium I am not familiar with. Here is a description of his process from the BMAC website:

Placing a piece of paper over the soft, waxy “ground” that covered each of twelve different metal plates, Close used a different colored pencil to make scribbled drawings on each plate. When he lifted the paper from each plate, some of the waxy ground pulled away, leaving bare metal where the pencil had made its impressions. Next he immersed the plate in a bath of acid that etched only the bare metal exposed by the drawing.

Close then inked each plate with a color corresponding to a different one of his twelve colored pencils. He printed each plate three times, creating a plate proof (a print with a single color), a progressive proof (a print showing the progression of the image as each color was added), and the final print (the accumulation of all the colors).

for a more complete description of the process go to the BMAC website: http://www.brattleboromuseum.org/2008/11/17/chuck-close-self-portraitscribbleetching-portfolio-2000/

Although the end result is ink and not colored pencil, it remarkably "looks" like colored pencil. The show is set up with a finished proof that is numbered and signed as you walk in, and then going around the small room, a finished proof alternates on the wall with each color printed alone in between, so the viewer can have a look into the process. Each color that Close used was bright, but at the end they created more muted tones when the eye visually blends them together. The result reminds me of the circulism work of Maggie Toole since his scribbles are so controlled.

I took a photo or two while I was there, but I feel more comfortable sending you to the brochure to see what the print looks like.

brochure with photos: http://www.brattleboromuseum.org/pdfs/GB_Chuck-Close.pdf

At the top of the brochure is the finished print and if you scroll down to the second page you'll see the original colored pencil drawing that created the print with the corresponding Prismacolor numbers written below. To any colored pencil geek (a club with which I belong) it is incredibly exciting to see Chuck Close write these numbers to which I can identify the colors! :)

I actually did a life-size SCRIBBLE self-portrait in white and black charcoal for my final project in figure drawing during art school... that must have been in 1996? I'll try and scrounge out the photo I have of that portrait. It was so big I got rid of it before my husband and I moved to Seattle in 1997 (it wouldn't fit in the Neon). I remember it being very fun to do and the scribbles allowed me to finish the large project ahead of schedule. One girl even said I cheated because the scribbles made it easier on me, lol. Anyway, if I can find that I'll post it - despite my '90's hairdo!

Starting at the Beginning

I'm going to be doing a winter portrait soon. It is inspired by my friend Maggie Stiefvater's soon to be released book Shiver (description from Amazon below). BTW it is available for preorder on Amazon as we speak!

For years, Grace has watched the wolves in the woods behind her house. One yellow-eyed wolf--her wolf--is a chilling presence she can't seem to live without. Meanwhile, Sam has lived two lives: In winter, the frozen woods, the protection of the pack, and the silent company of a fearless girl. In summer, a few precious months of being human . . . until the cold makes him shift back again.
Now, Grace meets a yellow-eyed boy whose familiarity takes her breath away. It's her wolf. It has to be. But as winter nears, Sam must fight to stay human--or risk losing himself, and Grace, forever.

It is also inspired by the fact that I love SNOW and while looking through American Artist a while back, I came across an article on Jeremy Lipking who is a master at depicting women in ethereal winter scenes.

I took my poor model out to the woods and snapped a bunch of photos of her in differing poses. I do remember telling her "Look out in the trees and pretend you are waiting for the wolf you are in love with to come out." I think it worked because I got some great poses. This is the one I picked below.

Like most reference photos there are some great things about the photo and background and there are some not so great things. Most notably, the contrast is too high on the background, it has way too many details, and there seems to be branches tracing around her head. :)

Here's a good deal of all the "stuff" I used to create a compositional study for my Shiver-y portrait. You can see the Jeremy Lipking article ripped out from American artist in the middle and then 3 different print outs of the photo reference - all with varying levels of contrast etc.

& here is my study, please click on it to see it better. It is just a little study - 4" x 6" and is sort of like a thumbnail sketch. I abhor doing thumbnail sketches, I must confess. The little 3 vlaue studies of weird shapes just never compare to the real thing. So what I prefer to do is an at scale color study using the same pencils I will be using for the final. This allows me to work out some of the most important colors/values and have the pencil numbers all ready to go when I start the real thing. Usually I do these studies at about aceo size or 2.5 x 3.5" and try to give them a good finish - that way I can actually sell them too. They look great in little 5 x 7 frames with a generous matt. This one however had to be larger because otherwise the girl would have been teeny tiny!

Here's a list of things I worked out by doing this preliminary drawing:

• I actually want the face and the background directly behind it the same value (although different colors).
• I want the darks in her hair and clothes to be the darkest in the piece.
• I want the bottom of some of the tree trunks, especially the one to the right of her, to also be dark in value.
• I can use the bright white of the light between the trees to direct the eye to the girl. That will be the brightest brights.
• I want to really get rid of details (ala Jeremy Lipking) in the background and mostly have big shapes, so I figured out which trees to have some definition and which to fade in.
• I decided to lift up the bottom of some tree trunks to get a restful spot lower left.
• I decided to enlarge the tree to her right.
• The color scheme is lots of greys, army green (in her jacket and trees), a golden green color, and an ice blue. Oh and the rosy colors in her face and hair which will be used just a little bit here and there elsewhere.

I don't always do a study before a piece, and have often regretted it. Its much better to get these things worked out before starting!

from American Artist magazine Jeremy Lipking article:

He prefers to work on one painting at a time, taking about 2 weeks to complete a canvas, and he chooses his content carefully. "When I am doing a painting, I don't think of anything else," he remarks. "If I am going to work this long on a piece, I pretty much like to know where I'm going before I begin."

School Portrait Finished & Brattleboro Art Museum Show

Finally finished. I wouldn't say there is not room for improvement, but sometimes its better to stop than to make endless changes. The changes between this and the last update are subtle and only really affected the the markers and table top. Go ahead and click the image to see a larger view.

Thanks so much everyone for following along for my first pastel ride & I look forward to doing more in the future.... as well as purchasing more pastels!

Brattleboro Museum Art Center Portrait Show and Chuck Close prints

I left the studio early Friday when I saw the Eventful ad for the new shows at the Brattleboro Art Museum in Brattleboro VT. I had just enough time to drive there after lunch, catch the exhibit and get home to the kids when the school bus drops them off.

They have dedicated almost the whole museum for a large all portrait show entitled "As We See It" which includes some very well known artists such as Alice Neel, Chuck Close and Kehinde Riley (seen below) as well as local artists. I took a couple of photos from further away, but you can see more of the artwork on the "As We See It" exhibition page at BMAC and download the .pdf brochure.

What I liked about this show was the sheer numbers of portraits of all differing styles shown together. There is everything from traditional to contemporary and in all different media. When I say all media, I think if you named something it would be on the list of media. Some more odd examples were: pencil & blood, polyester resin, and (now the almost usual) video installation. Some of my favorites actually were in unusal media such as the embroidery & wool on painted linen entitled "Dad" by Cayce Zavaglia. Check out more work by Cayce, it is really stunning.

The alternative media mentioned above isn't what made the show however, and most of the show was in traditional materials. What did make the show so succesful was, as a portrait artist myself, the sheer differences in the way an artist creates portraits. It made me step back and try to figure out where my portraits would fit in the show (if they were hung there too). Were there any in nearly the style my portraits are in? The answer surprisingly was "no" and I think that would be the answer for most artists. My work would have fitted in because like all the portraits in the show - they are unique. :-)




Viewing Kehinde Wiley's piece "The Prophet and the King II" in person was a particular treat. It was huge, 6' x 8', which I knew about his work, but it never really hits you until you see these large scale works in person. What I like about Wiley's portraits is that they are unequivocally from the 21st century. Everything about it screams the here and now from the graphic patterns, bold colors and the subjects dressed in everyday (or outrageous) 21st century clothing and accessories.

That is something I would like to get in my portraits more - the here and now - even though I think my style is pretty traditional. That is why, for instance I chose to pose my daughter with the brightly colored, plastic Crayola markers. Its not much, but it is something to show it is in our world. I hope I can find a way to get this point across better in further portraits.

I planned on also writing today about an accompanying show of Chuck Close's etching portfolio, but I think I'll wait, because this post is long enough!

School Portrait Almost Finished

One thing I've noticed about the pastel pencils is you have to go through a roughed in stage and progress to a refined stage - which I don't usually do with colored pencils. You can see what I mean with the markers which are not yet finished. I've roughed in the colors and values but they just aren't right yet. The next step will be to correct anything that is off including shape, color and values.

So this will be finished really soon, I promise. We had another snow day with the kids yesterday and today my kindergartner is home sick, so it may be a little while. Its snowing again today...

Colored Pencils vs. Pastel Pencils

Liz in colored pencil (above)
Liz in pastel pencils (below)

Someone just asked me these questions in another post:

"What are the differences between the colored pencils [both the wax and oil based
ones] and the pastel pencils? why getting involved with pastels?"

Differences:

1. scumbling - you can't realy "scumble" in colored pencil.
2. Blending - you can blend more easily in pastels. This can be a problem if you overblend, but besides being able to more easily achieve a smooth finish (which you may or may not want to do) you can more easily achieve soft edges and not the hard edges so prominent in pencil.
3. Pastel & pastel pencils are opaque and colored pencils are semi-transparent. This means that in COLORED pencil every layer will effect each subsequent layer when the lower layers show through the upper layers. Which can be beautiful - but allows less wiggle room and a much more controlled process of steps.
4. Pastels are dry.... and colored pencils are either waxy or oily. That means that with colored pencil you can not work past a certain amount of layers without a buildup of either oil or wax which fills up the tooth of the paper. With pastels I have not reached a breaking point with the amount of layers - it seems like you can work forever. This again can be good or bad. Many colored pencil artist "burnish" which means they use the buildup of wax to their advantage - its something I personally don't like doing.
5. They just look different. :)

Please feel free to add to this list or contradict what I said. This is my first experience with pastel pencils and these are just some things I found while working with them.

Why:

1. I am drawn to work in pastel. When I go to galleries, museums or scan through the art magazines at Borders - that is what I seem to like the best. There's something about the softness, the vibrancy, the way the layers lie on top of each other.
2. I've always told people that I work more like a pastel artist than a colored pencilist and really I wasn't sure if that was true. It turns out that is right - although maybe a hard pastelist?
3. To give the people commissioning portraits from me an alternative to colored pencil - something they've heard of before.
4. and finally: To push myself.

When I started colored pencil I started with smooth white paper, moved to other white papers, tried colored paper, then sanded paper... all the while trying different brands of pencils (each of which worked differently). I think it makes you grow when you try new things. Plus I just plain ole enjoyed working on sanded papers and it transformed my work. If I had never pushed myself to try them, where would I be?

Pushing yourself beyond your comfort level makes you grow so much more as an artist/human being. I compare it to my workout routine., I run 40 minutes every morning. If I keep on running at the same pace, same incline, same amount of time everyday my muscles don't grow, but if I push myself to add a little speed or an incline here or there I get stronger.

I'll have an update on the school portrait!

School Portrait Update 3

I know this is taking longer than ; a new medium combined with a limited palette have really slowed me down.

I've learned a couple of things today. 1/ You have to build up more pastel than I thought you would need to and 2/ you can combine Polychromos colored pencils with the pastel pencils if you really need a color not in your set. The color I am most missing is light flesh... I can't go from medium flesh to cream without too much blending and a struggle, so I finally dug into my colored pencils and used a bit of the light flesh on the hand.