Mush, Dab, Smear, and Glide

As I found many teachers who attend aTi also feel, I left my week-long printmaking class with Eileen Foti invigorated and ready for anything, especially another aTi session learning from skilled artistic masters and surrounded by inspiring educators.  Throughout the week of my previous session, I would visit my friend Theresa and observe the beautiful work the oil painting students were creating.  It was then that I decided I would take Oil Painting with Kit Sailer this year.

Following our delicious and entertaining dinner on Sunday, where I saw many familiar faces from my previous session, and met some of my new classmates, I was ready to start my class on Monday.  I came to class prepped with my new notebook(thanks to aTi), smocks and aprons, and 36 possible reference photos I had printed at CVS.  I was eager to come with ideas, but I didn't know if I even liked one of my pictures!

I was relieved to start the day with Kit Sailer's introduction to subject matter, as it helped me to get out of my head a little bit.  Kit started off the class by informing us that this would not be a class on "drawing with a paint brush", but would instead by an exercise using "Mush, Dab, Smear, and Glide".  She insisted that throughout the week, we forget the notion that paintings must be like technically proficient drawings with a pencil, and instead we get to know each of these methods of applying paint to the canvas.

Kit then shared with us how people beginning to paint always seem to feel as though they need to paint the "cute, quiet, love thing".  This might be anything from puppies to sunsets to certain types of flowers.  She wanted to introduce us to the notion that cute may not necessarily be interesting, and that maybe it's the ugly, loud, hate thing that could produce a more interesting image, or a more enjoyable process of painting.  Kit expressed to us that the dichotomy of painting something that you hate can be a liberating experience, and...

"Sometimes ugly has more to express."

Following this conversation, Kit introduced us to the materials we would be using, including the painting mediums, and how to manage the turpenoid and re-use it with a sludge container.  This is not a practice my previous oil painting teachers had shared with us, and I loved the idea of conserving as much turp as possible.  Next, we each received a "map" of how to arrange our palettes.  The warm colors and warm browns traveled down the left side of a sheet of palette paper while the cool colors, cool browns, and blacks traveled along the top from left to right.  In the middle of the corner, between the two lines, lied titanium white.

I had never, in any painting class, set up my palette this way and my first thought was "oh my goodness, this is a ton of paint".  Kit explained to us that it was important to set up your palette with every color you need every time, because if you need a color that you do not have readily available to you, you may find yourself using a color that won't do what you need it to.  Also, I was relieved to remember exactly how long oil paint takes to dry, and therefore, how long I could use each of these blobs of color.
Finally this morning, Kit shared with us the proper way to align our easel, table with palette, turpenoid, and liquin.  For a right handed artist, the paints should be on the right side of the easel and the reference should be on the left.  Kit also informed us that while oil painting, you should stand as much as possible so it is easy to back away from your work and gain perspective.  Finally, Kit explained that the mixing of colors should happen on the palette rather than on the canvas, as they are two different ways of thinking.

Once we each had our easels, tables, mediums, and two sets of brushes with a cup of rice(which served as an ingenious brush holder) and palettes were arranged, it was time to choose the reference.  I had brought a large picture folder containing many beach scenes from visiting my parents in Florida, some pictures of my family, and some animals from my friend's farm.  In searching through my references, Kit separated more than half of my pictures from the bunch right away, informing me that while some images make beautiful photographs, they don't always make beautiful, or interesting, paintings.  I was glad that I wasn't too emotionally tied to any of the images and I left myself at the mercy of the professional.  Today was about choosing what to make for my "ugly painting", after all.
It was Kit's goal for us that we choose subject matter quickly and then complete a 12" x 16" painting by the end of the night.  The theory was that since the first painting someone does after being away from painting for a while tends to not be very good at all, why not get that one out of the way as soon as possible so we can get onto the beautiful work.  This was to be an exercise of figuring out(or remembering) how to get the paint from the palette onto the canvas.

Kit left me with three of my beach/water images to choose from that she felt were easy enough to complete in a day, yet interesting enough to paint, and then I was off!

Kit suggested to all of us that we begin by sketching in the layout(never with a pencil) with a paintbrush, some yellow ochre, and some turpenoid, and then by blocking in the colors.  All of this was meant to happen before lunch!  I was surprised how much this deadline assisted me in getting my act in gear.  I had sketched my layout by 11, and blocked in the majority of my darks by noon, and then it was time for lunch.  It's amazing to think of everything we did between 9 and 12 on just the first day!

Colleen planning her still life

Nicoletta and Kit looking over the start of this painting

Progress before lunch

When we returned from lunch, we participated in an oil painting brush stroke and blending exercise.  Kit explained to us that this exercise gets added to every time she does it, as it is an exercise in manipulating the paints and seeing what they do.  We followed the almost-20 steps and practiced feathering out dark colors from full intensity to nothing, laying dark colors over a light area, manipulating the direction of the brush compared to the canvas, creating patterns with brush strokes,
and so on.  My absolute favorites were painting with the palette

knife and using the Dorland's wax medium.  Oh. My. Goodness, that was fun.  As my awesome classmate Theresa Kennish described, "it feels like painting with gelato".  The wax doubled the amount of paint I had in front of me when mixed with the pigment, and the texture you could make was awesome.  The texture of the paint with the wax in it looked like tiny microscopic bubbles.  I was in love.  My biggest regret from the entire week was not creating a painting using the palette knife/wax.  This will probably be my next art project.
Following the exercise, we were back to our paintings.  By 5 o'clock, I had all of my dark blues of the sky blocked in.

















Since I had(somehow) gotten 3 free nights at Harrahs, I checked into my room, had a quick bite to eat, and I was back to the studio for night hours.

Theresa making progress on her personal still life during evening hours!

My completed painting on the end of Day 1

 I was so excited and proud to complete my first painting by 10 minutes to 11(when they shut down the studio).  Woooohooo I was done!  By the time I got back to my hotel room, I was so tired I don't remember my head hitting the pillow.