Figure Painting Excercise - Part II

Yesterday in Maureen's painting class, we continued with the figure painting exercise, inspired by the paintings of Michael Steirnagle - so much fun! As it turns out, this exercise is much more of a color study than a figure painting exercise, as we were focused mainly on the background. Here is my painting so far:

I think the background is fairly close to being finished, but I plan to work on the figure more. I will probably change her arms, and do some additional work on her hair and dress.

This week, Maureen...

• Reminded us to keep our paintings as primarily cool or primarily warm. Our paintings could have elements of both, but warm or cool colors should dominate.


• Instructed us to add more color and reminded us to focus on complimentary colors, and have them appear next to each other - so, blue next to orange, red next to green, and purple next to yellow. We ended up doing several "walk-around" critique sessions this week, and at the first one, Maureen thought I had gone a little too nuts with red and green - a little too "Christmassy":-) Part of the problem was that my orange sidewalk (next to my blue road:-) had dried to look red. In other areas where I had added touches of red and green, my reds, and some of my greens, were way too bright and needed to be toned down.


• Encouraged us to add patterns to our paintings, again focusing on complimentary colors, so blue swirls on an orange background, or purple and yellow stripes, etc. We all really had to try and let loose/be free with this part of the excercise, since these patterns wouldn't necessarily appear in any of our realistic elements. The detail photos below show some of the patterns I added to my painting. As usual, Maureen shared lots more tips and insight. She is really great at analyzing paintings. If you are interested in her classes, she teaches at Chastain, Roswell and Alpharetta Art Centers. You can also see some of her paintings at: The Art House Gallery.

Please check out my paintings at http://JenniferFerrisArt.com/

Painting Class with John Stanford - Part II

Last Saturday brought another great class led by John Stanford. I almost didn't make it due to the weather. It is a 1.5 hour trip from my house, and the last 30 minutes of the trip are curvy, mountain roads. I am not a big fan of the drive under the best of conditions, even thought it is quite beautiful, and the forecast of rain, and possible thunderstorms, almost kept me at home. But, I am glad I went, not only to watch John paint and gain from him as much knowledge as possible, but to paint with my mom and her friends - very good company, indeed. My dad is also there to keep us happy with coffee and refreshments - thanks Dad!

In these first two classes, I took many notes on working "wet on wet", different approaches for "staining" your canvas, and a variety of techniques for enhancing the depth of your landscape paintings (even though I keep forgetting to bring a notebook & pen:-). Of all John's tips, there are two things he stressed that would make all of us better painters:

• Use more paint.


• Keep all of your materials clean.

Another point that came up in class that I wanted to include here for discussion purposes: I, and several others in class, were under the impression that you could paint oil over acrylics, but John cautioned against this practice. He pointed out that oil over oil is a molecular bond, but oil over acrylics is only a surface bond, and that it may peal off over time. I would love to hear from others about your experiences with this.

Please check out my paintings at http://JenniferFerrisArt.com/

Works in Progress

Well, I had hoped to blog at least every other day, if not every day, and now it has been 4 days since my last post - oops! Oh, well, at least I have been busy painting. I have three paintings in the works, not including the ones I am doing for class excercises, and have been busy prepping canvases for future works. The first image you see to the left is almost finished. This next one is part of my seagulls series, and so far, I have just worked on the background: And, with the third one, I have only started a rough sketch. It is really rough, so I will spare you that image and show you the reference photo instead:-)

Check back later for the completed paintings.

Please check out my paintings at http://JenniferFerrisArt.com/

A Look at my Studio

Here are a few pictures of my studio where I paint - a bit of a mess, as usual :-) Please check out my paintings at http://JenniferFerrisArt.com/

Figure Painting Excercise

I take a weekly painting class with Maureen Engle. Typically it is run as an "open studio" where we all paint what we want, and Maureen assists us as needed, and we do group critiques. It is always fun, and such a fun group to paint with, but I especially like when we do a specific painting exercise. No matter how much I have learned about painting, I think there is always room to learn more.

This week we started a figure painting exercise, inspired by the paintings of Michael Steirnagle. I have painted the figure a number of times, but have really wanted to concentrate on it more, ever since our trip last spring to Europe. Michael's paintings are amazing, and such an inspiration.

Shown here is my painting in the initial stages. This image may look familiar, as I am using a similar reference photo that I used for "The Girls". It is also one of the girls from the triptych on which I am currently working. (Thanks to my friends for being such great models!!! - You know who you are:-) Check back next week to see the completed painting...

View my paintings at http://JenniferFerrisArt.com/

Video of Matildas Opening Reception

Check out the video of Matildas opening party at her new location in Roswell, GA.

View my paintings at http://JenniferFerrisArt.com/

All Kids Count Gala

It was a fun evening last Saturday night at the All Kids Count Gala to raise money for the Foster Care Support Foundation. The generosity of the various donors was inspiring. Lots of great items were auctioned off at the event, including the following painting of mine: View my paintings at http://JenniferFerrisArt.com/

Painting Class with John Stanford

I started taking a painting class yesterday with John Stanford. It was great! He completed a small landscape painting in under an hour - very impressive! And then, we had 1.5 hours to try and complete as much of our own painting as possible. I am working on a scene from a picture I took last spring in London. I barely got the "laying-in" done before time was up. I hope that by the end of the session I will be much faster! The image above is my reference photo that I used, and to the right is my very rough "start" on this painting: In this class I am returning to working in oils, since John works in oils. I want to learn as much from him as possible. While I plan to continue in acrylics and mixed media for my primary body of work, I do think that working in different mediums is useful, and the knowlege gained here will be applicable in many ways to my work in acrylics.

View my paintings at http://JenniferFerrisArt.com/

Matildas Opening at New Location in Roswell, GA

It was a fun evening last night for the opening of Matildas new location on Canton Street in Roswell, Ga. The new gallery location looks great, and the event was well attended. Many of the artists were in attendence, including John "Cornbread" Anderson, Sandy Erickson Wright, Jane Berke, and myself, ofcourse.

View my paintings at http://JenniferFerrisArt.com/