This and That

How is this connected to that? What have I learned from studying art for four years at Gage? Persistence, patience and a deep appreciation for how the mind works. I now see things I never noticed before. Thanks, Gary Faigin.

Self Portrait 2011

I have been doing self portraits each year for about 7 years now, and plan to continue. I recently heard Anne Petty speak and she says whenever she is stuck, she makes a self portrait. She jokes, "I am always available to pose". Above is my long journey to the final piece. It began as a still life, studying different yellow objects, since I had completed the blue objects still life, and wanted to see how yellow behaved in light and shadow, on metal, plastic and cloth...

Fabric and Painting

Gary Faigin showed his Still Life Painting Atelier last week how to render fabric, and how to determine what folds and wrinkles should be not included to make the image read well.

Atelier and Skulls

It's before Halloween, and yet.. I am painting a still life with

a skull in it. I am looking at sketches, hung upside-down n

front of my fireplace... the one on the right makes it back into the atelier

for the painting...

How fun was this? Super fun. Gary Faigin's book, the Artist's Complete Guide to Facial Expression is the basis for his class. Above, notes on the board from day one of a five day workshop. GAGE is the school that Gary started with is wife, Pamela.

Painting White Objects

OH MY ***! I have enrolled in the still life atelier program studying with Gary Faigin, painting still life. I have just discovered how much I do not know about painting, or even looking at things. It's an eye opening experience. Fun. School all day for a woman in her 50s is sometimes quite exhausting. Above an image of some white objects as I work on a painting. Here are some images from other students in the atelier.

Art Class

Wow. I've been making art most of my life. My older cousin Dean threatened to hit me REALLY hard if I went outside the lines in his coloring book. I remember being quite frightened that he would notice I did get a speck out of the lines, so I outlined the entire picture with black crayon. I later decided I couldn't draw, so started making cartoons, and eventually gave up my arty self to my sister Anita, who I said was the artist of the family. I took a class about twenty years ago, based on the book, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, by Betty Edwards. A local gal taught the class and he changed how I think about things. Everything we render as an artist is merely a shape...





Now, I have taken another class, at Gage Academy of Art, in Seattle, and a wonderful, talented artist named Rita Natarova, has changed how I look at things again. I learned about edges, and how to render a drawing or painting with very little on the page. Well, I must say I learned how it's done. If I practice, I hope one day to be able to do it. Wow. Learning something new every twenty years. I highly recommend it.

Art and Real Estate

Ever wonder how the art gets into a Real Estate office? Some people buy it, some people loan it, some people have their artist friends set up a loaner show. In the Windermere Real Estate/Fauntleroy,Inc. office I work in...we are pleased to have Gary Faigin's paintings on loan. http://garyfaigin.com/

We are very pleased to have them here.