"Alien Gate"
Watercolor crayon on paper
9" x 12"
© 2009 Marilyn Fenn

Treasure Chest

Today I'm participating in a collaborative online project with other art bloggers.  We are re-posting one of our favorite posts from our blogs.  I chose to re-post some notes from art school from way back when, because I find these tips personally useful to review every so often, especially this year when I am exploring various other avenues in my creative process.  Perhaps other artists will find some of these tips helpful, too.

I also recommend that you view the post from the organizer of this project, Seth Apter, on his blog The Altered Page.  It's a gorgeous, compelling and inspiring piece.

You can link to all participating artists from the Treasure Chest post on Seth's blog.

Finally, the piece above is a brand new work from my new series, Paintings from the Hot, Hot Summer of 2009.  So here's my Buried Treasure:

Class notes from art camp classes with George Liebert and Dan Gustin, Oxbow, MI, summer 1991.

Make a list of verbs and adjectives about your own work.

When struggling with a work, isolate parts of it and do lots of sketches to come up with a better composition.

What are your personal, specific goals?

Colors: similar vs. somber vs. stronger.

Realism vs. abstraction - both successful, maybe in combination.

Consider excitement of surfaces vs. complex images. Patterns on blanket, individual parts developed, keep to whole color - add pink, red, clear blue, zingier color.

Keep exciting in earlier stages.

Develop through series of big changes to work out issues.

Series of patterns; sincerity, passion.

Beware of making shadows that are a hole to hell (i.e., too dark) - gap in thinking color rather than value.

Take inventory - look at beautiful drawings in museum.

Strange mix of sacred and profane.

Baroque art: look at Poussin, Rubens' sketches, Rembrandt, make drawings about what interests you — movement, etc.

Overlap some things.

Check a variety of approaches; work on sense of design.

Look at Eric Fischl - palette in realistic landscape.

Drawing by Rembrandt van Rijn
"Reclining Lion"
pen and paint brush
ca. 1650

Class notes from art camp classes with George Liebert and Dan Gustin, Oxbow, MI, summer 1991.

Make a list of verbs and adjectives about your own work.

When struggling with a work, isolate parts of it and do lots of sketches to come up with a better composition.

What are your personal, specific goals?

Colors: similar vs. somber vs. stronger.

Realism vs. abstraction - both successful, maybe in combination. (one of my teachers, Dan Guston, and a visiting artist got into a discussion about a painting I did of a girl in the landscape - she was wearing a bandana on her head, which I painted as a flat triangle on top of her more realistically rendered figure).

Consider excitement of surfaces vs. complex images. Patterns on blanket, individual parts developed, keep to whole color - add pink, red, clear blue, zingier color.

Keep exciting in earlier stages.

Develop through series of big changes to work out issues.

Series of patterns; sincerity, passion.

Beware of making shadows that are a hole to hell (too dark) - gap in thinking color rather than value.

Take inventory - look at beautiful drawings in museum.

Strange mix of sacred and profane.

Baroque art: look at Poussin, Rubens' sketches, Rembrandt, make drawings about what interests you -- movement, etc.

Overlap some things.

Check a variety of approaches; work on sense of design.

Look at Eric Fischl - palette in realistic landscape.

Painting by George Tooker
Waiting Room
Egg Tempura on Gesso Panel
24"x30"

See more of George Tooker's work.

Class notes, SAIC, 1991.

Nicholas Africano

Notes from Oxbow, 1991:

Dufy
The Beach at St. Adresse

Picasso
Still Life with Chair-Caning
Paris, [May] 1912
Oil and oilcloth on canvas, with rope frame
10 5/8 x 13 3/4 in. (27 x 35 cm.)