Just came back from a workshop with artist Jeremy Lipking. I went in with some theories of how he might work – but found it quite unlike my expectations!
I’ll try to sum up what I saw in the the three days of painting:
I found him very likable. He’s a very low key guy – down to earth, slightly sarcastic sense of humor. Not a huge talker – he covers the key points and will always answer questions – but most of the day is you painting alongside him – watching his work evolve.
You have to be ready to observe – he’s not big on verbalizing his process. But it’s not like there are many secrets to it (other than great judgment, earned over time). You can pretty much see what he’s doing – you just get a little crazy with envy attempting to do it yourself. It’s all skill and experience - no tricks.
He loves cool subdued neutrals and pale glowing fleshtones - but he paints with brilliant cadmium colors. No reliance on greys or mud mixes – just what I’d call a ‘fairly standard full spectrum’ selection.
Two each of; red, yel, blue, green (one warm, one cool of each), black, white, and two wildcards – transparent red oxide (kind of uber-burnt sienna, good for flesh), and one custom mix – a kind of pale chalky warm blue (used as a cooling tint).
He uses these colors to make a symphony of greys. Nothing is overly chromatic – there’s usualy more use of stronger color in the transitions between values, or inside shadows. (no black shadows at all).
(specific pigments: Titanim White, Cad Lemon, Cad Yellow, Cad Orange, Cad Red, Alizarin Crimson, Trans. Red Oxide, Ultramarine Blue, Cobolt Blue, Viridian Green, ‘Gold Green” (kind of a dark Sap Green I’d never heard of before) and Ivory Black (which I didnt see him use).
(Jeremy’s palette)
His paintings have elegant draftsmanship, but in fact he doesn’t start with an underdrawing. He just dots in the crown, the chin, the feet and the ‘furthest extents’ – (like, the elbow and the feet). So we’re talking five or six dashes, and that’s it!
These dashes are carefully measured – he took about a 20 min to do this stage. He says this is so he knows the figure is placed as he wants in on the canvas before he puts a week into the painting.
He’s measuring with the brush at arms length – a simplified sight-size method – measuring the head, and estimating everthing in ’scaled head units’ on his canvas. So it’s ‘eyeball scaled sight size’ not a rigid academic approach.
(Jeremy’s demo – day one)
His method seems to be based almost entirely on a sensitivity to color. He is able to see and immediately reproduce extremely narrow midtone values. He works methodically, from the figures face outward and down, finishing as he goes, apparently not needing to go back to correct. Each stroke is considered.
He seems to paint slowly, but the painting actually progresses quite quickly – since every stroke is the correct value! He won’t make more than a few strokes with loaded brush – alwasy mixing exactly what he means to place.
His work appears to be ‘realistic’ a first glance - but it’s in fact very idealized. He’s compressing the values he sees into a narrow mid-tone space. It’s a really calm, serene kind of rendition of what’s in front of him.
His demo painting seemed to be 20 or 30 percent darker than reality – as if we’re seeing the model in a dimly lit interior. He chooses to ignore a lot of cast shadow and specular highlights in favor of a clean soft silhouette. The best example is his preference to leave out the highlight on the tip of the nose. He seems to think it’s distracting – too ’sharp’ a note.
He favors mongoose hair brushes. The top brand being Langnickle. They’re pretty awesome I must say – hold tons of paint, are very springy, but are suprisingly random. The hair feels ’spikey’ – the stroke is kind of crosshatched or dry-brush feeling. Seems very well suited to a smoothly blended painting.
He will take a clean brush and blend back unwanted thick ridges on brushstrokes – but I dont think you’ll ever see him using a blender on the painting. I didn’t see one anywhere in the studio.
It think that’s about it. If you were thinking about taking his workshop – I’d go while you have the chance. In a few years he might get a lot more expensive!
(Jeremy’s demo – day two)
(my weaksauce version)
The third day was kind of the cool part of this trip. We esentially blew off the studio and went to the beach. You really can’t get a lot of painting done while chasing the light and running from waves, but it’s a beautiful way to spend a day in Malibu.
Model: Maude Bonanni
Jeremy (seated, white hat)
Photos: Laurel Holmes!
Our drive home from the city takes us past the Palace of Fine Arts – which we’ve drawn many times during the day. I’ve alwasy wanted to come back after dark and draw the spotlights on the sculpture. I found a good view from the ‘far’ side (opposite the Exploratorium entrance) where the lighting makes a great light-on-dark-on-light counter changed silhouettes. If you’re out here Friday nights you might meet a crazy group of skaters that descend on the place with a mobile sound system. (Link: The Midnight Rollers).
Here’s a snapshot of my new night drawing setup. An LED bike light taped to an ultralight tripod, and a fisherman’s ‘ball cap light’ clipped to my hat brim…makes drawing in places without streetlight a lot easier! Added bonus – it makes raccoon eyes glow green! A little creepy at first!
Spent part of the halloween weekend sketching with some friends – it seemed appropriate to visit the cemetery :) There were a few people out taking a gothic stroll – but really, it was such a nice day – was hard to feel very spooky…
10 am - Mount Vision
2pm – Chimney Rock Trail
5:30 pm – McClure Beach
Just back from two more days painting at Point Reyes. Same as last session – 9×12 oil paint on panel, all knife work.
The thing I like about the palette knife - every stroke is clean color – no loaded brushes messing up your pigments. I can’t imagine cleaning my brushes between every stroke out in the field – but that’s what you get for free with the knives. As well – the paint is always completely opaque. Every mark is clearly articulated.
These sessions were either incredibly windy, doused in surf spray, or plagued with flies – so anything that gives you the color you want with less fuss is full of win!
I guess the bottom line is – I like the strokes you get! I try not to get too ‘artistic’ on the blog – but I have to say, I’m mesmerized by the expressive marks!
I hesitated before posting these – I think Laurel”s photos are so much better than my paintings…but oh well – in the interest of art blog disclosure – here’s the paintings in progress :)
Something I’m doing for a group show with an erotic theme. 30×40, oil on canvas – the largest thing I’ve painted since art school – I wanted to approach it in the same way I might do any work – same kind of paint handling – just with bigger brushes :)
Here’s a couple plein air paintings from this afternoon. I’m trying something different here…painting oils on panel, 8×10, working entirely with pallette knives…the results are a little out of control, a little too abstract – it’s probably not for everyone, but I enjoy the really juicy surface! I’m going to have to keep at this – see if I can refine the edges, do better at ‘rendering’ the scene..
Sea Lion overlook, just next to Point Reyes lighthouse.
Up on Mount Tam, looking at SF. This one is became a bit too abstract – you’re looking down at Tiburon and SF from 2500 ft.
so…am at lunch time sketching, nothing much turning out…but then she did this pose. I had this weird feeling that it was essential to get this down right – even if nothing else from the session came out I wanted this one!
Photos: Laurel Holmes
