Tag: James Gurney

Weekly Painter 2017_January-February

One of my goals for 2017 was to paint more. It’s often intimidating to get out my easel and a “precious” canvas and jump into a big project that I know will keep me preoccupied from my family for the next week (which is my normal experience). In other words, it doesn’t fit conveniently in my normal life.

So, I followed the design of James Gurney and created my own light and portable pochade easel.

Since then I’ve been trying to paint at least one small 5×7 gouache every week. I’ll try to post some more as I go, but below is a selection:

Week One: The Back Alley

Week Three: For Sale

Week Five: Dreams

Week Six: Appliances

Week Seven: Could this be Spring?

Week Eight: Winter Field

Life, Procreate, and James Gurney’s High-Contrast Painting Studies

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Fitting art making into my life is a bit of a struggle folks. Three kids and a full time job means that by the time I’ve made it to “art time” (those precious 2 hours after the kids go to bed and before I pass out) I’m usually exhausted and spend all of my time staring at my phone like a zombie–just looking at other artists’ work. This is why I try to sketch a bit everyday. It’s something I can do in the midst of life that doesn’t involve setting up paint, or cleaning up paint, or scanning and coloring on Photoshop, etc. So, today I decided to download Procreate onto my oldish iPad. I immediately began using it to sketch and paint and I’m in love. I think that, just like sketching, I should be able to use this program to make art in the midst of my life. And in the process, over time, maybe even create some more “finished” pieces.

The sketch above is just a sketch, but it was the first thing I tried in Procreate. It was done as a study based on a tutorial for high-contrast painting studies on the blog of James Gurney. I found these quick sketches he was doing to be really inspiring and I’ve always been drawn to these chiaroscuro style paintings. It was fun and I can’t wait to explore more.