Tag Archives: Walt Bartman

Dancing Dervish – more ArtRage/iPad Sketches!

At our Yellow Barn class last night with Walt Bartman, our wonderful bellydancer model danced for us while we made quick gesture sketches and 15 minute studies of still poses. Exciting and intimidating all at once. We had to push way out past our comfort zones, especially those of us who aim for fairly representational paintings. I used ArtRage on the iPad, in support of my continued efforts to prepare for the class I’m teaching at Yellow Barn.

Latest Landscape Paintings

Some dear art buddies and I attended a landscape workshop at Deep Creek Lake last weekend, taught by Walt Bartman and managed by his wonderful wife Robyn. The entire group produced some lovely paintings and starts on paintings of the spectacular Fall foliage.

Here are a few of our works:

Recent ArtRage/iPad Activities

 

I’ve got 3 weeks down and 7 to go in the Intro to iPad Art class I’m teaching at the Yellow Barn Studio. We have covered some of the most basic how-to information about the ArtRage app and are now exploring/practicing various tools.

In the last week, at the suggestion of Walt Bartman, I tried simulating a traditional oil painting technique – making a monochrome value-study by rubbing out highlights in a toned canvas and then adding color at the value levels developed in the preliminary study. In the iPad framework, I used the paint roller to make a solid underpainting and then used a soft eraser to ‘rub out’ the lighter passages and then added a few darker areas using the chalk tool to capture the darks.

Here are the two stages of the first work I did with this method, painted from our lovely live model Kuniko. First, the study:

Kuniko

Kuniko in kimono, monochromatic iPad study.

And then the colored version:

iPad Kuniko

Kuniko iPad study, developed with color.

Keeping a Gouache Painting Simple

In developing some PR for the just-ended Labor Day exhibits, I pulled out a photo of one of my earliest gouaches. Made on black paper at the suggestion of Yellow Barn teacher, Walt Bartman, I incorporated the paper’s rich black for the composition’s dark values — also his suggestion. I loved the outcome. Here it is.

Blue Girl, gouache on paper.

When I did the painting of grandson Max for yesterday’s post, I had intended to do the same thing, but wimped out in the end — not wanting a lot of black on a sweet baby’s face. I’m going to try again on my next gouache, but the restraint needed to achieve the simplicity of black shadows, etc. is hard hard hard.

Stephen Sits as Our Model

Stephen and His Book

Stephen and His Book

I painted this figurative study during classes with Walt Bartman last week. Stephen was so comfy posing in the big blue easy chair that he barely took breaks during the sessions. Thank you, Stephen. We enjoyed painting your shiny pate. (This photo isn’t up to par — had too much light shining on the left part of the canvas.)