Palette Talk

November 15, 2013 | Doreen E. Lepore

Originally my plan was to write about Sorolla and his palettes, however while researching I found the definitive article written on Sorolla, his palettes and technique. The article was written in 1990 by Charles Sovek as a cover article for The Artists Magazine.

The article is here: http://www.sovek.com/publications/articles/sorolla/index.htm

Sorolla’s palettes were different for portraiture or outdoor landscape, as stated in the article:

“Varying with the subjects he painted, Sorolla used essentially two different color palettes. For studio portraits, he favored one that included black, burnt umber, raw umber, rose madder, burnt sienna, raw sienna, yellow ochre, Naples yellow, vermilion and cobalt blue. Occasionally he would add orange, pink or purple, but he usually emphasized strong tonal contrasts over ambitious color effects. His outdoor palette was completely different and included cobalt violet, rose madder, all the cadmium reds, cadmium orange, all the cadmium yellows, yellow ochre, chrome green (since replaced by permanent green light), viridian, Prussian blue, cobalt blue and French ultramarine. In both cases, he used lead white.”

Unfortunately Charles Sovek passed away in 2007, however his website remains and is loaded with valuable information and is maintained by The Charles Sovek Estate.

http://www.sovek.com/index.htm

On the top of his section “Speaking of Art” he talks about the palette based on the color wheel, or a rainbow palette, which is similar to what I use, sometimes less and sometimes more, depending on what I’m painting, but a good color wheel palette in any medium keeps your paintings bright and less muddled.

Sovek’s suggestion is: Dioxine purple, permanent rose, cadmium red light, cadmium orange, cadmium yellow medium, cadmium yellow light, thalo green, cerulean blue, ultramarine blue, white, black.

Personally, most of the time I don’t use the purple, thalo green, cerulean blue or black and try to mix those instead. Sometimes I’ll use thalo blue (carefully – it’s a strong color). Also I use Veridian. But basically it does stay fresh and is a rainbow palette.

In the past I’ve discussed palettes for pastels and do in fact use different palettes for portraits and landscapes, more earthtones for the portraits and more of a color wheel selection for landscapes.

Because of copyright issues I haven’t included one of Sovek’s paintings here but strongly urge you to visit the website and look through his galleries as well as the “Lessons from the Easel”. He was a wonderful painter and teacher. You can get his books and dvd’s there also.

This website is also interesting, Sorolla’s paintings and biography:

http://www.joaquin-sorolla-y-bastida.org/

More Sales!!!

February 2, 2013 | Doreen E. Lepore

My apologies for not keeping up with my blog however I started the year way under the weather and it really put be very far behind in every aspect of my life. Plus, there have been way to many non art activities that I’ve been forced into by people who don’t appreciate my time nearly as much as I do.

But the good news is that there have been more sales that I’m happy to report and hopefully, I’ll get back to painting soon.

Hobe Sound Life Guard Station — Oil on panel – plein air knife painting – 12×16

Sold!

December 23, 2012December 23, 2012 | Doreen E. Lepore

End of Hobe Sound Beach — Oil – knife painting – 5×7

Three of my faves sold last week. 🙂 😦

But fear not, I’ll do more!

Worldwide Paintout

September 23, 2012 | Doreen E. Lepore

Jupiter Inlet, DuBois Park, 14×11 Oil on Panel

Done last weekend for the 10th annual world wide paint out. Went down to DuBois Park and set up toward the inlet.

DuBois Park facing inlet – notice the partiers to my right – they never even offered me a hot dog – not that I eat hot dogs.

It was a nice day but there was a storm coming in from the ocean. That gave me a great cloud to work on though. It sprinkled a little while I was there but as soon as it started to thunder I packed up and left.

Tin Roof – Rusted

June 20, 2012June 23, 2012 | Doreen E. Lepore

This painting was done in Ft. Pierce as part of an invitational paint out. The last time I was in the neighborhood, this building was completely renovated. It wouldn’t be my choice as a painting subject anymore because all the character was removed.

The title is from that song by the B52’s – “Love Shack”. Of course being in Ft. Pierce it was probably more likely a Drug Shack.

John Pierce Barnes

June 2, 2012 | Doreen E. Lepore

There was an interesting article in the June issue of “Pastel Journal” titled “History Reclaimed” about John Pierce Barnes (1893-1954), an impressionist artist, who was discovered recently. The pastel paintings that they show on the Pastel Journal website are stunning. In order to avoid any problems I haven’t included any pictures of his paintings here.

This link is to the Pastel Journal Blog:

http://www.artistsnetwork.com/medium/pastel/john-pierce-barnes-gallery

You can read the story in the following link, about how the curator of his paintings, Katherine Stanko, learned that the paintings existed and had been in storage since the artists death or maybe longer.

“THE RESURRECTION OF ARTIST JOHN PIERCE BARNES, RCA Worker and Impressionist Painter” By Hoag Levins is here:

http://historiccamdencounty.com/ccnews145.shtml

What inspires me the most is how wonderful his color choices were and his bold strokes. Many pastelists blend the heck out of their work and it thrills me to see unblended work from the 1920’s. It is also pretty easy to put together his very simple plein air palette from his work, which, of course, I had to do. It seems to be very limited, which is great for going out on location. Possibly, he had a small landscape set – I don’t know what was available in the ’20’s. I managed to fit all the colors into a small 5″x4″ box – it doesn’t get better than that!

Since I don’t keep the names of my colors, and now realize I have way too many colors, yet, not enough of these colors, I’ve made a color chart of what his palette probably was.

John Pierce Barnes Palette – it looks a little dark here but see below for actual pastel sticks

pastels for plein air – in a little cigar box

If it would stop raining I’d take them for a test ride.:)

The Sketchbook Project

May 16, 2012 | Doreen E. Lepore

The Sketchbook Project is fun to do and I’ve just signed up for the 2013 project. In a nutshell – you sign up, pay for a blank sketchbook plus touring expenses and when you return it to the ArtHouse Coop it is cataloged and then goes on tour.

Here are some pages from my 2011 sketchbook – my theme was “Down my Road”, so these are all very local scenes.:

Japanese Bridge – 2011 Sketchbook Project – watercolor crayons and market pens

Five Dollar Beach – 2011 Sketchbook Project – watercolor crayon and marker pens

Sailing by Jupiter Lighthouse – 2011 Sketchbook Project – watercolor crayon and marker pens

Hobe Sound Beach – 2011 Sketchbook Project – watercolor crayon and marker pen

My Neighbor's Lemon Tree — My Neighbor’s Lemon Tree – 2011 Sketchbook Project – watercolor crayon and marker pen

and last but not least because it is once again that great spot on the Loxahatchee River:

There were many more pages but this is enough to give you the gist of the sketchbook. The method that I used was fun. The first sketch is with watercolor crayon, then apply water, let that dry, use the marker pens to outline or do some fancy scribbling and then a final layer of gray or white on top for atmosphere.

I’ve scanned in the 2012 sketchbook but haven’t downsized the files yet. Will post soon.

Now I’m looking forward to the 2013 project and hope I don’t procrastinate as much as I usually do finding myself filling the book two days before it’s due.

Repeating Myself Again

May 7, 2012 | Doreen E. Lepore

Here is one of my favorite painting spots at Jonathan Dickinson State Park on the bank of the Loxahatchee River. In the past I’ve seen very large gators here and often there are kayakers going by too. Not together.

This first plein air is done on an 8×10 panel that I made with a gritty coating to give the surface texture. It’s done in pastels, pure brilliant pigment – in stick form – better than crayons!

Next on the Loxahatchee, same place different day and time, was also a textured panel – much bigger and was done as a class demonstration. The class wanted to also see how to underpaint so I used some rubbing alcohol over the pastels, which solidified the background. Then I waited a bit for the painting to dry and finished the pastel on top.

Loxahatchee Again - 12x16 Pastel on Panel — Loxahatchee Again – 12×16 Pastel on Panel

Wait, I’m not done – there’s one more for now – this one is same place – of course a different day and time and different paper! Viewpoint is slightly farther down on the river bank. This one is my favorite – it too has an underpainting – this time with watercolor.

Banks of Loxahatchee - 9x12 - Pastel on sanded paper — Banks of Loxahatchee – 9×12 – Pastel on sanded paper

The watercolor underpainting is a great tool. You can get some great darks in without getting too messy and build some beautiful shadow areas. Also the pink undertone in the sky and water adds luminosity and air.

Looking at all these together like this makes me want to go there again.

I can’t promise that these are all the paintings that I have done or will do of the Loxahatchee River.

Riverbend

April 29, 2012April 29, 2012 | Doreen E. Lepore

Last week I painted this at Riverbend Park in Jupiter, FL. It was the first time there for me and I was surprised at how big the park actually is. There were many scenic views to choose from but since my pan head connection (the little foot that connects my palette to the tripod) was nowhere to be found, I had to make use of one of the picnic tables that had the added convenience of a chickee roof. (The things that are made out of palm fronds.)

When I first arrived there was a man fishing on the river bank and he had all his gear on what I considered prime real estate – the picnic table with the view. When I asked if we could share the table he was more than happy to accommodate, so problem solved.

However, not long after getting set up and ready to paint there were several more people that joined the painting group I was there with. They saw me and thought that was the place to be, so we literally moved him completely out. At first I felt bad, but he seemed to be enjoying the comradery and really, fishing/plein air painting, same thing.

The only down side was that two of the ladies set up in front of me, sort of obstructing my view, but you win some and you lose some. In the end, I won this little painting and I managed to get home before it rained!:)