Free Painting Lesson from Brian Neher

Portrait artist Brian Neher has recently produced 5 instructional videos and has posted a free 50 minute lesson to "wet your palette". In the lesson, he demonstrates the foundational principles of representational painting through the painting of an apple.

You can view the whole lesson on YouTube here, or you can visit Brian's site to get the free high-res download for you to keep forever!

Brian has studied with the amazing illustrator and portrait artist Joe Bowler for more than 10 years and he's quickly becoming one of today's elite portrait artists. A look through his work will reveal a commitment to the past masters with personal touches of high-key values, pure color and natural light.

Brian's commission work is mostly painted from photo references (he uses only Black and White photos!), so for all the artists out there that work at night, or don't have access to live models, his lessons may be extra informative.

In the Garden at Richard & Nancy's

I was up in Vermont this past Saturday for a day of painting at Richard Schmid and Nancy Guizik's house. The Putney Painters all gathered in the Garden for a morning painting demo from Richard and then spent the afternoon painting in Richard's studio. Below are some of the process photos of the demo. For a wonderful write-up and full documentation of the demonstration, keep and eye out for a lesson in Katie Swatland's Learning from Richard Schmid. (it will probably be a lesson sometime in the early winter)

This is Richards initial toning. A very thinned wash of violet blue on the right and then Viridian with a bit of yellow ochre (or some other yellow/orange) below. Then Richard went right into a design statement with a slightly thicker stroke of Transparent Oxide Red and Viridian.

Richard then went right into the area of focus . . . clearing out the space he intended for the flowers with a paper towel. I don't have a shot of the garden, but he was looking at several individual plants and composing the painting by picking and choosing the ones that best fit his initial vision.

After finishing the flower, he went back into the background and added the core darks and variations of edges and shapes.

He then went into the other key flower and worked his way out.

 Here is a close-up of the first "sitting" probably 45 minutes in.

 After spending some time with the leaves and surrounding areas, it was actually getting close to lunch (we had a late start). Since he had less than an hour left, he began to make notes of the other main features to ensure he had enough information to finish the painting in the studio.

 Here is another straight-on view after he has made all his "notes"

And here is the final stage for the day. As you can see, he had some extra time and focused some more on the yellow flowers and the foliage.

On another note . . . .

Wild Flowers by Richard Schmid

Kristen Thies and her gallery West Wind Fine Art has recently moved out to Cape Cod and is having one of their first major shows at the end of this month. If your anywhere close to the area, your going to want to go to this reception. 

Dreamers by Nancy Guzik

There will be at least two Schmid paintings (plus those in Kristen's personal collection) as well as five from Nancy and a few other paintings from my friend Daniel Keys who has just recently had the privilege of being represented by Kristen.

Roses & Hydrangeas by Daniel Keys

For more info on the show visit the West Wind Fine Art site . . . if you want to keep up with the gallery, join their mailing list.

Creativity by Nancy Guzik