Painting Tip #23 - Try Painting with a Palette Knife

Save your brushes by mixing your colors with a palette knife! I like a medium size, diamond shape knife. Less paint becomes embedded in the ferrule of your brush when using it only to apply the paint to the surface rather than also mixing with the brush.

You can also try doing entire paintings with the knife. This forces you to simplify things and loosen up. A great advantage is not having to wash brushes at the end of the day. The Cape Cod School of Art (recently revived by followers of Charles W. Hawthorne and Henry Hensche) in Provincetown has traditionally promoted the use of putty knives on gessoed board to create color studies outdoors.

An Early Masterpiece by Cedric Egeli

This life size portrait shows Cedric's wife, Joanette, an accomplished artist in her own right, with their daughter Anastasia.

Cedric is a modern master, following in the footsteps of amazing portraitists such as Raeburn and Sargent, with the addition of amazing color pioneered by the French Impressionists.

Cedric combines a deep knowledge of human anatomy and how to portray people on canvas with tonalist as well as colorist knowledge. He studied with both Frank Reilly and Frank Mason at The Art Students League in New York and later Henry Hensche (who studied with Charles W. Hawthorne, a student of William Merritt Chase) in Cape Cod. As a result, he is exceptional in his abilities as a painter.

One of the main things taught by this great painter is how to create form and construct a figure rather than just copying.

Every January, a group of enthusiastic students, a large percentage of whom are working, professional artists and teachers in their own right, convene on the Maryland studio of Cedric and Joanette Egeli to learn more about how to improve their work and grow as painters. Summertime finds a lot of the same group on the beach in Provincetown, studying the effect of color and light on the figure. Very few instructors have this comprehensive knowledge of both drawing the figure, tonalism and also color. Study of color is crucial for paintings set out of doors.

New DVD from Margaret Carter Baumgaertner - Painting The Plein Air Portrait

I have wanted to view this DVD for months, but have been so crazy busy (selling my house, moving to a smaller place and subsequently spending hours hunting for things on a daily basis) that it has taken a back seat until now!

In the photograph above, you can see a rundown of the contents of the DVD, filmed by Baum Squad Productions. The footage I have watched so far has been clear and well edited.

This DVD fills a gap in the market for art instruction videos by addressing painting outdoors in a colorist/impressionistic fashion, following in the footsteps of artists such as Monet, Sorolla and many others.

Ms. Baumgaertner (also known as Peggy) trained with Cedric Egeli, whose teacher was Henry Hensche of The Cape Cod School of Art in Provincetown.

In this DVD series, she explains how to capture the light key, initially with colored blocks and then by painting a little girl in sunlight.  The beginning of the painting process, after a charcoal drawing is dividing the subject into areas that are in the light and shadow. Peggy, an accomplished painter and teacher, uses an extensive palette (over 20 tubes) and does all her mixing (other than to match value) on the canvas rather than the palette.

For more information, here is the website to peruse:  http://www.baumportraits.com