St. Louis Show

I'm in the middle of trying to pack my compact car with +30 paintings. I've come to the realization that I just can't take some of my favorites because they're TO BIG!!! I love to paint large and use a huge bakers spatula because I feel like I've physically stepped into the creating process. This series of 11"x14" will be the bulk of my newest for this St. Louis show and with luck I'll be able to tuck some 40"x30" along.

Foggy Haze

"Foggy Morning"
"Haze Abstraction"
I define vacation as painting near an ocean beach minus cell phones and computers which is why I haven't posted anything in a while. My favorite time is early in the morning. I love sharing with just the fewest beachcombers and the gulls. Having just returned from the Jersey shore I am reluctantly getting back into daily life but the memories of those early morning paint sessions has me already planning for my next escape.
The haze, fog, & light presented a great opportunity for more value and temperature studies. All my paintings for this trip were 5"x7" oil on linen mounted on archival museum board. I recommend this surface when traveling. It's extremely light and compact, allowing me to carry what I need in a tiny bag.

Renaissance Fair Plein Aire Event

The procession to the art auction
the art auction,proceeds went to Variety, a children's charity

Bristol Renaissance Fair

I'd like to share a few photos from this past weekend plein air event which took place at the Bristol Renaissance Fair. As a participating artist, I have to say it was one of my most pleasurable plein air experience. Everyone connected with the Bristol Renaissance Fair including the visitors, were happy to be part of the fair experience. Their enthusiasm was infectious. It made painting in the heat and huge crowds easy and very very fun. It isn't everyday that an artist converses with medieval gentle persons about her paintings.
The event concluded with an art auctions. Proceeds went to Variety, a children's charity for physically disabled. The renaissance actors carried all the paintings in a procession through the fair grounds to the large theatre were they continued, in character, to auction "the queens art." Unsold paintings will remain on display until September 6, 2010.
"Banners Way" "Dress Up" "Sweet Meats" oil 6"x8" plus frames (sold)

Reeds and Rocks

We're still having spring storms although I guess I should call them summer storms. Although the flooding is a pain the results make interesting subjects to paint. Once again I returned to our rivers edge as my muse but it is the abstract concepts of capturing the dazzling light on moving water, rocks, and weeds that fascinate me and make this painting a very fun challenge. Basically I feel light is relatively cool and shadows are warm (relative to my painting)so why the yellowish highlights on the rocks? They looked yellow although a cool yellow. It's been interesting reading different blogs on this concept of warm shadows and cool lights.
($95. 6"x8" oil w/ palette knife)

Old Town cathedral

Karen Phipps and I teased we should call the paintings we did this day "Stinky" because we had to stand next to full trash cans and in the alley (the alley was Karen's idea) with "watch out for rats" signs. Needless to say we did lots of mouth breathing and fast painting. We gave ourselves one hour to paint this church because we knew the light would change fast and limiting our time helps us get down to the business of what's necessary.
I thought mine was going to be about the steeple but the painting quickly told me it was about the geometry. I really don't like to think about perspective and all it's rules. Gives me a pain between the brows. Normally I don't care if the perspective isn't perfect. But for this piece I wanted the geometry and perspective to highlight the expressiveness of the design.
(8"x6" oil $149.)

"Forgotten Homestead" 40"x30" oil

"Forgotten Homestead" is a painting about a place that could probably tell a thousand stories if only it could speak. Hopefully my painting is strong enough to fill in some of the gaps. This old farm looked so beautiful half buried in the prairie grass and wild flowers.
Painted with my favorite tools, a palette knife and a #20 round.

For those of you who made the Marion Street Gallery opening, Thank You!!! so much for braving the horrid weather. I hope you enjoyed the live music and variety of art as much as I did. And if you didn't get to the gallery yet, please stop by soon. I will be hanging new paintings to replace the gaps from the opening week sales!

"Off the Path"

One of my students asked me if I ever worked from my imagination and I said "no." Never say never because that is exactly what I started doing after that particular conversation last spring. Thank you Afshin. "Off the Path" is a painting I created in my studio although my muse are numerous memories of living and revisiting the northwoods area. Also I have a couple of little 4x6 oil sketches created over the past eight years so it's not 100% invention. But working this way is a leap for me since I've always preferred painting on location and not re-working the painting later in the studio.
"Off the Path" is a 36"x24" palette knife painting. I was really thinking about Leffel's definition of background and spent a lot of time developing my "background" prior to hitting the lights.
This painting will be shown at the Marion Street Gallery, Oak Park, Il.
($2250.+$12s/h)

studying background

Leffel's workshop was divided between figure studies and still life studies. During the 1 1/2 days we had with still lifes I focused on "background." David defines "background" as everything not in the light. This definition simplified things for me and helped me focus on creating a solid support for the "light."

12"x16" oil on Claussen #13ddp linen. Still life studies never to be finished because I got what I wanted from these studies - a better understanding of brush strokes and background.

"Etc."

I'm calling today's post "etc" because I thought I'd highlight a few of the things I've been working on these past two weeks. It's still the same as always although I've added card-making to my evening routine. Making cards by cutting the shapes from fabric is ridiculously labor intensive but I find the whole process calming. Either that or it's the red wine I'm sipping while clipping.

This first imagine is from a workshop I'm taking from Romel de la Torrez. I love his very laid back teaching style. We often don't even know when he's arrived. The biggest difference, for me, in his approach is his insistence on large canvas and painting fast. This is 20"x16" which is the smallest he recommends I work. Normally I would bring a 11"x14" so this feels huge. He casually threw out that I should have it all massed in within 20-25 minutes - gulp. But I grabbed the challenge as well as my largest brushes (not palette knives). The 2.5 hours flew and I was happy that I accomplished as much as I did.

Canson's Pastel Paper

22"x30"

vine charcoal and powder

cast study-2.5 hours

This drawing was done with a more "painterly" attitude. I first rubbed in a layer of vine charcoal powder, massed in my darks, and then pulled out lighter values with toilet paper, #4 bristle brush, and lastly for my lightest lights a kneaded eraser.

7"x5" card

"Wishes"

message inside

Wishing you all the great things in life

Happy Birthday!!!

or

"remembering"

Thanks for helping me remember what's important...

And today it's you

Happy Mother's Day

to purchase cards and see more examples - http://www.susanhongsammons.etsy.com/

Kari (2.5 hr head study)

Last night I joined a figure class at the Palette and Chisel. Romel de la Torre is the instructor. If you're not familiar with his beautiful paintings go to http://www.romeldelatorre.com/. You will not be sorry you spent a few more minutes on your computer. I like Romel's very laid back approach to teaching. He wanders around and gives everyone a few comments but mostly he just watches our results and doesn't rush us. Most of the people have studied with him before but I'm a new-comer to his group.

I did not think I could even get a block-in finished in +2 hours. Just goes to show what can happen when I focus. But I did fail to nail my block-in more concretely/with conviction. I think had I done so I could have ended with a less "spotty" look and perhaps some decent brush strokes. My brush strokes suck, pardon my language. So I can't wait to get to open studio and work on a more confident block-in and BRUSH STROKES!!!!!!!!

just in case you haven't notice my blatant flashing banners, I started an Etsy store (Etsy is an on-line site selling handmade items only) I recently posted some 5"x7" cards inspired by my love of making quilts. I cut fabric, not paint, to create each shape. I'm also showing some smaller paintings. If you've time and need some cards, please consider mine - Thank you http://www.susanhongsammons.etsy.com/

head study - Jessie

So great to get back to the Palette and Chisel and work with a model. Saturday there isn't a lunch break, which I prefer, so we can paint from 9-1:30 on one pose. Of course I was late (because I went with Karen and worked from 7-9 on a cold corner painting a street scene) but I still got to work on; simplify to big shapes, value, and then the time was up.

"Linda"

Linda, a fellow artist friend, posed for us because the model did not show up. Thank you Linda. You gave up your paint time so that we would not have to and, you gave us a very interesting yet natural pose from all angles.

I love painting during open studio and seeing how each artist approaches the problem of painting a figure in their own way. The results are all varied. I started by trying to find the lightest value in the shadow under her chin and the darkest value in the lit part of her face. Those became my two mother piles. I wasn't concerned with the rest of the issues on my list such as edges, brush stroke, proportions, getting a likeness etc because I really want to accurately find the correct values. I think if the value is off it won't matter if I get the other things correct.

This is a 9"x12" oil on linen study

Value & Temperature Studies

Thought I'd post a few recent studies I've been working on inspired by taking a four evening workshop with Clayton Beck at the Palette and Chisel.

Clayton challenges us to pick just one issue to tackle instead of going through our mental list of many art elements which we might personally feel necessary for a good painting. Also, finishing is not important or even on "the list" which is great since the workshop meets for only 3 hours and includes his excellent mini demos as well as lots and lots of information.

For this portrait study of a man I chose to sit on his lit side. The values here were compressed to basically one value. So in order to describe form, I needed to focus on temperature changes but keep the values the same, or very close. Clayton recommended that I find the middle temperature and work out from there. I found this thought processes really exciting and so fun. So of course the hours flew by much to quickly.

This young gal gave me more trouble than the man. I should have just dealt with just value and the temperature issues would have developed naturally. From now on I'll know just to pick one issue to deal with when in open studio. This should have been a value study and not, value and temperature study.

Both head studies are slightly smaller than life size.

If you're visiting Chicago, take the time to stop by the Palette and Chisel Academy of Fine Arts and Galleries. It is one of our nations oldest, (if not the oldest) not for profit art organizations. Besides have over 60 hours a week of live model open studio time, which is free to members, it also has a main floor gallery, low cost studios, sculpture house and studios, and workshops all housed in a three story Italianate mansion purchased by members in 1921.

City Art Gallery, Greenville, North Carolina

"From Coast to Coast and in Between"
Opening January 15th.

As I said in my last post, I'm in a show which opens on Friday. So I'm continuing with a few more oil paintings from this exhibition. City Art Gallery will be highlighting over twelve of my paintings. I'll be showing with artists Tjasa Owen from San Francisco, Tim Kennedy of Indiana, and Sallie Benton from New York.
http://www.cityartgreenville.com/

"Shimmering Lights"
30"x24" oil on linen
$1900










"Suspended Animation"
24"x13" Oil $1200.

"Buddies"

12"x12" Oil $845.

"Cascading Lights"

goofing around in the studio with this one from a painting I did at a quick sketch session. Not so fun or interesting to work without a model especially this gal. She's so passionate about dance and has this lively personality. Anyways, my point was to capture the light falling on her.

eventually's a myth, just do It

my newest mantra, "eventually's a myth, just do It." Thanks Ellie, you got me out of my procrastination mode/fear of ??? and back into the studio,... although now the laundry is piling up again.

untitled so far
20"x10" oil

Merry Christmas!!!!