2012 Events

Plein Air Workshop: Effective Outdoor Painting in Oils
(16x20 oil by Karen Phipps)
Location: Taos, New Mexico
Dates: April 26, 27, 28, 29, 2012
Cost: $335.
For Advanced Beginners through Intermediate Oil Painters.

Join award winning artists and popular instructors, Karen Phipps and Susan Hong-Sammons, in this four-day plein air painting workshop. We will be painting in the beautiful setting of Taos. You will learn practical tips for setting up on location, working quickly and directly from nature, all with oil paints. We will cover equipment options to keep your gear simple and pared down, using a limited palette, focusing on big shapes, clean color, compositions, finding a focus and simple value patterns in order to capture the essence of the scene. The goal in this workshop is to learn how to take the scene before us, translate it into a simple and expressive composition, and then paint it quickly, directly, and confidently. After the 3 days of guided painting exercises and daily critiques, we will spend the 4th day painting more independently at a location with the group, followed by an afternoon critique and closing “wrap-up” session.
Compact supply list, syllabus, as well as recommended housing/B&Bs near to painting locations.



The Landscape of Riverside: Works Inspired by Nature
Oil Painters Karen Phipps, Susan Hong-Sammons, Ellie McDonald, photographer Sophia Soluri, and poems by Rachel Noelle will present new works inspired by the local landscape and nature of Riverside at the Riverside Public Library during the months of December and January. The show can be seen in the library's exhibit hall.
















Oil Painting with Expressive Realism
January 25 - March 7, 2012 9:30-1:30
Hinsdale Center for the Arts www.hinsdalearts.org

See the world with an artistic eye. Susan’s approach helps you to break down the process of producing a painting, in the studio, into its core components: design, main masses, mixing accurate color, value, and apply paint effectively all from direct observation. Individual and group critiques generously given daily.
Class supply list available at registration

just a thought to share

"Fall Walk" oil 8"x6" (sold)
Ran out in the afternoon to try to catch the sunshine because who knows how many sunny days we have left!

If it's not happening on my palette, it's definitely not happening on my painting. What I mean is that my palette has to be load with large blobs of paint squished out and lined-up in my prefer order. And then I need to mix up big puddles of my starting values and arrange it on my palette so that my lights stay on one side and darks stay on their side. Also, if my palette becomes disorganized or looks barely touched, nothing good is happening on the canvas. It's as if my palette is an inner-reflection of the paint process. So of course after struggling with a studio piece for days and having to scrape it away repeatedly, I happened to actually see what was going on my palette and saw that absolutely nothing was going on. I needed to squeeze out a lot more fresh paint as I barely had anything left and the puddles of value I had mixed were nearly non-existent. After correctly this problem my painting started to take shape and the idea in my head was becoming visually evident.

2 Values

As always, my primary concern is value and temperature. So last week I spent my time in Scottsdale, under the tutelage of Peggi Kroll Roberts, studying the figure, well actually - value and temperature. We had 5-15 minutes per pose to lay in the basic shapes and say it in two values. One value for the lights and one value for the shadows. I spent the bulk of my time mixing a puddle of paint for my light value and another puddle for my dark value. With the clock running out, I quickly painted the pose. Towards the end of the week I managed to add temperature changes while being careful not to alter my established two values. After the designated time there was often a costume change and always a pose change. Studying the figure in this manner for five days was a great learning experience and I feel I walked away better able to find and simplify the most important shapes, values, and temperature.

Minimal Palette w/ the Figured

The problem given was - select a blue, a yellow, and a red and then with each different study change your yellow. Minimizing my palette helped me organize my thoughts which were focused on value and temperature. I started with Yellow Ochre Pale, and then tried Cad. Yellow Medium, as well as Gamblin Transparent Earth Yellow.

Ultramarine Blue and Red Oxide 12"x16" value/temperature study from a cast of the Virgin Mary

I'm learning so much from experimenting with different minimal palettes. I can see my shortcoming in values and temperature much more readily so I think I'll continue doing more of these studies.

I'm leaving very chilly Chicago for the warm temps of the Southwest for a couple of weeks. Since it is my practise not to take a computer when off, I won't be blogging until later. Happy Art-making and viewing. Thank you for sharing your comments

Painting Fall

The change of seasons makes it doubly fun to return to my favorite paint spots. All of a sudden it is something completely new to paint. These three pieces were painted one chilly morning last week. It was so cold I had to pull on my winter paint coat and gloves. The added challenge of this morning was that the sun tried to come out but mostly stayed darkly overcast.
Initially I thought I would do a value study using only Ultramarine Blue and Oxide Red but towards the end of each study and added Yellow Ochre Pale. And instead of using my favored palette knife I used a brush. I toned my canvas on location so that I could pull out my lights without adding white to my palette.
(6"x8" oil $99. each)

"Periwinkle Blues"

It's been a few weeks since I've updated my post because I've been in three different group shows in three different states. The intensity of preparing and participating in them has been a great learning experience, very very fun, and I'm happy to report a success on several levels. I've never been comfortable meeting and greeting people at openings but after these shows I feel quite at ease. Now I hope to get caught up on life and back to painting some of our fall colors before the first snow.
"Periwinkle Blues" is a series I started right in my garden. I realized something was eating my blue mystery flowers. So over a few early mornings, I sat with a warm mug of coffee and painted what I think are heather and ???. What attracted me to these scenes was the haziness of the dawn light.
12"x12" and 14"x11" (framed $340. each)

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.

Recipe for plein air painting

A great recipe for plein air painting; hot sunny weather & legs dangling near a cool waterfall. (forgot to snap a photo of my paintings)
"Sand Dunes" (5x7, oil) was painted right at noon with the sun directly overhead. With such a bright light the value and temperature were greatly compressed to one end of the gray scale.

art opening-Marian Street Gallery

This Friday night the Marion Street Gallery will hosting their tri-yearly art opening for their gallery artists. I will be displaying several new landscape paintings. This gallery features art made from oil paints, acrylic paints, ceramic, photography, and fine jewelry. If you're nearby I hope you can stop by, say hello, and let me show you the fabulous display of art.
Fine Art, Fine Music, Fine Art
Friday 9/10/2010 opening
6pm
115 N Marion St
Oak Park, IL 60301

Avalon-value and temperature

"Avalon Splash" 5"x7" oil
"Distant Storm" 5"x7" oil
Normally I find the light changes more quickly at dawn than early evening but with a storm on the horizon I had time to crank out two studies of value and temperature. This morning the values were less compressed than the previous posting when I had to deal with haze and fog.

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.

"Buttercups" oil 6"x8"

Frederick Olmsted, landscape architect, designed our village in the forest way back when. "Buttercups" was painted in an area he left so that when the Des Plaines River overflows, our little village would be safe. After our recent flooding, buttercups rapidly sprouted up making a beautiful sea of bright yellows.
($178.)

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.)

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/

"Mac Red"

This was a temperature study. And I took artistic license by amping up the "heat", the temperature, of "Mac Red."

8"x8" ($149.)