Tuesday Night with Paul Cézanne

Posted on December 13, 2023 by Sarah Sullivan
My First Version
My Second Version

Our Tuesday night still-life group has made a change for the fall. We begin our weekly Zoom sessions by viewing select artwork from artists who paint in distinctive styles. Then, using a still-life or photo, we attempt to evoke something of the artist in our work while we paint for 90- minutes.

Our artist yesterday evening was Paul Cézanne, the French Post-Impressionist painter. His still-life paintings are characterized by flat, short geometric brushstrokes that combine warm and cool colors.

Our organizing artist created a still-life setup in her home, featuring apples and pears arranged in a manner that echoed Cézanne’s compositions. After 90 minutes of painting, we shared our work. It was then I realized that my work had taken a significant detour. While my peers had captured the essence of Cézanne, I saw that I had veered towards my style, with its pronounced differences in value and shape.

This morning’s reflection brought revision. I revisited Cézanne’s work and read more about his techniques and perspectives. This led me to adjust my painting, trying to incorporate elements of his style, particularly the use of brushwork, color, and form to describe the subject.

Posted in Still Life | Tagged , , , , | 8 Comments

Painting in the Dark

Posted on December 10, 2023 by Sarah Sullivan

We had so much fun painting nocturnals last night in the dark with our large group from The San Diego Watercolor Society at Liberty Station, which was all decked out for the holidays, complete with live music. After an engaging demo from Luis Juarez, who painted two dramatic views of skaters, I joined a group painting from a second-floor deck and tried to do the same. We had great views of the ice rink and an enormous Christmas tree. The lighting was dim, so I just painted, becoming more abstract as the night grew darker.

Here are two of my sketches.

Skaters and Tree

Skaters and Shadows

Posted in Figures, Groups Interacting, Landscape, Telling a Story | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

Waiting

Posted on December 8, 2023 by Sarah Sullivan

My nephew stood waiting for my brother to play pickleball. I was intrigued by my nephew’s blend of polite deference and impatience and how it showed in his posture as he leaned onto the patio chair. I snapped a photo and used it as a reference for this gouache sketch.

Posted in Body Language, Figures | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

A Good Group on a Footbridge

Posted on December 3, 2023 by Sarah Sullivan

We gathered, my sisters and our younger female relatives, to celebrate my sister’s significant birthday. We walked along the Arizona Canal, where we were captivated by the sky, suculants, mountains, and reflections. Then everyone arranged themselves across a footbridge so I could take a group photo to paint this morning.

Posted in Landscape, Telling a Story | 5 Comments

Tuesday Night with Alice Neel

Posted on November 29, 2023 by Sarah Sullivan

My Tuesday night still-life group has made a change for the fall. We begin our weekly sessions by viewing select artwork from artists who paint in distinctive styles. Then, using a still life or photo, we attempt to evoke something of the artist while we paint for 90- minutes.

Our artist this evening was the portrait painter Alice Neel. She often emphasized her subjects’ personalities by enlarging eyes and heads, elongating limbs, simplifying everything, and adding emphasis with lines. She placed her models on the canvas as though they were seated directly across from her and minimized the background.

I used a photo from a few summers ago that I thought would be a good reference because it was a close-up and caught a pensive look.


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Posted in Body Language, Figures | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Tuesday Night with David Park

Posted on November 21, 2023 by Sarah Sullivan

My Tuesday night still-life group has made a change for the fall. We begin our weekly sessions by viewing select artwork from artists who paint in distinctive styles. Then, using a still life or photo, we attempt to evoke something of the artist while we paint for 90- minutes.

Our artist this evening was David Park, who was part of the Bay Area Figurative Movement in the 1950s. He used intense color, unusual perspective, and geometric abstraction to create paintings with psychological depth and mystery. He often painted people in boats and along the beach.

I used a photo from this past summer of people paddling about in rented boats because the colors were so bright, and I thought it would be a good reference for tonight. I like this sketch but need to go darker and more abstract if I want to paint in David Park’s style.
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Posted in Figures | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

Oh My Goodness!

Posted on November 16, 2023 by Sarah Sullivan

On Wednesday, we had an excellent model for our figure-drawing group. She paired each of her twenty-minute poses with a different attitude, and she was so adept at this that it was easy to capture something unique with each drawing. For this pose, I thought she looked like she was swapping stories about an event gone wrong with a group of friends.

Posted in Figures | Tagged , , | 2 Comments