This year there were a few guys that I had not painted with before. Always nice to make new friends.
The cast of characters, besides myself, was: Paul Schulenberg, Jerome Greene, Ignat Ignatov, Peter Kalill, Colin Page, Logan Hagege, Jeremy Lipking, Eric Merrell, Ernesto Nemesio, Jeff Bonasia, Marc Hanson, Dan Corey, Rick Casali, Stapleton Kearns, Ian Factor, James Coe, and Michael Klein. Some were there for the full two weeks, others could only stay for part of the trip.
We had a blast. Lots of painting, laughing and talking shop. On the rainy days ( and there were a few) we had access to a great empty space for painting the nude model. That is something I had not done since my RISD days. Some of these guys paint the figure all the time, so I was at the bottom of the ladder on this one. It was a good chance to practice though and I picked up a few pointers. I won't be showing those here and most of them were wiped off and painted over.
I think one of my favorite parts of the trip this year though was hanging out at night in a private secret location. It was dark and funky and looked like a pirate ship in there and often full of pirate type guys. We prepared many of our nightly meals in there and continued into the night with revelry, some guitar and banjo playing, usually accompanied by portrait painting sessions with some local pirate types or between ourselves, taking turns posing. I'm more of a landscape painter than head and shoulder portrait painter, but I kept at it and by the end of the trip I could see a big improvement. I got some real helpful tips from Ignat Ignatov and some of the other guys.
One of the late night portrait sessions on the Pirate Ship around the end of the first week.
Yes, that was the only lighting we had to work with, and sometimes we had to settle for a dark corner to paint in.
On the last night of the trip, with just a few of us left we decided to do a marathon Pirate portrait session with each of the willing taking turns posing for a timed 40 minutes while the others painted him. Then we switched fast and painted the next guy for 40.
We started at 10:30 pm with 7 painters and ended around 2:30 with 5 left standing. I painted 4 and sat for my turn. Here is my effort from the night. A 20x16" panel divided into 4 parts. Not bad for me and with a time limit of 40 min. I think this will be one of my pieces for the Cape Cod Museum of Art show in Feb.
To me, it represents a lot of what we had going on this year.
40 minute marathon poses
20x16" oil on linen, Frank Gardner © 2010
$1,800. Framed. Available through Addison Art Gallery
Clockwise from top left: Ian Factor, Colin Page, Logan Hagege, Stapleton Kearns.
There will be a big show of our paintings from this trip at Addison Art Gallery and at the Cape Cod Museum of Art this Feb.
This year we also had a fresh paint show at Addison, with a few pieces from most of us. Below are the 4 paintings that I framed up for the show.
"Provincetown Street" 10x8" oil on linen, Frank Gardner © 2010
$780. Framed. Available at Addison Art Gallery
"Eastern-rig" 6x8" oil on board, Frank Gardner © 2010
SOLD
"Bradford Street" 8x10" oil on linen, Frank Gardner © 2010
$780. Framed. Available at Addison Art Gallery
"First House" 8x10" oil on linen, Frank Gardner © 2010
$780. Framed. Available at Addison Art Gallery
11 comments:
Love your work, Frank!!!
I am sure the show will be a huge hit..
Great paintings and fun reading about your trip. Curious- what were the helpful tips Ignatov and the others gave you? I just wonder what the advice would be for someone at your skill level!
Sounds like the perfect trip, great company and lots of learning as you push yourself out of your comfort zone. As always great product.
Always a treat to visit you blog. Your sense of color is so great.
Cheers fron Vienna.
hey Frank, great post! i think that's the back of my head in the foreground of dimly lit Pirate Painters...?. You really hit some home runs with your portraits and landscapes. Hope to see ya in Feb or better yet in Mexico before that!
Hi Frank,
Glad to read about your experience from this trip. Great work too. You were with a great group of painters, each with something unique to bring to the table.
Good post Frankie! Brings back some of the memories from the trip. That marathon portrait session was fun...I was definitely of that night, my portrait of you looked like a mix between Nicholas Cage and Sebastian Junger.
Thanks Marian.
Thanks Nancy. It's a good group of guys.
Hi Judy, My skill level for figure painting and portraits in not that high. I wiped off a lot of paintings.
It seems like a simple thing, but one of the best tips Iggy gave me was to keep white out of my shadows. You'd think I'd know that from all my other painting.
Did you watch Iggy's portrait demo he did one night live on ustream?
Pretty close to perfect Mick.
Hi Stefan, thanks.
Thanks Dan, that's you all right and I think Colin's hand working on my painting.
Get down here.
Hi Kyle, That's one of the great things about the trips. Each one has something unique to bring and it gets the creativity flowing. The jokes are not bad either.
It was real fun. you can see in the faces I painted how tired we were, but kept going. Your portraits of Colin and Stape were dead on,I guess you used up all you had on them.
hello Frank-thanks for answering my question; funny as I'm painting more I'm finding it's always the same info, used over and over, but in challenging moments it seems like a fresh discovery. Boy Art is tough!
I did see the UStream video- such a great demo, plus listening to you guys making comments was invaluable, not to mention it looked like a swell party!
That trip sounds like it was mighty fine, Frank. Good work, good company.
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