Blog

Still life gives one the widest range for study; a bottle is as serious a subject for portraiture as person. 

This quote from Charles Wester Hawthorne's Hawthorne on Painting , written by students of Hawthorne. 

For the past few Springs I've had the pleasure of conducting  "Art in The Barn"with PAAM, part of the Twenty Summers program in the historical Hawthorne Barn.. Artists for all over Cape Cod and beyond come together to experience painting in that tremendous  North Light studio where  Charles Webster Hawthorne had his Cape School of Art, in Provincetown.

Later Abstract Painter Hans Hoffman used the Barn for his classes. Many artists of note came through the Hawthorne Barn over the many decades.

I start with a short demo in the morning of a still Life and then move on to a portrait in the afternoon. Keeping the instruction similar to Hawthorne's direction set forth in the Hawthorne on Painting book (notes on painting from Hawthorne's Marion Hawthorne and Studen,t Margery Ryerson ).

Hawthorne was a big proponent of Painting first and considering drawing secondly. In this way students would develop faster by thinking color in it's proper relationships.

He challenged students to think of color as spots: meaning, Masses getting them in the right intensity was paramount to good painting. 

By using a Palette knife would give you the feeling of using a new medium.

The idea of painting something ugly like a dishpan and painting it is an beautiful way with color was a constant.

Set something up dark against something light. Have objects of various colors and lengths to compare differences. 

Try to set up the still life with one light source, in order to see light and shade in a clear way;

I always  instruct students in this classic Cape Cod School of Painting to study this way, no matter how many times they have in the past.

 The art of seeing is basically learned through route.

In the start of the study ,the painter puts a note or a spot of color representing each Mass, covering the canvas. It will look like a jigsaw puzzle before it's assembled. This is the best way to understand color relationships.

Understanding of the Masses is crucial to seeing and painting color.  Each Mass is an expanse of color or tone that defines form or shape in general outline rather than in detail.

If the color is out of place, or if the color would be better expressed with another object it should be repainted.  Leaving a small white line between these masses is a good way to correct the color if it's not in the right place.

The development of the color study is just a matter of refining the color masses, and becoming more specific. 

"

The Successful painter os continually painting still lif" Charles Hawthorne