Kim Morin Weineck's Art

Friday, June 22, 2012

Two new pastels

Summer is my productive time, and I've made a pact with myself to finish pieces I start.

These two are a little different for me as I've completed small versions of them in the past but now they are bigger and the colors are different.

As I've been working in this new larger scale, I've been using up pastels left and right! With all the pastels I own I've also made a pact with myself to use what I have and see what happens.

The result of a "limited" palette is an exploration in new tones. It's been such fun!

Thanks for reading!
~kmw

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Early summer artwork

Whew! It's such fun to see a collection of artwork on similar subjects but in various sizes.

Been busy here working and painting and enjoying my family. It's mid-June and school is out and the weather is just lovely. Feeling in my element! Wish there were more daylight hours and that this time of year would last for always.....

Painting-wise pastels have been my medium of choice lately and The Preservation Framer, a great shop in North Attleborough, offered to showcase my work for a spell. It's great to be represented in the town where you live and also support small business in its lovely downtown. (My alter-ego, Downtown Manager with Friends of Norwood Center loves this fact!)

Matt and Rob at Preservation Framer and Gallery and I wanted to ensure the work was affordable during this tricky economic time, so perhaps now is when you should add to or begin your art collection. They sent out the nicest description of my work in their June Newsletter. (Consider subscribing!)

Message me or get in touch with the gallery for more information.

They are on Facebook updating with all their doings quite often.

I'm hoping to do some plein air painting outside of their shop and will post when on Facebook.

Your support of my work as well as your feedback and comments mean a lot.

Thanks for reading! ~kmw

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Four square pastels

Four new pieces, from drawings and references I've worked on in the past: Marshes!

In person, the colors are better, so I must improve my photo taking/editing. Perhaps I can blame it on the non-stop rain we've had. Colors are better in sunshine!

All four pieces are painted on gray PastelMat, not my favorite surface to paint on, but I had seen Christine Bodnar's demonstration and figured I'd revisit it.

With a water wash to create an underpainting, I enjoyed the process a lot.

Not bad, but I'd like them to be more lively and colorful. I can work on that! Like I said, I'm blaming the rain!

Thanks for reading!
~Kim

An academic approach

Recently I started studying painting from an academic standpoint more so than ever before.

Such wealth of information is available by reading and by simply looking at great art.

Stapleton Kearns offers amazing information on his blog, and I have lifted this list of plein air painting issues he has noted are of consistent concern to his students.

Stapleton Kearns
Lane's Island Surf, Vinalhaven

Yes, I have edited this list a bit, and added comments. Refer to his blog post here for the original, and to find a plethora of amazing information from this stellar painter.

Plein Air Faults, originally by Stapleton Kearns, with my notes:

The painting is in all middle values with the contrasts so suppressed that the painting has no punch.

The values of the lights are confused with the values of the shadows. The lights are not consistently brighter than the shadows.

(Considerate planning and looking can fix this error. I often rely too much on instinct when painting but am now making an effort to plan more at the onset of a new work.)

No attention paid to color temperature. The picture is executed with no regard for which notes are hot and which are cool. This is particularly true with painters using three color palettes, which don't lend themselves to the expression of color temperature.

Drawing is haphazard or done without much care or delicacy.Often this happens to painters who value velocity or brushwork over drawing. Usually painters with studio backgrounds, or better still, atelier training seem to have a better grasp of drawing the landscape.This is a failure to look very closely at the landscape.

(Drawing is important, surely. I am not so disdaining of artists who 'value velocity or brushwork over drawing' but for me, that is up to the painter.)

Designs that are overly symmetrical or too"stock".

An uncomfortable closeness to the nearest objects in the painting.

(Sometimes this is truly effective in pushing the space in a work. My students hear about this all the time during my critiques of their work.)

A line which seizes the viewer in the foreground and directs them into a collision with the side of the frame rather than into and through the picture

An underpainting in a hideous and assertive color that poisons every note laid on top of it. This is usually explained as something a previous teacher ( who was REALLY good!) had insisted was the only way to do things.

(I may be an advocate of this 'hideous and assertive' underpainting color. I like it!)

Every color in the painting is as bright and saturated as it can possibly be painted.

A cursory "that's good enough" effort without a real intent to create something special. The painting is banged out in a short period of time and without much reference to nature or an attempt to design or bring anything personal or original to the presentation.

It's a great list with tons of food for thought.

When I'm at my sketchbook, I'll be considering all of it!

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Specific focus

Here are three recent pastel originals, all are bigger than I usually work in pastel.

Kim Morin Weineck
EARLY SNOW
pastel on Sennelier Pastel Card
(c)2012, 12x18"
Experimenting with new, deliberate marks

All of them are a revisit to a place and subject I love.

Kim Morin Weineck
MARSH WATER
pastel on gray Canson paper
(c)2012, 18x14"
Using a paper I usually detest

With each I'm taking on a new challenge and trying out something new.

Kim Morin Weineck
SUNLIT HAY
pastel on Sennelier Pastel Card
(c)2012, 16x12"
Making a conscious decision about light effects

And with each, I'm loving the process.

Thanks for reading!

~kmw

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Three pastel studies

Here are three pastels I did recently. All are small, approximately 5x5", and all have a sort of overcast feel to them.

BLUE BOAT
original pastel by Kim Morin Weineck
5x5" (c) 2012

I created these small studies to experiment with using new lower chroma colors and to play with the intensity of the colors in the pictorial space.

FOG AND ROSES
original pastel by Kim Morin Weineck
5x5" (c) 2012

Mind you, these foggy, quirky light source pieces are a bugger to photograph. In person they read much better. Photographing my pieces is something I'm constantly working to improve.

TURQUOISE BIKE
original pastel by Kim Morin Weineck
5x5" (c) 2012

Making these paintings was a fun exercise, and, as ever when I push myself, I learned a lot.

Thanks for reading,

~kmw

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Continuing education :: pastel workshop with Deb Quinn-Munson

Last weekend I took a workshop organized by the Foxboro Art Association which featured Deb Quinn-Munson. The focus was on underpainting options for pastels and Deb demonstrated with an oil underpainting - something I had never tried and now just LOVE to do!

My new pastel box filled with all my pastels.
Can you tell I'm a landscape painter?
Look at all the blues and greens!

Deb's workshop and this jolt of warm weather was just the shot in the arm I needed to get my creative house in order.

Here Deb Quinn-Munson is demonstrating underpainting with oils. Gorgeous effects!

For my birthday, I decided this Heilman backpack box was just the thing I needed to organize all my pastel sticks. It came in yesterday and was filled immediately. Today I can't wait to use it!

You can tell I like my pastels all organized like this.
Here they are in the dining room just so I could look at them.

Here is the pastel I completed during the workshop. There are particular passages I thought were successful.

My pastel from the workshop.
My first pastel (and not my last) with an oil underpainting!

Throughout the workshop, Deb offered numerous adages about painting. My favorite, by far, was this:

Color gets all the glory. Value does all the work. My artist friends will attest that it's so true.

Thanks for reading!
~kmw