Diane Tesler Workshop

Diane corrects proportions on a student's painting.

Recently I had the privilege of spending a long weekend focused on art. On Saturday I had signed up for Brookside Gardens' colored pencil class. Much as I would have liked to, I was not able to be at Diane Tesler's workshop at VECCA on the first day. I joined the group for the other two days and had an epiphany.

Over the years, other artists have recommended Diane Tesler as a truly accomplished artist and teacher, but I had not had the opportunity to take one of her workshops before. She still teaches classes at the Art League School at the Torpedo Factory in Alexandria, though she now lives full-time in Kewanna, Indiana. This weekend was my first chance to work with her, and so conveniently close to my new home.

Diane and students at 7 East Gallery VECCA space.

This workshop has been held for the past 27 years in various locations around Woodstock, VA; some of the students have attended regularly since then. VECCA's 7 East Gallery space has been used for the past 8 years or so. There were 14 of us participating, working mostly in oils, but also in pastel, and space in the gallery was tight; two back rooms absorbed the overflow.

Betty Weathers concentrating on her painting.

Elaine Boomer with her lovely still life.

Diane travels with wonderful props she has collected over the years. She comes in the day before to set up the still lives that the students will work from and the set-ups all seem to evoke something beyond mere objects piled up together... all of her assemblages seem to imply a story, a mood, or theme. Some students prefer to bring in photos of what they want to work on; the workshop format allows for a loose structure.

Donna Patton working on her wine festival still life.

Jane McElvany's fabulous crab feast

 By the time I joined the group on Sunday morning, most of the others were far along on their paintings, and I could see from their work that they were all experienced, talented artists. Some of the still life set-ups were quite elaborate and would take a lot of work to finish. Some artists were already working on a second painting of the several canvases they had brought.

There was only one set-up that had had no takers--a pair of old, weather-beaten work boots on a paint-stained cardboard backdrop sitting in a corner of the last room. Not a very appealing subject, but this was the only one available for me to paint. There was nothing to do but embrace the challenge and try to have fun with it, to love the subject as a mother loves her ugly child.

I was going to sketch directly on my small canvas panel, but Diane instructed me to sketch it on paper first, and, of course, she was right--this saves a lot of wasted effort. I borrowed some sketch paper from another artist, and saw right away that my panel was too small for what I had drawn. But I hadn't brought anything else larger, so I was stuck with either having to drive home to bring another panel, or trying to find a place nearby where I could buy a larger canvas (good luck with that on a Sunday morning!). Providentially, another artist, Betty, offered me one of the extra canvases she had brought along--she had one that was just the right size--but it was toned with a deep brick-red gesso! (I prefer neutral toning like cool or warm gray, Burnt Sienna at most). We negotiated a price.

Putting the first strokes on that dark red background was intimidating. What was there to be afraid of? Nobody here was going to beat me or laugh at me if my painting didn't happen to turn out well. As the day wore on, the bright sun coming through the window behind my canvas didn't exactly help, but I slogged on, enjoying the conversations of my fellow artists.

Diane made her rounds, offering helpful suggestions and comments to each student, sitting down at an easel here and there to demonstrate, or make a correction if the student asked. After lunch break, she asked us to bring our paintings over to the main room for a critique.

Suzanne Arthur 's ironing board painting

The crits were thoughtful as well as constructive--Diane found something noteworthy in each piece and commented on aspects of mood and feeling that would enhance each painting, pointing out problems with composition, or areas that could be confusing or mislead the eye. Every student took away something of value, not just about their own painting, but in viewing the others' work we were training our eyes to see what worked and what didn't, and apply those lessons to our own work as well.

Lewis Anderson's pastel of peppers with pot & vase.

Workshop organizer Barbara Randel had made reservations for dinner for our group at Sal's Italian Bistro in nearby Edinburg on the weekend's two evenings--an opportunity to get to know each other better. Dinner at Sal's on Sunday evening was great fun--we had the place pretty much to ourselves (I can't speak about Saturday night) and that was a good thing--I was afraid we'd drive our waitress nuts, but she took it in stride.

I'd arranged for a day off on Monday so I could continue painting the next day. Monday was cloudy and the lack of direct sun worked for me. On the second day I managed to see more and get down the details of the shapes better.  The longer I looked at those boots, the more Attitude they seemed to have. Something about the way the empty boots stood there suggested the classic contraposto stance, as if the wearer had stood in such a pose habitually for so long, that the boots had frozen in that stance. Now that I could see the attitude, the painting became much more fun. Or was it that had begun to identify and project my own personality into the boots? Whatever it was, I felt myself becoming emboldened by this realization, and confident enough to add bits of cadmium red light straight from the tube into the reflected lights, and leave a few areas of the dark red background showing through in places. Diane reminded me to put in the shadows of the shoelaces for a final touch.

The result is so striking, all I can say is I've never done a painting like this before--I'm really pleased with it. I would never have thought of this on my own. Thank you, Diane, for being such an inspiration! I am really looking forward to the next workshop in the fall.

The Painter's Boots, 20" x 16" oil.

A Challenging Week

Still Life #2, oils on canvas board, 12" x 9"

After a very challenging week at work, I headed over to Lee's studio for an afternoon painting session. He'd set up two still lives for four of us students to work on, both using challenging colors. I picked the one with the purple cloth backdrop, not only because it was closest to where I'd set up, but because these were colors I rarely see in nature, much less paint.

This painting isn't one of my best. I had a particularly hard time articulating the difference between the purple cloth in the light and in shadow--it doesn't even look like it's deep purple, does it? Dealing with the reflections in the shadows of the bowl and pitcher were equally difficult. Looking at Lee's demo piece and how he dealt with these areas was helpful, but with the best will in the world, I was too worn down and distracted. In the middle of the session, my office called on my cell phone--that broke what little concentration I'd been able to muster!

By four o'clock the light was fading fast, so this was as far as I got. I lingered a bit talking to Lee about the state of art in our current cultural climate. He brought up an interesting point: what eclipsed the impresionists at a time when they were at their peak was the modernist movement, which dealt with abstraction from nature and breaking down of all the "rules". Now that the "contemporary" artists deal with abstractions of an abstraction and there are no rules--where exactly does that get us? Other than the current ego marketing, that is, where the artist becomes his own creation to sell because he really has no other actual commodity such as "art" to market--those are merely pieces of any old junk passed off as art (because the artist says so). Is it any wonder the public is confused?

Which is why we really need to get back to having standards and actually learning to draw, paint, sculpt, or whatever by going through a process of practical training in an apprenticeship. And why Lee believes that the plein air movement is reinvigorating American art at this moment. I agree with him, or I wouldn't be there, of course. Looking at the light teaches us how to see color in all its infinitely rich possibilities, and yet make it new.

To my dismay, I came home to open my Artist magazine yesterday and read among the predictions in "The Future of Art", the writer believes the plein air movement, "which has been going gangbusters since the 1990's, will wane as a marketing genre." How about it, fellow artists, do you agree?

Rainy Day in the Studio

Last Class, Still Life with Oranges, oils, 9" x 12"

It was very rainy the day before our last class, so our teacher E-mailed the evening before that we would meet at Maryand Hall and work on a still life in the studio rather than go out to paint in the wet outdoors. I have to confess that still life painting has never thrilled me much, so I wasn't very enthused with the idea. But I recognize that there is a great deal to be learned from the study of still life, so I was curious to see Lee's demo and try a painting with the new insights about color I've gained.

I was a bit late getting there due to the slow traffic, and the class was starting so I had no time to set up before Lee began his demo. Verbalizing his thought process was wonderful, as usual: how and why he "edited" to select his particular composition, how he put in his main blocks of color and only after these were down and the white surface mostly covered did he begin to refine the color and shapes.

Since we were doing longer critiques for this last class and I had to lay out my palette, I didn't have as much time to actually paint as I would have liked. I struggled finding the right "val-hues," particularly for the green bowl and the blue bottle, and my shapes are not very refined, but it is amazing to see the theories translate into this painting. Strange how just the right val-hues can convey the shapes even at this primitive stage in the painting!