Some News

Hi Everyone,

Just posting this blog to tell you about some up coming events in my little art world.

I had 2 paintings juried into Batavia's Art-In-Ur-Eye City Hall Show. Both are plein air paintings, one of the Fox River and the other is of a local woods.  Art-In-Ur-Eye is on Saturday and Sunday August 13 &14.

On Friday night August 19th, I will be one of the featured artists at Bacchus Meets the Arts at Gibby's Wine Den. It is a combination of a wine tasting and a meet and greet with a few local artists. Gibby's is at 1772 S. Randall Road in Geneva and the festivities begin at 5:00pm and run until 8:00pm.

September 4th is a Sunday afternoon and from 2pm until approximately 6:00pm, I will be doing a painting demo at the Fine Line Creative Center booth at the Geneva Folk Music Festival. The festival is on the island park behind what was before it closed the Mill Race Inn.

I will be teaching 2 classes at the Fine Line Creative Center:
Expressive Oil Painting beginning Wednesday August 31 at 6:00pm to 9:00pm and Landscape Painting in Oils beginning Saturday October 1st at 1:30pm to 4:30pm. Contact the Fine Line for more information, a catalog or to register for a class at www.fineline.org.

I hope to see you at one of these events, if you have the time drop by and say hello.

Bill

How to paint a plein air oil painting (at least how I do it)

This week I had a wonderful day painting the Fox River. I was standing in the above scene right on the grassy bank shown above. Not shown is the ducks, geese, and fishermen hanging around. I unpacked my French Easel (which I use instead of my Open Box M pochade box when I want to paint at a larger size than 11" x 14".)

I set up the easel in the shade so I wouldn't have bright sunlight on my 16" x 20" stretched canvas. Even though I often use panels for convenience sake, I decided to use a stretched canvas in honor of one of my favorite plein air painters: Rick Howell. I raised the canvas so it is a bit below eye level and doesn't block the scene. (Notice the garbage bag hanging from the easel. I believe as a nature artist that we should leave the scene as clean as when we arrived.)

Here's aother shot of my set-up showing my palette. I use the wooden palette that came with my Jullian easel.

Next is a close-up view of my palette:

I used a limited color palette for this painting to help me achieve a natural color harmony. I am using M. Graham Walnut Oil paints. My colors are (left to right): Quick-Dry Titanium White, Cadmium Yellow Light, Cadmium Red Light, Alizarin Crimson and Ultramarine Blue. ( I sometimes use Yellow Ochre, and Burnt Sienna or Transparent Red Oxide as well). My medium in the small Holbein dipper cup is Liquin. For cleaning brushes, my hanging brushwasher is filled with Gamsol. I am using # 6-8 flat Blick Masterstroke Hog's Hair bristle brushes for this painting, but I have also been seen with Robbert Simmons Signets and Silver Brush flats. Once in a while I'll get out Langnickell 5590 mongoose flats, but lately I have been favoring the stiffer bristle brushes. Also shown are 2 palette knifes, one a discontinued Holbein SX knife that has a great flexible blade and the other is a Loew-Cornell (a very economical knife). I use the palette knife to create hard edges and textural effects.

This is the first step in this painting, I established the horizon line and with some aliz crimson, ultramarine blue and a tiny touch of yellow, blocked in the major shapes. I don't draw lines when in the initial step of a painting as much as I place the major shapes. I also indicated a bit of the value scheme and have an idea of where my center of interest will be.

In the above picture I have started to block in the major shapes in color. Notice how by greying the  line of trees on the far shoreline, there is a sense of recession.

Here I've added the rest of the color and added some detail.

A bit more detail adding accents and highlights and the painting is now complete.

In the above photo the species "plein air painter" is seen in his natural environment wearing the high-fashion paint spattered camouflage short pants.











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Just some new paintings

Don't have a lot of time to write today so I thought I'd just post some of my recent paintings. Hope you enjoy them.

"June Farm" is of a farm about 4 miles from my home. The barn is abandoned. This was painted entirely in oils with the palette knife on a high-grade birch panel. It is 17 x 24 inches in size.

"Lilies at St. James Farm" is an 11 x 14 oil on canvas that I painted in plein air last Friday, June 24th. I am really enjoying painting in the great outdoors and it is the best studio an artist could have. I was serenaded by booming bullfrogs while painting this and I provided a multi course meal for some of the bugs that bit me while painting. You can't capture that ambiance in the studio.

"Crossroads"
This is a little 5" x 7" oil on canvas quick study of the intersection of Fabyan and Route 25 in Geneva, Illinois.

This is a 10" x 20" all palette knife, oil on linen painting that I haven't titled yet. I am open to suggestions as to the title.

This is "Spring Waterfall" It's a 14" x 11" oil on canvas. This one got a "Like" on Facebook by Stephen Doherty, the former editor of American Artist magazine and current editor of Plein air magazine, so I am quite proud of it.

Well, gotta go for now, I hope you enjoy these paintings, thanks for checking out my blog.

Bill

William Worcester Summer 2011 Art Happenings

Hi Everyone,
Just wanted to bring you up-to-date on my recent and upcoming art activities.

My first session as an oil painting instructor at The Fine Line Creative Arts Center in St. Charles has one week left. My students have created several oil paintings which even impressed me. Unfortunately, my camera was not working properly and I can't show you their efforts, but here are a couple of demo sketches I did for the class.

There is still time to register for the upcoming classes if you want to learn the basics of oil painting and landscape painting.

Expressive Oil Painting is on Wednesday nights from 6-9 pm starting July 13th

and going to August 10th.

Landscapes in Oils is on Saturday mornings from 9am-noon starting July 9th

and going to Aug 13th.

 For more information or to register call The Fine Line Creative Arts Center at 630.584.9443 or go to the website at www.fineline.org.

Other news, I have been doing a lot of painting in the great outdoors and have been using the palette knife to create most of the pieces. The palette knife forces the artist to loosen up and helps create beautiful textured surfaces. The painting at the top of the email Dupage River, June 8th was completely done with the palette knife. It is a fairly large painting for me being 30" x 40". I recently bought an shop apron to paint in, because when the palette knife is flinging paint, I tend to wreck a lot of my shirts.

I attracted a lot of attention and was visited by a group of Brownies on a field trip, when I painted this 24" x 30" plein air painting of Herrick Lake.

The Brownies asked a lot of good questions, and made me feel as though I was Monet with all of their wonderful compliments.

Well, I don't want  to take up any more of your precious time, so I'll end this epistle now with the open invitation for you to drop in and see some of my work at:

The Proud Fox Gallery in Geneva, Illinois

Kamp Galleries of Chicago (in the lobby of the Drake Hotel) and Winnetka

or to see my very small paintings at

The Comfort Me Shoppe in Lincoln Park.

All the best, your friend in art

Bill

William Worcester Spring Art Happenings

Hello Friends, Art Affectionados and Collectors, I hope everyone is enjoying the transition to warmer weather and spending more time in the outdoors. May 28-29 the Fine Line Creative Center is having a booth at the St. Charles Art Fair. As a faculty member I will have some paintings in the booth's art exhibit, and on Sunday afternoon I will be doing a demo oil painting probably around 2:00pm. If you get a chance stop on by and say hello. Also I will be teaching a class "Expressive Oil Painting" on Wednesday evenings (6-9pm) at the Fine Line beginning June 3rd. This class will start with the very fundamentals of  painting, and proceed over time to equip the student with the means to express their personal vision through the medium of  oil paint. I will also be instructing another class at the Fine Line "Landscapes in Oils" that  will be on Saturday mornings (9am-12pm) beginning July 9. If you would like more information on either of these classes go to the Fine Line website at www.fineline.org. On a less happy note The Riverbend Gallery in Bend, Oregon by which I was represented, had to close it's doors recently due to the flagging economy. Jane Ujhazi the gallery director did a valiant effort to make a go of the gallery and worked very hard to promote the galleries artists. I hope she does well in the future as she was a great gallery director to work with. However, I am still represented by The Proud Fox gallery in Geneva, Illinois and Kamp Galleries of Chicago and Winnetka. Also, The Comfort Shop which will be opening in June in Hyde Park will be carrying several of my smaller works. This might be an example of "one door closes, another door opens". I am looking forward to doing even more painting this summer and I want to thank  you for your interest in my art. All the best Bill "Summer"

Imaginary Lands and Semi-Abstraction

Lately I have been exploring semi-abstraction in my landscape paintings and also the use of the imagination. Instead of being tied down by factual reality and the details of an actual landscape I have been "inventing" or creating landscapes from my mind. I want the viewer to fill in the details and complete the picture in their mind. I am looking for an ethearal quality that creates a sense of mystery and transmutes reality into a more transcendent realm.

One of my favorite artists is George Inness. Inness was a follower of Emanuel Swedenborg's teachings. Swedenborg thought that this world was but a shadow of the real world, and Inness tried to capture that concept in his later paintings. Even though I don't subscribe to the "unreality" of the physical world, I do like the idea of painting what is a reflection of the material world as captured by the imagination.

The painting shown here is "Light Transcending". It is a 12" x 12" oil on panel that incorporates an imaginary landscape with some semi-abstraction. Hopefully, It echoes George Inness' work in creating a sense of mystery and imparting a sense of calm to the viewer.

To view the my original fine art oil paintings click on:
http://www.wworcesterart.com/

To order prints or greeting cards of my work, click on:

http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/william-worcester.html

To see originals of my paintings at an actual gallery, please visit:

http://www.riverbendfineartgallery.com/

http://www.proudfoxgallery.com/

http://www.kampgallery.com/

Cats I Know

As an artist I mainly paint landscapes, but occasionally I liike different subject matter. They say you should paint what you love and since I live with 4 cats I often love sketching or painting them. they are great quick pose models as they never stay still for long unless asleep.

This is Ruffie, he lives in my neighbourhood. He comes and visits our cats and he knows that sometimes he'll get a few cat treats. He's quite a rugged male and I think our young girl cat nibs is quite taken by him, but he could never be tied down.

Here's another painting of Ruffie, he's just absorbing a nice summer day.

Here is a quick monochromatic painting of Nibs at a more tender age. She really has big eyes that are very cute and unfortunately I don't think I captured them.

I think one trick to painting cats (or any animals for that matter) is not to see them as just a cat, but as a unique individual with a special personality. Paint them just as you would do a portrait of a human being.

This is a small watercolor sketch of Nibs, actually her real name is Niblette. I think she was named Niblette because when she was a kitten she would give little love bites.

The cat in this watercolor is Merlyna, she's our older female cat. Very shy and retiring, but she does have a regal manner about her.

I have done other paintings of our cats but for now, I'll leave you with 2 fantasy cat paintings of mine:

This is Lou C. Fur, I guess he might be sort of a bad cat, if there could be such a thing.

This Susan B. Cathony, leader of the Suffracats.