Here is a group painting of a grandfather with grandchildren huddled around him. What gives this painting strength is the arrangement of persons. They are in a circle, grandpa furthest away, two children further towards us, and one little girl closest of all. There is a feeling of depth. Also notice the angle from the person on the left to the little girl on the right. The group of people make a shape while the drapery creates an opposite one on top.
Note the highlights in the hair with small hints of color. The skin isn’t just one shade. There are highlights and shadows on the faces. The closest child and the two persons furthest to the left lean toward the center where Grandpa is pointing at something.
Grandma had died. I flew to California to be with relatives and attend the funeral. When it was over I felt lost and lonely. My father knew I’d never seen San Francisco. He rented a car. We drove downtown. I loved my dad. It was great to be with him. We ate shrimp at the pier. We rode the cable cars. He and I went up Coit Tower to see the city. We drove down Lombard Street. I bought a souvenir in Chinatown. We went to a hotel on the hill. It had a glass elevator on the outside. We rode it to the top and saw the beautiful city. We went back to the car. It was alone on the road. All the other cars were gone. We had a big traffic ticket. I still missed Grandma, but at least I had my dad. He’s been gone almost twenty years now.
One of the techniques of painting is called “en plein air”. The English translation is “open-air”. It was made very popular by the impressionist painter, Claude Monet. During his day, the accepted forms of painting were of religious, historical or mythical scenes. Landscape paintings painted on site were not common, nor were they acceptable. Monet made them popular. He would paint scenes of the sea, of rivers, his lily pond, and grain stacks in the countryside.
In tonight’s painting class I was going to teach the students how to paint skin color and do faces. I had a painting I had been working on to show them the techniques, but remembered I had a small canvas in the back seat of my car. My wife was in attendance so I asked her to pose while I drew.
This is a picture of my son-in-law Jeremy and his 2 best friends from high school. They went for a 120 mile bike ride on the C&O canal. They stopped beside one of the locks for a picture. I tried to work from the picture to preserve the memory for him.
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