Stacy Weitz Minch

I've gotten this question a few times lately, so I thought I'd take a few minutes to think the answer through. Why didn't I go into art? I have always loved art, so I guess it would have made sense if I had gotten an art degree. My dad used to bring home stacks of paper from the recycling bin at his workplace every day, and my older sister Jackie and I would fill the backs of the perforated-edged computer paper with our drawings.  A drawing I did of my mom's rocking chair at age 6 Our depiction of my dad's workplace (he worked at a refinery). I'm on the left :) There was a boy in my school class whose mom ran art camps for kids. I participated in quite a few of them, and even won 2nd place for one of my paintings :) Me, 8 years old painted around age 7-8 In junior high, my interest in art grew. I took an art class every quarter/semester at school if I could fit it in, and continued to take art classes in high school. Stipp...

A couple of sketches from a figure drawing session last night. The model was getting dizzy standing up after the first hour, so she opted for a reclining pose the last hour.

12x9", pencil on paper, 9/28/15 "Greenough" after John Singer Sargent Another portrait copy (I have a book of 42 reproductions, so this could go for a while!). This time I was much more careful to measure all the dimensions over and over (measure twice, cut (or draw) once!). I think it came out more accurate for all the effort, and it was nice to be working a familiar medium :) I love Sargent's combination of detail and looseness and variety of line.

Lady Randolph Churchill, after John Singer Sargent, 12x9", charcoal on paper, 9/26/15 Another drawing copy--I try to finish these pretty quickly, because I'm trying to capture the spontaneous quality of Sargent's hand, but then the accuracy of the drawing suffers--I exaggerated the size of the eyes--again! Next time I'm going to have to carefully plot out those dimensions. I seem to be blind to that error when I'm in the thick of it. But I'm enjoying the process of learning how to use charcoal, and who better to learn from than Sargent?

Edwin Austin Abbey, after John Singer Sargent, 12x9", charcoal on paper, 9/25/15 John Singer Sargent is my favorite artist (big surprise, right? ;). There happens to be a huge show of his work up at the Met in NYC right now. I follow lots of artists on social media and they're all posting pictures and raving about the show, which is great. I love seeing them. But also, I'm sooooo jealous! So I decided to start working on some copies of his work to make myself feel a little better--don't ask me why doing this makes me feel better, but it does just a little :) in typical Stacy style, the features are just a little bigger than they should be (gotta work on that!), but it was a really fun drawing to copy (and I'm loving the charcoal--haven't played around with it much til now).

12x9, pencil on paper, 9/22/15

6x8, water mixable oil on canvas board, 9/22/2015

6x6, water mixable oil on canvas board, 9/20/15 They had these adorable pears on sale for 33 cents a pound this week. You just might see them again :)

6x6", water mixable oil on board, 9/16/15 An apple a day, you know ;) Somehow, they are always the most willing subjects, and I find it so challenging to study the shaded side of these dark red apples.

6x6", water mixable oil on canvas board, 9/16/2015 Another rose from the same bouquet as my previous rose bloom painting--this one beginning to show her age. Some days, I can really relate ;)

9x12", pencil on paper, 9/15/15

6x6", water mixable oil on canvas board, 9/14/15 As a junior high student, I rode the bus to and from school every day. I was one of the last houses on the route, which made for a short trip in the morning, and a long one after school. I always secretly enjoyed that long ride home--45 minutes sitting on the bus gave me some much needed time for contemplation after a long and often eventful day at school.  I can still remember how it felt to stand on the corner waiting for the bus on that first day of school--who would I sit by? what would happen after I stepped off the bus? so much anxiety and excitement--I can't really say I miss it... but then again, maybe I do just a little?

6x6", water mixable oil on canvas board, 9/13/15 Painted for the "Back to School" challenge on dailypaintworks.com--nothing says school like a yellow #2 pencil and an apple :)

7x5", water mixable oil on canvas board, 9/12/15 After my last try, I wanted to paint this little still life again. The lighting was different, and I tried to change my fundamental approach to painting the vase. Instead of delineating the vase with line, I first massed in the base value/color shapes I could see, and then added the little details later. I've always been really enchanted by glass that is painted well, and I'm determined to figure out how to do it. This might be one of my best attempts so far :)

6x6", water mixable oil on canvas board, 9/12/15 I was having the hardest time with this rose. I completely wiped off my first attempt because I was getting so frustrated. The tricky thing about painting this particular flower was that there was no combination of paint I could find that would even closely approximate the vivid pink color of the petals. So I just dug in with all the reds I had, and hoped for the best :) If any painters out there have any tips on how to get really vivid pinks, please share! I was using primarily permanent rose with some alizarin crimson and cadmium reds in the mix :)

8x6", water mixable oil on canvas board, 9/10/15 I started this painting yesterday, and decided I need to work on it more this morning. Glass is so tricky. I didn't capture it as well as I would have liked, but there's always tomorrow, right? Sometimes I wish I had more time in the day (who doesn't?), so I could really push my paintings a little further and get to a point where I felt they were more complete, more polished. But at the same time, I feel so lucky that I have the opportunity to have time to spend on art at all. I'm sure there are a million people in this world who could create better art than I ever could, but will never have the chance to try. It is a supreme blessing that I am able to do this at all. So I'm going to keep trying, doing my best to ignore that little voice that says, "you're never going to get anywhere doing this for an hour or less a day" and just keep trying. An hour a day does add up, and if I focus, I think...

Okay, so I've been figure drawing at this cool classical atelier nearby, and I see the students doing Bargue copies--copies of drawings by Charles Bargue (a 19th century artist who drafted a drawing course that was commonly used in the late 1800s). I decided to give a Bargue drawing a try, and what I ended up with does not look nearly as polished or professional as the ones I've seen at the atelier--but I WILL say that doing this exercise is rapidly improving my eye. I am realizing that I tend to make things bigger than they should be--all.the.time. So even though this looks really pretty not good (ha) compared to some others I've seen, it is helping me to see more accurately, and that's the point right? The question is, how do those atelier students get their dark graphite areas dark without making it look like they every made a stroke on the paper? I don't know. Mine looks a mess, but oh well. Mysteries to be solved in the future, I suppose :)

12x9", pencil on paper, 9/8/15 Two hour pose from last night's figure drawing session. I have a tendency to want to make the head, hands and feet too big. Gotta work on that, but overall I'm pretty happy with this one. It's so much easier to draw someone when they are holding still (I do try to sketch my kids fairly often, but they hold still for all of about two seconds at a time ;)

6x6, acrylic on canvas board, 9/8/15 I decided to use my acrylic paints today, but I had forgotten that acrylic paints dry darker than they are when wet--so needless to say, I had to make a couple corrections. But it was fun to switch things up and use a different medium. Acrylics are always a race to the finish since they dry so fast--helps me loosen up a bit :) 

6x8, water mixable oil on canvas board, 9/7/15 I fiddled with this one for quite a while before finally deciding to be done. I always find it difficult to work from photos. My brain processes values in real-time much more reliably than from a photograph--not sure why. But I might just have to try another balcony and see if I can make my vision match my painting a little better on the next go :)

12x9", pencil on paper, 9/1/2015

8x8", water mixable oil on canvas board, 9/5/2015 Just a cute little photo I found on morguefile.com. I'm always drawn to images of children. Since I didn't take this photo, I can only imagine what they might be looking at so intently--maybe a parade, or some street performers?  With this painting, I was just trying to keep it simple, and not get too caught up in the details. Definitely something to keep working on!

6x6", water mixable oil on canvas board, 9/1/2015 Another crack at the fog challenge on dailypaintworks.com--this time with a purple ground.

12x9, pencil on paper, 8/27/15 Two hour pose.

6x6", water mixable oil on canvas board, 9/3/2015

5x9", pencil on paper, 8/28/15 A quick pencil sketch of my sister, who was in town visiting last week. It kinda sorta looks just like her (yay!) :) :)

6x8, water mixable oil on canvas board, 8/31/2015 Painted for this week's challenge at dailypaintworks.com. I like participating in these challenges, because it encourages me to try subject matter I might not choose on my own. Living in a desert as I do, fog is a rare occurrence, so it was definitely challenging to try to get the feeling of fog here. I don't have a lot of visual memories of staring through the fog, so I was mostly relying on the photo reference to try to get it. Now I'm wanting to go find some real fog and paint it from life. The colors are always so different in person!

6x6, water mixable oil on board, 8/31/2015 My sister-in-law has requested a posthumous portrait of a favorite tabby cat for her Christmas present this year. I haven't painted many cats, so I thought I would try it out with a few small studies and see if I can come up with anything . This is the first :)