Stacy Weitz Minch

I did this painting over two 2-3 hour sessions. It's 12x16", which is larger than I usually paint in my little at-home studies from life. But I wanted to get the whole bouquet in there at approximately life size, so I just went for it. Painting can be a terrifying process. It's hard not to chicken out when things get hairy. But I'm learning to trust the process a little more. It typically doesn't look very good after the first pass. And that's always a scary feeling. But I guess what I'm learning from doing Bargue and cast drawings is that I CAN keep pushing until it's right. And lucky for me, I think I have a pretty good sense for knowing when things look right, so with each attempt, I just have to keep pushing toward that ideal.  

I can't really call this a real copy, because I did it so quickly and the drawing isn't spot on. But I was trying to capture that fresh, intentionality of brushstroke, and it's hard to get that if you get too finicky with the drawing. So I sacrificed the accuracy a little (of course, I did the best I could without pushing things around too much).

4x6", oil on linen mounted to hardboard Quick sketch of a wild rose I clipped from a bush in our backyard. I've started keeping a cigar box loaded with paint in the freezer at all times. It's so much easier to find a few minutes to paint when setup is taken out of the equation.

Another ranunculus sketch. This one was pretty quick, maybe 30 minutes or so.

5x7" This is just a quick 45-minute sketch of a ranunculus I picked up at the grocery store this morning (keep me away from that floral section! ;). When I bought it, it was all curled up, but magically opened up in the warm car on the drive home. I preferred the shape partially-closed, but I'm hoping it might close back up overnight... if not, there's another tiny bud that I assume will eventually bloom. The colors are so vibrant and beautiful, though! I've started using more of a reductive drawing process for starting floral sketches. I like some tone in the background, but I don't like it where the petals will be--it muddies the color. And drawing with a thinned brown or gray paint does the same thing. So I draw with my paper towel, and it's just kind of fun and fast. Anyway, I've got my eyes set on a few more master copies that will guide me in the direction of pulling it into a tighter finish when that's what I want. 

Happy May Day! I finally took my new Soltek out yesterday (to the side of the house--I'm so adventurous ;). And I painted some lilacs. This was probably an hour to an hour and a half or so of painting. I could be happier with this painting--seems like I could have been using a larger brush for those blossoms, because they're feeling a little too broken up, especially in the shadows. But, that's alright. At least I painted. And next time I'll have some ideas on what to do differently. That's what I like about painting small and often (though often hasn't been often enough lately, mostly just Sundays--my time is spread pretty thin these days). But there's always next time to build on what I learned last time. And I also like analyzing what I did afterward and writing it down, so I can refer to my last painting and push a little further with each attempt. 

  Another quick study of this rose I have hanging around my kitchen, this time in watercolor and watercolor pencil.   And the second session on this long pose. It's feeling super scary right now. And maybe the head, or at least the face, is too big. I started bringing down the values but didn't get all that far...

    These were probably around 30-40 minutes each. Just trying to get the color feel of the flowers. I try to use white as a last resort because it seems like once I start putting white in the mix things can get chalky pretty quick. Someday I'll learn how to "finish" a flower, but today was not that day... Once I figure out how to effectively put in some darks without turning the whole thing to mud, I think my flowers will feel a little more finished.

  I might spend a lifetime trying to figure out how to paint. And I might never really get there. But I've decided that it won't be for want of trying. I'm just going to keep at it. 20-30ish minutes on this little one.

7.5x9.5", oil on linen I'm sure I could fiddle around with this for quite a while longer, but for the sake of not overworking it, I think I'll end here. This has been a really fun copy to work on, and I hope I'll be able to transfer some of the things I learned here to my paintings from life. So much of painting is drawing, and it seems like that's where I often falter.  Here's a side-by-side, in case you're itching to see all the errors that I do ;) After watching this artist's instructional videos this weekend, I'm almost antsy to try another. But then again, maybe not. Maybe I'll try something from life (and prepare myself for an epic fail, as seems to be the case lately, ha).

8x8" It seemed like a good day for a carefree sketch of something. I haven't painted in a couple weeks, and maybe I'm missing it. Or maybe I'm just itching for a change from what I've been doing lately. This is me playing with paint and not thinking too hard--just letting the brush go.  I need that sometimes. These little studies may not be much, but I do think they are more helpful than I give them credit for. The mistakes made here are small, the pressure is low, and the lessons learned can be applied right away to the next little painting. So maybe I'll try to do it more. Or maybe I won't--just taking it day by day right now. I think this was 30-45 minutes or somewhere around there.

7x5", oil on linen panel Ha, well, plein air painting is hard. Painting flowers in plein air, harder. Painting YELLOW flowers in plein air, impossible (at least if you're me). I think I went way too dark on the background. The shadows seemed really dark out there in the sunshine, but I overdid it.  Sometimes I get to a certain point and just don't know how to move forward from there... soooo I don't. This is looking like a very rudimentary underpainting, and I froze at this point.  The light had changed pretty drastically (dappled shade) by the time I got here, so it seemed that if I tried to make it more complete I would have to change it completely. On the positive side, I don't think the drawing of the flower was really all that bad. Those petals all fit together pretty much how they should have, so that's something anyway ;) But I apologize if you come here looking for pretty pictures. It's not always pretty here.

8x8", water mixable oil on canvas panel Quick little sketch of a sunflower. This was purely for fun. I wasn't too careful about the drawing on this guy (it's hard to be when you only spend an hour on something). My main goal with my painting these days is just to get a better sense for color. Not much else to say, except sorry (again) for the bad photo quality. I'm too lazy to use anything but the iPhone camera these days.

6x4", water mixable oil on linen panel I just wanted to do a quick little sketch tonight while we were watching the Olympics. I had my lamp in the opposite corner of my teeny tiny dormer window studio, and I really liked how it was actually making shadow shapes in the petals of the rose. So I decided to leave it there, even though the thought ran through my head "But I should be painting in the same light that is falling on the subject." Listen to that little voice, Stacy! ha. Clearly, I didn't listen. Subject, lighted. Canvas, in shadow. Not good. Here's a rather sad little progression of how things went down. But the good news is that, from what I hear, experience is the best teacher--perhaps I won't make that mistake again? I wouldn't necessarily count on it, but I'll try to remember ;) (also, don't paint with transparent colors in the dark)     And while we're on the subject of flowers, late last night I read t...

I'd really kind of like it if my window wasn't placed in such a way that everything I set up ends up being very softly back lit. I mean, I'm sure it's really great for helping me see subtlety and all, but sometimes I'd just like a big old drastic shadow, you know? Anyway, I don't mean to complain. It's a very nice window and I'm glad I have it. I'm very fortunate to be one of the few humans in this world who have the means to paint at all. I decided to use a limited palette for this mini sketch session (50 minutes for both roses). So I had white, black, naphthol red, and yellow ochre on my palette. It's kind of cool to see what that simple color combo can do. Not that this was a very complex subject as far as color goes. But it does somewhat simplify your color decisions to have just a few piles of paint on the palette. Painting is so stinking hard. It's something I realize more and more each time I try. But someday I'll be a...

6x4", water mixable oil on linen panel Yesterday was a long day. I guess the problem was that I was trying to get a few things done. We were having dinner guests, so I was trying to clean up a bit. We had to make a run to the grocery store. And I needed to make some dinner preparations throughout the day. Which doesn't sound like all that much to get done, but seriously. If ever there is something I have to accomplish during the day aside from playing the constant entertainer and referee... well, it can be a little frustrating. Anyway, the evening went much better than the rest of the day, and while my husband got the kids off to bed, I painted this little rose. Somehow, doing something artistic usually makes my world feel a little more rosy--clearly not all the time, but most the time ;)  I've been experimenting a little bit with varying levels of paint thickness on the canvas.  I think it makes the surface more interesting. When we were in San Diego last fall...

You know I won't be able to leave the yellow alone until I feel it hasn't licked me (so expect some more yellow flowers ;), but this one felt better than the lilies (simpler shape, for one). The background got a little out of control, but that's okay. I can always try again. The water mixable oil in burnt umber tends to come out really sticky, and if I don't mix it with a little more oil right away it gets all clumpy and uneven, and that's how this background started (I was just going to do a light wash with a mix of burnt umber and a couple other colors), but then I just had to keep adding more to camouflage the clumpy-ness, and there you have it--solid burnt umber background, ha. how boring :) The major difference I've noticed between water mixable and regular oil paint is that the water mixable doesn't thin as well with water as regular oils do with solvent. So it's harder to do a nice light wash of color to tone the canvas if you so desire (whic...

I had intended to start a drawing today, but the watercolors were calling my name. And since the kids were happily playing in the sprinkler in the back yard, I just sat at the kitchen table and kept painting!  The great thing about watercolor is that it forces me to be intentional and direct. It seems like I read in a book somewhere (maybe Harold Speed's book on oil painting?) that watercolor is a master's medium, and the student shouldn't touch it. I can see where the author was coming from--it's a one touch and you're done kind of thing, so it can be really tough and you're sure to churn out a lot of flops along the way. But at the same time, I think it is a good way of learning to be less detail oriented and allow yourself some space to just play. There's something very organic about the way the colors flow from the brush to the page too, and I like that. I used to always draw the outline in pencil first and color it in later, but I don't ...

10x8", water mixable oil on panel Alright, time to give the yellow a rest. We've had these beautiful sun-bleached pink roses in bloom by our fence and they're just about to wilt into nothing, so I thought I would try painting one before it's too late. It seems like the values are just a little too segmented. Looking at other rose paintings I like, the lights are more or less connected, forming more of a solid value area with subtle variations within them (strangely enough, I kind of like the value structure my 30-second reductive drawing more than the finished product--the simplicity is nice). I think I'll probably go back to a drawing copy or something next. There's this teaching concept we use in speech pathology when working with dementia patients called errorless learning. Basically you teach people something on a level at which they can succeed every time, then increase complexity slowly, only as fast as they continue being successful. A little ...

6x4", water mixable oil on linen panel I realized the other day that I've been pretty intimidated by painting lately. I've been focusing mostly on drawing, which has been really, really good. But I don't want to neglect painting to the point where I'm afraid to pick up a brush. Not that I haven't good reasons for being afraid--painting is incredibly complex and there is so much I don't know. But at the same time, I don't want to let fear control me--not good. And with painting (like many other things), I think the way to fear it less is to do it more. So I'm going to try to whip out some really quick, tiny studies a little more often (this one was probably a little under an hour?).  I think when you paint more often, you learn from your mistakes faster too, because you actually remember them the next time you go to paint something (like, the last time I painted flowers and they ended up spilling over the top of the canvas--yep, it happene...