Blog

Instructional Oil Painting Video is Now Available for Pre-Order!

Sadie Valeri — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 06:44:12 +0000

Sadie Valeri demonstrates layered, indirect oil painting in the tradition of the Dutch Masters of still life.

To order go to: http://www.sadievaleri.com/videos/

Carl Dobsky's Safehouse Atelier Moves In

Sadie Valeri — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 19:05:09 +0000

We are thrilled to announce that Carl Dobsky has moved his fulltime program, The Safehouse Atelier, into our studio!

Carl and his 9 students moved their studio equipment in last week, and they have already gotten set up and are working every day on their drawings of plaster casts.

Safehouse students study 5 days a week: Cast drawing, perspective, long pose figure drawing, alla prima portrait painting and short pose gesture drawing. They also study computer-based graphics, illustration and concept art at another location.

Each student has their own Cast Station where they choose a plaster cast and control the light to create a detailed graphite pencil drawing.

I am thrilled Carl and his students have moved in and we look forward to a wonderful collaboration of classical art education.

Carl studied with Jacob Collins at Water Street Atelier and shows his work at John Pence Gallery.

Carl’s bio and artwork on John Pence Gallery website

Safehouse Atelier Blog with student work

Show: Gallery 1261 Contemporary Realism

Sadie Valeri — Sun, 24 Feb 2013 16:35:09 +0000

Gallery 1261 in Denver, CO has arranged an impressive roster of artists for their upcoming Contemporary Realism show. Many of these artists are my longtime art heroes, so I am just thrilled to be included in the show.

The opening is this Friday!

Participating Artists:
Gregory Block, Scott Fraser, Mikel Glass, Robert C. Jackson, Andrea T. Kemp, Lucong, Alyssa Monks, Heather Neill, Kate Sammons, Daniel Sprick, Jeff Uffelman, Henrik Aarrestad Uldalen, Sadie Valeri, Anthony Waichulis

1 Year Anniversary Celebration

Sadie Valeri — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 03:33:55 +0000

Come help us celebrate our 1-year anniversary of being in our beautiful new studio!

Saturday February 2
6:00 - 10 pm

We hope you can join us!

- Sadie, Nowell, Justin, and Felicia

Painting: "Cream Satin Drape," 18 x 24, oil on linen

Sadie Valeri — Sat, 24 Nov 2012 18:47:47 +0000

Cream Satin Drape, 18 x 24, oil on linenI am trying a technique that is different from my other paintings. I usually work in the Indirect Flemish Method: Many thin layers on wood panel to get a very high level of realism, without texture, for an almost enamel-like finish. It can take 4-6 weeks to complete a very small 9x12 inch painting.

DETAILIn contrast, this painting is done with a Direct Method: Only 2 layers (the umber underpainting and one pass of full color), painted with thick, loose paint, on stretched linen support. At 18x24 inches it is larger than most my work, and it took less than 2 weeks to complete.

I am finding what I have long suspected to be true: Working precisely and with great control in my more detailed work is teaching me to see better and make better decisions when I work faster and more loosely.

With this more direct method, this is how I think about painting:

The strokes are applied slowly: I look at my subject, decide what is the ONE stroke I want to make. I load up my brush with the correct color, and then very, very slowly make ONE mark. Then I look at it, and decide if it is right or wrong. Sometimes I need to wipe it off and try again if it is wrong. Then I decide what my next stroke will be.

I start slow, but during the session I naturally speed up, keeping this same level of attention on every stroke. I stop thinking and it starts to feel like the brush is painting on its own.

I use a very light touch, only touching the paint to the canvas, not the bristles. In addition to swiping the brush, I also might push, twist, or wiggle the brush to make the stroke needed. The light touch lays the paint on the canvas, and might leave some broken scumbling drags, without pushing the paint flat.

When loading the brush: To get thicker paint, I push the brush forward into the paint puddle on the palette, not a just a back swipe. I build up a nice glob of paint, with even maybe with a string of peaked paint at the tip.

Every stroke should make the painting feel like it is developing and getting better. If it starts to feel like I am “fixing”, and the painting feels like a struggle, and the painting gets worse even though I am trying to make it better…. I stop painting. I wipe or scrape anything unsuccessful, I breathe, slow down, take a break, and try again.

While painting this I was thinking about how I would teach it as a class or workshop, and realized the only way I could teach it is to teach the Indirect, Flemish method I already teach. For every Direct stroke one must think about drawing, value, color, and edges, all at once. The way I would teach this is to practice each of these skills in isolation until each is mastered, before trying them all at once.

The Flemish Indirect method separates these steps and is an excellent way to learn all of this.

For me, working in this more Direct manner is emerging naturally from my Indirect method of study.

WORKSHOP: Still Life Drawing and Painting in the Flemish Method, January 2013, San Francisco

How to Draw in 5 Steps

Sadie Valeri — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 12:47:54 +0000

Every drawing starts out well, and then goes through a bad phase. I call this The Valley of the Shadow of Death. The Valley stage is when we notice our drawing does not look right, and we try to fix it, but it only gets worse and worse.

Pulling the drawing out of the Valley, and learning how to do this over and over, is the key to drawing well.

Whenever we get frustrated or discouraged, I have found it helpful to have a few mantras and a list of STEPS to follow to re-focus the mind and get the drawing back on track.

These steps help me, and I have found they help my students as well:

Breathe. You can’t draw if your brain thinks you are dying.
Look. Drawings fail when we forget to look at the subject.
Mark. Make ONE mark. Stop your hand. Put your pencil down if you need to.
Check. Look at the subject again, look at your mark again, and correct it.
Repeat. Do this 10 times. Then do it 10 more times.

If you lose count, start again and try to do it 10 times. And then 10 more times. In fact, this is really the way to draw ALL the time.

P.S. It works for painting, too!

WORKSHOP: Drawing the Figure in Chalk and Charcoal on Toned Paper: January 2013, San Francisco

Monochromatic Plein Air Painting in Lake County, California

Sadie Valeri — Sat, 08 Sep 2012 03:00:57 +0000

My husband Nowell and I spent this week at a country retreat a couple hours north of San Francisco, in Lake County. We rent a little house there that is on 80 fences acres, with private hiking trains and gorgeous views to rival the Hudson River Valley… although quite a bit drier and hotter this time of year.

I LOVE working with my Open Box M palette, Manfrotto tripod, and Manfrotto arm with the Julian Umbrella.

I looked at my old post about this and realized a lot of the links are broken, so here it is updated:

Open Box M pochade box 10x12
(no need to buy the whol boxy kit, just get the panel holder)
Julienne painter’s umbrella (they now show a horrible red/white/blue version… just get WHITE).
Manfrotto tripod and joystick head
Manfrotto jointed arm is THE BEST way to attach your umbrella. I use it to attach the umbrella to the tripod right beneath the pochade box.
Clamps: The arm above does NOT come with the CLAMPS which are very important. You will need 2.
Seal-able solvent can
Viewfinder

Extra tip: Carry most the items to your painting site in a backpack. Then, when you are set up and the backpack is empty, fill it with a couple hefty ROCKS and hang it from a clamp on the tripod. It makes your whole setup very stable even in a swift breeze.

I decided ahead of time to try for some discipline on my plein air studies by focusing on value, and painting with only monochromatic colors. So I did not even pack any colored paint, and tried to see how much I could get out of just Transparent Oxide Brown, Ultramarine Blue, and Titanium white.

My first painting was supposed to be a “simple” tree study. Of course, trees are very, very hard to capture the drawing issues of gesture and structure, much like painting the human figure. I spent so much time trying to draw the sahpes of the branches that I had a hard time trying to get the feeling of the filtered backlit sunlight through the leaves.

Having a dog for company is the best way to paint outdoors! Ripley is used to hanging out with me at the studio, and so she was happy to settle down to hang out with me. It was hot though, and even in the shade she panted and could not get comfortable. So one day I decided to leave her back at the house… but Nowell said she cried and whined at the door while I was gone. So from now on she gets to come along no matter the weather.

For my second painting I decided to stand further back and try to capture the overall shape of a different tree and its environment and lighting.

The midafternoon sun was hidden by hazey clouds by the time I took a ohoto of the scene, but I was done with the sketch.

I felt like that painting got too opaque, so for my 3rd painting I painted with very thin, dry, brown paint, and used white only minimally.

I thought that would be my last painting of the trip, but at the end of the day I was inspired to try a quick sketch of a little grove of trees lit from the front by the late afternoon sun.

The previous paintings took 2-3 hours each, but in this scene the shadows shifted quickly and I only had about 30 minutes before the effect was lost completely, but it was fun to try to capture the feeling of the late-day summer light.

My setup on the last day of our trip. I’m looking forward to coming back with colors on another trip!

Open Studio Party Recap

Sadie Valeri — Fri, 31 Aug 2012 19:38:45 +0000

Thank you to everyone who was able to come out to our Open Studio Party last Friday, it was a fantastic event with inspiring demos and a wonderful atmosphere you all helped create!

We have just posted NEW classes taught by Justin this fall, and there are still 1-2 spots left in Felicia and Sadie’s classes starting in September.

We are also now offering YOUTH CLASSES for students ages 12-18, please share with local students and their parents!

We hope you can join us at the studio soon, it’s going to be an amazing season for the study of Realism.

Please visit our Classes page to see everything we have scheduled for this fall and beyond!

Open Studio Party and Art Sale, Friday August 24, 6pm

Sadie Valeri — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 15:46:33 +0000

“Portrait of Torrey” By Felicia ForteTour the studio, enjoy some refreshments, and witness artmaking in progress!

Felicia Forte teaches alla prima (single session) painting and drawing. She will be working from a live model during the event so you can watch how she creates a painting from start to finish.

Justin Hess: Making Oil PaintJustin Hess teaches painting and drawing, and he is also an expert on materials. He will demonstrate making oil paint from dry pigment, which he explains in his book ”Controlling the Creative Process, A Painter’s Guide to Methods & Materials”

“Roses” oil sketch by Sadie ValeriArt Sale
We will have a selection of framed art work for sale. See our recent oil sketches and drawings and maybe take home an originl piece of art!

We hope you can join us!

-Sadie, Nowell, Felicia, and Justin

Women Painting Women: The Expedition and Beyond

Sadie Valeri — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 17:08:52 +0000

Opening Friday, April 13th, 2012 from 6:30-9:00pm
Principle Gallery
208 King Street, Alexandria, Virginia 22314
703-739-9326

Women Painting Women: The Expedition and Beyond is a show of work by 13 artists who rented a house and painted together for a week in Charleston, SC, in November 2010, in conjunction with the Robert Lange show Women Painting Women.

All this came from the blog Women Painting Women, which I started with two of my artist friends, Alia El-Bermani and Diane Feissel, in 2009.

You can order a catalog of the show here

I’ll have 3 paintings in the show, including Undersea, pictured in the American Art Collector ad above, and also my Self Portrait at 39, as well as a small sketch I did in Charleston. I am also one of the subjects of Terry Strickland’s The Three Fates also shown in the ad, along with Diane and Alia.

I am currently in New York, and I’ll be driving down for the opening in Alexandria VA on Friday, I hope to see you there!

Participating artists: