Gail G. Slockett Aspiring Artist

This has to be the most bizarre and frightening time most of us have ever lived through!  I hope you are all staying safe and healthy.  I live in Bergen County NJ, just northwest of NYC.  We were one of the first hotspots in the country after Washington state and we have yet to hit our peak. Aside from worrying about getting groceries and missing my adult children, staying home is not much of a hardship for us.  One silver lining is that I have been painting a lot more often.  And I have been spending at least half of my painting sessions experimenting and trying new things.  I participated in a 5 day painting challenge a few weeks ago. The idea was to do a 20 minute painting every day for five days and to post it to the Art + Work + Living Facebook group .  I challenged myself to do a knife painting every day.  Up till now I have done very few knife paintings and I am very intimidated by them.  I did snap a pic at 20 minutes into each ses...

I have been so busy these past few months..happily painting and exhibiting!  I was in two exhibits in November and December and sold four paintings.  Now I am preparing for a solo show at the Paramus Public Library in Paramus, NJ. in February, and at the Westwood Public Library in Westwood, NJ. in March and April.  In my area almost all the public libraries have exhibition areas for local artists. The quality of the spaces is varied and some take commissions while others don't.  Some even advertise your show and some allow you to have a reception. There are also opportunities in coffee shops, restaurants, theaters, hospitals, and even banks. I urge anyone who has yet to exhibit their work to get out there and do it! I know it can be scary at first, but if you have a body of work, go check out your local public spaces and commercial establishments.  Once you start exhibiting you will gain confidence and incentive to keep on painting! "Snow on the Meadow" SO...

At the end of July I attended a Plein Air Landscape Workshop with T. J. Cunningham at the Landgrove Inn in Landgrove, Vermont.  It was fabulous!  I had a great time with a lot of really nice people, a wonderful instructor, beautiful scenery, and great food in a very comfortable and accommodating inn.  Vermont is beautiful, green and has loads of barns and dirt roads.  There is truly a painting around every corner.  Landgrove is in southern Vermont so the ride from North Jersey was an easy 4 hours.  The Landgrove Inn is lovely and a little rustic.  Breakfast, lunch, and dinner are all included and are served in the Inn's restaurant, which is open to the public for dinner.  The food was very good and they have a full bar that is available to guests at any time. T.J. beginning a demo at a farm down the road from the Inn. T.J. Cunningham is a young artist who has already established himself as a top contemporary landscape artist.  He is ...

I was away for most of the summer and truly had no time to post.  We sailed from the Chesapeake to Maine and spent 2 months on the boat.  I had intended to paint while on this trip but either we were travelling or sight seeing or taking care of provisioning or laundry.  The few times I had a chance to paint I just wanted to do nothing.  But I am back now and will try to post more often.  And Paint! My set-up for the "Art in the Park" art fair The week after I got back I exhibited my work at "Art in the Park", an outdoor art fair in a neighboring town.  I love doing this particular event.  It is free to exhibit and since you are not juried in there is a variety of artists from beginners to professionals.  They do have jurors who award prizes at the end.  I didn't win anything but I sold two paintings and had a great day. Chinese Lanterns 12" x 16" Sold Menemsha  11" x 14" Sold What I find so i...

I have been reading a lot of posts, comments, and questions on social media about how to save your paints from one session to the next.  This is especially important for those of us who don't paint everyday. Putting unused paint in the freezer works very well for me, but how to do it easily and conveniently is another matter entirely.  I have tried scraping my paints off my palette and placing them on palette paper and then folding the paper in half and putting it in a ziploc bag.  It worked, but I always lost a lot of paint in the process and it took time to take it off my palette and then put it back on before the next session.  I have tried numerous palette keepers on the market, all with the same issue. Palette Garage Then I bought a palette garage.  You can get them at  palettegarage.com . I would clip the plastic paint tray to my glass palette in the studio and stacked them on my strada easel for plein air painting, (go to their FAQs & ...

      Tangier Island, VA., located in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay, will most likely be gone in the next twenty years.  Climate change and sea erosion have doomed this truly unique place, displacing a people and wiping out a culture that has been there for over four centuries.  The entire island is less than 740 acres, with barely 83 habitable.  It is only 4 feet above sea level at its highest point, and that is changing rapidly.  The only way to get on or off the island is by boat or plane.  There are approximately 450 residents, most of whom can trace their lineage back to the 1700's.  Primarily watermen, crab and oysters, are their bread and butter.     "Tangier Island #1", Oil on Panel, 11"x 14" "Tangier Island #2", Oil on Panel, 9"x 12"  We visited the island this past September and it made a lasting impression on me. The roads are very narrow and most people get around on golf carts, bicycles, motorcycles...

"Red-Yellow Roses", Oil on Panel, 12"x 16" I am a little behind in posting.  I finished this one few weeks ago.  "Roses with Lemons", Oil on Panel, 11'x 14"  Then I did another painting from the same setup and included the vase and the tabletop.   "One Perfect Rose", Oil on Panel, 6"x 8" And lastly I painted the perfect single red rose my valentine brought me on Valentine's Day. Roses look very complicated and can be very intimidating.  But the trick is not to see the petals as petals but as shapes.  I start by putting in just a few large shapes.  Shadowed areas first and then go into each of those shapes and break them into smaller and smaller shapes with varying degrees of shadow.  Then add the shapes in the light.  I use cadmium red light , cadmium red medium, cadmium red deep, alizarin crimson, and ultramarine blue.

"Garden Roses", Oil on Panel, 9"x 12" Just in time for Valentine's Day! These past few weeks I have been painting roses in class.  Each week I am determined to paint something else but my instructor keeps bringing in the most beautiful bouquets.  I just can't resist!  I was inspired by a fellow student to paint just the flowers rather than the whole setup with the vase and tabletop.  "Garden Roses" depicts a small section of a large bouquet.  It was so much fun to be able to really concentrate on just the roses.  A friend of mine told me he was amazed at the detail in the roses.  I told him to look closer, because in reality, it is not detailed at all.  It is just masses of color and shape.  "Pink Roses", Oil on Panel, 6"x 8" "Pink Roses" was painted the week before "Garden Roses".  I am working at loosening up and I feel this painting was definitely a  success in that regard.  It was sort of a bre...

"Roses & Clementines", Oil on Panel, 12"x 16" I frame most of my paintings and hang them all over my house.  I spend a lot of time studying them, deciding what I like and what I don't like.  I think we can learn a lot when we take stock of where we were and where we are now in our journey.  One of the things I love about working in oils is the ability to go back and rework a painting even years later.  I just reworked this painting for the second time. The first time I had a very flat background and decided to go wild on it with a palette knife and lighter color.  (See Below).  After a year of looking at it I realized the background was just way to busy and took away from the subject of the painting.  I also saw that the inside of the roses on the right were too large of a mass of one color.  I have done many more roses since I did these and I knew just how to fix them.  While I was at it I figured I might as well fix the the l...

"Gerbera Daisies", Oil on Panel, 16"x 12" Happy New Year!!  I have been very busy with the holidays and my daughter moving into a new apartment.  So I had very little time to blog.  I did find some time to paint though! This particular one was a struggle, but I am very pleased with the outcome.  Since the light on the petals was coming from behind some of the flowers, I finally figured out that I should paint the light in the petals first and then the dark over them, (instead of painting from dark to light).  It made all the difference!  Sometimes you have to break the rules. The tablecloth was just a quick underpainting that I intended to go back and paint properly.  But everyone who saw the work in progress commented on how much they loved my tablecloth.  So I left it alone. Sometimes less is more. This is for sale on my website .

" Study from the Dock ", Oil on Panel, 9"x 12" This was our last week on the boat.  Time to winterize and haul out for the winter.  I hate this time of year, not because of all the work that has to be done, (and there is a lot), but because it is the end of the sailing season.  We did get in two final glorious days of sailing though, and I got a chance to do one more painting from the dock.  I tried this same view last year.  Maybe if I keep doing it over and over again I might get it right one day.  I am still struggling with boats.  The bright blue in the sky is Williamsburg King's Blue.  I bought it for a workshop with Howard Rose and I am determined to use it.  Might need to tone it down just a bit next time.  The sun was so bright and just an hour into the session it was right in my eyes. I couldn't really see my colors until I packed it in and brought it inside.  It is a little intense.

"Carnations", 6"x 8", Oil on Panel I was reorganizing my studio storage closet and came upon a few paintings I had stashed away thinking they were worth revisiting someday.  I really liked this one but I had never actually finished it.  I painted it about a year ago when I had just an hour left in class and didn't want to overwork the painting I had just finished.  So I grabbed some leftover flowers and quickly did a palette knife painting.  I never thought much about it until I came upon it again this week.  It looked to me like I just needed to establish the shadows and define the stems and leaves a little more. I have to try this again soon.  I think the fact that I really didn't care about making a great painting helped me make a pretty good one! P.S. I just sold the painting "Clementines" that I posted here two weeks ago.

The Annual Bergen County Art in the Park was held yesterday in Van Saun Park, Paramus, NJ.  The event is free and open to any Bergen County, NJ artist.  Although there is no jury to enter, the works are juried and monetary prizes are awarded. Generally there are around 100 artists.  It was a good day but much colder than I expected.  Still lots of people came out and many were buying.  I sold three paintings!  I really enjoyed talking to other artists and potential collectors. Congratulations to all the winners!

"Clementines", 6"x 8", Oil on Cradled Panel Yesterday was my first class after being away sailing on and off for the last 5 months.  I am very rusty, so I set up a very simple composition.  I really enjoyed being back and I think the painting was successful. I take classes every Wednesday at the Ridgewood Art Institute in Ridgewood, NJ.  It is affectionately called 'The Barn', since it is actually in an old barn.  There are so many amazingly talented teachers and students there.  I highly recommend the school if you live in the area.  Check it out here . My teacher, Patty Nebbeling, is without a doubt once of their best artists and teachers.  Check her out here .  Our class is a particularly wonderful group.  I love coming back after such a long absence and witness how much they have all grown as artists.  They are all so inspiring!

Labor Day weekend I had an opportunity to do some cloud studies from the back of the boat.  I was inspired by Mary Gilkerson and her 31 day cloud study project.   It was a very busy weekend on Battle Creek in the Patuxent River, MD.  We had anchored out right in the middle of the creek so we could catch some breeze.  It was brutally hot and we have no air conditioning when anchored out.  The residents there were, for the most part, very considerate and slowed down while passing us.  But there were three groups of water skiers and tubers that buzzed us all day Saturday. To be fair we were right in the middle of the creek.  So it was a challenge just standing upright yet alone painting!

After my workshop with Patti I stayed on at the Greenville Arms for the next workshop.  Howard Rose is an extraordinary landscape and still life artist.  I particularly like his seascapes and beach and dune paintings.  He lives and works in Long Island, NY, and about six of his students from his regular classes came to the workshop.  One in particular, Joan Stevens, is quite talented and assisted him when necessary.  It was a pretty large class, so it was nice having an assistant making the rounds as well.  Howard went above and beyond the regular class time of 9-4.  He would begin critiques of everyone's work at 4:30.  We barely got done in time for dinner!  He did a presentation after dinner every night.  The first night he highlighted all the various things we need to ask ourselves when critiquing or troubleshooting our work.  The second night's presentation was about all of his favorite contemporary artists. The third night he...

I just came back from a three-day workshop with Patti Mollica.  She is primarily an acrylic painter and has published quite a few books and you tube videos on both color theory and her technique of painting fast, loose, and bold.  You can check her out at www.pattimollica.com 3 tone value study Patti has a unique way of teaching how to loosen up in both style and color.  She began by having us break down complicated compositions into large defined value shapes using only white, black, and a middle grey.  3 tone value study Then she showed us how to match those values with color, encouraging us to use a variety of colors within each value range.  The idea was to apply color directly onto the value studies.  Patti works in acrylics, and her method works better in that medium.  I worked in oils, so my value studies were not dry enough to apply color on top.  I used my studies as references instead of under paintings. ...

Primary Palettte, 5'x 7" I finally got a chance to do some plein air painting at our cabin on a small lake in North Jersey.  I had just finished reading Macpherson's "Landscape Painting", and tried two of his limited palettes.  The first is a primary palette of Cadmium Yellow Light,  Cadmium Red Light, Alizarin Crimson, Ultramarine Blue, and White. It felt a little constraining but I like the results.  I think I missed having Cerulean Blue and Cadmium Red Medium the most. The next day I tried his earth tone palette of Yellow Ochre, Burnt Sienna, Chromatic Black, and White.  This was a challenge!  It was impossible to get the colors that were actually in the landscape but at least the values were right.  I was surprised at how blue the Chromatic Black was when I added White.  But when mixed with the Yellow Ochre for green it worked more like Ivory Black and produced an olive green that really wasn't what I was going for. Earth Tone Palette...