Phil Starke Art Talk

The process for a studio painting is obviously different than a field sketch.  Aside from being smaller, the outdoor paintings are more of a quick response to light, color and weather conditions.  For me, they have the attitude of learning and spontaneity, gathering information and exploring new areas to paint.  I’m also much more relaxed outside, I don’t really care if they are worth framing, they’re practice.  If I don’t have much time to paint a sunset, or the sun coming and going, I will just mix paint and forego the drawing, just respond to the color and light.

Studio paintings for me are a whole different mind set.  It moves from quick response to focusing on composition.  I will use anything for inspiration; drawing, field sketches, photographs and imagination or a combination of all four.  While the field sketch is more responsive , the studio painting is more thought out and planned. 

I just finished teaching a 3-day workshop here in Tucson for the Tucson Art Academy.  We painted in the Catalina State Park, full of mountains, washes and cottonwoods.  We painted a model in the courtyard of an old Spanish style church and at the ruins of Tumacacori Mission. 

Teaching forces me to carefully think about my painting process.  First, to consider what the most important part of that process is, then to simplify it and make it understandable.  Painting is simple, as far as shapes, values and color, but not easy.

Teaching keeps me from straying too far from the essential or basic parts of painting.  I probably end up teaching myself more than students.  If you’d like more information about the Tucson Art Academy, you can visit their website at www.tucsonartacademy.com.

I painted at Torrey Pines Reserve last week.  I spent Thursday, Friday and Saturday painting for a show on Sunday.  Three days is a little short to get ready for a show.  I could have used 3 days to scout the area and do 6 x 8 or 8 x 10 sketches to prepare to paint for a show.  It was a good exercise in making a decision on what to paint.  I didn’t have a lot of time to be picky and search for the perfect composition. 

My regular palette is cad yellow light, cad red light, alizarin crimson and ultramarine blue.  During this time in Torrey Pines I added cad orange and viridian green thinking it would expand my varieties of greens and grays.  I ended up blocking in the painting with the three primaries and using the two new colors as acccents.  I found that I still got more subtle variety of color with the primaries.