Retired from Classroom, Wanting to Move work...This on Auction!

As the title suggests, I want to make room in my home studio and storage area.  I was quite prolific over the years, didn't have the time to pursue gallery visitations to secure, though I have a few.

This past summer, I drew the ire of folks on social media (Facebook) for having a burn pile.  I'm not the only artist that has done this, often to get rid of work an artist doesn't feel represents their current quality of work, but in my case...its just been that I have painted much while teaching.

So...I will be offering what I hope are some small gems, picking up an order of shipping flats.  This is a gouache, image is 4"x 8"...and as is often the case with gouache work among artists and illustrators, we tend to pencil in a title beneath the work in the board or cardstock, date, and sign.

I believe the work's charm would be kept to frame it as such.  Gouache is an opaque watercolor, and as such should be framed with a protective glass.  Check out the auction I have going on this piece right now at Daily Paintworks...starting bid at just $30...

Exhibiting Work at North Shore Boulangerie

Brought thirteen paintings to hang down in Shorewood, Wisconsin today.  Shorewood is the far northern region of the greater Milwaukee area.  A very arts supported community.  The North Shore Boulangerie is a quaint lovely eatery space, and here is their website to check out, with information on their address...

North Shore Boulangerie

The majority of the works are plein air, but a couple paintings done in acrylic represent my early efforts with landscapes following my seventeen years doing wildlife art exclusively.  So, those that view the space and works will be able to see how my work has developed, changed or matured.

 
Some views after hanging in the larger dining space...

Mudhead exercises...

These were quick "mudead" portraits I did last night, for ideo, to help engage the learning curve I will have on my new iMac and Final Cut Pro video editing software.  My old 2007 equipment has been retired.  Took the time, because I anticipating following my knee surgery this morning that I would have something to do convalescing over the next how many days.
























The paint is laid out with a mid, dark and light value of flesh tones, then separate piles of pigment for darks like coats, color/values for background negative space, etc;

I used one #8 Rosemary Ivory flat brush, to paint all three studies, and paper towel to wipe, pulling the brush thru.  Done properly, painting with the paint of the brush and taking 3-4 strokes then going back for more pigment, I avoid mud or interference from other color dirtying the brush.

 
I hold no concern for the what of what is painted, such as this is a nose, this is hair...the face etc., nor concern to attain a dead on likeness.  My only thought is to focus and draw from that artistic language the artist learns such as shape, color, value, line, texture, on and on.

 

The exercise helps foster that alla prima axiom, "a brushstroke laid is a brushstroke stayed."
This exercise serves several benefits...allowing to explore and play with color strategies (RYB colorwheel triadic, complementary, split-complementary, values driven neutral mud, pigment soup etc), develop confident brushwrok in an Ala Prima style, and establish a working routine wet into wet manner of painting.  The practice of practicing, helps develop a feel for color and value shapes to establish the painting regimen.  Fifteen minutes on average, this requires and makes no lare demands to affect and detract from your painting routine.  As an exercise it will explore new approaches, alternative ways of seeing, and add to confidence.  Each painting is about 6"x 4" (verticals) and the horizontal is about 6"x 12"...

I am working to create a four week online alla prima portrait painting course for Artist Network University...(F&W Publications)...and hopefully will be available for its first run within 1-2 months...

New Course I am teaching Online- Alla Prima

After a week in Cincinatti filming at F&W Publication's studios, I am happy to announce we have produced what I think is a most practical and useful four week online course, "Alla Prima Bootcamp- Four Weeks to Confident Painting"

In my travels and teaching, workshops, I very often hear remarks about my direct brushwork and color marks, making it seem easy.

In this course, I break down setting up the palette for control, how to hold and handle the brush for efficiency and feel in direct attack.  I share near 35 years experience, tips, advice and insights.  We begin the first two weeks with emphasis on avoiding the "mid-values" crisis, and then third week a fun yet perhaps intimidating brushwork exercise.  Session two of that same third week, I demonstrate then what I call "deconstructing" or destroying...a breaking of edges, form to envelope the subject with air...atmosphere, finishing with rebuilding...and yet in traditional "alla prima" fashion, a painting done start to finish in one sitting.

The last week shows how to apply a color mood to a subject that has changed, or just doesn't have the mood you wish. Often in setting up one's gear...the light and color held a compulsion, but then once starting the light suddenly changes...leaving a flat "oh danggit!" feeling...and you drudgingly just paint what you see disappointed.  I will show, how to not lose that moment of inspiration, by use of simple color palette strategies.

example of local color (observed from life)-

Example same scene, same season...but playing with a different color mood-

Check out the link on Artist Network University as the first run of the course begins March 7th...

Four weeks of instruction, video download, and a followup of my personal thoughts and critique end of each week.

Watch the trailer, be sure to click on the tabs that provide everything you need to know!!!

Artist Network University- Alla Prima Bootcamp

Bought a new Strada pochade box...

My standard size new Strada pochade arrived Fed Ex today, and quite impressed with its sturdiness, and compactness.  Will slide nicely in my Duluth backpack for paint outings.  Had to set it up of course, though I am laid up a few days following a surgery on my right leg.  So, had to paint...and opted a 6"x 6" acrylic of a near scene...an early dusk moonlit farm...

New works on my Daily Paint Works page...

4"x 8" gouache on Strathmore black presentation board

available on auction, starting bid is $100-


Click to Bid

and these can now be seen...

My page-

Larry Seiler Daily Paint Works

Available for auction on Daily Paintings...The Lone Tree, 8"x 10"

This plein air is available at a buy it now price of $550, or starting bid at $200 at Daily Paintworks...

8"x 10" oil on canvas wood panel


Click to Bid

Getting Ready to Leave for ten days of painting...

Cedarburg Plein Air Festival


Quite the annual event, and unless I am doing a workshop such as Alaska last year same time, I try to be there.  Great to catch up with painting friends, the events, the competition, and very well run...

Leaving this Wednesday...and runs nearly til the end of the month!

A number of years ago, I stood in  Cedar Creek painting... which to my northwoods sensibilities made all the sense in the world.  The better view was "out there" unrestricted by the shore.  Was surprised to see many on the shores taking pictures of me, and began to believe I must be a strange lot to draw such curiosity.  However, many areas that open up here in the northwoods, do so from the standpoint of water.

Hey...the tripod easel supporting my pochade box is aluminum, an apron to set a heavy rock to sturdy against the current, and on a warm day offers some respite from the heat.  Don't call me crazy, momma didn't raise no fool!  haha

Here is one that I painted there...

10"x 20" oil on home made pumice panel

I have agreed this year to a television interview, wanting to reenact my painting in the river.  Okay...so then, that must mean I'm nuts!!!  That much hoopla over this antic.  People have never seen such...hahaha

I understand they want to follow me out into the river...but I reminded them there are submerged rocks, and current! Good luck on that!  8^)

"Like To Tell Me" ...self written, performed, produced music video

I wrote this song, wrestled with words, the music, then recording and videography over two days.  Another side of my artistic nature.  It is a result of observing and experiencing the hostility of a good many on social media, how they do not believe in an ultimate higher law, no Moral Law...no objective truth (truth that exists outside of ourselves) or reality, yet wrong them as they perceive, and they will howl!

I have often said to students of mine, deeply hurt by the actions of someone else that it is not what happens to us that matters, but what happens "IN" us!  That is the final vestibule, that one anvil many hammers can wear themselves out, for it is the last decision belonging to ourselves.  I....me and myself, have the final determination how and what someone has said or done will affect my heart/soul/mind.  What happens to me does not have to determine what happens "in" me.  Instead, I can allow it to run off like water off a duck's back...and let character build.  I can forgive...and be cleasned, and strengthened.

Entered my two pieces in the AIS show

These are the two pieces I entered in the American Impressionist Society national exhibition this year, both oils...
the first 12"x 24" oil on a homemade pumice panel.  The scene is an area about fifteen minutes from home.

Tried to paint this one on location, but it was the first really warmer nicer days of the Spring we didn't get here in northern Wisconsin.  The gnats and the sand flies were out in hoardes looking for victims.  I struggled getting out of my truck just to take reference photos.  When I returned home, the first thing I did was immediately order a nice full head cover mosquito netting!

The water is a tributary creek coming off the Peshtigo River, and its volume beyond its creek bed due to winter run off. Quite a few neutrals as green was just beginning to emerge among matted down grasses, and trees yet to bud and sprout leaves...

my second piece is also near home, where I jog...and here I set up to paint.  The day warm...sunny, signs of Spring once more only beginning to emerge.  Size 14"x 11"...on linen

Twelfth Offering...Artist Network University Plein Air Foundations

Over the years (or default of the years....haha) I have taught and painted i many mediums.  Acrylics and watercolor, oils...and gouache.  I do not have a necessary favorite, as once I engage I am fully absorbed in the developing work.

( the image here is of an acrylic I painted for a competition I would win back in 1984...Snowy Owl and Hungarian Partridge, Wisconsin Wildlife Artist of the Year)

However, I also use to put 150-300 hours into a single painting that would be aimed at a competition event, and used as an original for the collectible print market.  Perhaps for that reason, psychologically acrylics represent some enslavement to me.  Hahaha...laughing, yet there is probably some truth to that!

But, if there is one thing as an old dog seasoned painter/ instructor that stands out as holding others from really advancing beyond themselves, it is their presumption of achieving good values in their work, or their lack of awareness that their work is suffering from what I have coined, "the mid values crisis"

This malady is so common, that many intermediates are afflicted with it, and from time to time the more seasoned veterans are caught off guard.

Where the value range (lights and darks) are all too similar, thus losing the vital aspect that makes a 2 dimensional (flat) work carry that illusion of depth perspective or distance...back there, near and up here.

I'm glad that beginners or those just starting to paint from life often take the course, and a separation of courses is stressed by ANU (Artist Network University) to set apart all their course offerings and instructors.  But, so much "good" work I see could be yet so much better if the artist knew how to quiet some areas, push greater contrast to separate value planes, and escape their mid values crisis.

Often the name, "Foundations..." throws folks off, and with any experience painting outdoors are likely to believe such a course is unnecessary.  Unfortunately, as I walk the exhibition of many paintings hung at events, it is the struggle with values that separates IMO many of the good works from the better ones.  From there, it comes down to edges and brushwork...

The course deals with color temperature as well..since that is one of the defining natures of working values.  Color and value working together.

(for more information on course content, fees...plus get on ANU mailing list for future course offerings)-

ANU Course- Foundations in Plein Air

My twelfth offering of this course thru ANU starts this coming Tuesday.    

I hold to this belief, that ninety-percent of the time something is not quite right with the painting, it will come down to an issue with values!

Unique Approach to Drawing the Portrait..an ANU course I will instruct online

April 28th marks the first date this four week online course will start...

Artist Network University or ANU...is associated with Wetcanvas.com and F&W Publications as all perhaps know. Once more it is a distinct honor and privilege to be offering a course thru ANU...and this one will feature my own personal clasroom methods of teaching the drawing of the portrait, and more so understanding a simple approach to measurably see those unique traits and features that identify one person from another...

The course will start April 28th...and like another course I teach anticipate it will be repeated throughout the next couple years or so...from time to time.

Thru the four weeks I will be teaching how to see and understand the main components of the facial construct (eyes, nose, mouth etc;) and how I use, and my past students have learned to use the "eye" as a standard unit of measure.  From here I will teach how to put the components together...using that measure...then a completed portrait is assigned week three...and finally, how to understand and see the 2/3s quarter turned portrait pose...

I believe this will prove to be an interesting course, and a breakthru experience for many...  


Here is the ANU link for more information-

ANU Course- Unique Approach to Drawing the Portriat

Alla Prima portrait study of my son, Jason 14"x 11" oil

Preparing a four week online ANU course on my alla prima methods painting portraits, using my son, Jason as a model...just finishing this one...

March Chill...Tag Alders in frozen standing water...

11"x 14"  oil...

a roadside subject, approached Impressionistically, meaning I squinted eyes...observed the color of light...reflected, indirect, direct, bounced...shapes of that color/light...put it down forgetting the what of what I was painting.  Let the viewer's eye see tag alders...I focused on shapes and color.  Spots of color...

Demo for my Unique Approach to Drawing the Portrait

I have been preparing a number of teaching instructionals for online, Artist Network University (ANU) and my own Gumroad page...feeling now that I have retired from the physical art teaching classroom, there are instructions from over the years I believe would be useful for others.  No need to carry such to the dust behind me...and then, having done so, will be free (in spirit and mind) to focus on my whim and muse...

This whimsical self portrait is one of five supplemental videos for a four week course we will be offering for ANU...the first video a 78 minute breaking down of my method, at the easel with newsprint and drawing crayons.  "Unique"...because my system begins with the eyes as a unit of measure, and works from inside out.  This is in no way a suggestion other methods are inferior, or this is the best, but it has proven the best way for how I work...and best for my students I've worked with. It helps from the get go...for the eye to see those unique distinctions of the portrait that stand out and poignantly put down what makes the effort succeed early on.

For the caricaturist, the method is an invaluable means to see what features to expound and run with...and for the serious portraitist, having knowledge of such allows key check points for accuracy and confidence in the portrait's development.

For this particular drawing, line hatching and cross hatching, traditional approaches in rendering with pencil, pen, carbon and so forth..was used, but done so drawing on a Wacom Intous 4 digital tablet and Creative Suite 5.5 (Photoshop)

No photo manipulation (which everyone immediately suspects, because such indeed is the practice of some), no filters, and drawing on a single layer as if on a single piece of paper.  

The wireless stylus is set up to be pressure sensitive, that is..I press harder, I get a harder mark...and in addition of course you can set opacity and flow.  Advantages are being able to zoom in close to your work, and zoom back to see from some distance how the work appears.  The other of course, for the working artist...is you can submit your sketches to the art director (magazine article or cover work for example)...by simply saving as a jpg and attach to email.

Old school requires living in close proximity so that you drive over, show...get instructions go back to your studio and fix. Then the issue of submitting by deadline.  So for working hands on traditional artists, digital painting/drawing is one more tool worth developing to compete, as deadlines are the order of the day and always have been commercially.

The course is NOT a digital drawing course, though I explain quite a bit in this particular demonstration.   I have demonstrated use of Wolff carbon pencils, going over with a bit of water and soft synthetic round smaller brush to convert to washes of values.  The use of the Bic black ink ballpoint pen...and so forth.  More importantly...the course is about my setting up and proceeding with the eye as the unit of measure.  Showing the value of having a "standard" that is a generalization I gleaned from reading Leonardo DaVinci's sketchbooks back in the seventies (which is how long I've taught this).  DaVinci believing order existed in the universe and working mathematics and ratios into near everything.  As inventor, naturalist, science, artist/painter...

I had a light bulb moment...how the eye can create a standard.  Not to "force" everyone's portrait into the standard, but by committing it to memory...seeing immediately what features a person's face has that is outside that standard.  Such features are the distinctions nailed that speak "you got it!"

So...I have a power point to finish...a short video to create on foreshortening and the quartering pose...then a matter of announcing when the four week course will be available.

The course is four weeks long, very much like my Foundations in Plein Air ANU course...which deals with the mid values crisis so many artists struggle with (knowingly or unknowingly).  The course is online...the materials, videos are downloaded week by week, setting up the assignments for that week.  At the end of each week, I will give each participant a personal one on one critique.  I often use my digital table to show how to adjust, where things need some attention.

Finished- Peme Bon Won River Flush 24"x 36" oil on canvas

My interest was not to illustrate, "this is what a ruffed grouse looks like in hand", but this is what you can expect to see, experience...a hint of the wings explosive in pushing this chunky bird.

A gorgeous day in November along a river in NE Wisconsin

Second Night effort... Peme Bon Won river, NE Wisconsin 24"x 36" oil

Started a new studio work...a bit larger...and if all turns out intend to produce a giclee print for our northwoods Ruffed Grouse Society...

A work in progress...
(clicking on image brings up larger view)

Month Long SOLO Exhibition...Buy It Now and Silent Auction...Open to All!!!

my New Chapter Moving On Art blog for Exhibition sales...

Much work...*whew but completed.  Our Arts/Consortium...and the Arts Emporium/Essenhaus are hosting my work for a month, official opening Sunday December the 12th...but, a blog I created accompanies this event.  This allows individuals (US only, sorry) to participate in the bidding or simply buy the work outright.  There is a Paypal button for each painting.  Bidding is done by entering into the comments of a work interested in, and simply say...for example, "I bid $55...!" higher than the last person.  There is a reserve value known only to myself and the gallery, meaning if bids do not reach the minimum of what I need the work will not sell.  But, that bidding cannot go past the Buy It Now price either.  Should be fun...

Since the event is local...and locals have options to keep up with bidding online as well as stopping by the gallery, I have not factored shipping costs into the Paypal price.  Should you buy it outright, "Buy It Now"...I will contact you...and tell you what the additional cost would be.  Reasonable of course...USPS weight, etc;  You can then even email a Paypal payment to me if you have Paypal, or we will work out arrangements.  I could even create another separate Paypal button just that shipping amount for you...

Check out the blog if you will.  What I have done was recently retired from the classroom.  I have work accumulated in inventory because I was teaching and not sufficiently marketing, and decided to let go at, well...about a 60% cut in my routine price structure.  The very first post of the blog will explain that.  Thanks for taking time!!!!

My Video Session 2 of "Meadows Access" is now available...here is a trailer/teaser

I have been producing sessions of my paint times, instructionals...very much like workshops, and uploading them on my Gumroad page.  For a small fee...for example, $8...you can download and watch the full 41 minute session 2 of Meadows Access.

Here is a four minute trailer/sneak peek of the 41 minute Session 2...





The full video download, information here-

Session 2- Meadows Access-

First Session...recreating the painting- "Meadows Access" as a video Download, now available!

A Meadows Access...Information and Download



Twenty four minutes in length...encoded for a relatively quick download...
for just $8...check out the link for information.  There will be a number of sessions to finishing...the first session here focuses on my palette...mixing a tonal pigment to cover panel, wiping out the scene composition and establishing areas of value.  Good stuff...