Clayton J. Beck, III Workshop Recap

I wish I had more time to write about this, but for now I'll have to give a quick recap. This month I had the great privilege of attending my second Clayton J. Beck, III workshop. This time it was here in Dallas at the Society of Figurative Arts , and I helped organize it, hire the models, even pick Clayton up from the airport. :-) He probably got tired of me after a while, but I sure enjoyed the one-on-one time, picking his brain on all things art-related. :-) Below are some pictures from the workshop, and my notes with some of the main points from his discourse that I found particularly helpful. - Every brush stroke you lay down is a reflection of your thought process. - Making the highlight on the upper eyelid too light will cause the model to look sleepy (ha!) - Don't add a bac… Read more »

Clayton J. Beck, III Workshop Recap

Precious Family Time

After two full weeks of GO GO GO, I am finally home, at my computer and in my sweats, enjoying a moment to take a breath. It's all been good stuff, but I'm the kind of person that needs to recharge after a period of craziness by spending time alone. So here I am, reflecting on everything that's happened in the last couple of weeks. On Sunday, my mom, younger sister, and youngest brother, flew down from Wisconsin and spent five days here in Texas visiting Emily and me (they just flew back this morning). It was wonderful to see them, and they enjoyed replacing snow and cold with 60 and 70-degree temperatures, blossoming trees, and blooming hyacinths. Part of my craziness from the last two weeks was that I wanted to finish a portrait of my brother Joseph, who I knew was coming to… Read more »

Precious Family Time

A Studio Filled with Potential!

Taking a look around my studio today, I counted twelve works in progress, or paintings that I've started within the past two months or so, and have yet to finish. Three of them were started just this week, and two of  those were started yesterday! I'm not going to share pictures of every single unfinished painting; some have more potential than others. Some will be finished very soon because I'm excited about them; others may never see completion but will instead get sanded off and painted over. As a 20-something, my life is in a stage of constant change. During this decade, there are so many things that happen: we graduate college, get married, buy a house, have kids, change jobs once or more, and essentially leave all of our childhood familiarities for the new and different.… Read more »

A Studio Filled with Potential!

Clayton J. Beck, III Workshop at the Woodlands Art League

My head is still spinning from the overload of information I received at last week's three-day portrait and figure workshop with Clayton J. Beck, III  at the Woodlands Art League. I felt extremely privileged to be there and grateful for the instruction, as it was a totally new way of thinking and painting for me. Clayton Beck is, as my friend Michael would say, a "Schmidling," meaning that he studied under Richard Schmid once upon a time during the "golden age" of Schmid's teaching at the Palette and Chisel in Chicago. Beck now teaches there, and through his classes and workshops, he carries on the methods used by the 19th-century American artist John Singer Sargent as well as several of Sargent's contemporaries such as Anders Zorn and Joaquin Sorolla. Rich… Read more »

Clayton J. Beck, III Workshop at the Woodlands Art League