Workshop Wednesday: Edmond Praybe {Part 2}
The finished Week 3 Full color palette painting demo by Edmond Praybe.
This post is a continuation of last week’s post on Edmond Praybe’s 4 week “Floral” class that I took with him through the Winslow Art Center back in January of this year. The following are my notes and screen grabs that I took during the final Week 3 and Week 4 classes.
Week 3, 05 Feb 2021
-”When working in a secondary palette it is helpful to approach it as if you were working in black & white. Approach your color decisions more as temperature decisions. This is especially helpful in landscapes when you have too much green.”
-”You can introduce and element of change to a painting by repainting an object again in a slightly different location on the canvas (elevating the object, etc.) or by painting it again at a different time of the day.”
-Edmond will move an object in a painting. Often painting it out and putting it back in. “It opens up the painting in a fresh way.”
- The "Euglow approach is to look at the subject frankly each session and to redo the painting each time, not just add details on top.
-You can experiment with a fresh, (quick) first pass in acrylic and then paint in oil on top of that.
-”It is the color of the flower that draws us in. Today we let loose with a full color palette idea.”
-Consider the 4 main aspects of Color: Hue, Value, Saturation, Temperature.
-Simultaneous contrast: what color is next to a color influences the reading of the color. See Joseph Alber’s color experiments.
-”Sometimes it is the colors that are around something that are not working. It is all about the context.”
-”It is helpful to “name” what is wrong with your color. Is the temperature off? Give a vocabulary to the phenomenon that is happening in your painting. Be more analytical.”
-Edmond will sometimes use colored tissue paper as backdrops for still lifes.
Edmond Praybe’s Full Color palette
Full Color Palette Painting Demo
Palette: Titanium White, Tin Yellow, Cad Yellow Light, Indian Yellow, Cad Orange, Cad Red Medium, Quin Red, Manganese Violet, Alizarin Crimson, Ultra blue, Cobalt blue, Cerulean blue, Cobalt Green, Pthalo Green & Mars Black
-Edmond instructed us to “Use any of the above colors and any tint (color + white) mixture in your paintings this week” for our assignment. In addition we were allowed to create up to 4 specific mixtures as needed during the development of our paintings. The result of this exercise was that the majority of our paintings would be painted from the tint strings or pure color.
-”Pthalo green and Indian Yellow will make some really beautiful greens.”
-A good strategy in this exercise is to save two of the discretionary mixes for the end of the painting to use as needed. Or use only tints in the beginning and then create your mixes to bridge any color gaps.
-”The idea is to give everything a very nameable color. Be very direct with how you are seeing the color.”
-For this exercise Edmond will leave a little space blank in between objects and fill it in later so as not to unintentionally mix the adjoining colors.
-Add fast drying mediums from the beginning so it dries quickly enough to work in layers without the layers mixing.
-Edmond will do this exercise in his studio after he has been doing too many “grey” paintings to remind himself that painting is all about handling color.
-”It may be pretty blunt at first which is fine, you start fine tuning as you go. Give up the idea that this is about beautiful painting. This (exercise) is about understanding color - but there will be sections that turn out very interesting. These discoveries are what can inform future paintings.”
-”(On abstraction) Look at flat pieces of form and less modeling. Accent the idea of certain types of flatness. A flat form and then two flat forms coming together. Let them sit together not blending them too much.”
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Edmond Praybe’s Week 3 Full Color Demo early on. Notice how he began first with the bottle on the left and then works his way through the composition.
-“Henshe would use the saturation of color as a light in his paintings. Even his passages of white have color in them. “
-Look at Carl Plansky’s work (founder of Williamsburg Paints).
-”Think of (this) color string assignment as a collage that you are adding pieces of color on top of each other. You can scrape down. Yes, you can refine shapes smaller and smaller as you go.”
-”Sita Saxe thought that this type of exercise got you closer to a Diebenkorn and Bay area way of painting. Pure color in shadow, etc.”
-”This exercise is meant to heighten your sense of color.”
Week 4, 12 Feb 2021
-”This week’s assignment is about complexity and composition in the floral arrangements.”
-”(On composition) Consider placement of objects: on floor, on shelf. Where is it in relation to the foreground, background? Where are the objects in relation to each other? How many things are you using and what is their placement?“
-”Start out with a couple items then decide what you want to add of take out. Then analyze and step back".
Edmond Praybe’s demo on arranging still life objects.
-”Paint” the objects (in your mind) first by how carefully you consider the set up the still life itself.”
-”There is no real right answer (compositional solution). It is about finding the balance or off balance between objects.”
-Edmond admits to often spending half a day to set up his still lifes.
-Use a color family or strong color association as your basis for your composition.
-Edmond is thinking about “fun shapes of color” when he composes. He is thinking more about the color and their relationships to objects. Composing purely on color and shape. What the objects are about is not as important. Working in this way pushes the sense of abstraction and the design of his paintings.
“Don’t neglect the power of lighting situations to create interest in your still life.”
-Think of breaking up edges in a fun way. How the color of a white plate on a white fabric flows together.
-”Paint abstractly - but with your objects.”
—”Groupings are a fun way to set up a painting. Clusters of things.”
—Edmond will tape out the edges of the composition of his still life objects so that he doesn’t “get lost”. This helps him to see the actual proportion of shape in a more complicated painting.”
-Edmond thinks that “Susan Jane Welp paintings break all composition rules”.
Edmond Praybe’s Week 4 demo showing his “quick painting” color notation approach.
Week 4 Demo
-In this week’s demo Edmond will use the approach that he calls “quick painting”. He will get some kind of notation of where the placement goes and color and then come back to it the next day so that he doesn’t get too stuck in describing it.
-”Constantly bouncing back and forth between one color or another, one element or another.”
-”It is important to get “notes”, some kind of feeling, for what is happening in the broader areas (background). I think the sooner that you get around into putting these notes of the broad areas of color, the better. It forces you to make color decisions and it will make the painting have a better sense of unity and harmony overall.”
“The important thing is not what it is but where it is. What is the main color, etc? You don’t have to draw everything perfectly but where you put things matters.”
-”This way of working (color notation) is really good for very literal painters.”
-Quadrangulating and triangulating where things will be. Considering your corners in relation to where things will be.
-”You are having a dialog of comparisons.”
-’That struggle of back and forth gives the painting a sense of energy that cannot be achieved by locking in right away.”
-”I kind of enjoy when the painting doesn’t look like anything for a while. I hold onto that feeling. The paintings come out better. There is a more pronounced sense of being seen.”
-“I try to resist the urges to finish a line, resist the urge to draw out the edges and contours of everything just because I know it is there,”
-”As I think of “notes” I am thinking of temperature shifts.”
-”Slowly things emerge out. Like the fog is lifting.”
-”Another good trick is to use brushes that are two sizes too big for what you need in the initial block in if you have a tendency to get too detailed in the beginning.”
-”If you leave too much of a “halo” around objects you don’t really understand how the colors are interacting.”
Edmond Praybe’s Week 4 demo painting at the end of the session.
The final finished painting by Edmond Praybe.
I want to thank Edmond Praybe for allowing me to share my notes and images with you during this post and the first blog post I wrote on him. He is an extremely generous teacher as you can see from all that I have shared. If you have enjoyed what I have shared with you today, then I really would encourage you to take a class with him yourself if you have the opportunity.
Thank you Edmond!
Workshop Wednesday: Edmond Praybe {Part 1}
Artist, Edmond Praybe, Oil on Yupo paper, 2020. Private Collection.
All painters have a list of other painters they admire for one aspect or another. Some artists are admired for technique, others for the conceptual idea behind the work itself. Edmond Praybe for me falls right in the middle of both considerations. He is one of my favorite contemporary painters working in a very modern feel of realism, one full of abstraction and yet his paintings are still ripe with mood, representation and sense of place. The perfect mix if you ask me. And I am not alone in my admiration of Edmond’s work. He was one of the 2021 finalists of the Bethesda Painting Award, a recipient of the Hohenburg Travel Grant, a two time Mercedes Matter Award winner and was recently profiled in the Painting Perceptions Blog by Larry Groff.
I was lucky enough to get a spot in his “Floral” class at the Winslow Art Center in January of this year when we were still under lock down and at a time before the vaccines were widely available. Winslow Art Center was one of the first to pivot to online classes during the pandemic and it continues doing so with a really robust line up of classes including more from Praybe in the future.
The following are my notes (and screen shots) that I took in class that I will happily share with you here over two blog posts (that will be published a week apart). I found his class intellectually fascinating on so many levels and definitely left feeling inspired. So much so that I taken two more classes with him since then and will happily sign up for more.
Week 1, 02 Jan 2021
-”Treat the flowers as a portrait. Treat them as an entity. (Painting flowers) can become cliché when the attention to specificity is lost.”
“Think about yourself as a botanist when approaching your flowers. The specific shapes - the light catching certain planes, the shards of color. Patterns of shape & lines & value.”
Edmond likes to save flowers after they have dried for a “spot of color” in his still lifes. (And a bonus being that they don’t change after they are dried).
Week 1 was comprised of two demos of the same hibiscus flower (students were assigned later the same exercise). In an effort to maximize his time Edmond, prepped both studies with a simple under-drawing that he did beforehand. He painted on Arches oil paper for both exercises. Same toned ground.
Week 1 , Value Study of Hibiscus Flower
First Exercise: Tonal Value study
Palette: Titanium White & a Neutral Dark (Mixed Up of Primaries).
The goal in this exercise is to decipher the internal shapes and forms of the flower, not paying too much attention to the composition. To be used more as a value study for the second color painting.
Limited palette painting of the same hibiscus flower.
Second Exercise: Limited Palette Painting of the Same Subject
Palette: Indian Yellow, Alizarin Crimson, Ultramarine Blue and Titanium White.
-“Think about basic shapes, breaking it down by values.”
-“Working with a palette knife helps you to make broad decisions about value without getting too fussy.”
-Generally starts his paintings by laying down the darkest darks and lightest lights from the start.
-Is interested in specific shapes and how they exist in space. “What is moving toward me, what is moving away.”
-“You will mostly be operating in the middle values. Ask yourself how do you translate saturation into a value that makes sense?”
-”Scrape down and simplify when things get too overly complicated. When the painting gets “too brushy” etc. Chances are it will make more sense the second time around.”
“Constantly re-evaluate the edges. How soft is it? How hard? How about the proportions? Keep your view point constant.”
“The spaces in between forms (negative shapes) will key you into what is the true form of your subject.”
-”Keep asking yourself, "What is the value next to that value?”
-”You can be as “detailed” as you want or as “open/painterly” as you want.”
-”Don’t lose sight of the big planes if you are the type of person who likes to dive into detail.”
-Uses a palette knife to soften edges and transition values.
-”Slowly a sense of the movement of the forms begins to emerge.”
“Always ask yourself: “How light is this light? How dark in that dark?”
-”Never assume that the values are the same as you move across your subject. Most of the time there is a shift. Look for the dynamism.”
Limited palette painting demo using the previously painted value study as a guide.
Limited Palette Demo
-Use the Value Study as a guide for the underpainting on the limited palette.
-In addition to using the palette knife to soften edges, Edmond also uses it to fill in surface, re-state/erase form.
-Uses Impasto Medium for thick passages (C.A.S. Alkyd Texture Impasto Medium).
-When laying out his limited palette Edmond will often mix up the secondary colors; an orange, a violet & green. Then adds white to each to make a mid-tone & light value of each (he likes to have the visual of what gamut of colors and values he has available when working with a limited palette).
-He has a solvent free brush cleaning routine. Just uses Linseed oil. soap and water to clean his brushes.
-Starts painting the red flower with a mid-tone red. Then paints a light red and the background at the same time, varying the color along the contour.
-”Striping off the excess paint with a knife allows you to get more of that ground through and makes things more luminous.”
-Will “blast in a little color” broadly & suggestively when describing form then will come back and describe negative space (which simultaneously describes the subject). This is also a good way to re-evaluate your shapes when working.
-”The color of the area that trumpets out of the flower is always the most subtle. Has more green in it, is duller. If you get it right it makes the color “pop”. A bright colored neutral scumbled in {will do it}.”
-Lays in a mass of color again at the end of the stamen - then cuts back into it to create the form.
-During the lecture portion of class he shows a slideshow of art work to consider and advises, ”Look at Conrad Gesner’s work (German botanical artist). And Margaret Meed. Also Jim Dine’s Sunflower charcoal drawing and Antonio Lopez Garcia. (Look at) Euan Uglow’s Freesia painting.”
-”Morandi painted a lot of dried flowers.”
-Edmond works from life on toned Arches oil paper saying that “Even with figurative work, the secret to (successful painting) is engagement. You get more out of it working firsthand and you get a sense of time that creeps in. It creates a sense of depth.”
-He will often follow the decay of the bloom or will use a “stunt model” and substitute a blossom as needed.
Week 2, 29 Jan 2021
Assignment: Create two paintings from a limited palette, one limited time exercise and one from long observation
-Some painters benefit from time frames to help them focus.
-Edmond sometimes works on Yupo paper. Just puts a layer of oil paint on top (it is made of plastic, no need to prime).
-”You can get away with “mushy transitions” if there is a bigger shape to hold it in. Otherwise you will get the amateur look of everything being blended to the same degree.”
-At the end of a day of painting Edmond will scrape down all of his paint in to neutral piles and add a tint of white to these mixtures. He will then use these grey piles to neutralize his colors if needed on the the next studio day. Edmond will also use these mixtures to tone his canvases and papers.
-”Find a visual lynch pin in your object then compare out from there. Especially helpful for something complicated like a pine cone. It also helps you figure out distortions.”
-”Be open to allowing the painting to develop as it wants to. If it wants to be a 2 hour painting - then let it”.
Week 2 demo. Notice how Edmond paints the objects as he goes along (as opposed to drawing the items and then filling it in with color).
Week 2 Demo
Limited Palette: Titanium White, Cad Yellow Lemon, Cad Red Medium, Cobalt blue, Thalo Green.
-Starts by adding a note of color and then draws the shape of the water in the vase.
-”This is roughly where this blue is going to be” he says while adding his notes of color & initial drawing to canvas.
-He paints very ambiguously not really defining things initially. “Be accurate with color but lose with drawing (in the beginning).”
-”If something isn’t working don’t be afraid to come back in with a rag or palette knife and get that paint off.”
-His demo grows from one point out. ”Build your form out with the paint - not just color it in.”
-If a mark is too forceful he scrapes it down to make it push back into the space better.
-Balance giving enough accuracy to make sense as an image but do not lose the gestural quality of the paint itself (which you get in faster sketches).
-”Sometimes the best solution for a tricky part is just to let it rest & come back to it.”
-Uses his palette knife a lot to incorporate the object in the background.
-As yourself, “Is it there vs. do I need to state it?”. “Do I need it to further the main goal of the painting?”
-”The areas that I try the least are the best, the areas that I focus on too much I overwork.”
-Edmond tries to approach a fast painting like a Diebenkorn with areas of transparency in the paint application.
Week 2 limited palette
Stay tuned until next week for Part 2 which will cover Weeks 3 and 4 from Edmond’s “Floral” class.
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