Painterly Impressions featured in American Art Collector

Painterly Impressions

Gallery Russia's January Group Show featured in the American Art Collector's January 2008 Issue.

January 2008 Exhibitions

Painterly Impressions

Opening night January 17th 2008
Gallery Russia
7000 E. Main Street
Scottsdale, AZ 85251
480-596-9533

Preview the show in the January issue of American Art Collector.

A Successful Night

Friday Night was a wonderful reception. Thank you to everyone who made it out. If you could not make it on Friday, the show will be up until the 29th. Gallery Hours 11-6pm monday - Thursday, Friday 11-5 weekends 12-4pm.

Happy Painting

October 19th Opening Reception

Your Invited to an evening of fine art and friends.
Opening at The Palette and Chisel October 19th from 5 - 9pm
This event is also a part of Chicago Artist Month, celebrating the arts all over the cty.

1012 North Dearborn
Chicago, IL 60610
312-642-4400

Southwest Art Magazine 21 under 31 September 2007

Pick up you copy Today!!!

Southwest Art Magazine 21 Under 31

On News Stands Now!!!!!

Check out the September Issue of Southwest Art Magazine. I am thrilled to be a part of the 21 under 31 section featuring my painting "Her white Sash" on page 144, also check out page 84 featuring a half page ad of new paintings as well.

New and exciting things happening. Also look for new oil painting classes this fall at the Palette and Chisel.

Making Headlines

Making Headlines in The Star newspaper in Easton Maryland during the Plein Air Easton Event earlier in July. What an event it was.

Plein Air Easton Maryland

Easton was so much fun. What a beautiful part of the country. The boats, the town, the farms. what variety. I did love painting in the local resturaunts the most. The painting below was done at a local bar "General Tanucki's" I hope to go back next year and paint the owner. I also did an exterior of the place for the quick draw competition, paint in 2 hours or less. Can't wait to get outside in Chicago more and paint more boats.

Plein Air Easton

WOW, the month of May has been fun. Many new adventures and exciting things happening. I'm looking forward to this summer with lots of painting, indoors and outdoors. In July, I'll be heading out to Maryland for the week long Plein Air Easton Competion. looking forward to this event.

Come witness the dynamic painting competition and festival that is "Plein Air - Easton!" Explore one of the most picturesque small art towns on the East Coast while interacting with some of the nation's top plein air painters. www.pleinair-easton.com

Oil Painters Of America 16th National Juried Exhibition

I am again so thrilled to announce that my painting "Experience" recieved the Elaine and Peter Adams OPAM Award of Excellence at the Oil Painters of America 16th National Exhibition this past weekend. This years show is held at the Whistle Pik Gallery in Fredericksburg Texas. I am honored to have recieved an award as it was given by a master painter Quang Ho.

American Impressionist Society Awards Night

I am thrilled to announce to you that my painting "Illusive Smile" received Best of Show, at this years AIS show held at The Hilligoss Gallery. The show will be up until May 25th, it is worth checking out to see the many amazing paintings in this show. The awards juror for this years show was C.W. Mundy.



"Illusive Smile"
10x8
Best of Show

I am truly honored to have recieved this award.

American Impressionist Society

Your Invited!!!!

The American Impressionist Society is having their National Juried show at the Hilligoss Gallery located on the Magnificent Mile in down town Chicago.

Next Friday Night May 3rd from 6- 8pm
520 N. Michigan Ave

I will have one piece in this show and am very excited to be a part of this organization and thrilled to show in this beautiful gallery.

Hope to see you there.

Wednesdays Painting

This little painting is kind of an unusual size. Perhaps 10 X16 or so. I ran out of canvas the other day but I like working on these unusual sizes. they stretch you on compositional ideas.

Time Managment

How do you do that????

I recently had a conversation with a fellow painter about time management.
As they say, there is never enough time in the day. This is something
I've struggled with for, well, I guess as long as I can remember. Itstuff
to schedule time for everything you need to do in a day, a week, a
month. I've never been very good at it. I myself seem to just go with
the flow and see where it takes me but I've known for a long time that
that simply Is not the way to get things done. Organization and
prioritizing I think is the key.

A balanced life is a successful life. (who said that?)

So here are my thoughts on this and practical actions I hope/plan to take in my life that perhaps will help you as well.

My Goal
1. Organize and plan the time spent in your studio. (see archived post on this subject)
2. schedule specific days to work on a) still life painting b) plein air painting and or finishing up a plein air painting in the studio and c) figure painting with a live model or finishing with a photo.
3. time to stretch canvases or make panels
4. time to work on the business side of your art, that is updating mailing list sending out newsletters, taking slides and digitals of your work.
5. time to enjoy. We all need time to relax and experience life. sometimes just being, stopping to smell the roses and being grateful for what we are able to do, that is to Paint.

Wow, Do I ever need to hear this. Hope my advise to myself helps you out too.

Note. I remember taking a workshop with Rose Frantzen and she said when she is painting she is also living. How true.

creating the environment around you to enjoy and experience life
without stress makes you a better painter. "Again life moves pretty
fast and if you don't stop and look around once in awhile you could
miss it." (borrowed from FerrisBeuller's Day off for all you fans)

So I think by better planning you will be able to get more things done and have time to relax every once in awhile.

Painting in progress

Here is a detailed shot of a painting I am working on. I started it in class and will continue to do a bit more work on it. Photos to follow.

Good Friday

Etching-Rembrandt's Three Crosses

Painting In Arizona

A bit of a late post but thought I'd share with you anyway.
A few small paintings I did out in Arizona earlier in March.

these are three 5x7s I painted for my Grandparents out there.

In Arizona everyone seems to have an orange tree or grapefruit tree. How delightful to have fresh orange juice every morning.

Oil Painting Classes

I will be teaching two oil painting classes at the Palette and Chisel Academy of Fine Arts this spring and summer.

Fundamentals Follow-Up: oil painting still life
April 4 - June 13
Wednesdays 9-12pm
$225 ($210 members) 10 weeks

Oil Painting for Children
June 2 - June 30
Saturdays 10:30 -1:00pm
$150 5 weeks

Visit The Palette and Chisel website for details.

Turquoise Necklace

Here is a new painting I did this past Saturday. I was out in Arizona painting in a friends studio. More to come on the trip soon.

Plein Air Painters of Chicago Opening Night

Quick Sketch in Paint

Here are a few quick sketches I did in class. The point was to capture the effect of light and abstract pattern of lights and darks. I also tried to get the gesture of the pose and not think too much about any real detail. there was not enough time. each pose was 25 min. Though I did get caught up in a bit of color changes I had a blast and can't wait to do this exercise again.

A small painting I did over the weekend. "Gabriella"

Painting in Multiple Sessions

Most of my paintings thus far have been done Alla Prima, that is, in one sitting. However, I've recently taking a few classes and spent time on my own working on a painting for more then one sitting. I've discovered a few things I thought I would share.

One, I've noticed that perhaps due to lack of practice on this, I found myself getting a bit paralyzed in my thinking. I find I paint differently when I know I have lots of time, I paint with thin tentative strokes rather then jumping right in with paint and letting it go. I know when your working in multiple sessions you would like to keep your paint thin in sections you know you will be reworking on a latter day but I don't believe Mancini or Fechin worked that way. However as I am barely scratching the surface on this one I will just leave it there.

Two, there is a point in the process the paint gets a bit tacky. It is not dry or wet but somewhere in between and let me tell you, that is the worst time to work on top of an area. Your best bet is to wait until it in completely dry to tackle that area.

Three, Its difficult to keep your focus for a long period of time. Trying to visualize the end result before you begin is going to take some time and lots of canvas.

Four, Discovering what finish is in a painting can be tricky. The paintings I do spend more then one sitting on tend to look rather tight, or maybe I mean refined. Whatever it is they are not often what I intend they look like in the end, hence the visualizing what you want your painting to look like in the end. Keeping your focus and if need be I guess find a way, a skill, a technique that will teach you how to make paintings you intend to make. Not paintings that just happen

So once again, back to the easel. One brush stroke at a time.

New Painting

I painted this painting not too long ago. Thought I'd let you see what Ive been up to.

Painting Demo

Last Tuesday I gave a Still Life Demonstration up at the Glenview Art League. Given the Limited amount of time, it was a challenge to finish a painting and answer the viewers questions at the same time.

Because of this I thought I'd post the demo and talk a bit about what I was thinking during the process and to hopefully give more incite to those who attended and perhaps share new info to those who did not attend. This also gives me a chance to learn from my own experience as well.




I began the painting with a color wash. not necessarily in transparent washes though in parts they were used but also with a bit of thicker paint. My focus was in getting the abstract shapes down using color and value. I was not thinking about edges at this time only to keep everything soft in the beginning. I was anticipating sharpening edges up by carving things out using the background or adjacent shapes. * Note there are lots of ways to start a painting, given the time limitations and what I wanted to accomplish this seemed the best way to begin.

Once I got the initial abstract pattern in I began working on drawing, that is carving things out as a sculptor would, not using line to guide me but thinking of the shapes at they met each other. I also used some highlights ( the shapes of the highlights) to guide my drawing.

In this painting I started on the large pot because it was an easy shape that I knew I could get right as apposed to say the grapes or flowers that are far more difficult to see the overall shapes.

At this point as I was carving out the shape of the pot I thought about each edge of the pot as it met the cloth or grapes. I squinted down to see the relationship of the pot to the edges around it, and painted that relationships as I saw it at a squint.

I then moved to the grapes. As I had already done a color wash there was not much to do to make the initial wash begin to look like a cluster of grapes. The value and color were already there and rather then spending countless amounts of time "rendering" each grape, I only needed to pull out a few grapes causing the eye to read the abstract shape as a whole cluster.

To make some of the grapes pop out even more, I painted the shapes around them. The cloth and shadow pattern helped to define a few grapes and started to really read well at a distance.

As I moved along to the flowers, I noticed that in order for them to read well I had to paint the leaves and shadow pattern on the side of the pot to make the simple design of the flowers read accurately. I had mentioned several times during the demo that I was trying to paint these shapes simply, not getting wrapped up into what things are but painting only a few strokes and then letting your eye fill in the rest. Its amazing what your eye will interpret, I think because we are visual people, we see things everyday we know what things are, all our eye needs is a hint of what things are and our minds eye fills in the rest. Isn't that amazing.

If I were to continue on this painting a bit more I would still keep things simple. The little cup on the right perhaps a few more strokes in the light and maybe a few strokes along the edges of the shadow pattern.

That was it, I know it has helped me to write about the small demo and I hope you enjoyed it as well. I find repetition of information to be so helpful in getting it to stick in your brain.

New Years Day 5x7

Daily Paintings

After reading a bit about other artists doing these small "A Painting A Day" paintings I thought I'd give it a try. I guess you can say it is a new New Years Resolution. This one may be a bit harder to keep but its worth a shot.

My goal then is to do a painting a day, allowing at least one hour and no more then three on each little painting/study. This will all depend on the amount of time I can give per day. I have decided to allow myself at least one day off a week in anticipation of illness, business and the like. ( It seems i may have already proven this an impossible endeavor as I have taken a few days off already, yet I will continue to try my best.)

So I began this little experiment on January 1st, you can see a few paintings I have done so far and I will post each painting in my connected blog www.marcioleszkiewicz.blogspot.com. You can also click the link to the right titled Daily Paintings. So don't forget to check out the site to see a new painting hopefully every day. Note also that these paintings will be available for purchase as well, and I hope to also have a show of them at the end of the year so stay tuned.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

I actually went through with last years resolution, that was to draw more. I'm so excited because I have seen the improvement in not only my drawing skills but how it has helped my paintings as well.

Here are two drawings, one I did new years day of last year and one I did new years day of this year. I think I have learned so much and excited to see what this year will bring.

The drawing on the left is from last year. The drawing on the right was done this new years day. One step at a time. A thank you to those who have helped me this past year I am greatful for your generosity.