SOME PAINTING STORIES
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Blog
Experimentation
Can a highly realistic artist do artwork differently? I tried abstract art through several workshops and classes, but alas, that is not me. Except for parts of paintings that may have abstract elements, I always revert to realism. My current experimental goal was to be looser in painting and also to try the “flat color, and line” approach of beautiful Japanese style paintings.
Huihan Liu’s workshop in Sarasota, Fl in 2019 challenged me to have looser paint strokes. Usually my paintings are very detailed. We spent a week at Cortez Fishing Village, sketching, doing paint studies and photographing. "Morning Catch" was done during the second week of the workshop utilizing our studies and photographs. Huihan’s hand was in parts of this painting so I can’t claim it to be totally mine. However, "Bringing in the Big Fish" was done at home after the workshop utilizing several photograph references from the first week at Cortez Fishing Village, and using what I learned.
"Bringing in the Big Fish"
"Morning Catch"
The Art Gallery at Oak Hammock was scheduled to have a “Roaring Twenties” exhibit this Spring. The challenge was to develop an artwork that depicted the 1920-29 period. In preparation for this I recruited an Oak Hammock resident, who has been active with the League of Women Voters for many years, to be the model for the painting. She loaned me a DVD that included actual photographs from that period when women were marching for the Women’s Right to Vote. These gave me ideas for some of the other figures. The League of Women Voters was established shortly after passage of the Constitutional Amendment. My inspiration for the pose is Delacroix’s “La Liberte” painting. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 virus required our community to go into lockdown, making it necessary for the “Roaring Twenties” to be postponed.
"Birth of the League of Women Voters" 
"La Liberte" by Delacroix
More recently I’ve been experimenting with the Japanese style of painting. My husband and I visited Japan last spring during their peak cherry blossom season with an “Essence of Japan” tour through Tauck. I was inspired by the many beautiful Japanese artworks then. Utilizing several photograph references from our trip, I painted the following two artworks. My challenge was to keep them “simple.”
"Essence of Japan" "Playing the Koto During Tokyo Sunset"
Overall, I think my experimentation was successful in helping me to change some of my painting approaches.
Story of "The Poker Players"
Story of “The Poker Players”
My inspiration for this painting is Georges de La Tour’s “The Cheat,” which hangs in the Louvre.
I liked the composition, values and suggested “story.”
Knowing that there is a weekly poker game played at Oak Hammock, about 1 ½ years ago I went a few times to observe how the people behaved while playing and sketched their various behaviors. That’s me in the red shirt, playing a fly on the wall.
During these times only men were coming to the poker game, although I heard that a woman participated at other times.
One guy raked in his winnings by leaning over the table with his big body and swept in the chips and dollars with his hands. I decided he would play the role of “the big winner” in my painting. At different moments, a player raised his hands into the air, another pointed at someone or something, and another leaned his head on his hand. About midway through their afternoon poker session, a waiter would come into the room to bring their drink orders along with the ‘Gold fish” snacks.
The room where they usually played poker was moderately lit.
Through these observations I gradually developed a concept of what the painting would be like. Below are a few behaviors I quickly sketched while observing the games.
This painting was a significant challenge as it was entirely made up by me rather than relying on modifying one or a few photographs of a game in progress.
Based upon these early observations, sketches and preliminary photographs, I drew different possible compositions and made color studies. Below is one of these early quick studies:
I decided that the painting should have a perspective of looking down on the table so that the players did not obscure each other from view. A photo session was scheduled where my husband took the photographs while standing on a ladder. Before the photo shoot I asked each selected player to wear a particular color shirt – one that I had observed them wearing during my earlier visits.
When the day for taking photographs came, the players had relocated to a different room than I planned on. It had a totally different background that included a fireplace and was well lit with lots of light from windows. Also, one of the original selected players did not show up, but he was replaced by someone else (who I hadn’t seen there before).
We decided to go ahead with the photo session.
I covered the windows and reduced external sources of other lighting as much as possible. My composition changed with the new person in, the only woman who also played poker with the group. I moved people around to play different roles because of the change in people actually present. Based upon these observations I made some changes to the original composition.
After reviewing the many photographs, I decided to use multiple ones for the total composition. In some cases one photo was used for one of the arms of an individual and a different one for the other arm/hand. Also different ones for the facial expression from the rest of a body. I didn’t like the position of one arm/hand and took photos of my husband’s arm to substitute. My husband took photos of my arm to supplement for one of the woman’s arms in addition to taking photos of me in different color tops to substitute for the original. These were of course taken with the same kind of perspective looking down. The waiter’s position was changed by rotating his image 180 degrees horizontally and changing his physical location and head position.
Additional changes to the composition were made. This new room had a fireplace which was not in the earlier room. It actually looked good, although I moved it significantly to the left in the painting. The “French door” beside the fireplace was eliminated. The walls of the photographed room were a highly lit very pale green, which I changed to make the whole background a dark warm brownish color.
In order to convey a more intimate feeling I made the table smaller and placed the players closer together. Then of course, there had to be cards on the table in addition to the chips and money. So we went back to do another photo session, this time focusing on the different possible card arrangements and what a good winning hand would look like.
You can barely see that the winner has a royal flush.
“The Poker Players” by Jane Polkowski
And that is my story of “The Poker Players.” Although I would like to continue working on it, I had a deadline of January 23 to get it done to this point so that an image could be sent for consideration in the Oil Painters of America National juried and judged show which this year is in St. Augustine, Florida. Here’s hoping that it or "Me and Toulouse-Lautrec" (self portrait with my cat) gets in. I won’t know until the end of February.
Stay tuned.
Seeing differently
Over the past few months I've been painting 8 x 10" (a couple are 9 x 12") oil portraits (head and shoulder) of some of the nonagenarians living in our retirement community. The first one of these oil portraits was done during the month preceding my cataract surgery which was done a year ago. I kept this painting in my "office" area which is a different room (and darker) from my studio where I kept the other portraits while working on them. Recently the first painting was placed next to the 8 other paintings in order to decide on wall placement for an upcoming exhibition. There was a striking difference in the flesh color in the first painting compared with the recent ones. The first one appeared to have more red purple and not as close to the individual's actual skin color. Whereas the color in the other portraits that were recently done were closer to the actual colors. I believe the cataract removal improved my color perception.
Happy Summer!
Happy Summer!
The hot humid Florida days are here…. I still love it. Much has been happening since my last newsletter. It is now one year after moving and my husband and I really love our new lifestyle at the Oak Hammock CCRC! The people here are fascinating and our social life has turned around 180 degrees. My home studio has north light with some additional lighting and is working very well for painting and I have a separate part of the house for my office.
Currently I have completed 8 oil portraits of some of the people at St Francis House for the Homeless. This is an ongoing project so more are underway. There are now 4 of us artists who go there about every 2 weeks. We select an individual to be a model and pay them for posing about 30-90 minutes. I draw there and take photos to paint oil portraits of some models later. A copy/photo of our product is provided to St. Francis House to give to our model at a future date. The drawing from life experience is of course important and each individual has unique interesting features. You can see several of the portraits on my website [email protected] , some of which are being exhibited right now at Shands Hospital in Gainesville. Attached are a couple images: 
I’ve been working on a very challenging commission portrait and am now awaiting the customer to see it. The subject is a 92 year lady who had been an artist earlier. Her daughter commissioned the portrait. Both live in California and I did not have an opportunity to see or photograph the subject. Since I require good photographs and detailed information, I requested and received many photographs ranging from when she was perhaps in her early 20’s to age 92. She wanted a particular pose at age 85 but looking younger, and a particular jacket and necklace that she wore for a photograph at 92 for this commission. I wished to have met this truly lovely woman. Unfortunately she died 2 weeks after I began the commissioned work, but the daughter still wanted me to complete it. I studied and sketched each of the earlier photographs to understand what remained constant and what changed over the years regarding her features. This was important as there were some significant changes that probably included surgery. Normally I prefer to see my subject in person and take photographs myself. This was an exception. The daughter asked me to paint her mother after she saw my oil portrait of my husband exhibited at Oak Hammock - it was the style her mother wanted.
Attached are 2 paintings (that will be part of a diptych) I've recently completed of a Navajo Indian doing the Hoop Dance.
Another challenging activity is being chair of the Gallery Board for The Gallery at Oak Hammock which began in the fall 2010. We plan and set up quarterly invitational art exhibitions. These exhibits have included selected central Florida artists, photographers, a local school and of course our Oak Hammock artists. There is a Sunday afternoon reception to meet the artists and their friends. The public can view the exhibit by appointment through docent led tours since this is a gated community. You can view the exhibits to date by going to www.galleryexhibit.info.
Have a creative wonderful summer!
Jane Polkowski
Getting ready for workshop in New York
Next week I'll be taking a workshop with Kim English near the Hudson River Valley by the Catskills in New York. Focus will be on painting human figures in an outdoor setting. I'm really excited about going and learning with Kim. We decided to fly rather than drive from central Florida. This presents the issue of how to handle my supplies which include my oil paints, brushes, canvases, easel and folding chair and accessories. I packed them into 3 boxes and shipped them by UPS to the location we'll be staying, with return labels for shipment back home. Because you can't ship flammables unless you are specially licensed to do so, I ordered the Gamsol odorless mineral spirits from ASW and had them ship it to the location. It would be easier to pack all this in a car and drive, but now we'd rather not spend that much time on the road unless it's specifically for sightseeing. While I am painting, my husband will have a chance to drive around and see the area in addition to doing his work on our laptop. And then we'll have a couple of days at the end just to relax and enjoy the sights together.Recent Trip
My husband and I recently returned from a 3 week cruise around some of Norway's Fjords and the British Isles Coasts. Norway's coastline is awesome with its majestic mountains and lovely small towns along the fjords. Completely different and also beautiful were views around the British Isles. I plan to develop some paintings from the many photos taken.On one of Orkney's Islands (Scotland) is a UNESCO designated World Heritage site - the Standing Stones of Stenness - a fascinating 5,000 year old circles of stones put up by ancient cultures. Highlights of our trip included visits to several museums, beginning with the Statens Museum for Kunst (on exhibit was an active restoration project of a large old damaged painting) in Copenhagan to the National Portrait Gallery and the National Gallery in London (have many old Master Paintings). I really appreciated the Waterford Crystals after touring their factory. Every piece is individually sculpted, and we saw many exquisite pieces. Did you know that the big annual New Year Eve's Crystal Ball that drops at midnight in New York City is by Waterford Crystal Factory? The Factory has a full size replica of it.
My new web site!
Hooray! After only a few hours, with the help of the great staff at FineArtStudioOnline.com (and a little help from my hubby), my fantastic new site is up and running. Hope you can send me some feedback.Recent Works
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