D. Cheifetz Newsletter | 1.24.19 | Scorpion Fail
Sent: 1/24/2019 1:46:21 PM

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Dear Subscribers,

Greetings!

Happy belated New Year. Long issue this month.

Let's start with this new still life I had been working on. Unfortunately I accidentally deleted the beginning stages on my camera, so we'll pick up in the middle. It began with an umber block-in with the brush, followed immediately by switching to the knife and starting on the vase/pitcher.

I found this pitcher (I don't know whether to call it a pitcher or a vase, as it seems ill-formed for either purpose, lols) at a thrift store. The colors immediately reminded me of a scorpion, and so an idea for a painting was formed. My goal was to have the colored glass as a primary focus, with a scorpion in the foreground playing off of it, adding interest.

At this middle stage below, I've got a decent start on the big forms and I'm still searching for a value in the background that will best draw focus to the vase:

Next stage. The blue stain in the cup on the left was dark and saturated, and it was starting to compete with the vase, so I toned it down. I also push the background lighter around the vase to contrast more with the darks of the vase:

Next stage. The vase is getting too chaotic/ambiguous, so I bring some of those values and colors together:

Next stage. Still unsatisfied, I decide to lighten and simplify the background overall:

Next stage. I have delayed starting the scorpion for far too long. I search for a reference online, find a picture that mostly fits the desired angle and lighting situation, and start to paint it in, while revising some anatomy (with the help of additional references) and adjusting the shadow angle:

Next stage: Continuing to fiddle with background, which takes a good amount of paint as this panel is 16"x16". I begin to refine objects and bring white reflection into the vase, which gives it a more ghostly quality and helps to more convincingly place it in its environment.

Next stage. More fiddling with background and refining vase. I pretty much finish up the scorpion:

At this point in the painting, I began to feel an overwhelming sense of "meh" and hit the brakes as I prepared to fly to L.A. for my workshop (see later in this issue).

This painting is probably dead. Usually when I lose interest in a painting, it is dead for good, and my time is best served by moving on to the next thing. Unfortunately, I still make the exact same mistakes that I always warn students about. In this case, I did not have a sufficiently clear mental image of the final painting before starting. It was more of a general idea. As such, the composition is lacking. Anyway, we'll see what happens.

L.A. Workshop

NOH / WAVE

My sold out workshop at NOH/WAVE in Los Angeles went really well. I was relieved to find that even after a 1.5 year break from teaching workshops, it still felt very natural. 15 receptive and hard working artists made the whole experience a huge pleasure. Not to mention the great venue, which pulled off hosting its first Still Life workshop without a hitch. Hosts and talented business partners Yoshino and Justin filmed the painting demonstration portions of the workshop for online release through NOH/WAVE Academy, but more on that later.

The day before the workshop, I composed a still life setup for the demonstration. Here's what I had. The peeled blood orange was going to be the focus, and I was feeling pretty good about it:

The next day, the hosts brought in some additional still life objects for students to use, including this red skull. When I saw it, I knew I had to paint it. Obviously. LOLS. So I changed my setup:

In the first stage of my demo, I blocked in umber shape-of-shadows with a brush. After that, I went straight for the skull (my focus) with the knife. I wanted to show both knife and brush technique in this demonstration, so before we moved on to the students' painting time for that day, I painted the left apple with a brush. I explained that in this instance, when both knife and brush are being used in the same painting, the skull (being the focus) would need to be painted by knife. Since the knife applies thicker paint that the brush, those knife areas would invariably draw more focus.

Here is the progress made on the 2nd day. The skull and adjacent apple (and some of the surrounding background) were painted with the knife, While the rest of the painting (background and left apple) are by brush.

I finished up on the third session:

And the finished demonstration, "Red Skull" (9x12 oil on panel, sold):

I continue to be a little surprised/very flattered at how the tattoo artist community has embraced my work. I look at their work and I think of how much higher the stakes are when creating art on another human. Oil painting seems like child's play in comparison! When I had my workshop at Gallery 1261 in Denver a couple of years back, half of the attendees were talented tattoo artists. That trend continued in L.A. with some very successful and world famous artists, whose humility was frankly shocking. So cool.

If you missed the Instagram stories during the workshop, here are some below. I've borrowed these pictures from the attendees (and venue). You'll see some additional demo stages not included above:

I was surrounded by film equipment! It went smoothly and I barely noticed.

VIDEO WORKSHOP

As I mentioned above, we filmed the demonstration during the workshop. Everything was captured, including my answers to student questions. The video is currently in post production and will be released on February 1st. I've been able to see some of the footage and this is going to sound really self-serving but it looks absolutely amazing. Holy crap: the resolution, the colors, the angles, just fantastic. And the artistry of it...: this is not going to be your typical instructional video.

While nothing can truly substitute for attending a workshop in person and being able to handle physical paint with an instructor over your shoulder, I think this is as good an alternative as it gets. And in terms of the painting demonstration viewing experience, it is actually better. You see both palette and painting in full crystal clarity without obstruction.

Release Date: Feb 1st, 2019

Specs:
Unlimited Streaming @ 1080p
Over 6 Hours of Instructional Content

The price is $175 USD and all orders placed before February 1st will get $25 off by using the presale discount code CHEIFETZ-25

PRESALE ORDER

Keep an eye out, trailer coming soon.

Upcoming Workshop:

Scottsdale Artist's School

May 3-5

Description and Registration

Thoughts Thoughts

I wrote this online recently. In case you missed this personal little musing (that arose from a gradual positive mental shift):

"A few weeks ago I received a comment saying how prolific I was. It was really nice to hear, but ironic considering 2018 was by far my least prolific year in the last decade of painting as my profession. In 2018 I created 13 new paintings, whereas my typical pace in previous years had been 3x to 4x times that. It's been 1.5 years since my wife went back to work (so we swapped places and I became the primary caretaker of our kids). If you've been following along, you'll know the transition has been a challenge. When I was full time, painting was an intense creative rollercoaster of ups and downs that never stopped. The professional highs and lows cycled quickly, and I liked it. In some ways, I even reveled in the financial pressure. In 2018 that cycle became a long, lazy undulation, with mild highs and sluggish lows. I'm creatively impulsive and impatient, so at first this was a source of frustration and anxiety. Never mind the injury to my ego that I was no longer the sole breadwinner for the family, a not-insignificant source of pride (and purpose) for me. My outlook has slowly changed over the course of 2018. With less creative time, I'm constantly forced to reevaluate: what am I doing and why the hell am I doing it? I usually don't have a clear answer, but I've begun to gradually refocus on major aspects of life that I'd largely neglected because "there isn't time". Even with all the time in the world, there was never enough time for work. I was always preoccupied with needing to create. Now that there's even less time than ever, I'm realizing that attitude was pretty toxic, laughable even. Sorry, this is going to be an unfinished thought, but I'm okay with that :). And this New Year's Day post is a little late, but that's perfectly fitting for my life now. Here was one of my first from 2018, "The Decantation" (12x12 oil on panel). Happy New Year and thanks for the ongoing support. [heart emoji] Have a great day."

Thank you for reading! See you in a month-ish. -David

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