D. Cheifetz Newsletter | 3.5.19 | Sacrament
Sent: 3/5/2019 12:39:00 PM

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Dear Subscribers,

Greetings!

New still life painting. (Or unstill life painting?)

Here is the setup. I found this urn-thing at Goodwill. It is a very cheaply/crappily made object, but with a deteriorating and partially reflective finish that, with the right treatment, could become something special. I couldn't wait to paint it.

My goal is to make the urn my primary focus, with pears, cloth folds, and flrrblz as supporting elements. Here below is the umber shape-of-shadow block in. I'm reusing a panel with a false start still on it:

Next stage: Straight away I jump into full color with the knife. I always go for the focus first, which in this case is the urn. Recognizing that the light background will be a vital component of my composition, I start establishing some background. This gives me enough information to make more decisions about how to paint the values of the focal urn.

Next stage. I begin the adjacent pear and the cloth beneath the urn. I usually work radially outwards from the focus. The focus will always have a higher level of finish in relation to the rest of the painting. I try to maintain that relationship throughout the duration of every painting. Everything is in service of the focus. When more information is needed to progress further on the focus, I paint the supporting elements. Back and forth, but with the focus always in the lead.

Next stage below. More detail on the urn, and I begin searching for colors to make the reflections exciting:

Next stage. At this point I need more surrounding information to know whether or not the urn is succeeding as the focus. So I paint more background and the remaining pears. I'm making the green pears and the background become more like each other, so that the urn remains alone and unique (pears lighter to meld with background, and background/cloth greener to meld with pears). The urn has everything going for it now: highest detail, darkest darks, brightest lights (the white background directly haloing), warmest colors, most saturated colors. Every decision is made in service of creating focus.

Next stage. More detail in the urn's reflected light and the first flrrbl is begun. The flrrbl is kept cooler and at a higher value key to allow it to meld with the background:

Next stage: Refinement. Adjacent pear is refined. Color in the urn is punched up. The pair of pears on the right is pushed back. Since they were dry at this point, I used a brush to spread a white half-paste over them (white and medium. A half-paste can be described as an opaque glaze). The higher key makes them more ghostly. This allows the dark values and saturated colors of urn to dominate even more. I allow the single adjacent pear to be saturated since it is close to the focus:

Development of the background white (around urn) and some refinement of urn detail:

The second flrrbl is begun. I start experimenting with edges. By the way, this painting became around a 60/40 ratio of knife/brush. The brush was most appropriate for some of these edge effects, the flrrblz, and other portions of detail:

Flrrbl #2 is refined and I begin finishing work on the folds (starting centrally below the urn):

Finishing folds and more refinement of the urn:

And the finished painting, "Sacrament" (8x10 oil on panel):

Here are some closeups:

Artist Decoded Podcast

I was recently a guest on Artist Decoded, which is an excellent and long running podcast about art (all mediums), life as an artist, and the creative process. The host is Yoshino, who is also the co-owner of NOH/WAVE (the venue of my recent Los Angeles workshop, and the publisher of my new instruction video).

We had a great talk. Some highlights: Yoshino draws me out (which can be difficult, according to my wife ;p), some awkward segues, art and martial arts, art and parenting, I become suddenly ageist, and other fun stuff.

Listen to the episode:

#112: David Cheifetz - "Autopilot Off" by Artist Decoded

BTW, in order to dispel some confusion: Yes, my name is pronounced "Chay-fits" (and I also went by "high-fits" for a brief time). It's not Yoshino's fault, I've just become pretty lazy about correcting people. Lols.

Article

Nice to be included in this list. Click through to read:

Video Workshop

New collaboration with NOH/WAVE Academy. 6 hrs of streaming content!

Learn more about the Video Workshop

Scottsdale Artists' School

STILL LIFE COMPOSITION & PAINTING WORKSHOP

May 3-5

$525

Scottsdale, Arizona

Taking registrations! I hope you can join us. This will be my first time at SAS and I'm looking forward to it. As of now this is my only scheduled workshop left for 2019, and AZ is the farthest I'll be able to travel until the end of 2020. I might fit in more West Coast workshops later this year, but I haven't decided when and where. Currently still a challenge to maneuver in that parenting/painting/teaching balance :).

Details & Registration

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

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