In the latest news in this circus I call my life, I have sold my current home (literally; the money is in the bank) and I am desperately searching for a new home in an unbelievably challenging environment. I think I have found one; all the offers have been agreed to, but you never know with real estate.
On this note, this weekend I spent time down at Mom’s beach house. I’ve been spending quite a lot of time there, taking a load of various items each time. The irony of spending a year taking things out of her house and taking them to Salem, just to turn around a reverse the process is not lost on me. But, no matter what, I will have a housing gap in Salem, so I’m using the situation to spend some quality, quarantined time on the coast.
One thing I have already moved is my entire art studio. Depending on the size of the house I select in Salem, the majority of the studio may stay down there. Those decisions, however, are far away.
Today I pulled out an item from the “to do” pile and decided to tackle it. It was Jean Pederson‘s new video, Mixed Media Portraits: Beyond Realism. I worked through the video with a photo of a horse (not a human like Jean) and here is my review. Unfortunately, I forgot to take any photos of my process, and I’m back in Salem and can offer nothing.
Review
Overall, I would give this video a solid “A”. The production values were good and the content inspirational. I will watch it again.
Jean started the viewer out making a random background of three colors with a triad of acrylic paint and squeegee. While I had heard about this technique, I had not tried it. It was fun and created interesting results.
Jean moved on to working through sketching the subject and developing a value plan. This may seem basic, but there were some very pertinent reminders about the use of each in the development of an idea.
![](http://tarachoate.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Jean_FINALS_2000x-298x300.jpg)
Once sketched onto the start, Jean worked through adding darks, then lights, then textural/color interest. This stage was, obviously, the longest. It was also the stage where I longed for a large screen. The photo above shows the lovely variety of marks Jean used in the painting, but on my screen, much of that was lost. She talked a lot about using calligraphic marks and collage, but it was difficult to see the details on such a small surface.
The general techniques in this video could be easily applied to any subject the viewer wished to “modernize”. As I said, I worked on a horse painting, and by following the process, the results were good if not great. I’m excited about doing some prep work and really trying the subject and process again.