Buried Wood: Portrait from David Leffel workshop

I'd like to share some of the things that I learned at the David Leffel workshop in LA, June 26-July 2. David is one of my two favorite living artists (the other being Richard Schmid; sure, I love many other artists, but these two really blow my mind), and I was looking for a workshop with him, and when I saw the one in LA, seats still available, I jumped at the chance. The guy is pushing 80, so I figured, he may not be teaching for too much longer, and I want to have that pleasure in this lifetime. So I went to the workshop (which was being recorded to DVD, and we all get a free copy after it is made, woot!), and bought his book, and bought Sherrie McGraw's book, and looking forward to his next book of self-portraits.

It was a wonderful week of art, lots of ideas swarming in my head. (For example, I heard from another student that David Leffel has a painting based on the cadence "da-da-da-DUM" from - what is that, Beethoven's Ninth? Also, he told me how, in one of my portraits, the dark should be swirling one way, and the light swirling over top, like the yin and yang symbol...) I dove into both of his books (which I got him to autograph - maybe I'll scan his signature, because it is BEAUTIFUL!), and started reading Sherrie's book (which I am now reading in its entirety for the second consecutive time).

Some of the more technical things that I learned from him include the following:

make your shadows COLOURFUL (add red, yellow, Venetian red, etc). The reason why Classical paintings seem colourful is their colourful shadows (compared to the colourless shadows of the Impressionists, for example).

The darkest dark (pure black) advances and can therefore NOT be "in the air" next to ("behind") the figure. (How many times have I seen this in portraits!??). The lightest portion needs "air" in which to be able to "turn". (In other words, if pure black advances, it can't be behind the figure, and therefore, the portion of the figure that is next to the black does not have a background behind it.)

Keep hair and background very close in value.

Keep everything simple: large simple blocks of colour.

Paint lightly and allow the underpainting to show through to achieve different colours/values in the skin.

Make your first brushstrokes in the light carry across the room, and use enough paint to have something to work with (ie: leave a thickness to be able to spread around).

(not directly from the course, but from reading his book and Sherrie's book): SEE the beauty you want to paint. We paint what we are looking for, so if you want to capture beauty, you have to see it! (Otherwise, you may "only" capture accuracy, for example.)

Keep asking questions: what if I pair these two colours, these two objects, etc?

Colours on a single object need a commonality (for example, the green and the red on an apple need to have some common colour: a blue-green and a blue-red, for example)

Finally, this is the last portrait that I started, on the last day, right after the demonstration in the morning. I felt that I internalized some of the things that he taught us.