Featured Artwork and Editorial in OutdoorPainter.com
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Featured Artist and Editorial in OutdoorPainter.com
Cliff Faces
By Barbara Coleman
8 x 16 in.
oil
Available through the artist
Cliff Faces was awarded “Best of Signature Members” for the 12th Annual National Members Exhibition, Plein Air Painters of New Mexico, Taos, NM, 2020. Judge of Awards; Lorenzo Chavez Judge’s comments: “For best plein air work by a Signature Member: A classic painting of the colored cliffs in New Mexico. This is a striking design with lots of drama. One can feel the push of the earth always evolving and changing in dramatic and varied ways.”
Barbara Coleman loves to paint and explore the high desert landscapes of New Mexico, her home state. The mountains, cliffs, and canyons in her proverbial backyard inspire her and she has fondly named them “fierce landscapes.” In describing them she comments: “Fierce landscapes have been pared down to the essentials, down to the bones. There’s sparse rainfall, so the plants that survive are few and hardy. Fierce landscapes teach me to simplify, both in my art and in my life. One of my favorite artists, Kathryn Stats, told me to minimize the obvious and maximize the essential, and have the wisdom to know the difference!”
Coleman has a loose, painterly style and looks for: “Beautiful patterns of light shapes and dark shapes” in any subject she paints. The intensity of the light in New Mexico creates strong shadow patterns and brilliant color, which she uses to create abstract compositions as an underlying structure for her landscape paintings. Coleman frequently paints “en plein air” and develops studio paintings from her outdoor color studies.
Coleman studied art in France during college and painted in pastels for several years. After winning multiple awards in pastels, she switched her medium to oils. She says: “I was drawn to the lusciousness and luminosity of oil paint. Once painting in oils I never went back to the dry, powdery nature of pastels even though I’d had a successful career in them.” Seeking to simplify and find aesthetic order in the landscape evolved not only from years of painting, but also from earning a master’s degree in Community and Regional Planning from The University of New Mexico. She later taught drawing and design at The University of New Mexico School of Architecture and Planning, and worked as an urban designer for the City of Albuquerque. She painted throughout her career and continues to paint full time.
Coleman is an award-winning artist who has shown her work nationally and internationally. She has Signature memberships in Oil Painters of America (OPA), Pastel Society of America (PSA) and Plein Air Painters of New Mexico (PAPNM), and is an Associate member in Women Artists of the West (WAOW).
To learn more, visit www.barbaracoleman.com
My Juror Comments for MasterWorks of New Mexico, 2021
JUROR COMMENTS
Summary of MasterWorks 2021 by Barbara Coleman
I was very impressed with the organization of the images that you prepared for us to jury from. I appreciated the spreadsheets and that the paintings were numbered and alphabetized. I also really appreciated seeing the paintings in each category as thumbnails, before enlarging the images to study them in detail. It gave me a good overall impression of the entries. Thank you for organizing it so beautifully so that I could really focus on the paintings and not worry about anything else. Great job!
The premier quality that I look for in a painting is good design. The design of every painting affects it as much as—and usually more than—the subject. Many artists are looking for good subjects to paint, when in fact what we need to look for is good design. I don’t think we are really painting the world “out there”; we are instead painting a design that we impose on the scene or subject. John Carlson puts it: “If you approach nature without some idea, she is merciless in the way in which she piles lumber in your way.”
That “idea” Carlson is referring to is the design, the overriding structure we use to develop our painting. Design is the arrangement of visual elements and principles of composition independent of subject matter. Elements of design are line, shape, color, value, texture and space (positive and negative) and depth. Design principles are balance, contrast, movement, rhythm, emphasis, proportion and unity. The design elements are the common visual tools we share as artists to make art.
I’d like to share how I think about and use these tools and principles. First of all, I think design is driven by motif—what made the artist stop in his or her tracks and have to paint that particular subject? Or, what is the intent of the abstract artist? What is the painting about? Is it the narrative? Is it about a pattern of light and shadow? Water reflections? The moody atmosphere? Color? An object or shape? A mountain, or the valley in front of the mountain? The motif guides the way we divide space on the canvas.
I next simplify the painting into three to five value masses of different sizes and shapes. I determine the focal area and how I am going to move the viewer’s eye through the painting. This design structure helps me subordinate some areas of the painting to others. It helps me determine active and passive patterns in the painting and to develop variety (interest) and unity (harmony.) Then, of course there are the challenges of painting itself: adjusting values, color, shapes, edges, appropriate detail and developing form.
I used my knowledge of these elements and of design to evaluate the paintings for Masterworks. In a representational painting, I looked to see if the drawing and perspective were accurate. Had the artist developed form? I looked at how well the artist moved my eye through the composition, how they had established and refined shapes, values, edges, color, relevant detail and quality of brushwork. For abstract art I looked for a good compositional structure, which incorporated strong design principles developed through our common language of line, shape, color, value, tone, texture and space. I found good qualities in almost every painting, either by experienced or inexperienced artists. I also found that sometimes the paintings didn’t come together because the artist had created harmonious color but had poor composition, or the reverse. Or the shapes could be good, but the values were noticeably off in a representational painting. It made me want to give individual critiques. In my view, it is a real achievement to accurately portray what lies before us; we create works of art when we have succeeded in arranging and manipulating the visual elements to create a cohesive whole. A well-designed painting that embodies the passion, emotion and vision of the artist is a privilege to experience. Many of the paintings I selected for this show embody these qualities.
Overall I found the pastel and watercolor paintings had a higher degree of technical expertise with their mediums and often with drawing skills. In general, it seemed like there were more paintings by less experienced artists in the oil and acrylic category. It may be that the technical skills needed to manipulate the paint in oils and acrylics take a longer time for some artists to master, but I don’t really know.
The most frequent problem that I saw in numerous representational paintings was a lack of understanding values in nature. Carlson’s theory of angles gives us a good understanding of how light falls on objects and surfaces, whether they be the ground plane, slanted planes (like mountains), upright planes (like trees) and the source of light (the sky.) There are always exceptions to any general statement, but the paintings that made these “mistakes” in value structure were not in unusual lighting conditions. Not understanding the value structure resulted in many paintings that were unbelievable or confusing.
The other big problem I saw was that many artists did not know how to create form. When an object (like a bush) turns from sunlight into shadow, there will be a soft edge where the light goes into shadow. Many artists are making hard edges here, where they should be soft. An overlap of one object in front of another will create a hard edge, and a hard edge in the right place will help to create the illusion of depth. Edges properly used help us see and understand form. Also, there was a lack of awareness in many paintings of the fact that each change of plane will result in some kind of value change or color shift.
One other big misunderstanding was how to paint the colors of sunlight and shadow. To mix the colors of objects in sunlight, the artist needs to mix the local color and value of the object and modify that color with the temperature of the light source. Shadows are created by mixing the local color of the object that the shadow is falling on, modifying it by mixing in the color which is the complement of the light source and then adding in the color of the ambient light source, usually the sky. (For example, a tree casting a shadow on reddish dirt. The local color of the dirt is a light reddish color. If it is sunset, the light source is the setting sun, which creates a warm orange light. The complement of orange is blue. Let’s say that the color of the sky that time of day is violet. So you’d mix up the reddish dirt color, add a touch of the complement of orange (blue) and add a further touch of violet for the influence of the sky. This gives you the color of that particular shadow. Some artists in the show just painted purple shadows. Knowing what to look for helps you to see it. Painting with this awareness enriches the color harmony and variety of the color enormously.
In many paintings, I couldn’t tell the direction of the light source or whether something was in sunlight or shadow. There often was no contrast between sunlight and shadow. I’ve noticed when teaching that many students have no idea what type of light in which they are painting: whether they are painting a shadow, a reflected light in shadow, sunlight, dark accent, light accent or halftone. All of this can be learned.
Many of the paintings had no motif—no sense of what the painting was about. Everything in the painting was given equal weight, equal emphasis, or equal divisions of areas in sunlight and areas in shadow. The same type of problem occurred in some of the abstract paintings—no design of the dark and light values, no sense of what the artist’s intent was. This resulted in poor design.
Every good representational painting has a good abstract design supporting it, in my view. It is so fun to see the design structure in both representational and abstract paintings. There are many overlaps in representational and abstract works. Part of jurying was to see the underlying design, or lack thereof.
Drawing is a perennial problem. I saw a lot of errors in perspective and in not using overlaps and diminution to create the illusion of space in a painting.
Lastly, I think the creation of beautiful shapes is difficult. I saw a lot of paintings that had many repetitive shapes of the same size and same conformation and were evenly spaced from each other. This is a real “no no” in my view. We need variety to create interest in the painting. This problem occurred in both abstract and representational paintings. It is a matter of seeing and being sensitive to design. It is always hard because our “left brain” is wired to make repetitive patterns and shapes and wants to take over and organize something that should be a “right brain” process.
There were many fine paintings submitted. Those paintings had all the right ingredients and you could experience the poetry of their vision. There were paintings that had creative subject matter ideas, but the best paintings didn’t rely on subject matter. I gave a number of “tens” in each category. The hardest paintings for me to score (emotionally) were the ones that had real mastery of an element or two, but fell flat in some other way. I wanted to give the artist a higher score because of what they got right. But I ended up looking at the “big picture” of each piece. Did it work as a complete, whole work of art?
Painting is hard. Jurying this show ignited my passion to teach a workshop on each of these problem areas!
It has been a true honor and privilege to view these paintings and act as jury for this show. I enjoyed every minute of it, and look forward to seeing the show up and seeing the final selection of all of the jurors. Thank you for inviting me to be on your jury.
Interview about Art with Barbara Coleman
Albuquerque artist Barbara Coleman’s painting, “Pond Up North,” was awarded Best of Show at PAPNM’s 10th National Juried Show, held November 2–30, 2018, at the Sorrel Sky Gallery in Santa Fe. Barbara, a full-time artist and former drawing professor at the University of New Mexico, has enjoyed a life-long love affair with art. This interview occurred November 12 in her studio. Her website is barbaracoleman.com.
Question: How and when did you become interested in art?
Answer: I’ve been drawn to art since I was a child. My formative years were spent living in France, when my father was stationed there in the Air Force. We had a home in Barbizon, in the Fontainebleau Forest, where Corot painted. We spent the weekends visiting all the major art museums. It was pure magic. Artists are well respected in French culture. Experiencing art and seeing the respect artists hold made me want to be an artist. I later went to art school in Aix en Provence.
Q: Why is art so important to your life and to who you are?
A: It’s integral to my life. It’s what brings me the most alive, the most present. If I’m not painting, some aspects of life can feel like drudgery and too ordinary. When I’m painting regularly, the world feels saturated with color and interest and I feel curious, and grateful for my life. I can’t live without painting.
Q: Who or what are the major influences in your art?
A: I really love Joaquin Sorolla for his portrayal of form, light and color; and John Singer Sargent for his use of paint, abstraction, and brush technique. The Impressionists have influenced my art the most. I’ve also been lucky enough to study with several major contemporary artists, including Kevin MacPherson, Scott Christensen, Ray Roberts, Jill Carver and Kathryn Stats. They have all been very generous teachers.
Q: What is art and how do you define it?
A: True art awakens the extraordinary. It quickens us to Life, to Beauty. You feel it when you’re creating, when you’re completely present. In Zen, there’s the notion of “emptiness is fullness.” When I paint, the “emptiness” is born from leaving my ego, and who I think I am, at the door. The “fullness” stems from showing up at the easel willing to learn, to be open, and be there. It takes so much awareness and skill to make something live on the canvas. When the piece becomes “alive,” that’s when I see art.
Q: How important is travel to your art, especially to stimulating ideas and discovering new subject matter for your paintings?
A: I don’t necessarily travel for my art, I travel for my life. That being said, travel allows me to explore outside of my comfort zone. I sketch and do small paintings on my trips, which both give me valuable information for studio paintings and help me more intimately experience the place I’m visiting.
Q: How important has teaching been to your development as an artist?
A: I taught drawing and introductory design at the University of New Mexico for twelve years, which was incredibly important to my artistic development. My class, “Architecture 104,” was a prerequisite for admission to the Architecture school. Teaching is a valuable way to learn. Showing my students how to translate real visual information into design benefitted me, as well.
Q: Tell me about your painting, “Pond Up North,” which was awarded Best of Show in the PAPNM show at Sorrel Sky Gallery.
A: I discovered the location for the painting while visiting my daughter in McCall, Idaho. I did several plein air studies and finished it in the studio, where I connected the shadow shapes more completely than I’d been able out in the field.
Q: What do you strive for when you paint, and how does this pertain to what you’re hoping the viewer will see and enjoy?
A: My style is more broadly impressionistic. I’m deeply inspired by nature. My process begins with whatever stops me in my tracks to paint it. Once I’ve identified what has inspired me, I design the painting to best express the motif. I make decisions on how to divide the canvas, what compositional elements can come into play, how I’d like to guide a viewer’s eye. I intentionally use a limited number of values to strengthen the cohesiveness of the work. I lay in my painting using a warm gray, use my shadow shapes to create form, and then go into color. I’ve learned that one of the last things to develop in an artist is beautiful, expressive brushwork. Brushwork is tricky, though, because thinking about it too much robs it of its magic.
A good friend once told me: “The more you paint, the harder it gets. What you know as an artist will always be ahead of what you’ll be able to execute, so get used to it. But your failures will get better.” That’s what I aim for—having better and better failures. It’s the nature of art to never truly achieve all you hoped for in a painting. Art is not the practice of perfection. But you never tire of it, and you never get bored, because there’s always more to learn.
Q: Do you participate in a critique group, and if so, what do you gain from it?
A: Constructive criticism is essential for continued artistic growth. I am in the process of building and being part of a critique group composed of local artists. I am lucky in that my husband and daughters have astute “artistic eyes,” and can offer me feedback on my work regularly.
A: How important is plein air painting to your art and your continued development as an artist?
Q: Plein air is one of the most important things!
I have a broader definition of plein air painting than some artists. For me, plein air simply means “painting from life.” Direct observation is critical for accuracy. No photograph can provide the richness in color and value I need to paint what’s real. Cameras don’t see how we see. Painting plein air also trains your eye, because not everything in a scene is of equal importance. Parts of a painting need to be quiet, others need to hold more weight. You cannot learn what to subordinate and accentuate by looking at a photograph. For me, plein air painting is better than meditation. Nothing else allows me to settle so deeply into the present.
Q: When painting plein air, how do you choose what to paint?
A: Over the years, my approach to plein air painting has changed. Now, I walk for long periods of time and allow space for something to draw me in. I do not “hunt” for a painting, I let the painting choose me.
Q: Do you have favorite areas where you like to paint?
A: I’ve always enjoyed painting New Mexico, especially the northern part of the state. I really love to paint water, for its movement and reflectivity. But really, whatever I’m painting at the moment is my favorite thing to paint. I don’t pine for the ocean when I’m painting chamisa. There is no shortage of beauty in the world, so having “favorites” is not terribly important to me.
Q: Do you generally view your plein air paintings as studies or are you striving to get framable paintings that can sell?
A: For me, plein air is a highly useful tool. I use them as studies and concentrate on various elements for each painting. Sometimes my focus is predominately on shapes, or shadows. Sometimes design or color are my top priority. I then use what I’ve learned in the field for a studio piece.
Q: What were your worst and best day painting plein air, and why?
A: There are some funny stories I could tell, but it’s actually a bit more philosophical for me. My worst day painting is when I’m self-conscious and I can’t get out of my own head, or when that critical voice just comes and takes over. My best day painting plein air is when I’m not self-conscious. I’m completely there and just painting.
Q: What are your future goals as an artist?
A: To keep growing and getting better.
Q: Any other thoughts before we conclude this interview?
A: A poem by the Persian poet Hafiz comes to mind:
The difference between a good artist and a great one is:
The novice will often lay down his tool or brush,
then pick up an invisible club on the mind's table
and helplessly smash the easels and jade.
Whereas the vintage man no longer hurts himself or anyone
and keeps on sculpting Light.
To me this poem says, “Find the power to say no to any actions that might harm yourself or another”. Think about that a moment. For me, this poem means that my ability to develop artistically and experience joy is directly related to my willingness to surrender the knife of self-criticism. Art is a soulful practice, and as such I choose to not harm myself or others physically, mentally, emotionally, or spiritually. And as for sculpting light, that’s where the wonder and gratitude for painting come into play.
Freeing the Soul Through Art
Great art has a curious life of its own. I read a marvelous story once, based on the documentary From Mao to Mozart, about a visit to China made by the conductor and violinist Isaac Stern. At the time of his visit, Chinese musicians had been forbidden to listen to or to play Western music for many years. They had requested Stern’s help in interpreting Western music. A Chinese orchestra played a Mozart composition with masterful technical skill and energy. While well played, the composition came across as rather mechanical and lifeless. It was not music yet because the orchestra members did not feel it or really hear it. They could not create music until they could hear it inwardly and intuitively.
Music is not created just by people playing musical instruments, but by music playing through people—playing through the individual consciousness of each musician. The individual consciousness becomes the true instrument. Isaac Stern listened closely to the musicians, some of whom were extremely self-conscious about rehearsing for him. At times, Stern would replay sections of the score, thus enabling them to have a first-hand experience of the music. The Chinese played the notes correctly but Stern made the music come alive. Having thus experienced the difference, the musicians were able to let the music itself direct all of their professional skill in such a way as to let music happen.
Great art, like great music, needs technical expertise as well as unchecked creativity, passion, and expression. Great art seems to be created through a person. Somehow one’s ego, self-consciousness, and expectations must be released before the piece is completed. The visual arts are full of examples of compositions being imbued with a life of their own, similar to the musical composition just described. A portrait by Rembrandt and a vase of sunflowers painted by Van Gogh burst with vitality and passion. Art is so subtle, so spiritual, that only a direct experience with it can guide the painter to animate blobs of paint into something that can live and breathe on its own.
Many of the young children I have taught in the elementary schools recognize and respond joyfully to the art experience. They unselfconsciously dive in and become consumed with their feelings, their sensations, the tactile expression of the paint and are rarely, if ever, concerned with proper technique. The creative lively and genuinely unique works of art. Frustration occurs, yes, but it is the frustration akin to a child’s learning to walk. Each fall is not taken as a personal failure to a child highly motivated to walk: it is rather that the child is experimenting and learning the physical laws of nature. A child expressing himself artistically is experiencing the great freedom of learning that is guided by art itself.
Why is it that some children cannot joyfully dive in? There area myriad of reasons, I’m sure, but the most common one I’ve seen, in children and adults alike, is that they have become limited by being self-conscious of their ability. This self-consciousness begins early in life and seems to come about when either praise or criticism gets too personal. An example from my own life might best illustrate what I mean by becoming “too personal.”
When my oldest daughter was three, she would sit and paint for long periods of time in my studio as I painted. I was thrilled with her work (and thrilled that she could sit for so long a time!), and I told her so. I praised her extravagantly, hoping to encourage her. I would say, “Oh, you really are a great artist!” and things of that sort. As soon as I would begin this person praise, her interest in her work would wane and within minutes her work would become sloppy or careless or she’d just get up and leave. Clearly my praise was having an unintended and very undesirable effect on her. I was making her self-conscious and distracting her from her discoveries. She began to turn to me for praise and approval, and the possibility of self-doubt was introduced (“Would Mommy like this one?”). It didn’t take long to redirect her focus back to her work, once I stopped praising her and addressed my comments to what was on the page. Understanding and discovery are their own rewards. Her receptivity to art was a result of her lack of self-consciousness, and this allowed her to see what is and thus draw and paint it.
When I am painting in the studio, there are a lot of people in there with me. I refer to them as my “studio ghosts.” Their presence is as real as if they were physically standing there. They include my teachers, critics, friends, husband, gallery owners, my favorite artists of history…and one by one, if I’m really painting, they walk out. If I am really painting, I walk out too. Those paintings are invariably the best and I am so grateful for the experience of painting and for the changes in my seeing, that the painting itself is pure gift. Then the noun “painting” becomes inseparable from the verb or action of “painting.” Being unselfconscious and being willing to lose oneself in the world is vital for a child and an artist.
So how can we respond to a child’s artwork? With genuine appreciation and enthusiasm, I think, such as “What marvelous colors you chose,” or “Tell me abut your painting.” A child can also become self-conscious if her view of the world is invalidated, such as “That doesn't look like a tree.” There is no way that art can reach and guide a child if he is too locked up to enjoy himself. How can we free him up to learn and have the experience of creating art? As a parent and art teacher, I find that the more that the child and I can focus on the immediate artwork at hand, the more satisfying the experience becomes. By not emphasizing the product, and by focusing on process instead, the work becomes more successful as well. The more that the child is able to reach a state of awareness in which her self-consciousness disappears into the desire to participate and see what she is trying to express, the more the art can reach her. I am inspired by the story of Isaac Stern and the Chinese musicians. As a conductor, all (!) he had to do was to hear, feel, and lose himself in the music, and thereby open opportunities for others to experience and create it as well.
Can I tell you a story?
Can I tell you a story? This story is important to me because it illustrates my passion for creating and teaching art and and how the artistic process can awaken us. I designed several drawing sessions to fit into a rehabilitative program for male prisoners in a New Mexico Correctional Facility. The goal of the program was to teach anger management and cultivating mindfulness. My role was to present a simple method of becoming present to themselves through drawing. After teaching, I received thank you cards from my students, one of whom wrote:
“Thank you. The time you were here teaching us how to see and draw was the most freedom I’ve felt in my whole life.”
I was teaching them that we default to our learned preconceptions instead of being open minded and getting a fresh take on our experiences and perceptions. Our ability to "know" about something can often interfere with our ability to "see" something. For example, we typically don’t notice the nuances of the quality of light or the colors of shadows, the shapes, patterns, lost and found edges of objects or landscapes. Art is about learning to see beyond the obvious. A shift in perception causes the mundane and familiar to suddenly transform into a discovery of something dazzlingly new.
When I paint, I search for compelling qualities in a scene that will make a strong visual statement that evoke an emotional response in me. I look for rhythm, shape, effects of light, patterns, textures and relationships—any of which can be the basis for a strong design and composition. I love contrast and luscious relationships of color.
Learning to see and to perceive the wealth of visual information in reality is key. Responding intuitively to what I see and expressing my vision in a language composed of design, line, shape, color and value is my passion. Art is about learning how to see and it frees the soul.