Paint Out with Kim VanDerHoek

Kim Vanderhoek  Kim VanDerHoek scheduled her mentor paint out at Irvine Park. Irvine Park is one of my favorite places to paint because of the awesome selection of really old sycamore trees.  The park has been around since 1897. Irvine Park

Kim spoke about her selection process for her subject.  Kim said one of the main things that she considers when selecting a landscape is a subject that allows her to create a sense of distance, depth, and space in the painting.  

Kim said she is a painter who needs a plan.  She spoke about arranging the elements in the painting to create a better painting.  It does not matter whether the painting actually resembles the landscape being painted.  What matters is how effective your arrangement of the elements works to create an attractive painting.  Kim referenced the Edgar Payne sierra lake painting with the trees on either side framing the lake; saying she has been there and there are no trees.

In the process of creating her painting, she said our job as a painter is to do what's best for the painting.  Everything we do in our process should be measured against this standard.  Toning the canvas, leading the viewer into the painting with natural or contrived elements, or borrowing shapes are only effective if they make the painting better.  Kim is an advocate for borrowing shapes. Kim used the clouds as an example.  Find the shapes that work for your painting.  It does not matter if the clouds are actually where you put them in your painting.

Kim spoke about her individual approach to her painting style. One of the things she said was she likes to sketch the painting in using ultramarine blue.  She uses a rigger brush to sketch in the painting before moving onto bigger brushes.  Kim is an advocate of blocking in the painting to insure that her values work together before moving further into the painting.  She also tries to nail down what is going to change in the painting as quickly as she can-like the shadows.   Another thing she spoke about as being "one of her things" is leaving parts of the canvas bare.  Again, with everything that we spoke about it has to be viewed in terms of it's effectiveness in constructing a compelling painting.

Kim said she composes her value plan by using her camera.  She said she takes a lot of pictures and reviews them in the screen of the camera to see if the value shapes work.  She said it is nice to have a value plan-if that is what works for you.  She also said you could use thumbnail sketches, or notans.

One of the things Kim made me think about was how to make the most out of my medium.  Kim said that we must show off the positive aspects of our medium.  For her, she wants to use thick paint and brush strokes.  For me, with pastels, it would be vibrant colors and mark making.

Kim had a couple of insights that I thought were very interesting. The first insight was, it is a mistake only if you leave it in your painting.  The other observation Kim made was that among the people she teaches the biggest mistake her students make is placing too much emphasis on each painting the create.  The mistake is the fear of making mistakes.  The fear of making mistakes prevents growth.  Growth is created by taking chances and pushing your skill set as far as it can go.  This can not be done if you are afraid to fail.  Each failed painting leads to the next step in your growth as an artist.  It is not about individual paintings, it is about the stepping stones those failed paintings represent.  

My painting. Irvine Wash 24"X 36"  Kim left around 1 pm.  She asked me to e-mail my painting to her when I finished.  I thought that was very nice of her.  No one else that I have painted with has said that.  I wrapped up around 2:30.  It was a good day of painting.  Thanks to Kim.

My value shot.

My detail shot.