Sometimes when I come in from painting outside my piece will look grayer or more muted than it did outside. I do have a natural bent to painting darker ( I think everyone has a tendency to paint lighter or darker) plus the light is so different inside than out. The light here in the Sonoran Desert is so intense and I think I’m painting with saturated or cleaner color and I’m not. So, since our work is viewed inside instead of outside I’m adjusting my color mixing slightly. I’m keeping my colors a little stronger outside, not much but enough so that when I go inside they tend to read better. I’m not using as much of the compliment in each mixture. I still paint what I see ( to some degree, its more painting what the light is doing instead of matching color) but with a little more caution in mixing each color.
Frank Duveneck – American Realist Painter
Frank was born Francis Decker in 1848 in Covington Ohio outside of Cincinnati. He father died when he was young and he took his stepfathers name of Duveneck. Early on he worked as a sign painter and then as an assistant to a church decorator Wilhelm Lamprecht. At the age of 21 he traveled to Munich, Germany to study the decorative crafts. He soon
In 1875 he returned to Europe where he painted and taught with 
When he was in Paris in 1886 he married Elizabith Boott from Boston. Elizabeth died two years later and Duveneck relocated permanently to Cincinnati and resumed teaching there. Frank continued to take painting trips to Europe and
Duveneck was the founder of the Society of Western Artists and received numerous honors including a gold medal at the Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco in 1915. He died four years later at the age of 71. Learn more about Duveneck’s art here:
New Videos Added to “Front Row Seat”
Three new 20-minute videos have been added to the “Front Row Seat”.
- “Cottages”
- “San Miguel Street”
- “Street Cafe”
- Chickens
- Herd of Cattle
- Mountains & Lake
- Painting A Head
- Snowy Field
- Sunlit Adobe Building
Stop by and check out the paintings and videos.
Newsletter from Phil Starke Studio
Julian Onderdonk – American Impressionist
 Julian was born into an artistically inclined family. His father Robert, a professional artist when he came to Texas from Maryland in 1879, married Emily Wesley Rogers Gould in 1881 in San Antonio, and the couple made Texas their permanent home. The Onderdonks and the Goulds were distinguished families whose heritage included clergyman, statesmen, and educators, dating back to theseventeenth century. Julian, the first child, was born to Emily and Robert on July 30, 1882.Julian’s father was his first art teacher, but by the time Julian was eighteen years old he was anxious to study in the eastern United States. A friend and neighbor, G. Bedell Moore, lent him money to go to New York. In 1901 Julian enrolled in the Art Students League (his father’s alma mater), where his first instructor was Kenyon Cox.During the summer of 1901 Julian attended William Merritt Chase’s classes in Shinnecock, Southampton, Long Island.   Julian went far beyond painting pictures “swiftly at one sitting,” but he never lost the profound respect for nature that Chase had instilled in him. Exhausting his funds after the summer at Shinnecock and the following winter term at the Art Students League, Julian started painting to support himself. After he married Gertrude Shipman in June 1902, his formal art education came to a virtual halt. He did take a night course, however, conducted by Robert Henri.
Upon his return Julian immediately began painting the Texas countryside. He and his father went on sketching jaunts together, and Julian, after so many years in New York, was back in his natural element. He diligently
Julian’s death, in 1922, was as sudden and unexpected as many of his actions in life. He fell ill in San Antonio and failed to recover from an operation for an intestinal obstruction. His untimely death was doubtless hastened by a cavalier disregard for his own welfare. Since his early demise, Julian Onderdonk has become a legend. His work, represented in many public and private collections, is still avidly sought and has escalated enormously in value. Julian’s legacy lives on in his emotional, mysterious, and beautiful art. More about Julian can be learned from this book:
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In 1906, Julian was offered a salaried position to assist in organizing art exhibitions for the Dallas State Fair, a function that his father had performed for many years. This job brought him back to Texas occasionally, and in 1909 he decided to return to San Antonio permanently.
applied the principles he had learned from Chase and painted directly from nature. Revealing his love for the Texas landscape, he wrote:
Julian’s life became a routine of summers in New York assembling shows for the Dallas State Fair and the rest of the year painting in Texas. His work began to sell locally and as his reputation grew he also showed in galleries throughout the state and in other parts of the country. His last paintings, Dawn in the Hills and Autumn Tapestry, among his finest, were on the way to New York for the annual exhibition of the National Academy of Design for 1922 at the time of his death. Although regulations limited the exhibition to the work of living artists, Julian was accorded the unique honor of having his work accepted because of the unusual circumstances of his death as well as for the excellence of his paintings.
The Evils of Straight Lines
Too often when we are painting outside, or from a photographic reference we are dead set on painting what we see, which can be very frustrating because it’s impossible to recreate our natural surroundings with a few colors on a flat surface. But we can suggest what the light is doing in
terms of value 
and temperature. The same holds true for our composition, when we see straight horizontal or straight vertical lines we need to suggest what would work better.
Straight lines are static and can cut the composition off where angled or curved lines can lead the viewer into the picture. The first painting by Willard Metcalf has angled or curved lines that flow through out the painting. It’s impossible to know if these artists painted exactly what they saw or had to modify the lines but the compositions work and have no straight, static lines. To the
left is a painting by Ernest Blumenschein. There isn’t a straight line in the painting. The lines of the river bank draw you into the painting and the angled lines of the mountain and trees keep the
painting from being static.
The last painting by Aldro Hibbard also has flowing lines in the river that lead you into the painting. The lines of the houses and mountains flow through the painting nicely. Even the straight trees aren’t straight, they are slightly angled or curved.
Donna Schuster 1883 – 1953
Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to a wealthy cigar manufacturer in 1883, Schuster attended the Art Institute of Chicago and the Boston Museum School
where she studied under Edmund Tarbell and Frank Benson. In 1912 she went on a painting trip to Belgium with William M. Chase. The next yearshe moved to California and studied again with Chase in Carmel. In 1923 she built a house in Los Angeles CA where she lived for the rest of her life. In 1953 she passed away when she was trapped in her home during a brush fire.
During the 1920s Schuster taught at the Otis Art Institute. Her paintings of people, landscapes and still lifes had a wonderful sense of impressionistic color and
brushwork. After studying with Stanton McDonald Wright later in her career she experimented with Cubism and Abstract impressionism. Donna was a member
Laguna Beach Art Association and co-founder of Women Painters of the West.
Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year
As 2011 draws to a close, I want to thank you for the support you’ve shown me throughout the year and I hope you and your families have a wonderful Christmas, and a happy and blessed New Year!
Phil Starke Studio
The Importance of Value
Values, the dark and light shapes, are what gives the composition of a painting weight and shape. The right value of a color gives the color richness. Everybody sees color differently, we all have our own color sense that we try to develop in our painting but values are what make a painting work or not. We can use a higher or lower key of values ( making the range of values in a painting darker or lighter) but the
relationship beween the darks and lights have to be the same. So practicing getting the right values in a painting is important and sometimes hard when you are also dealing with color. A good exercise is to do a small value study before doing a larger painting. You can use black and white or to give the study a little more of a warm temperature you can use raw umber and white. Keep the values simple, break the values down to a range of 5 or 6, 2 in the light, a halftone and 2 in the dark. Just like shapes and color keep the values simple.
Childe Hassam 1885 – 1935
Born in Dorchester, Mass. in 1885 Hassam left high school to help support his family. He worked for a Boston engraver and started his art career as an illustrator. In 1883 he went to Paris and studied with Louis Bounlanger and Jules Joseph Lefebvre, two academic artists. In Paris Hassam responded well to the impressionistic style which was reaching its peak when he was there.
When he returned to America he and his fellow student John Henry Twachtman helped form “The Ten” which was a group of American artists who exhibited together and helped change the American art scene from an academic style to a more impressionistic style. Among the artists involved were Frank Benson, Edward Charles Tarbell, J. Alder Weir and William M. Chase.
Hassam painted life in New York City as well as rural New York and New England. He was elected to the National Academy in 1906 and belonged to the American Water Color Society. At 56 he went back to graphic arts and completed over 350 etchings and lithographs.
Childe Hassam was a prolific painter and a dominate figure in American Impressionism and is one of the most celebrated American artists.
