Fish and Platter by Chad Hughes
A few months ago, Cosito and I went to the Nasher at Duke. I don’t remember what we were looking at, but he mentioned he didn’t like still life paintings. Before I knew anything about making art or painting (and i know very little now), I didn’t understand them either. But as you learn how much thought, time and talent goes into a simple still life, you start to appreciate them. Pretty soon, you’re floored by the techniques, and in the end you love them.
Making them is another thing. Still lifes are the cardio, stretching, studying, memorizing and sweaty work of painting. Artists who focus on creating beautiful still lifes are sometimes criticized for not being able to make more conceptual work, which is silly. These paintings, like the still life above, have just as much time and energy put into them as any other kind of fine art. It takes a lot of discipline and skill to make a good still life, and I will never be bored by them again.
The painting above is one of the many still lifes done by my drawing professor at NCCU. Chad (i still call him professor hughes, even though we’re kinda buddies, and even though he does things like brush off the fact that i disrupted my final drawing critique last semester by puking in the bathroom 3 times, after another stupid episode with 40-year old narcotic pills) has been such a fantastic teacher over the last ten months. I don’t know if he’d like hearing this, but in his case, I think this is true: There are some artists who are better at teaching than anything else, even when they’re gifted artists who make amazing art. On the flip side, there are some artists who are better at making art than teaching, even when they’re good teachers. Over the last five months, I got to experience both first hand.
My first painting professor was Beverly McIver, who’s a heavy hitter in the contemporary gallery/museum art world, especially among black american artists. The word that best describes her personality is delightful, which is sometimes in contrast to her disturbing work. She introduced me to some of my now-favorite painters, like Bailey Doogan and Wayne Thiebaud. And convincing Philip Pearlstein, who’s 84 years old and one of the most famous living artists in the entire world, to visit a small black university in the middle of Durham shows how charming and talented Beverly McIver is.
I learned a lot in her studio, and she went out of her way to help me climb the art student ladder more than once. But this was a Painting 1 studio, and I should have been learning the basics, like color theory and how to mix paint with a pallet knife and how to stretch a canvas and how to set up a still life and how to paint with different brushes and how to use glazes and mediums and how to sketch and sketch and sketch before I put any paint on the canvas. Although our class got lots of freedom and lots of artworld insights, we didn’t get any basics. Beverly McIver is a greater painter than a painting teacher.
Before McIver came to NCCU, Chad Hughes taught the Painting 1-4 studios. After taking 2 Drawing studios (and actually learning how to draw) with him, I knew I needed to take a painting class with him. So we talked, and he set me up with an independent study for the first session of the summer semester. Now, for the next 6 weeks, I get to meet with him 3-5 times a week, for 4-6 hours at a time, to learn all that basic stuff I didn’t learn the first time.
Last week was the first week of summer school, and I can already see major improvements in the paintings I’m working on at school and at home. And since it’s summertime, I don’t have to deal with loud music and horny teenagers in the painting studio. This is fucking awesome.
It’s also difficult. Chad is a strict teacher and an honest critic with a good eye for spotting mistakes before they happen. After I completed the underpainting for the studio’s first still life, all he said was “You’re rusty. Turn the canvas upside down or look at it in a mirror, and fix the mistakes.” (fyi - those tricks work every time for scale, perspective, shape and composition).
Chad also implements some rules that have already saved me a lot of time and expensive paint. These rules apply to monochromatic still lifes with oil paint, but will come in handy for any kind of beginner/amateur painting:
1. Sketch, sketch, sketch - in a sketch book. Sketch until you get a handle on the relations of shape, scale, proportion and composition.
2. Keep sketching until you get the values right.
3. Don’t start a painting until the sketch is what you want the final painting to look like. You will refer to your final sketch as often as you’ll look at the actual still life while you’re painting.
4. Always start with an underpainting.
5. Always use a complementary color for the underpainting.
6. Before you start painting, create a value scale using the complementary color and a medium to create the darkest, middle and lightest colors. The medium will make the oil dry faster, so you can start applying local color (the paint that goes on top of the underpainting) in less than 24 hours.
7. When you start applying local color, paint one object at a time.
8. Before you begin painting an object, get the colors right first. Start with one object, locate its darkest hue (fancy word for color), and mix a batch of that color. The size of the object should correspond to the amount of color you mix (i.e. SMALL BATCHES - oil paint goes a long way).
9. Mix 4-12 (more like 12-20) different values of that color, making sure they match the low and highlights on the object.
10. THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT STEP: You are not allowed to blend your colors.
“Think of it this way,” Chad said. “You have to pay me one dollar for every single stroke you make on that canvas. And I know you’re broker than broke right now, so repeat ‘ECONOMY OF LINE’ instead of listening to that damn ipod.”
Other helpful tips:
- Until you learn the basics to the point where you’re no longer terrified of doing this, don’t use small brushes. Learn how to make small lines with nice, thick brushes.
- Don’t paint any details until you’ve finished every object. This applies especially to fabrics and patterns.
- Use vegetable oil and hand soap to clean your brushes.
- Never donate old t-shirts to Goodwill, and never throw away old rags. You’ll need them.
- Draw what you see, draw what you know, forget everything you think you see and know, and keep drawing.
- Always remember that painting is just another type of drawing. If your final drawing is fucked up, your painting is going to suck.
- Always supplement your work by looking at other work in books, galleries and museums. You really need to do this every single day.
- Keep working. This is your job now.
Check out more of Chad Hughes’ beautiful still lifes here.
(p.s. i’m also taking a 4-hour “photoshop studio.” it’s hilarious - more on that later.)
(p.p.s. if anyone has a copy of photoshop they’d be willing to trade for some artwork or some free porn, i’d be grateful - right now i have six dollars in my checking account.)