Astoria Overnighter

Thursday and Friday June 11-12

Make your own reservation for Thursday June 11 at
Comfort Suites Columbia River

3420 Leif Erickson Dr
Astoria, OR

Ask for Oregon society of artists rate

Single/Double Occupancy $158 total

(503) 325-2000

Thursday-June 11

830am- Meet at OSA
9 am Leave OSA

1030am- Paint at Jewell Meadows Wildlife viewing area. This is a well developed area designed to view the Roosevelt Elk that often graze in this lush meadow. Park and paint near the picnic tables. Nice mountain meadow with lovely pastoral setting. Bring a picnic lunch. As well as the meadow itself there is a old farmhouse. There are restrooms at this park.

2pm Paint at Lee Wooden County Park. An undeveloped park with no facilities. It is a mere 5 minute drive from the Jewell meadows. A short walk on a flat, smooth and wide path brings us to a shady picnic table near a cool and mellow creek running between tall trees and rocks. There is a view of Fish hawk falls between the trees.

6 pm Dinner at the Buoy Brew pub Astoria
1 8th St
Astoria, OR 97103

Check in at Comfort Inn

Friday June 12
10 am Paint along the waterfront behind the hotel or close by is Pier 39. This defunct cannery retains a lot of the charm of its original purpose but has been retrofitted for coffee shops and gift shops. There is a small museum and some remaining industry which makes for good painting subjects.

2 pm return to Pdx

Tuition $125 includes 3 demonstrations and individual instruction
$65 for just Thursday June 11th

Contact me for registration and ride sharing.
steve@stevekleier.com




Steve Kleier / Artist

Painting portraits

I am becoming interested in painting portraits again. The process and concentration required to make the likeness of a specific individual is I think the most demanding subject an artist can undertake. I draw the head freehand and then paint it as directly as possible. Paying careful attention to the way shapes combine to make a single object (the head) and any subtle nuance of color and tone that can be rendered as seen, emphasized or ignored.The primary objective is to render the model but it cannot be escaped that it is being done with paint and that the paint must have an interest of its own independent of but in relation to the head.
I read this article on JSSargents thoughts about painting a portrait and was impressed by his obsession and clearheaded, practical approach. It is a paradox of painting that there are so many technical aspects to realistic rendering but that the real power comes from the painters inner void and confidence beyond the box. This comes through in these words from JSS

http://www.handprint.com/HP/WCL/sargent.html



Bill 11x15 watercolor. About 1 hour


Steve Kleier / Artist

I look pretty happy with this demo I did at the Columbia Art Center last month. I gave a two day watercolor workshop there and it was well attended by several talented and interested local artists. The CCA is a wonderful facility with a professional gallery, performance space and of course an art studio.Thanks to the CCA for hosting the event and all the folks who signed up. It went well and I hope to do more workshops there in the future. Sorry about the hair.


Steve Kleier / Artist

Here are a couple sketches I did in my sketchbook this morning at the coffee shop. I enjoy this kind of drawing and am aware that I am trying to capture only the bare bones of the scene. I look for gesture, proportion and relation of shapes. These take me only a few minutes to draw and of course the models are always moving.

Steve Kleier / Artist

This is another one point perspective driven painting. I planned this as three values but when the color gets added it seems to add more.


Steve Kleier / Artist

This one is from the Tuesday class. I used two photos for reference. The focus of this demo was mostly concerned with the drawing part of how to put figures in a landscape.



From the Wed class. This is a value study for a Czech street scene. We discussed one point perspective and some figure drawing issues.


Here is the painting in watercolor. It is a simple primary triad with a dark neutral. I may work on it some more.


Steve Kleier / Artist

Last weekend was the WSO fall convention. The exhibit was at the rouge art center in downtown Medford. A club a lot like the OSA. I was happy to get a piece into the show. The juror was Linda Baker. She does a variety of subjects in a poured technique. She is an excellent artist and presenter and did a very nice job all around, I thought. The convention center was fine, and the weather great. I took a side trip to the cowboy town of Jacksonville and took a few reference photos. I had a good time and picked up some art tips.the next one is mod April.



This one was done at the WSO convention last weekend. We were planning on painting the farmers market, but that didn't work out so we did this. The Medford elks club.15x22"


I was going for really deep darks. This is 300 lb arches paper. 15x22"


This is a class demo from the OSA Tuesday watercolor class.


Steve Kleier / Artist

Here are the demos from the past two weeks.


The challenge with this sunflower scene was painting around the yellow petals.




I took this photo last summer at the Riddle Ranch. I changed the perspective on the barn to make it more dramatic. Other than that it is pretty straightforward.

Tuesday Sept 9, 2014

This is our first lesson for the new season. I chose a basic landscape and tonal pallet because I wanted to keep the techniques simple. The skills I focused on are, painting a graded wash, for the sky and what John Ruskin calls the "confusion mode" which is what we did when painting the leaves of the trees. We used a photo from the Sandy Delta Park where there are many of these tree and field scenes. I stayed pretty true to the scene , the only major change I made is adding the figure under the tree on the right. We did a value study in charcoal first and then followed the same steps to create the painting. We used only blue and brown for the whole thing except for a tiny bit of red in the figures face and arms.


Steve Kleier / Artist

Here are some recent plein air paintings
















































Steve Kleier / Artist

Timberline Lodge paint out

Timberline Lodge is such an amazing and singular place and I have spent so many wonderful days there and on Mt Hood that I have often thought about doing a workshop there. I am putting it out there for this October. I don’t need any firm commitments right now but it would be great if you would let me know if you like the idea. steve@stevekleier.com.

Thursday and Friday October 9-10
Timberline Lodge Paint out with Steve Kleier
Timberline lodge is located 60 miles east of Portland on the south side of MT Hood at
about 6000 feet. It is a fine example of alpine lodge architecture with big timbers and
huge stone fireplace. From there are unobstructed views of MT Hood as well as short
walks to alpine meadows. I have painted there many times and now I would like to share
it with you so I have planned an overnight paint out to this special place.The interior of
the lodge is a fantastic space with tall ceilings, handcrafted stone and wood as well as
paintings and crafts. Outdoors the crater and snowfields of MT Hood dominates the
view. These will be our subjects. $190 includes overnight double occupancy at the
lodge, 2 demonstrations and individual instruction. For more information contact me at
steve@stevekleier.com

This race scene required quite a bit of interpretation to show the excitement of it. Especially in the horses leg area.




The vista house on crown point is a Portland icon. I laid down a colorful wash and then rendered the shadow shapes in a dark neutral.




In order to capture something of this friends personality I had to draw particularly accurately.


Steve Kleier / Artist

Here is a still life with rocks and a few pieces of wood.


Steve Kleier / Artist

Today's challenge was painting this silver service. Lots of drawing and reflective surfaces gave us a lot to work from.

Monday morning flowers. A very straightforward subject and composition. Just flowers in a vase. Tried to keep it true to what I saw, and still add a life of its own to the painting.


Steve Kleier / Artist

This demonstration uses color to capture the effect of light raking across this old townhouse



These next three photos show a lesson on using a pallet knife to scrape rock shapes into watercolor. The key here is timing, if you scrape to soon the paint runs back and you get a darker area, which is fine if that is what you want. Of you wait to long the paint is already dry and there is virtually no effect.








Steve Kleier / Artist

I left out a lot of objects to make the composition more manageable and simplified the color to focus the mood.15x22 watercolor.


This lonely truck didn't have a lot of interest beyond the over all shape and, there was no background to speak of so I used an abstract color wash in the beginning to add some excitement.


There is not much drawing here so the focus of this painting is the color harmony.


I set up this scene with plaster pots and artificial flowers to have an informal and "past it's prime" vibe. OSA Monday morning class.

This is one of my favorite local hikes so I have been here many times.
It is always a challenge for me to capture something of the grandeur of it.
15 x22 watercolor.



Steve Kleier / Artist

Mid March 2014

Here is charcoal drawing. The challenge here is the outline shapes of the dogs. Once that is established, the details are easy!
Steve Kleier / Artist





Here is plein air piece I did today. It is was after coffee this morning on upper Hawthorne St. I posted the 1st state on Facebook, but worked on it a little more this evening.

February 2014

This one was done from a photo of an old derelict house. I changed the perspective to help the composition and added the figures for a human element.



The photo reference for this one showed the farm house centered in the frame. I moved it over and added some trees for interest. We spent some time discussing two point perspective.

Steve Kleier / Artist