"David Leffel Profile Study", 16x16 oil on canvas

"David Leffel Profile Study", 16x16, oil on canvas

I came home from The Portrait Society of America's annual conference totally inspired. The 4 days were chock filled with incredible artists doing demonstrations, face -offs and workshops on lost and found edges, composition, drawing, portfolio reviews, etc, etc.

The first solo demo of the event was Friday morning. David Leffel will go down in history as an art legend, and I for one will always be a huge fan and avid admirer of not just his magnificent work, but of the man himself. He is always gracious, willing to answer questions, incredibly witty and intelligent, and overall just an enigma to those who are fortunate enough to come in contact with his work and his teaching. I was fortunate to have taken a workshop with David last spring, and after getting to know him at the workshop, I was especially looking forward to this particular event at the conference.

As usual, David was in rare form and had the audience cracking up even as he was in the throes of a self portrait on stage and a complex explanation of his craft!

Today I used the photo that I snapped from about 10 rows back in the ballroom to render this quick study of David as he painted. He was wearing a funny gypsy type scarf around his head, but no matter what he wears he is always a striking image with his chiseled features. I would love to try a more finished piece in the future, when I have some decent linen to work on. Here's my reference photo and some more photos from David's demo.

This is the photo that I used for my reference. They had wide screens set up on either side of the stage so that it would be easy to see no matter how far back you were seated.

David discusses edges before he starts his portrait.

The advantages of modern technology!

You've got to love the scarf!

I am so happy that I got to see him do another demo. It was quite a treat!

Photo from last year's workshop.

"Into the Light",16x12, oil on linen, paintings of grapes,cantaloupe, copper pot and old bottle

"Into the Light", 16x12, oil on linen

Believe it or not this was the very first still life that I ever painted! I'll never forget how proud I was of this painting! I took a workshop with a lovely man named Louis Tedesco, who studied for many years with David Leffel and his wife Sherrie McGraw. That was back in 2007 and I recall that I was a little intimidated at the time by all the talented people in the class.

Louis was a sweetheart, God rest his soul, and was very attentive to me in spite of my inexperience. I have messed around with the painting quite a bit since I first painted it. It's not as tight as it was originally, and I suppose that's not a bad thing.

I'll never forget Louis and what a nice man he was, as well as an incredibly talented artist. Louis, I hope you are painting in heaven with Michelangelo and company!

I need to stop holding on to paintings because I am attached to them for one sentimental reason or another.

a Painting a day, Daily painters, original art , affordable original art, home decor art, colorist art,contemporary realism, Louis Tedesco, David Leffel,Southwest art,Santa Fe artists.

"Wine Country Picnic", miniature paintings, a painting a day, paintings of wine, wine country, paintings of grapes, affordable paintings, Napa Valley

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"Wine Country Picnic", 5x7, oil on Raymar linen panel

I am finally feeling much more confident painting grapes. My friend Jon Greeley says that painting grapes are easy. Well, easy for him to say! I messed around with this little painting till I finally managed to add some volume to the grapes. I think I should thank David Leffel for helping me with this one. He will tell you that the shadow side of the grape is always more vibrant in color than where the light enters from the front. That is because as the light exits the grape on its shadow site, the grape lights up with vibrant color! Thanks David!




a Painting a day, Daily painters, original art , affordable art, impressionist wine country paintings,home decor paintings, still life paintings ,cottage art,colorist art,wine and fruit, wine and fruit landscape, California wine country,representational realism still life paintings.

Remembering Louis Tedesco-1947-2007

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Mixed Fruit in a Blue Bowl, oil on linen

The very first time that I saw Louis Tedesco I was surprised. He didn’t look at all like what I’d expected he’d look like. I suppose I expected a dignified, orderly-looking man in long creased trousers and a white button-down shirt because Tedesco’s still life paintings were so orderly and majestically dignified. They were also incredibly beautiful, with a mysterious luminous quality to them that is very difficult to describe, unless you have seen them for yourself. It was one of Louis’s still life paintings displayed at Art Center Sarasota that caught my eye one day, and filled me with a fervent desire to learn to paint just like that!-although I’d never painted a still life in my entire life before that moment. So I signed up for a 3 day workshop with Louis last spring, and the small, soft-spoken man that I was introduced to as I walked into the class was not at all as I’d imagined he’d be. His arms were covered with the most intrinsically patterned tattoos I’d ever seen, a little chaotic in my mind’s eye but nevertheless orderly in artistic design. His smile saddened me a little, for it was obvious that he certainly needed some costly dental work, but it was his beautiful deep, dark luminous eyes that matched that same mesmerizing quality I’d noticed in his paintings, and captured the viewer’s attention almost immediately.

Louis Tedesco died just a few months after that workshop, and although I only had the honor of learning from him for 3 short days, I still see his influence in many of my still life paintings today. Louis is a classic example of everything that is sad about talent that goes unrewarded financially during the artist’s life time. I called the art center in late August to schedule myself for Louis’s fall workshop, and it was then that I was told that he had just died unexpectedly. I was also told that when he finally went for medical attention, he was told that the hospital could really not help him because he was not covered with the health insurance required. He died soon afterwards, and an artistic community is left saddened by that sudden loss, and wondering if anything could have changed the outcome. I’ll never forget that during my workshop with Louis, someone in class mentioned that they were stopping at Whole Foods on the way home to pick up some groceries. Louis only smiled and remarked that he’d need to mortgage his house (if he had one) in order to shop there.

When I think about Louis and his beautiful still life paintings, I can only wonder why the term "Starving Artist" should immediately come to mind and be associated with someone of such talent.In my opinion, although this gentle, talented man painted his dramatic chiaroscuro still lifes as competently and majestically as his teachers David Leffel and Sherri McGraw, he died practically penniless, unable to afford any medical treatments that might have prolonged his life, and never receiving the financial reward for a talent that was richly deserving. So goes the starving artist syndrome, and alas it is unfortunate that in America people will pay enormous amounts of money tickets to sporting events, big screen TVs and electronic equipment, the amount of money that most people are willing to shell out for original art is usually a tragedy.

One of the piece’s I did in Louis workshop is on exhibit at Sarasota’s City Hall, another has sold, but the piece above that I did recently is a good example of the unique way in which Louis has influenced my own painting. I’ll never forget some of his words to me spoken with a twinkle in his eye as he watched me paint, “You didn’t really just put pink on that table cloth did you? This is North Light! You don’t need to slavishly copy every detail, but you must approach every single brushstroke with reverence and make it meaningful!” Then as he watched me struggling to mix the color of one of his favorite still life bottles he said to me, “What in the world are you doing?” When I explained that I was trying to mix the color of that bottle he just smiled, went over to his own paint box, and handed me a tube of Rembrandt phthalo turquoise blue. “My dear,” he said, “there are some colors that you simply cannot mix! Help yourself!”

Although I’ll never truly be a competent realism painter in the style of Louis Tedesco, I definitely know that I need to make every single brushstroke a work of art in and of itself.

If only for Louis.

If you ever knew or studied with Louis, there will be a posthumous exhibit at Imperial Fine Art, in Sarasota Florida during the month of December. The exhibit opens this Friday and if you would like more information about this exhibit, please contact Imperial Fine Art here.

In addition to the piece by Louis below, if you would like to see more examples of Louis Tedesco’s work and read more about him, please go here.

a Painting a day, Daily painters, original art , affordable original art, home decor art, colorist art,contemporary realism, Louis Tedesco, David Leffel,Southwest art,Santa Fe artists.