Jacqueline Chanda (Day 2)

My open studio will have original oil paintings on display in categories that will include; animals, urban landscapes with street and cafe scenes, portraits and a few landscapes. In addition to the art work on display visitors will have the unique opportunity of seeing a painting in progress on an easel so that people can see my process and they will also have the chance to see a set of images showing the development from start to finish of a work of art. In addition, my palette and tools will be on display next to the easel so I can talk about how I work. There will also be a book of my portfolio available for viewing and some light refreshments. For those who truly want a unique opportunity to see me at work there a live painting demo from 10:30 to 12:30 on each day.

About the Process

While I paint a lot of things, I am drawn to representational genre scenes, intimate scenes of everyday life, of ordinary people at work or play. I love to capture people in the moment, in candid unscripted poses with unguarded expressions. The intent is to create visual metaphors of narrative moments in ongoing stories of life. I plan my paintings out based on thematic or conceptual ideas. Some series are comprised of as few as three paintings while others have upward to twenty or more paintings and still others are on going. Once I decide on a series, I look for visual information that will aid me in executing a set of paintings with different compositions based on the theme or concept I have selected. My practice includes creating narrative oil paintings from observation, drawings and personal or vintage photographs. From these visual resources I constructs multiple-figure compositions depicting common people doing common things. While I do work from live models when possible, it is more convenient to work from photo references because my scenes generally involve multiple people. Photo references also allow me to merge several elements from different photos into one scene. Most often I will do a small drawing to work out the composition or a color study as a guide. I then transfer the image using graphite, vine charcoal, or directly with painting. From there I block in the forms either using the local color to be used or using raw umber to quickly identify my light and dark areas. After blocking in I work from thin to thick using brushes, brayers, and palette knives when needed. As I am painting I rework the composition moving people and things around, thus my final painting can sometimes be quite different from the original small drawing or study.