Studio Incamminati Palette

Palette as Abstract Art

The pictured method of palette maintenance would drive me bonkers - I have to clean off my palette almost every night! The "pile it up" style of palette layout comes, I think, directly from the top at Studio Incamminati and those who decide to just let the paint build up say they can still dig into these towers of hardened paint and find useable, liquid gold in there somewhere. This palette belongs to one of the top instructors at the school and he gave his permission for me to photograph it.

The palette of colors used at Studio Incamminati generally consists of more than 20 colors, (click here for an example from the supply list for a winter program) which are laid out in the same order every time. And, no, you don't have to be this messy about it!

The provenance for this extended palette of colors comes from Henry Hensche, who was a mentor to Nelson Shanks, the founder of Studio Incamminati.  Nelson Shanks traveled to Provincetown and The Cape School to study how to enhance his ability to see color, following in the footsteps of the Impressionists, such as Monet. This atelier is unique in that, in addition to the requisite charcoal drawing and cast paintings, artists study color combined with tonalism! Graduates have all the tools necessary to go ahead and be truly creative with their concepts and ideas. Their work has both the sculptural form and shimmering color of a marriage of classical training and Impressionist color.

Studio Incamminati - 2 week Advanced Portrait and Figure Workshop

During this initial stage, the gesture and what they call a "grisaille" drawing are established using a wipe-out technique. All paintings are done on a Golden Acrylic Grey No. 6 toned canvas. My canvas looks brown here because we did a whole series of one minute poses and then rubbed them out. This was a longer pose.

This is the second stage of the painting, where a general tone for the light areas is applied.

My 2 week Advanced Portrait and Figure Workshop was an intensive bootcamp for figurative painters. I wish I had a photograph of the very first stage of this pose, which consisted of a gesture drawing with Ultramarine Blue mixed with Burnt Umber. Following that, a procedure of wipe out and drawing, which is shown in the first picture above, establishes the drawing. I really loved this way of starting a painting because is it so flexible - you are able to capture the spontaneity and freedom of the gesture and then start making corrections as you refine the drawing enough to nail the pose.

The second picture above shows the stage where light is separated from shadow and a darker general skin tone is applied to those areas and then lighter values go on top.

Scholarship for Studio Incamminati!

I have some very exciting news - tomorrow I am traveling to Philadelphia for a couple of weeks of intensive life painting!

I received a scholarship to attend an Advanced Portrait and Figure workshop at Studio Incamminati (Nelson Shank's atelier) starting on Monday. The lead instructor is Stephen Early. There will also be a bunch of extra presentations, lectures and demonstrations by other artists.

I am really interested in learning more about how to merge tonalist volume with wonderful color. The impressionists focused on color, but if you were to look at one of, for example, Monet's paintings in black and white you will not see a lot of volume and structure since his work is all about light and color. Most classical ateliers are more focused on tonalism than color, so Studio Incamminati is rather unique in that it includes color. I have also studied with Cedric and Joanette Egeli,(who, along with Nelson Shanks, were both former students of Henry Hensche) both on the beach in Provincetown and at their month long winter workshop.They are both exceptional artists and I am grateful to have learned from them as well.

My approach to continuing education has been to regularly take workshops. I find I always learn something new and crucial from every experience and I am so thankful to the talented artists that wholeheartedly share their knowledge and skills.