Painting leaves rich impression at Highland Arts Guild
MARBLE FALLS — Oil painting is a delicate art which demands superb eye-hand coordination, as well as scrupulous attention to color, movement and shape.
"I love to use oil," Phillip Wade said. "It is juicy and buttery. It stays wet the entire time you work with it. You can scrape it out, you can put it back on, you can work into it and it leaves a very rich effect."
He illustrated different oil-painting techniques during a recent demonstration at the Highland Arts Guild gallery, 318 Main St.
PHOTO 1: Austin artist Phillip Wade describes the secrets of oil-painting technique during a recent demonstration in Marble Falls at the Highland Arts Guild, 318 Main St. Staff photo by Raymond V. Whelan
Wade teaches painting at the Austin Museum of Art, where he has been an instructor for nearly 15 years. He received his early art education in Philadelphia at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, the oldest art school in the nation.
Later, he earned a Master of Fine Arts degree at the University of Texas in Austin.
More than 30 local awestruck art aficionados observed as Wade rendered the image of a bay-colored Arabian horse cantering in a pasture near Pflugerville. His fingers alternated between a tight right-handed pencil grip and a loose touch on the brush handle as he performed artful magic, all without tracing or pre-drawn material applied to the canvas.
At one point, Wade showed how quick horizontal and vertical brushes called "plaid strokes" can help produce a credible image.
Before he begins to paint, Wade rubs sandpaper on his canvas to smooth out the rough spots. He drops different colors around the edge of his pallet, beginning with light colors such as titanium white or pale lemon before darker colors including sky blue or burnt siena.
"I can make a lot of mixtures that way," Wade said. "I use different colors, but they are always in the same range."
During the early stages of a landscape painting, Wade decides whether to depict a high or low horizon. He works on the canvas from top to bottom. He applies dark colors first, light colors later. He brushes thin streaks of paint before thick streaks.
"It gives the painting a less scrubby look," Wade said. "The paint gets thicker as you go along."
And, Wade attacks big details before small ones.
"It is better to be bold early on," he said. "The fussiness you can save for later."
Between any given series of brushstrokes, he often stands several feet away from the canvas to judge the correctness of an image.
"I call it — the thinking out," Wade said. "It is a simplified form of the 19th century way to paint."
When he is not teaching, Wade paints murals, landscapes and portraits which can be viewed in Austin at the Driskill Hotel, the Lotus Gallery and several other spaces.
"I love storytelling, and he tells wonderful stories with his paintings," Austin art gallery owner Chuck Cooper said.
To learn more about art classes and demonstrations at the Highland Arts Guild gallery, call (830) 693-7324 or visit the website at http://www.highlandartsguild.org/.
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