Artist of the Month Suzie Baker

Meet this month’s Artist of the Month,Suzie Baker (Color Magic for Stronger Paintings.)

Representational, painterly, impressionistic, and inspiring — these are all perfect ways to describe Suzie’s paintings. Yet what matters most to the artist is recording her response to her subjects in a fresh, direct way. Whether she’s painting a lush landscape on location, creating an evocative still life in the studio, or completing a commissioned portrait, Suzie paints with a loose, alla prima technique that is always evolving as she experiments with new approaches.

ART NOTES: What does a scene need to have for you to want to paint it?

SUZIE BAKER: A scene needs to have something that stops me and piques my interest. When I have that moment of inspiration, the first thing I do is ask myself what it was that stopped me, what is my “big idea.” The light? The arrangement of shapes? The mood? The harmony of color? The story of the scene? I want to ask myself that question first so that the idea, or motif, of the painting, is supported by everything that follows that first moment of inspiration through to the last stroke.

ART NOTES: You work both en plein air and in your studio. How do the two inform each other? Do you work differently depending on where you’re painting? (Studio vs. en plein air?)

Early on, I much preferred my plein air work. The best of those paintings were fresh and responsive and loose, with a feeling of confidence in the execution. Then I would get into the studio, and that free-flowing look that came from painting from life got all constipated. Ugh! Recognizing this problem was my first step to fixing the problem. Ironically, working larger outdoors, over multiple sessions, has helped this dilemma. Meaning, thinking of my plein air work as studio work has helped me treat my studio work more like plein air work. One informs the other. I remind myself to think and plan while in the field when time is scarce, and I’m tempted to jump in all willy-nilly and to paint quickly and responsively in the studio when time is expansive and I’m tempted to overwork a painting.

ART NOTES: Could you walk us through your process?

As I mentioned above, the inspiration, or “big idea," has got to come first. Starting a painting before my concept is firm almost always ends tragically or, on the bright side, with a nicely toned canvas from a wiped-out painting. After the idea, I work out my design. If the design or drawing is complicated, I will do a sketchbook drawing to avoid making mistakes on the canvas. The tone comes next. I think of my tone as setting the stage for everything that follows, and I base my choice of tone on how I want it to support the inspiration of the painting — sometimes that means no tone at all. Next, I work big shape to little shape, general to specific, big brush to little brush. 

ART NOTES: What kind of decisions do you need to have made before you begin a painting? Why?

I need to have the main idea, the design, and the paint colors I intend to use settled before I lay the first stroke. I still allow myself the freedom to diverge from these parameters as I paint.

ART NOTES: When you’re thinking about color in a painting, what decisions do you make about color before you get started?

Sometimes I paint with lots of colors on my palette. Sometimes I intentionally limit my palette to ensure color harmony. I let the scene and my “big idea" dictate my color choices. Sometimes I like to play with limited colors too — a red, a blue, a yellow, plus white, and see what they can do. The more I paint, the more I know there is to learn. I hope I have 40 more years to paint. There is so much left to learn!!

ART NOTES: What’s the biggest challenge you see your students facing with color? What’s your advice?

Let me sneak up on this answer by saying that the first general problem I see students struggling with is lack of drawing ability. Drawing is foundational and not easily covered in the scope of a painting video or workshop. Inaccurate drawing squelches confidence as you proceed through a painting. I recently found a book,Sketching from Square One to Trafalgar Square by Richard E. Scott. Richard gives instructions on how to observe and draw from life in a systematic and easily digestible way. I’m so glad to have found this book, and I now recommend it to students. Having a good drawing foundation in place before watching a lot of videos and taking workshops is one of the best ways to get the most out of a video or workshop experience. As a bonus, drawing naturally builds a good understanding of value (how light or dark something is), which is an important concept to grasp as it relates to color, and probably the second most common problem I see students struggling with. 

ART NOTES: How do you assess a painting once it’s finished? What questions do you ask yourself?

Even after I feel like I am “done” with a painting, I will look at it again away from the scene. Sometimes I am bossed around too much by reality and need to make decisions that are right for the painting but not necessarily accurate to life. Knowing this, I will give the painting one more pass, looking to resolve design problems and finding issues that I just couldn’t see until I had some time away from the initial execution.