Annie O'Brien Gonzales (Ep.1) Transcript

Please note: This is an incredibly rough transcript from my conversation with Annie O’Brien Gonzales, Ep.1. It has not been checked by a human. To listen to the full audio version, head here.

Kelly Anne Powers 0:00

Hi, I'm Kelly I'm Powers Welcome to learn to paint podcast where we talk with artists and teachers about how to get better at painting. This week and the first episode any O'Brien Gonzales is our guest. This acrylic oil and mixed media painter went to art school but spent a career in higher ed and raising a family. It wasn't until much later that Andy got back into painting and realized she had a lot to learn. In this episode, we'll hear how Annie worked through her fear of restarting, she'll talk about why you don't have to be scared of color, and explains a half dozen ways to get more confident with your own color. Color, which if you look at these paintings, you'll know is very important to the artist. Now two quick notes. One, I apparently had strep throat during this interview. So I'll sound a bit different to we use a lot of terms in the show had to learn to paint podcast, comm slash podcast slash episode one to get art definitions and show notes including links and his classes. So thanks for joining us today. And let's jump in. Hi, Andy, welcome to the podcast. Thank you for being with us today.

Annie O'Brien Gonzales 1:06

Hey, Kelly, how are you?

Kelly Anne Powers 1:08

Good. What did you find challenging about getting back into art?

Annie O'Brien Gonzales 1:13

Well, I had a long career in education. I taught a lot wrote curriculum and did grant writing. So I was real comfortable in that world. And then the natural fears of you know, how do I get back into my art because I really only did one or two things a year for a long time. I went to art school back in the 80s. But then I didn't get to use it very much. So I felt really inadequate. And when I came back, I had to go take acrylic classes, because when I went to art school, they didn't teach acrylics.

Kelly Anne Powers 1:47

What was the biggest thing that helped you move from beginner to where you felt more confident in your skill set?

Annie O'Brien Gonzales 1:54

When I first came back and started taking acrylic art classes at the Caribbean college. I mean, honestly, Kelly, my knees were shaking, I went in there and I thought, please don't call on me, please don't call me. I mean, it's just like a kid and class, I had like zero confidence. I thought I've been out of it so long, you know, and these people are younger than me or whatever. And I just remember somebody said to me, don't judge yourself until you've done at least 100 paintings. And I was so determined that I started numbering them on the back. I mean, I just kept creating them, putting them under the table, do another one, put it under the table. So I think when I realized that it's you're far better to work your way through a lot of paintings and not labor over the mistakes or Oh, I hate this I I bet I created 300 paintings before I ever liked one. Honestly, I didn't like them, I wasn't going to put them on the wall. And I certainly wasn't going to show them anywhere. And I'm not saying that to be discouraging. I'm just saying that it took me a long time to come around. But what I did was I just did them and put them in the closet, put them under the table just kept going kept going. And then at some point, if you've ever tried studying a language, you know, where you've got a few verbs, and you've got some adjectives, and then you travel and you're like, Oh, I can say something. But I don't I can't understand what they said back to me. But you keep at it. And then pretty soon, it's like this fog kind of clears. If you keep at it, then pretty soon you realize, you know, I actually do know how to mix that orange or actually can get back to that color that I really like. So your skills just start to build. And at some point after doing a lot of paintings, and I realized that rather than continue to keep shopping for an answer, where's that one answer? I'm just going to keep doing this. I'm just going to do it a lot. I'm going to keep doing it, learn my lessons and keep going. And then at some point, I realized, you know, this one, I kind of like this one, you know, this one's okay. So it's a matter of just putting in the time, I think

Kelly Anne Powers 4:05

I always find things like that really encouraging. Because I feel like, in some ways, that is the magic at that, you know, like when people want the magic? Like what's, what's the one tip? Well, the one tip is do 100 paintings.

Annie O'Brien Gonzales 4:20

And you know, why would I think that I could sit down with music in front of me and play a song once. And that anybody would want to hear that you know how much work it takes for people to be able to do that. Now, I always tell people forget the myth that people are born artists. I mean, you can be born interested in it, you can be born with a facility for certain things, but I really don't believe those people didn't have to work at it. I mean, for some people, it may come faster. But I also believe anybody that wants to put the time in and has the passion for it is going to really be able to accomplish a lot. And if you don't enjoy the process, see I love just going and painting you talk about in your free class and then also in your other classes. So what does it take to learn to paint new? And could you talk about those three things, hand eye hearts, it helps to have a framework, you know, in your mind of how to learn. And I came across this, one of my favorite artists is David Hockney, the British painter, and he subscribes to this Chinese approach to learning which talks about heart hand, and I as the three components that you need to have. And it just all of a sudden a light bulb went off in my head because I realized that that's really what it takes to learn to paint that it's not enough to just have skills or the hand part of it. That is actually the easy part. And what I advise people to do is to analyze where there are holes in their skills, and focus and take workshops and classes on the part of it. Don't just go out and take everything under the sun, but focus on what do I need to get better. And whether it's drawing or color mixing that kind of thing. And that becomes the easiest part. But then the other two parts of it, the heart part is really you have to have a passion for painting, you're not going to put the time in, if you don't have a passion for wanting to do this, if painting isn't one of the best things you can be doing with your time. You know, it's like people say, you know, this, this is something time just flies by when I'm painting, if that's not the feeling you get, there's probably some other things you could be doing, because it takes a lot of time to learn to get better. And then I part I see it as the vision part. And that's kind of the last thing to come. And that is where you hone in on your particular vision of what you want to create.

Kelly Anne Powers 6:52

What's the biggest challenge you see your students facing when learning to paint.

Annie O'Brien Gonzales 6:56

One is we're too critical of our own learning curve. The second thing is that we're not acknowledging how much time it's going to take. And writers call it you know, you got to get your butt in the chair, and you gotta sit there and you gotta write, if you don't write, you're not going to get better at writing. If you don't pay to if you don't stand at the easel or wherever and do this a lot, you're not going to improve. Now, the caveat to that is I spent a lot of years raising kids and working and I didn't pay it. But what I recommend people do is try to kind of fill up the well in other ways. Go to museums, when you travel, go to art shows, go hiking, take a lot of photos, do these things that are filling up that creative part of you while you're busy with other things. And then when you do get that opening, whether it's retiring, or your kids leave for school or any of those things, then you've got all that stored up material and energy to put into your painting. And I tell people it's never too late to pay. That's the other thing is I see people saying, Oh, I miss my chance. Well, I used to think that. So I can tell you, it's never too late.

Kelly Anne Powers 8:10

When you're talking about filling up the web, on one hand, you're saying live your life because you got to live your life. But then there's a thinking that happens in the space between painting. And I know for you, I'm leading this question a little bit, because I know that you keep notebooks as a part of that is that would that be part of what you would encourage people to do when they're don't have time to be painting all the time.

Annie O'Brien Gonzales 8:34

Now, there's a lot of wonderful journaling out there, beautiful journaling. But what I advise people to do is if you're trying to learn to be a painter, don't worry about making that source that notebook beautiful. Just start slapping stuff in there and making sketches and take it with you and I take it on planes, I get a lot of just scribbling and note taking. I take notes, when I go to lectures, I pick up brochures, from shows. I mean, it's you know that phenomenon when you like maybe you hadn't really noticed birds that much. And all of a sudden you get interested. And then everywhere you go, you see all these birds, you're like, wow, that same thing happens once you start down that path. And you start to see ideas for artwork, whether it's patterns in nature, whether it's fabrics, or here in Santa Fe, I mean, you can walk around in the old part of town and see doorways and tiles and patterns everywhere. Just anything that comes across your path that you think wow, that really grabs my attention, start putting it in that notebook. And then if I get stuck, or when I get a chance, you know, to sit down, I'll sit down and look through that and tag a few things I want to include in my paintings, it's amazing what a resource that becomes

Kelly Anne Powers 9:53

one of the things that your work is known for as being colorful, so we're going to move on color. So what's the biggest challenge you see students facing when it comes to color,

Annie O'Brien Gonzales 10:06

I see a lot of problems with color, to be honest with you. And I think somehow we've convinced people that color is so complicated and scientific and difficult that you have to get all those charts and books and things to get to figure out color and that you need to know formulas. And you know, I realized it kind of scares people. So I think what they do is a lot of people avoid dealing with it, they don't want to deal with it, it's like, I'm never going to read those books, I'm never going to learn all of that. And what I tried to do is break it down where you know, it's actually quite simple. And it does become intuitive, where I see people get into trouble as a couple of things they use straight to colors. And I always tell people, whatever you do try to mix it with a little something. So it gets off, think of it as taking it just slightly off center a bit and learn how to mute color, you know, by using the compliment with that color. And that is really simple, rather than anyone who's painted very much can recognize the tube color. Now, that's not to say that they aren't making hundreds of wonderful colors, putting them in tubes. I mean, it's amazing now what you can get. But I teach people three basic ways to approach color schemes. That's the other place that was the second place, I'm just going to tell you that people I think get into issues is they don't decide on a color scheme before they start. So I critique a lot of people's work. And I look at it and I realized this person had no idea what their color scheme was going to be before they started this painting. Without understanding color very well, they just kept putting every color that they had out on that same painting. And it starts to look a little scattered. If you can convince people, at least in the beginning to do a color swatch with a specific color scheme, whether it's a monocle chromatic and analogous or a complimentary or even a split compliment, pick something and at least start in that direction, make yourself a little color swatch, put it right there in front of you and say, okay, for this painting, I'm not going anywhere else, this is where I'm going and just try to stick to it. If you end up adding a few accents at the end, that's fine. We all do that. But in the beginning, train yourself to paint to a color scheme. And that will pull things together

Kelly Anne Powers 12:29

as a beginner especially Why does that help me learn more in the long run, going in with a plan.

Annie O'Brien Gonzales 12:35

I'm not a rules person, obviously. And I'm also a person who likes a lot of color a lot more than some people do. You know, what I finally realized that you've got to get some control over it and learn the basics. Like why do analogous colors always work in a painting, you get a simple color wheel and you look at it and you save yourself that little pie wedge there of these colors that are neighbors, that will always work. So why not give yourself a leg up, get a starting point where you can be successful and try that. So it's kind of like you have to walk before you can run, you have to start by learning at least the basics. And I don't advocate anybody read those big thick color books. Unless you're a scientist and you work for golden, what I recommend is just take the basic color class from someone and learn to mix colors, you need to learn at least you know, some major color schemes, you need to learn how to mute a color by mixing compliments. And then you need to learn the next most important thing is the power of value contrast in paintings. And I know what happens to people because I have the same issue. And that is if you're attracted to color, like I am expressive painters. You're right, you just want to grab everything you can find and put it in the painting. And then you're wondering, oh, gosh, what happened here, it's like having the information in front of you until you get it internalized. And it's intuitive. After a while you don't need those swatches, you can put them away because you go Okay, I'm starting up going to start with red and green hair. I'm going to work with all variations on that complimentary color scheme. And then I'm gonna at the end, let me take a look, does it need a little spark of something, but I'm not going to take everything I have out and put it on that one painting till I learned how to control the colors. I know that seems kind of some people probably skip over those parts.

Annie O'Brien Gonzales 14:35

To deal with it.

Kelly Anne Powers 14:36

I think for some people, they skip over those parts. And it works because they can somehow just mix all of those colors and or they fight you know, they struggle through it and sort of learn their voice through that. And I think there's other people who say like, I'm going to use all the colors, and then think like, why does every painting look so terrible? And then back up a little bit? Not even terrible, but like, why am I frustrated? Why isn't this working? And then back up and said like, ah, maybe I should learn some color schemes.

Annie O'Brien Gonzales 15:07

Yeah, and that's an important part of the self critique. thing is I tell people to use the elements of painting, you know, line shape, color, value and texture to critique their own work. And when you come to color, you say to yourself, is there any kind of coherence here to how the color is working, you learn to critique your own work. And I think you're right, I tell people bring what you've done before into your painting. If you were a designer of some kind, if you did interior design, if you were a flower arranger, or if you are a gardener, there's so many things that we've done all of us in our life that we realized that we developed an eye, we know about shapes, we know about lines, we know about colors, if we can pull that into the painting. Some people don't even realize they're doing that, like you say they're just naturally pick the colors that work. And they would do the same thing. They may have been gardeners their whole life, or florists or I get all kinds of people and they've done all these things. And I say, well, you already know design, just bring it photographers, photographers can do composition. I mean, it's unbelievable. They totally know what they're doing with composition, you don't have to teach them that. So bring what you know into that. But if you keep getting results that you think, ah, this is what I wanted, go through those five elements and say to yourself, okay, what am I doing with those elements? Could I use some more line and there are my shapes interesting, just walk yourself through it. And if you do that every time, then you do start to develop your I

Kelly Anne Powers 16:40

thinking about those color schemes, could you walk us through what is monochromatic, analogous and complementary? Sure.

Annie O'Brien Gonzales 16:48

And those are the three I advise people to start with, especially because they will always work if you use those and you're training yourself to use color. So the first one is people say monochromatic, who would want to do that? Well just pick one of your favorite colors. at let's say you love blue will decide I'm going to do this monochromatic, all blue painting. And then make yourself a little cheat sheet a little swatch and put every variation on blue that you can create. And you can put a dab of the other colors in there to shift the blue a little bit to the warm or the cool side, you might want to put a little white in there to lighten the value or you can put you know, a darker color to darken it just tried making a swatch with every variation you can come up with, and then paint your painting with just those colors. And you can find great examples of professional painters who do just that they use a very what's called a limited palette. And sometimes they might use all one color. And it's a good exercise to do. So that's monochromatic, which is probably the easiest one to start with. And then analogous means if you take that color wheel, and you've got the three primaries, and the you have the secondaries in between will take a pie shaped wedge of that color wheel and put three to five, six colors. And you know, cover the rest of it up and say I'm only using from this lemon yellow, over to this red violet, or you know, just what's in between there. And because they're all mixtures of each other, they will always work as well. And that gives you a lot of range, you can do a lot of painting with analogous colors. And it's really fun. And then complimentary are the colors directly across from each other on the color wheel. And those are the color schemes who are probably most familiar with even if we're not aware of it, because everything from holidays, red and green for Christmas, yellow and purple for Easter, orange and blue. I always say the Broncos because I moved here from sports teams holidays advertising, it's all complimentary colors. And the reason is you get the most bang for your buck, you get the most spark out of compliments. So you'll find especially since we're talking about floral paintings, which I love to paint, lots and lots of red and pink flowers out there. So you're going to do a complimentary painting, and it's probably my most common color scheme is using compliments. So I'll try to do a red and green I in fact, in my online course, I have a red and green painting a yellow and purple painting, and a blue and orange painting in there so that you can kind of get a feel for what that's like. Now, within that range, you can do all variations of those particular colors, you don't have to stick with to be orange, and to blue, you can make variations. But if you stick with that, and let's say you're doing beautiful pink roses with green leaves, you've eliminated a lot of other things in the painting that are going to be distracting at the beginning. And then you can decide, do I want to make my pink lean towards a cool pink. And maybe my green leans towards a warm green, you know to give it a little more contrast, or you've got still got lots of choices in there. But when you start to get into trouble, especially early on is then you throw in a purple tablecloth. And that happens because we are expressive painters are attracted to colors. So we go Oh, wow, would that be cool? I'll put a purple tablecloth and an orange lamp behind it. And I see that all the time. And if you can make that work great. But if you're wondering, why is this painting look kind of scattered? You might think Oh yeah, I threw in a whole other thing in here, I got off track. And you might go back and repainted a bit and think oh, maybe instead of this purple tablecloth, I'm going to make it kind of lean into the red part of that color scheme. So make it a red, purple. And then I'll take that orange thing in the background, I'm gonna lean more towards a red orange, or something like that, that you can, you can always fix things, if you want to fool with it. But if you try to stay in your lane in the beginning, it'll teach you about those three color schemes, then you develop that intuitive sense when you look at a painting and think, oh, it needs something. What am I going to put in there? You'll have a feel. And I will even tell people, I keep my color wheel with me all the time. So I get stuck. And I'll take the color wheel and I go, Well, how many options do I have here? Now go Could I add more red? Could I add more this? Could I add more that and go all the way around the color scheme and something will jump out that'll tell you what to do

Kelly Anne Powers 21:40

for acrylics? What's the biggest difference between professional student and craft paint? And why do you suggest one over the other? Well, I always tell people to use professional paint

Annie O'Brien Gonzales 21:51

because the student grade paint has fillers in it. The pigments aren't very strong I was I moved my studio signed a bunch of craft paint in there from projects because I do like my Crafty Things as well. And I had a some paints we were using at Christmas and I thought oh, this is a beautiful pink, maybe I'll try to use this pink and it just had no pigment in it. You couldn't mix it with another color and get a true mixture, you couldn't get a nice strong rich color. So what I tell people, when you're learning you need every little boost you can get. So why start with paint that's going to make your results not as positive to you. So I tell people professional paints aren't inexpensive setup, but start with fewer colors, but better paint and learn to mix those colors learn what an altar marine blue can do, whether it's mixed with a warm CAD red versus a cool magenta, what do you get when you mix that blue with those two different reds. So stick with what I tell people is six basics plus the titanium white, I think you'll have much better results and be happier with your progress. Because sometimes I I hear about people that use house paint and crap paint all kinds of things. But I just believe you know, you'll be more happy with your results with professional paint. Now I like both the heavy body and the fluid acrylics. Partial to golden, although I also use liquid text, but I am partial to golden and not that fluid acrylics have higher pigment load in them. So you get very rich mixture. So sometimes I'll mix up fluid acrylic with a heavy body if I'm trying to make a beautiful purple lover, I love those paints and glazing, I love glazing that's my current obsession. In fact, I'm going to put a video up on glazing for people because it's really kind of a magic technique. So I think professional heavy body and fluid paints, you know, they're worth the investment and you can buy small bottles of fluid acrylics, so you don't have quite as much of an investment in

Kelly Anne Powers 24:01

speaking of investment, acrylic paint dry out very quickly. How do you manage that when you're working

Annie O'Brien Gonzales 24:10

with acrylic paint. And I think this is important because a lot of us learn to paint, either through books or teachers that were oil painters, they weren't acrylic painters. So there's that whole layout your palette thing where you squeeze a dollop of paint in a certain sequence all the way around. Now I do that with oil painting. But I do not do that with acrylics, because if I did that here in New Mexico, those paints would be dry before I ever got to them. So what I do is I squeeze the paint into a plastic bead box that you get at craft stores for $3. Squeeze it into the bead box, that way I can spray it periodically with water, snap it shot when I'm not using it. And that functions as my palette, then I use my paper palette just to mix color. So I take a little dollop of oil I need out of the box and mix it on that paper palette. And that way my paint doesn't dry out. I do keep a spray bottle and spray it frequently to you know to make sure everything stays moist. And I like to use a matte medium of fluid matte medium to help the paint spread. So I don't have any trouble with that. And I actually have gotten to the point you know where I enjoy the fact that the paint dry so quickly on the canvas, and I can keep going with my painting and the method I used to paint and the method I teach is so sequential painting in layers. And that works really well with acrylic

Kelly Anne Powers 25:36

painting. Two things I'm hearing from you is you mix exactly what you need when you need it. And then also sounds to me that you're really good at mixing the color you need. So if you find a color that's beautiful, and you mix it and you use it in a flower, you're pretty confident you can get back to that color again.

Annie O'Brien Gonzales 25:55

And I tell people when you reach a point where you see a color and you go, Oh, I don't know how to do that I can do that, then you know you've really learned color. But the way you get there I tell people this is so much fun is go get paint chips at the hardware store, just pick the ones you like, you know, you're strolling down the paint aisle and you pick out these beautiful purples or greens or whatever. And you get back and you go, oh my gosh, how do I mix this? And just start to teach yourself color mixing by using those chips? And does it need a little more of its compliment? Is it $1 green? Is it a brighter green, does that mean it needs some yellow is that warmer, cooler, darker, lighter, those elements and see if you can mix to that color. And that's how you'll get there. And you'd be surprised how quickly you can learn to mix to those colors. If you just start thinking dark, light, warm, cool, doll, brilliant. Those are the contrasts. And you say to yourself, okay, this green on the paint chip or on the canvass the sleeve, it's $1 Green, then I need to add a little compliment to dial it down. Or it's a cooler green, I'm going to add a little bit of blue to it to cool it down. So you'd be surprised how quickly you can get there. I've been painting now 15 years pretty solidly, so I can keep it in this little box, mix it on the palette. And then if I need to go back to it, I can mix it again,

Kelly Anne Powers 27:26

talking about the learning to suck, you can look at a color and say, I know how to paint that. That also is some incentive to stick to that limited palette, because then you'll know every time I feel you bring in a new color, which is so enticing, like there's so many beautiful colors, it's so enticing to have a palette of 20 colors, possibilities.

Annie O'Brien Gonzales 27:49

I know it's tempting, and you go in there and you pick up like five different blues. Well, what I tell people is that, you know, if you got the money to spend on paint, and you love colors, go for it. But then build yourself swatch. Like say, take your five blues, and say you only have a warm and a cool red. Take your five blues on one side and your two reds on the top and mix a little swatch of each one and go, Wow, that turns into like crazy, bright purple, or that turns in, you know, like a cat red medium mixed with a cool fellow blue, you're going to get kind of a muddy grade down purple, you know, you're not going to get that bright, bright, bright, because that cat red is so warm. And that way if you do that, if you practice with that, then you go on, that's not where I was going with those flowers think I'm going to use this cobalt blue, or whatever to get there. So you'd be surprised how quickly you can really pick up on that. And those little swatches like I've had some up on my wall for years, I probably have, well, I have every color of red that they make, because I do so many pink flowers. And I what I did was my swatch and I mixed every one of those reds with a little bit of white to see what kind of pink Can I get out of this. So I've got a whole pink and red swatch that I can look at, if I go Oh, I need a carnation color, then I want to use this kind of red. And it's it's really kind of fun, I try to do stuff like that. On the days when I don't have a specific idea of what I'm going to paint, I just want to go in and do some busy work, then make yourself some swatches,

Kelly Anne Powers 29:25

talking about how you approach a painting. I've read before that you said figuring out your process was a big deal for you,

Annie O'Brien Gonzales 29:33

I think it's helpful to have the system

Annie O'Brien Gonzales 29:35

so you don't get lost. It's sort of like what I was saying with color is people think expressive painting is this wild and crazy person. And they're kind of just throwing paint around. And you know, and that's fine. If you've learned all the lessons of color and composition, and you know, this is going to work and it you can intuitively do that. But if you're still trying to get this down, I think it's for me, it's better to have a system

Kelly Anne Powers 29:59

learn is really fun. But it's also really exhausting. And it's sort of useful to not have to walk into the studio every day and make all the choices, that there's some choices sort of made for you and just say, Okay, this is what I'm doing.

Annie O'Brien Gonzales 30:17

I think that's right. I hadn't thought of it that way. But I think that might be why it's reassuring to me, well, well I started painting that way is because it's overwhelming sometimes and us, I remember standing there, just realizing this isn't working, but I don't have a clue what to do about it. And by doing this sort of systematic approach, I realized, you know, if I, let's say I get as far as blocking in the color, and I realized, Oh, you know, I'm not crazy about this acrylic paint is so forgiving, you could go back and paint over that at that point, and then move on from there. And that's what I tell people is, I really believe acrylic painting is the easiest way to learn to paint to learn the things you need to learn. And then if you want to move on from that to other things because of that. But if you start to just throw it all on there, and you get all confused, and you're like, Oh, now I don't even know what colors I'm using. Or I don't even know why I put that shape there. The other thing is in in this notebook that you're keeping of things that you're attracted to, you'll discover that I love stripes, or, you know, I like to have a lot of polka dots in here, or I just want clean blocks of color in my painting and you start to look at other painters and and that's the other myth I was going to talk about is people think that you're supposed to just in your brain, when you walk in in the morning, these things, just original thoughts just come into your head, right that nobody's ever done in the history of the world. And I just don't believe that's true. Now, there's obviously some geniuses out there that that happens to but everybody who's learned to paint has looked at other painters, even to the point that you could walk in museums and see people painting classic painters paintings, that's how they're learning to pay. They don't sign their name and say I did the Mona Lisa, you know, they're not doing that. But what they are doing is they're learning from the people ahead of them. And I believe you can do that. And if you begin to collect the things that you respond to I love David Hockney, I love Georgia O'Keeffe. I love Mathias is my main guy. I love Matisse. I like all those people. But what I've done is I've tried to study their work, think about their work and the decide what are the elements I love, not just I think I'll copy this Matisse painting. But what are the elements now I might start by copying a Matisse to get a feel for it. And then I move on to my own subject matter. And I use the sensibility with color, and the looseness that I saw in those paintings. In my own subject matter. You know, I think that comes with that thinking about painting that you were talking about thinking about? What is your vision, George Oh, keeps a great example. I'm a docent at the O'Keeffe museum. I've been doing this for 10 years. So I'm in there all the time, I'm reading about or I'm studying. I couldn't paint like George O'Keefe, if my life depended on it. You know, I mean, she's a genius. But what I've learned is her sensitivity to color, and also her approach to her life. And her RJ Keith had a lot of obstacles, but she just said, I'm going to do this, this is what I'm going to do, you know, regardless. And that's what I love about her. So that's what I've taken from her to try to put in my own work, because I'm not going to worry about other people, I'm just going to do what I love.

Kelly Anne Powers 33:44

How important is painting every day.

Annie O'Brien Gonzales 33:48

Like a lot of people that are coming into painting, I had a real job at one point that I had to go to every day, and show up with responsibilities and all of these things. And I had children. And so I always say that, you know, my work ethic is Yeah, I go in every weekday and paint. That's what I do. If I'm home, I paint every day, everybody has their own circumstances. I don't begrudge anybody who's oh my gosh, little children, I didn't paint when I have little children. I was lucky to do Halloween costumes. You know, when my kids were young, I did Halloween costumes, I did birthday cakes. I knew how to do dollhouse. It's all creative. But if you've got the time and you love it, and you have the passion for it, I mean, I've given up gardening for painting, gardening used to be my passion, and I don't have time for gardening, because I made a choice to paint instead, you just have to decide, I think your progress, I do believe it's proportional to the amount of time you spend at it. That's what I've learned. And, and I love it. I love the act of just being there painting, I paint a lot of paintings, a lot of them never see the light of day. But it does speed up your progress if you can paint a lot.

Kelly Anne Powers 35:00

So on the one hand, be kind to yourself, if your life isn't set up right now, to paint, but maybe keep notebooks keep ideas. Keep that record keeping and sort of the brain activated and learning to see and learning to think. And then also on the flip side of that. Maybe look at your life, and see if there are things that you're willing to give up. Like you said gardening, which is no small thing to give up, say like, Is it worth it for me to have more time to paint? Exactly. I mean, what is it that you're willing to give up?

Annie O'Brien Gonzales 35:36

Oh, my gosh, when my kids were young, I like I said there was no room for painting. And I've had people come to workshops. And this is their one three day block to paint this year. And I always give those people a lot of support, because they're going to go back home and they're going to be making lunches and taking kids to school. I mean, I have grandkids and I know how much time they take for my daughter. So no, not at all. But real. I said, Everything you do goes into this creativity. Like I look back now and realize all of that dollhouse making and birthday cakes and all of that stuff. It all was an outlet for that creativity. And so was when I went to a city I'd look for the museum, an art museum or a gallery or something that was interesting or, but then if you really, if you're really passionate about it, if you have that desire to do it and learn it, there's no reason why you can't. Honestly, it doesn't matter what age you are, where you are, if you can carve out the time you decide I'm not watching TV, I'm going to paint in the evening, this is I'm going to stop doing whatever to in order to learn to paint that one question I have is to really target what it is you need to learn. And don't feel like you have to go all over the world to take classes or whatever or go back to art school to get a degree in art that you really only need an art degree if you're going to teach at a university that why you need a degree in art. Nothing wrong with that I learned a lot in art art school, but certainly at this point in life, I wouldn't do it. You know, there's no way there's plenty of places to learn to paint and pick out what it is you need. Okay, yeah, you know, I would like to learn to mix color, maybe I'll do this class to learn to mix color, and then you've got that in your tools. Just take whatever time you have,

Kelly Anne Powers 37:24

how useful was it for you to from a learning standpoint, to have a subject that you are kind of focusing on?

Annie O'Brien Gonzales 37:31

I think it's really important at some point you kind of go through these phases, you know, you go through that initial get getting your skills together phase. And at that point, it's probably important to try different things do I want to do portraits do I want to want to do figures? Am I a landscape painter do I like florals and still life, I was drawn a while because I was a gardener and I was drawn to painting flowers. I love them. But I used to. I remember telling my friends here in Santa Fe, I don't want to be a little lady flower painter. That's not what I'm going to be I'm going to paint abstracts, because that's what's cool. You know, I remember having that idea in my head until finally one of my friends said would you just stop and paint what it is you love, just do it. And then I did actually after I felt like my skills were had come together a bit, I did actually get a mentor. And I think that might be an important thing to mention is after you get certain to a certain point, and you're still want to go a step further, get somebody you trust who's further ahead than you are to mentor you and give you a real honest critique and maybe see things that you can't see. And this person said to me, I showed her a portfolio of paintings that were literally all over the map. I had a show once now this is this I'll tell this story on myself. One time I had a show the banks here will sometimes have art shows the very first time I've ever showed my work was at the bank. And I was in there hanging up paintings in the sky walk through and said what group is this because every painting look like a different person painted it, I was all over the map. And about that time it was when I realized I need to kind of pull it together on what I'm most interested in. And when I got the mentor, she said to me, You need to go this direction. This is obviously what you love, go down this road and take this as far as you can take it. That was her advice. And that's when I really started doing a lot of florals and still life and just honing in on that. Now recently, I've been doing more landscapes than I had done, I quit doing landscapes for a number of years to just do the florals. And now I'm enjoying doing the landscapes and teaching some landscape classes. But I think it's important to figure out what it is that makes you happy and that you feel successful. And to hone in on that. That doesn't mean you can't try everything, but you do so portfolios where you're just like, Who is this person, when you get to the point of thinking, you might want to show your work somewhere being a show or being a gallery, then you definitely need to have a coherent body of work. Because that's what they're looking for. They get concerned if they see a website where people are doing courses and figures and faces and this and that, you know, that's what I hear. They get concerned about what is who is this person? What's their voice, right, which is

Kelly Anne Powers 40:30

completely fine. If someone purely wants to paint for hobby and is enjoying that. But it sounds like what I hear you saying you find yourself working into corners and you're sort of frustrated. Learning can be easier and more streamlined. And you sort of have a focus. And if you ever decide you want to show your work, things that fall into that more quote unquote, professional artist.

Annie O'Brien Gonzales 40:52

Yeah, I think that's true. And some people may not ever want to do that. I mean, that's a lot of fun. Just paint and paint with your friends go out and paid or, you know, I paint with my granddaughter sometimes. And I mean, it's just fun to paint. So there's nothing that says you have to show your work. And certainly there's a lot more venues Now you don't have to be in a gallery to show work or being an art show, local community shows and then use that want to show your work. I mean, there's a lot of fun things you can do. Now that didn't exist a few years ago,

Kelly Anne Powers 41:24

you teach live workshops, you teach online workshops, and you teach you have video workshops that are available. Depending on where an artist is in their journey is there, one of those that you would suggest over another or how best to someone decide which one of those would be best for them.

Annie O'Brien Gonzales 41:42

If you can get to them in person workshop, it's just a lot of fun to work together. Because I taught for so many years, I really place a lot of importance on giving people personal attention and feedback on their work as they go along. So I feel like a live workshop really jump starts work for we walk through this seven step method, we produce a lot of work and people learn to critique side by side with them so that they get feedback on what am I looking for when I look at that painting before it's finished. So I think that's probably the best, but I have an online master class up that is literally from start to finish from picking up the surface to the paint colors to setting up to and then there's for complete walk through different color schemes. So I tried to make that comparable to a five day class. That's the master class. And now I'm in the process of doing some shorter classes, I just put up a shorter mixed media figures class that involves no drawing whatsoever, because people get scared. You know, when you talk about drawing, that's really a lot of fun. I love to do mixed media figures. So I put a short class I'm going to put a short landscape class, I won't have quite the depth on all the the basics of painting. But if somebody wants to jump in and do some expressive landscape classes, and then I have some ideas for some other classes. So those i think you know, the good thing about classes and I take a lot of online classes of techniques that are new to me as you like for mine, you get to keep it forever. So you can jump in whenever you want to. And when you have time. So if you're for instance, you're busy with kids or a job or you just think I'm going to do this on vacation that's a lot more accessible for people if they can't get to a live workshop, and I know it's expensive to travel somewhere and take a workshop, books and videos are kind of the same way if it depends on what kind of learner you are, too. I tried to make the two books you know where you could walk through different projects as you get time to do it. So it really depends on what kind of learner you are what works best for you.

Kelly Anne Powers 43:53

Any just general advice for people who are learning to paint.

Annie O'Brien Gonzales 43:57

I tell everyone to be patient with yourself be positive, start calling yourself an artist create a little what I call an elevator speech where you if somebody asked you what do you do you say I'm an artist, and I paint flowers and I love it and somebody says, Well, what do you want to do with your art say, Well, I'm hoping that I can join a gallery or I'm hoping I can give my children paintings to remember me by you know, whatever it is you want to say but kind of have that ready in your head. I mean, I've known people that they apologize for their art or they apologize for painting, you know, make sure you celebrate it and enjoy it and it should be fun. And that's what I would say.

Kelly Anne Powers 44:36

Thank you so much for joining us today Annie. You can find more about Annie including great learning tools like her in person workshops, video workshops, and online workshops that she just talked about at Annie O'Brian Gonzales calm and we'll link to all of that in the show notes. So thank you so much

Annie O'Brien Gonzales 44:52

for joining us today. Great. Thank you so much Kelly.

Kelly Anne Powers 44:55

Thanks for listening to today's first episode of the Learn to paint podcast. Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts, and if you learn something new from the episode, share it with a friend. Remember check out show notes including art terms at Learn to paint podcast comm slash podcast slash episode one see in two weeks. Happy painting