Scott Tallman Powers is an artist who travels the world looking for subjects to paint. Destinations often include Third World countries. This art DVD from Liliedahl Video Productions contains many practical tips for painting on the road that are useful whether you are going to be painting among villagers in a foreign country or staying closer to home and traveling to unfamiliar locations. Scott frequently paints on location and creates reference material to paint from back in his studio. His process includes plein air painting, photography, compositional studies and studio work.
Life in the Market is an advanced DVD that contains a significant amount of information that can be utilized by many levels of painters. A number of things in Scott’s approach are unconventional and should be viewed as an alternative for consideration and not the standard. There are jewels to be plucked out and some better left behind. You need to remember these techniques are the result of Scott refining them to suit his preferences. Some will work for everyone but not all will work for anyone other than Scott. He goes so far as making some of his paint brushes. It is important to realize that Scott is able to venture outside the realm of standard techniques because he has formal training and a solid foundation in the fundamentals.
The DVD presentation begins with advice for the traveling painter. This covers everything from dealing with the crowds that you may attract being the alien participating in an unfamiliar activity in a foreign land, spotting repetitive patterns representative of activity in a busy area, the camera and inconspicuous photography, taking useful reference pictures, to guarding against theft and robbery. Often Scott is in unfamiliar territory and has little idea of everything that is taking place. He asks many questions and takes notes gathering information about his subjects and their activities. He looks for subtle details to include as “discovery” items that serve to continually stimulate the viewer as they linger on the painting.
Life in the Market covers color and B/W studies, thumbnails and photographic references used to create a composition for the painting. Scott utilizes plein air and studio studies, digital prints and computer monitor references. He offers useful advice on selecting what to paint and what to avoid when painting a scene heavily populated with people and activity. Using a wide variety of sources he pieces together his compositions to create a strong painting. He advocates painting from life as much as possible so you know what is lacking in photographic references, i.e. blown out highlights, dark shadows and color and lens distortion. This also serves to embed the environment in your memory. You will notice colors and other details that are inherently muted in a photograph. You gain the experience of painting the scene before working on a final painting at a future time back in the studio. While painting in the studio he works off an array of references staged around his workspace.
Scott’s technique for this painting includes compressing values (Scott calls it restricting values). Because he is pulling from a wide range of different source material this increases the difficulty. He works at pushing the composition to increase impact. He has to make adjustments so everything looks like it took place at the same time, in the same place and in the same light. There must be continuity so the composition is plausible and nothing stands out that causes the viewer to question its relationship to everything else in the painting. In one figure, for example, he uses the position and posture of one figure but the clothing from another figure standing to the side in the reference photo. He alternates back and forth developing the theme and focal point making adjustments and revising his original concept as he works. This is not advisable for the beginning painter but it is interesting to observe as Scott is able to pull it off.
This is an art DVD that you will benefit from watching multiple times and in segments as well as at different speeds. There is a lot of content. It moves slowly while it includes Scott’s thought process as he encounters different problems and works out the composition. Sometimes you will need to view it in real time. Other times you will want to speed it up and observe the process in masses benefiting from the simplification that a faster speed provides.
Scott works off a relatively messy palette. It is an organized mess......organized enough for Scott. He premixes his palette before the painting session. His mixtures do not include value strings. He adjusts his initial mixtures as he works.
Visually, the production utilizes good camera positioning and superimposed reference captions. I never felt like the camera was in the wrong place or missing anything. Multiple closeups record all of the details. With many art DVDs if there is an image of the completed painting on the cover it is convenient to hold the DVD case so you can refer to the image while different areas are being worked on. It is not feasible to have captions on screen throughout the execution of the painting. There isn’t enough screen real estate. If this were a portrait or still life there would be a camera angle interspersed that captured the source and the canvas. This is not possible with a composition pulled together using so many sources such as this DVD demonstration.
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Life in the Market
Running Time: 6 hours
Rating:
Art
Level:
Advanced
Summary: This is a demonstration of the advanced techniques of Scott Tallman Powers. The DVD is especially useful for those wishing to create good references in the form of thumbnails, plein air studies, photographs and written notes then using references in the studio where they are harvested for bits amalgamated into a strong composition. Although these two themes are introduced and addressed as chapter segments, they are continually revisited as Scott works on the painting.
Images © Scott Tallman Powers, Liliedahl Video Productions and American Artist Workshops, respectively.
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Life in the Market covers color and B/W studies, thumbnails and photographic references used to create a composition for the painting. Scott utilizes plein air and studio studies, digital prints and computer monitor references. He offers useful advice on selecting what to paint and what to avoid when painting a scene heavily populated with people and activity. Using a wide variety of sources he pieces together his compositions to create a strong painting. He advocates painting from life as much as possible so you know what is lacking in photographic references, i.e. blown out highlights, dark shadows and color and lens distortion. This also serves to embed the environment in your memory. You will notice colors and other details that are inherently muted in a photograph. You gain the experience of painting the scene before working on a final painting at a future time back in the studio. While painting in the studio he works off an array of references staged around his workspace.
This is an art DVD that you will benefit from watching multiple times and in segments as well as at different speeds. There is a lot of content. It moves slowly while it includes Scott’s thought process as he encounters different problems and works out the composition. Sometimes you will need to view it in real time. Other times you will want to speed it up and observe the process in masses benefiting from the simplification that a faster speed provides. 
