Jamie Williams Grossman Archives | Page 2 of 2

June 2, 2013

Views and Duets

My painting for ABVI’s “Play It Forward.” I know how to defeat this painting for next time I’m asked, BTW.

When last I posted, I had just painted with my fellow NYPAP artists* at Olana, the home of Frederic Edwin Church. This event, spearheaded by Marilyn Fairman, is in honor of NYPAP’s founder, Ted Beardsley, who was the driving force who brought painters from all corners of our state together.

Last year, I left in the late afternoon, since I had to drive back to Rochester. I remember thinking, “It’s nice and I’ll come again, but I am not in love with the views.” (My feelings about grandiose historic homes are generally mildly negative; I mostly thank God I don’t have to maintain them.)

The Catskills are just so beautiful!

This year, I was near the house as evening approached and I suddenly understood the magic of Olana: it is organized around the evening sky. The colors Church caught in his Cotopaxipaintings are really no more magnificent than those he saw many evenings from his porch. Suddenly, as so often happens, my whole view of Church has undergone a sea change and I find myself studying his pinks and reds and considering them not as fantastical but as totally realistic.

But I—wretched creature that I am—had ignored Jamie Grossman’s warning that I didn’t want to paint though the whole day, and I had nary an ounce of energy to paint that fantastic, fantastic sunset.

This year’s waterfall painting… not a success. Last year’s is here.

The next day, many of us gathered at Jamie’s to paint waterfalls. Breakfast and then a brisk walk with friends, and I climbed down to the catchpool and set up. I was cautiously optimistic about this painting, since I’d painted a similar view last year with great success. Alas, it was not to be. Sometimes the mind is willing but the body is weak. I had a hard time concentrating; it was excessively hot; I was already tired and sore from a long day painting the day before. To cap it off I slipped on wet rocks and took a tumble.

But sometimes we are called away from man’s work to God’s work. I was asked a question I never hear in art circles: what does it mean to be ‘born again’? I did my best to answer, and all the way home to Rochester I second-guessed my answers, until I finally realized I am only here to play a very small part in an eternal duet between God and another soul.

I’m never happier than when teaching…

Back to Rochester: Saturday morning promised another hot day, but we met on the canal at Schoen Place, where there was shade and a breeze. It wasn’t a brilliant painting day for any of us, but I’m never happier than surrounded by students and it was no exception.

My tiny landscape of canal path near Schoen Place. I hate wee brushes; can you tell?

But Saturday evening turned out to be one of the weirder days of my art career. I had agreed to paint live at ABVI’s “Play It Forward” event, not realizing that I was actually going to paint indoors at a cocktail party. Well, I’m game for anything, but it was a tough challenge. I duly finished the painting and it was sold for a decent price, and we all went home happy. And when I got in, my husband told me I’d missed one of the worst electrical storms he’d ever experienced. Good thing I was indoors!

Once again, thank you so much, Jamie Grossman, for your hospitality this week. It means more than I can express.

*Remember, NYPAP painters: you have a special discount at my Maine workshops… just for being you. August and September are sold out for my workshop at Lakewatch Manor in Rockland, ME… and the other sessions are selling fast. Join us in June, July and October, but please hurry! Check here for more information.

May 30, 2013

Climbing the Catskills in easy stages

The mist through the early morning trees.

By the time you’re reading this I’ll have painted all day at Olana at the 2nd Annual Ted Beardsley Memorial Paint-Out. Yesterday I drove to Kingston and saw Bruce Bundock’s fantastic show at the Rosendale Café, and then on to Jamie Grossman’s lovely home in the Catskills.

This morning, at the crack of dawn, I set off on an amble through the Catskill countryside. I confess that as much as I’ve wandered the byways of New York, this was the longest hike I’ve ever taken in this area.

Episcopal Church in Palenville was atmospheric as all get out, but when the mist burned off, it was more prosaic.

Outhouses? I have a knack for finding them.

I would love to know the history of this building. It’s a meeting house, with the balcony and rood screen still in place, attached to a house of the same vintage.

The stone wall is a fixture of the northeast, but varies in form depending on the underlying rocks.

Jamie has six waterfalls on her property. I’ve admired this one many times from the bottom, but this morning I looked at it from the top. It’s calling to me.

Sun tea in the early morning mist!

Oh, no! There’s a branch across this waterfall! Where’s the son-in-law with his chain saw when you need him?

May 26, 2013

Drawing or painting?

Ancient Catalpa Tree, 6X8, oil on canvas, by little ol’ me.

It was a week of very unsettled weather, when even NOAA didn’t have a firm grasp on what would happen next. (Among other things, the daytime temperature dropped forty degrees.) After cancelling plans twice due to threatening rain only to watch the sky clear almost immediately, I made plans on Thursday to paint with Carol Thiel. We got to our site in Mendon (south of Rochester), set our stuff up, did our drawings, laid out our paints, and took a few brush strokes—and the sky opened up.

Now, Carol may harbor dreams of getting back there, but I have decades of half-finished paintings in my closet. I know the chances of recreating that opportunity are slim. Sad, because it was a good drawing.

On Friday, I headed west toward Buffalo after rush hour traffic cleared, catching a long traffic jam on the way. It rained all the way to the toll barrier, and by the time I reached Glen Park, it was merely spitting and cold. I was an hour behind schedule. This time I found a bench and sat down to draw in graphite. (I’m off to paint with JamieGrossman this week, and I thought it might be nice to brush up on waterfalls, since she has so darn many of them.)

Glen Park in Williamsville, on a miserable spitting late Spring day… graphite on Bristol board, by little ol’ me.

Saturday dawned clear and cold, with fleecy high clouds. My class was scheduled to paint at a farm in Honeoye Falls, but this being a holiday weekend, I didn’t expect many students. And I was right. It was a good opportunity to introduce a new student to oil painting, so I had my kit with me.

When she left, I was able to crank out the painting of an ancient catalpa tree at the top of this page. Is it a drawing? Is it a painting? Sure. Most importantly, it’s finished.

August and September are sold out for my workshop at Lakewatch Manor in Rockland, ME. Join us in June, July and October, but please hurry! Check here for more information.

May 19, 2012

It’s not easy being green

“Jamie’s waterfall,” 12X16, oil on canvasboard. Painted in two hours flat, and after
packing my car and driving six hours. Only possible because I was working with a color matrix.

We are at that moment when the greens of the northeast suddenly become massive, heavy, and sometimes overbearing to new painters. We love summer, we want to share how delicious it is… and then we hit the wall of green.

Sue Bailey Leo’s version
of my green matrix.

I paint with color matrices wherever possible because they speed the process up, and the more one can get out of one’s own way, the better things go. In the case of foliage, a matrix allows one to separate the different green tones in a painting.

I don’t generally paint with a green pigment on my palette (with the occasional exception of chromium oxide green because it’s the exact shade and weight of summer foliage in the northeast). Instead, I mix them:

This matrix is, top to bottom: black, ultramarine blue.

Left to right: Cad. lemon yellow (or Hansa yellow, depending on my mood), Indian yellow hue (or gamboge hue), yellow ochre.

That gives you nine yellows ranging from high-chroma to subdued, blue to almost orange. In addition, you can tweak each color to either side by adding more of one or the other component, and you can also tint each tone by adding white.

The same matrix, mixed and with the addition of a row of cad. orange in the “yellows”.

Sometimes I shake it up by adding a row of cadmium orange tints, as above.

I’ve taught with this matrix for years and can attest that it helps beginning painters escape the deadly weight of greens, fast.

Sue Bailey Leo’s first trip out this season. Note
how effectively she was able to separate the greens.

And here is me, painting in a creek this week. Never happier than when wet, cold, and totally into the process.

Painting in the creek in front of Jamie’s waterfall, at dusk. I loves my Keens!

May 2, 2012

Experimenting

Cloud moving in over Oxbow Outlet, Oil on canvasboard, 16X20

I stopped to see my pal Jamie Grossman last week, and we fell into a conversation about sketchbooks. We both use them religiously, but (unlike Jamie) I tend to use the cheapest sketchbooks available and fill them with scribbled notes. Ever generous, Jamie gave me a Stillman & Birn Alpha Series sketchbook and suggested I try using it with watercolors, gel pens, acrylics, or ink instead of simply drawing with a pencil or graphite stick.

Sketch #1, from the seat of my car.

Jamie does lovely sketchbooks that hover on the line of being artist’s books—very lovely, very lively. I’m not interested in going there, but I can see the value in doing color sketches instead of pencil sketches. And all mental stretches are a good thing, right?

Balanced sketchbook on top
of my pochade box.

I like to sketch whenever I have to sit, so I brought it with me to church last Sunday. However, a dynamic young rapper named CuevasWalker was preaching, and he defied capture in any form except the loosest gesture drawing.

I am in a self-imposed hermitage this week, which seems like the perfect opportunity to test Jamie’s idea. I brought only a #2 pencil and a Cotman pocket watercolor kit (with its one brush). My reasoning is that if my sketch kit expands beyond what I can put in my pocket, it’s useless.

Sketch #2. I still can’t bring myself to
paint across the spread like Jamie does…

Obstacle number one was apparent as soon as I reached my location: sketchbooks don’t fit on easels; they need to be balanced. My first sketch, therefore, was done from the driver’s seat of my trusty Prius—and I worked very fast because I was parked in a fire lane.

I tried again, balancing the sketchbook on top of my pochade box. That worked just fine, but I don’t think this sketch told me more about my composition than a pencil drawing would have.

Bug repellent… a necessity in
the spring in the Adirondacks.

Then I moved to oils. And that ended up being one of those transcendent experiences where one is totally engrossed in the process of painting, and whether it turns out well is immaterial (although, looking at these sketches, I do wish I’d worked from my original vantage point).

I will try this process again today. Marilyn Fairman joins me to paint for two days. I’m both excited to paint with her and sad to see the solitude end.

P.S. Sorry about my month’s absence. We were marrying off our eldest, and that was an amazing project in itself, one which left no time for other creative ventures.

The place itself…