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Category: learn to paint

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Overload

North-South Lake, the Catskills, 9X12, oil on canvasboard, by little ol’ me.
I have been in many spectacular places around the world, but I never realized that one of them is practically in my backyard, and I’ve never seen it before. This is NYS Route 23A in Greene County.
This is most peculiar because I’ve been in Palenville (through which 23A passes) several times to hang with my buddy, painter Jamie Williams Grossman. I guess we just never turned right before.
North-South Lake, the Catskills, 9X12, oil on canvasboard, by little ol’ me (and not quite finished).
Palenville was a center of the Hudson River school. Thomas Cole, Frederic Church, and other notable painters stayed and worked there. (Palenville is also the fictional home of Rip van Winkle, although it’s surprising that he could get any sleep, between the waterfalls, the Great Horned Owls, and the frogs and peepers who sing in the night.)
Rain was on the forecast, but it was a far nicer day than anyone anticipated.
Route 23A passes several of the Catskill High Peaks before dropping into the Hudson Valley via Kaaterskill Clove.  The section I drove today runs along Kaaterskill Creek in the general area made famous by the Hudson River painters. It’s no surprise that they loved it; it’s stupendous: the narrow rock walls vary between green, grey and red, and great boulders are washed in spray as the creek bounces its way down the steep gorge.  
Beavers hard at work everywhere.
We met—a group of sixteen New York Plein Air Painters—at North-South Lake. This was a favorite subject of the Hudson River school, particularly Thomas Cole. For a long time, the prestigious resort hotels in the area made it synonymous with the Catskills.
The park includes the site of the Catskill Mountain House, built in 1823. It was one of the premiere vacation spots of the 19thcentury. Today, all that’s left is the view—miles and miles of the Hudson River at your feet—and the forest paths.
Never one to waste a canvas, Patricia McDermond painted over an unfinished nude, engendering all kinds of comments from bystanders.
Because I’ve never been to this park before, I had to spend some time poking around and looking at things before painting. It was a full day, ending much too soon, and I can’t wait to come back.
Tomorrow we will meet at the trailhead for Kaaterskill Falls, made famous by the Hudson River painters. At 260 feet, it’s impressive, even for someone raised in the shadow of Niagara Falls.

There are still a few openings in my 2014 workshop in Belfast, ME. Information is available here.
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The scene of the crime

My errant palette knife has returned home, with a spiffy monogram.

After a beautiful drive across the state, I arrived at Palenville in mid-afternoon. Unpacked and rested, I wandered into Jamie Grossman’s kitchen, where she handed me the palette knife I’d dropped in her creek last summer. Not only did she return it to me, she returned it monogrammed.

A wee little sketch of rocks and a tree.
Patricia McDermond and I had 45 minutes to paint or draw before it was time to dress for dinner, so we wandered back to the creek with our watercolor sketch kits. I didn’t fall in this time, but I didn’t paint much that was brilliant, either. Three fast and weak watercolors in my notebook and I was done.
A wee little watercolor sketch of the same tree. One drawn and three watercolor sketches in less than an hour.
It usually takes me about three hours to do a 9X12 plein air painting. But that doesn’t include the driving time, the sketching time, or the falling-in-the-creek time.
Success is a glass of wine on your friend’s deck in the woods.
There are still a few openings in my 2014 workshop in Belfast, ME. Information is available here.
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Doublebooked!

I have two great shows opening next weekend. I hope you can make one or both of them.
Dead Wood, by Carol L. Douglas, 48X36, oil on canvas
God+Man: paintings by Carol L. Douglas
The relationship between God and Man as seen in the built environment.
Aviv Gallery, Bethel Community Church, 321 East Avenue, Rochester NY 14604
Opening June 6, 2014, 6-9 PM
Recurring Night-Deer, Something from a Night-Mare, by Sandy Quang, 18X24
Studio of Carol L Douglas student show
A baker’s dozen of students demonstrating a wide variety of styles and subjects.
The VB Brewery, , 6606 New York 96, Victor, NY 14564.

Opening June 8, 1-4 PM
And on that note, I’m heading downstate to spend the week with my Lower Hudson Valley Plein Air Painter friends! See you next weekend!
There are still a few openings in my 2014 workshop in Belfast, ME. Information is available here.
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More on our student show

Carol L. Douglas Studio Annual Student Show

The VB Brewery, 6606 New York 96, Victor, NY 14564

Opening reception, Sunday June 8, from 1-4 PM

Kitty’s Dog, Moke, by Christine Long
I have an elderly Jack Russell terrier with whom I have a love-hate relationship. Yes, he is pea-brained, attacks small animals, and tries to bite the mail carrier, but he’s also affectionate and loyal.
Yesterday, one of my students, Christine Long, dropped off this painting for our student show. It could be my Max, with the breed’s characteristic pose and slightly worried expression. It will be in our student show in June at the VB Brewery in Victor.

Three abstractions, by Cath Bullinger, Brad VanAuken, and Carol L. Douglas. We’re auctioning these to raise money for the Open Door Mission.
In April of last year, Cath Bullinger, Brad VanAuken and I collaboratedon three abstractions. With the passage of time—and the addition of frames—I think they were quite wonderful.
Of course, they were an experiment, so when I was asked whether one of them was for sale, I was nonplussed and dropped the ball. They’ve been hanging around my studio since.
The three of us have decided to auction off the three paintings to benefit the Open Door Mission here in Rochester. They’ll be hanging in our student show. Just stop by in the month of June and pencil your name and bid in on the silent auction form. At the end of the month, the highest bid wins. And with an opening bid of $50, you have a decent shot of getting a nice painting for a great price, and the satisfaction of knowing you’re helping a great organization.
Camden Harbor Reflections, by Pamela Casper.
Two of my 2013 workshop students have graciously volunteered to send work for the student show. Both are working artists. Pamela Casper lives in NYC and has shown extensively in the United States and Europe. Nancy Woogen paints, teaches and exhibits in the Hudson Valley.

There are still a few openings in my 2014 workshop in Belfast, ME. Information is available here.
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Come celebrate with us

Still life by Jingwei Yang
Art-making is in some ways a hard slog. You have to be willing to try again after disappointment, you have to be more enamored of the process than the results—most of all, you have to keep doing it to be any good.
Speedo: A Hermit Crab’s Mid-Life Crisis, by Nina Koski.
My students work very hard, and we usually see progress in fits and starts—a wonderful painting glistening on an easel suddenly makes up for the days when it doesn’t seem to be working.
It’s easy to get caught up in the day-to-day and forget the progress that’s being made, until you have the honor of having a collection of work piling up on your dining room table in anticipation of a show.
Pericles and Golli, by Nathan Tomlinson.
 A painting in a frame is like a handsome person who dons a suit; suddenly that painting has gravitas, presence, authority. And I suddenly have a large collection of said paintings waiting to be seen.
Maine shore, by Sandy Quang.
So please join us for the opening of our class show at VB Brewery, Sunday, June 8, from 1 to 4 PM. That’s at 6606 New York 96, Victor, NY 14564. The work will be hanging throughout the month of June.
Deck shoes, by Teressa Ramos.
Come paint with me in Belfast, ME! Information is available here.
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Paintings, paintings everywhere!

The Amathus sarcophagus (5th century BC, Cyprian archaic period) was excavated by General Cesnola in Amathus, Cyprus and purchased from General Luigi Palma di Cesnola in 1874. Frankly, it’s absurd to talk about intellectual property rights for objects purchased from tomb robbers. 
I believe that our shared art heritage should be available to all (especially the parts that were plundered in the first place). The Metropolitan Museum of Art  recently announced that it has released 400,000 digital images of its collection into the public domain. While the Met has always had images online, the new database includes high-resolution views suitable for scholarly study.
Two misconceptions need to be cleared up. First, this is not the Met’s whole collection, which numbers far more than 400,000 items. Also, no online viewer can “let you see the pieces as you might if you visited the museum in New York City, in person,” as one breathless reviewer wrote. There is no substitute for a real walk around a museum.
George Caleb Bingham, Fur Traders Descending the Missouri, c. 1845. It’s a lot more fun to see this in person and enter the inevitable debate about whether that’s a cat and if so, why it’s on a boat. But when it’s on the internet, it’s definitely a cat.
On the other hand, many of these objects can’t be viewed in the museum at all, since they’re not on display. That makes this online collection invaluable.
The Met is following a general trend in the art world to make access to artwork easier. The Farnsworth Art Museum bucks this trend, and I wish they’d stop. There is so much that can be learned from studying the technique of a master painter, and not all of us can go to Rockland to look at Andrew Wyeth’s preparatory sketches. (But if you want to, join me for my workshop in Belfast this summer.)
Young Woman with a Water Pitcher, 1662-65, Johannes Vermeer. To choose one work to demonstrate the breadth and depth of the Met’s collection is impossible, so why not start here?
The Met allows dissemination of images for scholarly purposes. What does that mean? Essentially, it means anything that isn’t for commercial gain, like reprinting images on umbrellas, scarves, and coffee mugs—those rights they reserve for themselves alone.
You can view the Met’s collection here.

Come paint with me in Belfast, ME! Information is available here.
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Painting peonies at Highland Park

Peonies by Nina Jarmolych Koski
“If a watched pot never boils, how can a flower completely open while you’re painting it?” asked Nathan Tomlinson at Highland Park on Saturday. I could see his point. At 10 AM when he sketched his idea onto his canvas, the peony in question was half-open. By 2, when we left, it was wilted.
Pretty wilted but still beautiful by mid-afternoon.
The change in the flowers was unusually dramatic, because we were making a dizzying leap from cold spring rain into glorious summer weather. All of Rochester realized it, too, and came out to photograph the flowers.
Peonies, by Nathan Tomlinson.
I didn’t realize it was Memorial Day weekend until we were mobbed by tourists. At one point, Nina Koski leaned over and whispered, “There are four different languages being spoken right next to us.”  Since I love playing tour guide, I had a great time directing people to the lilacs, the pansy bed, and the conservatory, and explaining what a pinetum is.
Peony, by Jingwei Yang.
These three are all very inexperienced painters: Nate has been with me since early February, Jingwei and Nina since the end of February. Their progress has been fantastic in a very short time, and they’re making the leap to plein air painting with a great deal of self-assurance.
Who can resist photographing the darn things?
The biggest problem they faced was that their palettes couldn’t match the chromatic intensity of the peonies themselves, gilded by back light on this beautiful, intense day. Nate, who is using muddy Charvin oil paints, had the most trouble, but there are many things in the natural world that are more intense than any paint can match. The answer, then, is to make the chroma you can muster up sing against the background.
Peonies by little ol’ me.
I had time to do a small watercolor between annoying my students. The nature of watercolors makes it a little easier to give the illusion of high chroma even with a limited sketch kit, so I didn’t suffer quite as much as they did.
Come paint with me in Belfast, ME! Information is available here:

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Lilacs in an old farmyard

Lilacs in an old farmyard, oil on canvas, 14X11, by little old me. 
Yesterday I spent four hours painting standing up. I was able to finish—if not brilliantly, at least successfully. I think I’m on target for recovery before I leave for Maine in mid-July.
Here’s the barn. Ain’t she a beauty?
This barnyard—at G and S Orchards in Walworth, Ontario County—spoke to me the first time I saw it. Niagara County was dairy and apple-growing country when I was a kid, and I really enjoy being up close to a farm again.
But I’m grateful I’m not running it. Gary told me he was up at 3:30 AM, and he would be working until 9:30 PM.
I’ve again laid out the steps of this painting for my beginning painting students:
A careful drawing, to start. This one, again, is in watercolor pencil.

A map of darks using a thin wash of ultramarine-and-burnt-sienna.
A color-map of thin paint. From here you can go forward to paint the details.

Come paint with me in Belfast, ME! Information is available here:

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Come drink beer and admire art

Carol Thiel’s spring landscape.
Painting students of Carol Douglas (that’s me!) will be displaying their work during the month of June at the VB Brewery in Victor. Their friends and family and anyone else who’s interested is invited to join us for an opening gala on Sunday, June 8, from 1-4.
The VB Brewery is the brainchild of Tom and Catherine Bullinger. Catherine is the person who convinced me I should teach painting many years ago, and she was my very first student. Technically, that makes her my longest-enrolled student, although like all retirees, she doesn’t seem to have much time for class these days.
This is Nina Koski’s first-ever class still-life.
This year’s show will feature works by some very new students as well as some old-timers. Several of them have only three or four paintings under their belt as of today. Showing any work at that point is difficult and I applaud them for participating.
This year, several of my Maine workshop participants have offered to send their work in from faraway places. Since they can’t be at the opening, this is generous.
Nancy Woogen is one of my 2013 Maine workshop students from the mid-Hudson region. She is kindly sending this painting for our student show.
The VB Brewery is located at 6606 State Route 96 in Victor. From Rochester, take 490 to Exit 29 (the last one before the toll barriers) and continue east on Route 96. You will go 4.5 miles through the village of Victor. The brewery is on your left.


Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Maine in 2014 or Rochester at any time. My Belfast, ME, workshop is almost sold out. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!
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The cadmium question

The only cadmium in here is cadmium orange. Peppers, 8X6, oils, by little ol’ me.
Yesterday, my favorite color scientist forwarded me this from Golden:
For environmental protection reasons, the European Community is currently considering a ban on cadmium pigments in artist paints. We would like to gather comments from artists concerning the relative importance of these colors in their work, in an effort to better understand the potential effect of this measure.
To complete a brief survey, click here: GOLDEN Cadmium Survey.
I use only one cadmium—orange, For yellows, I prefer Hansa (arylide). For reds, I use naphthol red and quinacridone violet.
That said, losing cadmium orange from my palette would hurt; it’s one of my workhorse pigments in both landscape and figure. I suspect there are substitutes out there, such as pyrrole orange, but I haven’t tried integrating them into my palette.
Mixing your paints and your wine is probably not the healthiest option.
Moreover, the cadmiums are great pigments. Pigments affect technique, and losing the cadmiums, with their great lightfastness and solidity, would be difficult for many painters. Before they toss them out willy-nilly, it’s worth asking what the environmental impact is, and whether their replacements are any safer.
The risk to artists is low, since cadmium poisoning primarily comes from inhalation or ingestion. Unless you’re working in encaustic, you’re unlikely to inhale paint fumes. Pastel artists should already know to use an air cleaner when working indoors. For all painters, gloves or silicone hand lotion is always advisable.
More difficult is that our use of cadmium pigments might endanger others. We all dispose of pigments into the waste stream when we clean brushes. (I just realized this morning that my long-term habit of solidifying waste pigments and putting them in the solid waste stream is counterproductive if my city burns trash for energy.) The stuff also has to be manufactured and milled before it’s turned into paints, and that may be happening in countries where environmental protections are nil.
My palette doesn’t even usually include a true red, for the same reason that it doesn’t include a true green.
Cadmium is present in cigarettes, and the smoking artist inhales dangerous levels of it every time he or she lights up. It is used in the manufacture of plastics, iron, steel, cement, non-ferrous metals and batteries. What percentage of the overall cadmium stream comes from artists, I don’t know, and it’s an important question. I suspect it’s pretty small, but whether that is a moral green light to keep using it, I can’t say.
As for whether the substitutes are safer or not, that’s also an open question. No known health risks are associated with the other red and yellow pigments I ‘m currently using, but the important caveat is that word, “known.” Recent research, for example, has linked azo pigments with basal cell carcinoma.


Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Maine in 2014 or Rochester at any time. My Belfast, ME, workshop is almost sold out. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!