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Category: plein air

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Last evening class of summer

When we realized our Auburn Trail site wasn’t going to work, we put up this nifty sign. Went back after class to take it down, and it was gamely hanging in there!

The wise artist investigates locations by painting them repeatedly and in depth, which is why Cezanne had his Mont Sainte-Victoire, Homer his Prout’s Neck, and Van Gogh his Saint-RĂ©my. This is why I usually hold my evening plein air classes in the same location for a full season.

Last evening class of the summer and I finally found a painting site that tripped my trigger. That’s Catherine, Sandy and Carol in Powder Mills Park.

This summer, however, we were a restless group. The Erie Canal at Schoen Place worked for a while, but didn’t have enough variety for an entire summer. Tinker Park seemed too manicured, and the part that is compelling (the swamp) is a long way back from the parking lot. The Center at High Falls closed and took away our High Falls restroom. Barben Farm is lovely, but I didn’t want to wear out our welcome.

Isn’t it lovely?

Wednesday evening promised to be very fine. We decided to try our luck with the Auburn Trail in Victor. A rails-to-trails project, it is about 9 miles long, following the old Auburn and Rochester Railroad. The site we were interested in is a thousand feet or so off the road, where a spur of Irondequoit Creek crosses the trail.

Young Sophia is trying to take credit for Sandy’s painting.

My initial scheme was for our mobility-impaired student to zoom down the path on her walker. (She’s very quick; she just needs support.) However, the trail was very recently graveled, so the surface was too soft for her walker’s wheels. My second scheme was to move the barrier cones aside and drive her down in my car. My conscience kicked in, however, and I couldn’t do it. No cars, I admitted to myself, meant no cars.

Carol Thiel brought some paintings to show us from a recent paint-out in Saranac Lake. I particularly like the middle distance in this one.
Isn’t this a neat idea? Old textbook, repurposed as a sketchbook. Great for value studies.

So we relocated to the fish hatchery at Powder Mills Park, and there we found the beautiful painting site we’d been searching for. Virginia was overjoyed to paint pond scum. The rest of us concentrated on more conventional views. Meanwhile, cedar waxwings flitted around us and a bluegill cavorted in the shadows. It was a magical end to summer.

And Lyn’s painting went head over teakettle on the ground, followed by her cup of mineral spirits, which sat in a puddle on the top of the painting. All in all, a great time was had by all.
Join us in October, 2013 at Lakewatch Manor—which is selling out fast—or let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in 2014. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!
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Camden Plein Air, 2013

A Fitz Henry Lane Kind of Day at Camden Harbor, oil on canvas, 12X9

On Sunday I zoom back to Maine to participate in the Camden Plein Air Paint-Out and Wet Paint Auction being sponsored by Camden Falls Gallery.

Over 20 artists will be painting en plein air in and around Camden from Monday, August 26 to Monday, September 2, Labor Day. A live auction will be held at the Bok Amphitheatre in Camden Harbor Park (behind the public library) on Saturday, September 7 from 6:30-7:30 pm, following a reception from 5:30-6:30 pm. Proceeds will benefit the Camden Windjammer Festival, Camden Public Library, and Penobscot Marine Museum.

This year’s participating artists include: Tania Amazeen-Jones, Bill Barton, Todd Bonita, Paul Bonneau, Lee Boynton, Ian Bruce, Allen Bunker, Beaman Cole, Dan Corey, Alison Dibble, F. Michael Dorsey, Stephan Giannini, Eric Glass, Alison Hill, Kirk McBride, Aline Ordman, Colin Page, Judith Schuppien, Diane Scott, Janet Sutherland, Michael Vermette, and little ol’ me.

Because I won’t be teaching, I will do my best to post my day’s painting live each day.

Join us in October, 2013 at Lakewatch Manor—which is selling out fast—or let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in 2014. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!
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That “how-to” I didn’t do yesterday…

Megunticook River at Camden, ME, 9X12, oil on canvas, by little ol’ me.
Yesterday I intended to write about how I do field sketches, but distracted myself with raving about a most-excellent new student. Today, then, I get down to business. This is my method of producing a relatively-quick, finished field study with a minimum of “flailing around,” as my pal Brad Marshall so memorably termed it.
My first step is a value study. Whether I do this with charcoal, greyscale markers, or pencil is immaterial—if the value structure doesn’t work, the painting won’t work. 
A value study can be done in charcoal, with greyscale markers, or in pencil.
As I mentioned yesterday, I decided to decompress the center of the painting and omit a wall that encroached on the view from the left, and both—in the end—proved to be the lesser choices. I can’t call those highly-subjective decisions “wrong,” but I did change my mind halfway through.

The Megunticook River wending its way through Camden’s old buildings. Isn’t it beautiful?

 My next step was to draw the picture on my canvas. This is never simply a question of transferring my rough value sketch; nor is it a finished drawing into which I paint. What I do is a carefully-measured map of the future painting. I find this particularly useful when painting architecture, where measurement matters a great deal. I generally do this drawing with a watercolor pencil. I can erase to my heart’s content with water, but when I finally start painting in oil the drawing is locked into the bottom layer.

Not a transfer of my value study; not a “drawing” per se. A map for the finished painting.

 From there, I blocked in the big shapes, paying attention to preserving the values of my sketch, and working (generally) from dark to light. This is especially important if you plan to take more than a few hours to do a painting, because it allows you to paint through significant changes in lighting.

I say “big shapes,” but while I focus on these, I do not obliterate all the drawing I did earlier.

It was upon reaching this degree of blocking that I realized how little I liked this scene without the wall on the left pushing in against it. Putting it in over wet paint (without a drawing) resulted in it being somewhat vague compared to the rest of the painting, but I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. (Whenever I do something like this, I amuse myself by speculating on what art historians might adduce as a ‘meaning’ of my painterly screw-ups.)
I plan to repaint this scene next week, when I participate in Camden Falls Gallery’s Plein Air Wet Paint Auction. But more on that tomorrow.

Join us in October, 2013 at Lakewatch Manor—which is selling out fast—or let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in 2014. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!
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Painting side by side with a beginner, you learn things

My painting (left), my student’s painting (right).
I had the opportunity this week to paint side-by-side with a student. He has painted exactly three observational pieces in his life, all under my tutelage. However, as a lifelong builder, he actually has pretty decent drawing chops; he just hasn’t dignified his sketching by calling it art.
The Megunticook River runs beneath and between old mill buildings in Camden, ME.
I set out to do a how-to post about my technique for developing a field sketch. He just happened to be standing next to me, or so I thought.
The Megunticook River runs underneath and around old mill buildings in downtown Camden, Me. I loved the light on the water and the shimmering reflections of the white buildings in the background. However, I felt that it would be better to decompress the gap between the far buildings and remove the building that squeezed the scene down from the left. My student chose to represent the scene exactly as he saw it. About halfway through the painting, I realized that my editorial changes—intended to let the scene “breathe”—had in fact robbed it of its idiosyncratic charm. I would not have realized this had I not been looking at his painting taking shape next to mine.
Working a pretty narrow view, in a pretty narrow space.
The owner of the business next door stopped by several times to see what we were doing. He raved about this man’s painting. But my student—like so many of us—couldn’t hear that praise as genuine, or doesn’t understand how truly gifted he is to be able to do this on the third try. 
His palette, acrylics.
“Someday, they’ll be talking about you as the new Grandma Moses, and I’ll be a footnote in your personal history,” I told him.
His finished painting. 
Sometimes you need to see a painting dignified with a frame; it is as if it puts on its tuxedo and is ready to perform. So I tossed his painting in a frame while I framed mine. I think he suddenly realized just how good it is and was shocked.
Later this week, I’ll post my step-by-step instructions. After all, technique is important; the joy of painting… well, that is something far greater.

Join us in October, 2013 at Lakewatch Manor—which is selling out fast—or let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in 2014. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!
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Three paintings on the block in Castine, ME

Midsummer Reverie, 6X8, oil on canvas.  One of three paintings for sale at Castine Historical Society today.
I finally figured out what I like so much about Castine, Maine—it reminds me of Lewiston, NY, where I spent a good deal of time in my salad days.
Anyone who knows Lewiston will recognize a parallel with this from Castine’s history: “In 1607, Samuel de Champlain, the great French explorer and colonizer, sailed up the Penobscot River and wrote of the beauty of the river and its shores. Four years later Father Pierre Biard, a French Jesuit, met here with a group of Indians
”
Owl’s Head Light, 8X10, oil on canvas.  One of three paintings for sale at Castine Historical Society today.
That was three years after Champlain went through Lewiston, but WNY’s Jesuit didn’t arrive until 1640 or thereabouts. Lewiston had RenĂ©-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle and Fr. Louis Hennepin; Castine had Jean-Vincent d’Abbadie de Saint-Castin.
Both regions were contested territory long before the surrounding forests were of much value, because both were on navigable routes into the interior. That means that both places have a great depth of native, French and British pre-colonial history packed into them.

Rising Tide at Wadsworth Cove, 12X16, oil on canvas.  One of three paintings for sale at Castine Historical Society today.
I have three paintings in the Castine Historical Society Art Show and Sale, which ends today. (One of the downsides of not blogging while traveling is that you don’t stay current.) I also recently heard that my mermaid buoy for the Penobscot East Resource Center auction was purchased by a Vinalhaven fisherman. There’s something darn authentic about that.
Join us in October, 2013 at Lakewatch Manor—which is selling out fast—or let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in 2014. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!
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The art of practice, the practice of art

Carol Thiel’s field sketch of Durand Lake, done last Wednesday evening. About 9X12, and about three hours from easel up to easel down. If you read yesterday’s blog entry, you know that I was amazed she could get any kind of a painting out of the scene.
This morning a young woman named Cherise Parris led worship at our church. She is the daughter of two accomplished and well-known Rochester musicians (Alvin and Debra Parris) and she’s been singing since she first drew breath. She has a powerhouse voice.
Cherise uses her voice like an extension of her own self, as a tool to express an idea. I’ve had voice lessons and I’ve sung in choirs, but I’ve never gotten past the point where I’m focused on creating a tone. On the rare occasion when I forget, I usually get a jab in the ribs and a sharp hissed “Mom!” Here’s the truth: I just don’t care enough about singing to actually practice.
There’s a meme based on Malcolm Gladwell’s “Outliers: the Story of Success” that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to make a craftsman. The number seems arbitrary to me, but there’s certainly truth to the idea that, as Thomas Edison is alleged to have said, “Genius is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration.”
I got two pictures by email today from Carol Thiel. Carol took my workshop last October, and has since taken my classes when her work schedule permits. One painting was done before she started studying with me; one was done last Wednesday evening in my class.
A painting done by Carol Thiel last year at the Adirondack Plein Air festival, right before she took my workshop. A nice painting, but she has developed a more sophisticated palette and value structure over the past year.
“They were sitting near each other and I was struck by the difference,” she said. “Both were painted in approximately the same amount of time,” she added. “The Adirondack painting had different conditions—a very dull, cloudy day—but nowadays I would be able to see some other colors in the clouds, darken the darks, etc.”
I appreciate that Carol sees value in my instruction, but there are two parts to this. The first is good teaching, but the second is that she listens to and practices what she learns.
It takes a long time to get to the point where you use a paintbrush as an extension of yourself. I asked Sandy Quang today whether she is there yet. (She’s been studying with me on and off since she was sixteen; she’s 25 today.) “Half and half,” she answered. And I think that’s about right.
All of which reminds me of that old saw: “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” “Practice, practice, practice.”

If you want to take a workshop with me, join me in October, 2013 at Lakewatch Manor—which is selling out fast—or let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in 2014. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops! If you want to study in Rochester, drop me a line here.
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Misty

Winslow Homer, The Artist’s Studio in an Afternoon Fog (1894)

We set out today to discuss Winslow Homer’s use of the diagonal in his coastal paintings. Could there be a more lovely example than The Artist’s Studio in an Afternoon Fog(1894), which is owned by Rochester’s own Memorial Art Gallery? And yet this painting proved even more appropriate than I anticipated, for we painted through mists all day.
Nancy hard at work on a misty bluff.

Arlene painted along the shore.

Matthew among the rocks.

Sue was in the pines.
Rocks and sea are far more energetic than meadows and flowers. To organize them, one must first consider the motive power driving the composition and harness the elements to that force. But added to the constant motion of the sea are the cyclical tides. They make a value sketch invaluable. Inevitably, the painter will lose the thread of his or her composition as the tide rushes in or out or the light suddenly changes. Being able to refer back to one’s value sketch is often the only way to save a floundering painting.
A value study by Pamela… everyone did them.
And look how fantastic the results were!
Pamela’s seascape.
Sue’s seascape.

Nancy’s seascape.

Matt’s seascape.
The second of my Maine workshops is half over, and we’re having a great time. August and September are sold out , but there are openings in October! Check here for more information.
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Mostly, what’s changed are the trees…

Safe Harbor, 20X24, oil on canvasboard, almost finished.

I started this during the last year in which my painting partner Marilyn Feinberg was still in Rochester. It is as big a canvas—20X24—as I ever do en plein air. That size usually takes two or more sessions to finish, but without Marilyn around to schlep up to Irondequoit with me, I seemed to lose the thread. The painting sat on my counter for two summers before I got around to finishing it. (Of course the first time I went out to work on it this summer, I was rained out.)

The Port of Rochester is my favorite place to paint in Rochester, but I don’t do it as often as I should. It’s in the northwest corner of the city; I live in the southeast corner. It seems like I have to travel cross-lots to get there. But once I get there, I wonder why I’ve stayed away so long. (I am grateful to the folks at Genesee Yacht Club for allowing me to paint on their property; they’ve always been gracious.)
My new set-up makes larger canvases more manageable.
Buffalo is at the end of Lake Erie. Its weather blows off the lake and funnels through the city. Rochester is on the side of Lake Ontario. That occasionally produces east-west bands of different weather. This was true today: overcast at my house; raining lightly at Ridge Road; sunny and clear at the lake.
One of the reasons I love painting at the Port of Rochester is that it’s never boring. It’s one of two ports on Lake Ontario that accepts cement by freighter, so sometimes one sees a freighter pushing its way upriver past the recreational boat slips. And I saw two trains pass by within feet of the boat slips today; none of the summer people seemed remotely fazed by them.
Most of the boats were just as I left them (although some were reversed in their slips), and the clouds were piling up to the southwest exactly as they were the last time I was there. Surprisingly, the mature trees across the channel had grown noticeably. I texted Marilyn to tell her that. “It’s one of the things I always notice when I come home to visit,” she responded. “It’s a weird feeling.” I agree. We think of those big trees as timeless and the human structures as changeable, but that’s not exactly how it seems to work.

I have a little more work to do (the reflections, modifying light levels, painting the rigging) and it’s done.
If you’re signed up for my July workshop in mid-coast Maine, you can find the supply lists here. There’s one more residential slot left; I’m dying to know who is going to fill it. August and September are sold out , but there are openings in October! Check here for more information.
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Join me this Saturday for Wine and Watercolors in the garden

Saturday, July 20, 2013, 4:30pm until 7:30pm
Hollyhocks, by little ol’ me.

Summer is just bustin’ out all over, and it makes me want to paint!
Join me for an afternoon of laughter, stories, and painting some sweet little greeting-card-sized watercolors in Lakewatch Manor’s lovely gardens. (There will be an indoor studio option if weather threatens.) Our innkeepers will have—as they always do—lovely wine, flower essence iced tea, and delectable morsels, which will encourage painters of all skill levels.
Rumor has it that daylilies are edible, but I’d rather just do tiny watercolors of them, thanks.
LIMITED SPOTS require an advance reservation. $40 covers all supplies and refreshments. Bring a friend and you each pay $35.00. Call 207-593-0722 for reservation or questions.
The poppies and peonies will be finished, but there is always something in bloom in the northeast during the summer.
The next day is the first day of my July workshop in mid-coast Maine. There’s one more residential slot left in July; I’m dying to know who is going to fill it. August and September are sold out, but there are openings in October! Check here for more information.

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Amazing new diet plan! Take up drawing!

Watermelon & Cherries, by Brad Marshall, oil on canvas board, 11×14. Executing this luscious painting probably elevated Brad’s mood by 22%, but who can tell when he’s already so darn cheerful? It’s for Rye Art Center’s annual Painters on Location in September, and I imagine it will elevate the mood of some lucky collector too.
A report in the Journal of Behavioral and Brain Science suggests that drawing pictures of so-called comfort food can also have positive effects on mood, reportedthe Wall Street Journal.
It’s hard to imagine drawing Texas-style comfort food like King Ranch Chicken Casserole or Frito Pie, since they basically look like lumpy stew. So it’s a good thing this research was done at St. Bonaventure University (here in upstate New York) where “comfort food” means pizza and cupcakes.
Wayne Thiebaud, Four cupcakes, 1971. Oil on canvas, 27,9 x 48,3 cm. Is Thiebaud a very happy man? He certainly should be; he painted enough cakes.
Drawing pizzas improved the subjects’ mood by 28%, while depicting cupcakes and strawberries boosted spirits by 27% and 22%, respectively. Drawing peppers improved moods only by 1%.

Peppers, 6X8, oil on canvasboard, by little ol’ me. They made me more than 1% happier to paint, I swear.
 
Maybe it’s because they made the poor test subjects do their drawings on empty stomachs, but I find it hard to imagine that drawing anything would fail to elevate one’s mood. Especially peppers.

I know one thing that’s going to make me very happy: my July workshop in mid-coast Maine. Nothing is happier-making than painting with great friends in a brilliant place. There’s one more residential slot left in July; I’m dying to know who is going to fill it. August and September are sold out , but there are openings in October! Check here for more information.