The pine nursery (Madawaska Pond), 12X16, oil on canvasboard, available.
Beth Carr, who is both my student and my friend, is planning a trip to Jay, in Essex County, NY. As she knows the Adirondacks were once my Happy Hunting Grounds, she asked me for recommendations of places to paint. I suggested a few, but more importantly, I introduced her to the doyenne of Adirondack plein air painting, Sandra Hildreth.
Two years ago, Sandy took me for a long ride into the forest—north from Paul Smiths, NY and then eight miles down a rough logging track. From there we shouldered our backpacks and hiked a scant eighth of a mile to a point overlooking Madawaska Pond. The money shot (of course) was a view of Buck Mountain in the distance. But what interested me most was the tree nursery in the foreground.
I’d like to go back. Alas, Sandy tells me the road is washed out. I guess nothing lasts forever.
The upside to this is that rotten times don’t last forever, either. Like everyone, I occasionally get into a funk where I wonder why I ever thought I could paint. I’ve been around long enough to realize that these too shall pass. I don’t particularly like Ecclesiastes; it’s depressing. However, Solomon is right in saying that there’s a time for everything. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même.
Which leads me full circle to those baby trees—I wonder how they’re doing?
Portrait of Sir Thomas Elyot, c. 1532–34, Hans Holbein the Younger, courtesy Royal Collection, Windsor Castle. Drawing is important, especially if you’re the artist to a famously murderous king.
I’m certain that as soon as I publish this, one of my pals is going to say, “but what about ___? You love his work!” But here’s my list of the top ten painters of all time, in date order.
The ‘ten’ thing is a joke, of course. This is after I weeded it down to 33.
Sir Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640). Everyone carries on about his plump women, but I think his action paintings are the forerunner of modern comic books.
El Perro, c 1819-23, Francisco de Goya, oil mural on plaster transferred to canvas, courtesy Museo del Prado. Accidental or not, this was the birth of modernism.
Francisco Goya (1746-1828). He was a bit of a misery-guts, but he depicted the horrors of war like no other artist ever.
William Blake (1757-1827). He was eccentric to the point of madness and singular in his beliefs and he gave us the words to the hymn Jerusalem.
Seascape Study with Rain Cloud, c 1824, John Constable, courtesy Royal Academy of Arts
John Constable (1776-1837). He invented plein air, and then went to France and explained it to the Barbizon School. His field studies are as fresh as any modern painter’s.
Édouard Manet (1832-1883). Yes, his social commentary is incisive, but I’m also moved by the little still lives he did while dying.
Winslow Homer (1836-1910). He painted two of my favorite places—the Adirondacks and the Maine coast—and he taught me everything I know about diagonals in composition.
Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890). The older I get, the more I appreciate him as a color and brushwork revolutionary. I just wish he could have been happier.
The Teamster, 1916, George Bellows, courtesy Farnsworth Art Museum
George Bellows (1882-1925). Whether he was painting in New York or on the Maine coast, he was a man of the people. Which is not to downplay the importance of his color or composition.
David Davies, (1864-1939) runs a very close second to Streeton, particularly for his bush nocturnes.
Maynard Dixon (1875-1946) He’s on my list for the way he organizes the chaos and color of the western landscape.
John F. Carlson (1875-1947). His gloomy winter skies, flat landscapes and sweeping woods are a dead giveaway that he grew up in my hometown of Buffalo, NY. Somehow, he manages to make them look good.
Tom Thomson (1877-1917) He treats a subject I love (the woods and water of Ontario) with a raw, vital and uniquely North American version of Impressionism.
Rockwell Kent (1882-1971). He was a brilliant designer, and a painter, printmaker, illustrator, writer, sailor, and adventurer. That’s a life to emulate.
Francis Cadell (1883-1937) is my favorite of the Scottish Colourists, both for his impeccable design and for his light and lovely depictions of Iona.
Greenland Mountains, c. 1930, Lawren Harris, courtesy National Gallery of Canada
Lawren Harris (1885-1920). Of all the Group of Seven, he’s the one who took the longest stylistic and spiritual journey, and most revered the notion of the Great White North.
Sir Stanley Spencer (1891-1959). He was too soft to protect himself against a designing woman, but his depictions of English life, his Biblical narratives and his paintings for the Sandham Memorial Chapel are all moving.
Clyfford Still (1904-1980). Whether you’re a figurative or abstract painter, you can learn so much about design from him.
Wayne Thiebaud (1920-2021). Everyone knows him for his pies, lipsticks, cakes and hot dogs, but he was a brilliant landscape painter.
Lois Dodd (1927-present). She’s a keen observer who knows how to simplify exactly the right amount. She never gets stuck in the weeds.
What painters have influenced you? Who did I miss on my list? Who would you have never included? And why?
Cinnamon Fern, 9X12, oil on archival canvasboard, $869 framed includes shipping and handling in continental US.
Occasionally, I’ll hear someone fumble for a description of a painting and come up with plein air style. Plein air isn’t a style or technique; it simply means painting outdoors instead of in a studio. Plein air allows an artist to capture natural light and colors from direct observation, and it’s a very important movement in art history, starting with John Constable and still popular today.
What these people are groping for is the term alla prima. The confusion lies in the fact that most (although not all) plein air painters also use alla prima technique.
American Eagle in Drydock, 12X16, $1159 unframed includes shipping and handling in continental US.
What is alla prima?
Alla prima (also called au premier coup, wet-on-wet, or direct painting) is a technique where the artist applies paint directly onto the canvas without letting earlier layers dry. This contrasts with indirect painting, which I describe below.
Alla prima is used mostly in oil painting, but it has its equivalent in wet-on-wet watercolor. In alla prima painting, the artist strives for fast, incisive brushwork. It requires skill to avoid making mud, and the artist must work with confidence and speed.
Skylarking, 24X36, oil on canvas, $3985 framed includes shipping and handling in continental US.
Alla prima paintings are not necessarily completed in one session, although the goal is to not let the bottom layers dry before adding more paint. There is minimal layering, and the focus is on capturing the essence of the subject with bold, confident strokes. It prioritizes expression and immediacy over meticulous detail.
This lends itself to a more expressive, loose style, with visible brushstrokes and a sense of movement. In fact, when people tell me their goal is to ‘get looser,’ what they generally mean is that they want to master alla prima painting.
Indirect painting
Before we had oil painting, we had egg tempera, encaustic, fresco and distemper, none of which lend themselves to bravura brushwork. It’s no surprise, then, that meticulous, detailed painting was the first form oil painting took. Just as tempera is layered, so was early oil painting.
In indirect painting, the artist builds up the image with transparent layers. Each layer dries completely before the next one is applied. Indirect painting allows for a high level of control and detail. Artists can build up subtle transitions of color and light, creating a realistic, highly polished finish. Indirect painting’s great virtue is that it creates luminosity that’s impossible to achieve with direct painting. That comes, however, at the expense of brilliant color and brushwork.
Belfast Harbor, oil on archival canvasboard, 14X18, $1,275 unframed includes shipping and handling in continental United States.
Indirect paintings start with a monochromatic underpainting or grisaille: While most direct painters do this as well, the grisaille in an indirect painting is intended to show through subsequent layers. This establishes the composition and tonal values retained throughout the piece.
This base layer is allowed to dry and is followed with diluted, transparent layers of paint (called glazes). These are applied over the underpainting to modify the color. Each glaze layer dries before the next is added. White is lousy for glazing, so in a well-painted indirect painting, the light is reflecting through the paint from the grisaille layer.
Indirect painting was widely used during the Renaissance and Baroque periods. (It’s the only way to achieve true chiaroscuro.) There are artists using it today, but they’re doing so almost self-consciously, as a throwback to earlier periods in painting history.
Back in the last millennium, I learned indirect painting first, alla prima second. (Rembrandt’s style was undergoing a miniature renaissance then.) Today, there are far more modern painters pursuing alla prima than indirect painting, but one isn’t inherently better than the other. In fact, with new materials solving the age-old problems of chroma and cracking, who knows if indirect painting is due for a rebirth?
Sunset over Cadillac Mountain, oil on archival canvasboard, $869 includes shipping and handling.
I’m not certain who among my students at Sea & Sky at Schoodic first suggested the twenty-strokes challenge, but it was so much fun that I asked my students at my Berkshires workshop to do the same thing. If you’ve never done it, it’s a great exercise for controlling the noodling that sometimes ruins a promising start. The only rule is that you do a painting in twenty strokes or less.
We all concentrated on making every shape count, including using a larger, well-loaded brush and filling in all the continuous areas in one shot. I was able to lay out the painting below in four carefully-considered strokes. The rest was just details. (Sadly, I didn’t photograph it before I added some extra emphasis brush strokes.)
Baby pine tree, 8X10, oil on archival canvasboard, private collection. While this final painting has a few more than the designated twenty strokes (I’m terrible at taking process photos) it’s not by a lot.
This was also an exercise to demonstrate that a centered composition is not inherently bad; it’s what you do with the rest of the space that counts. Centered compositions in themselves are imposing and serene. For proof that they work, see King Tut’s funerary mask or Arkhip Kuindzhi’s imposing Russian landscapes.
Before we did that fast-painting exercise, we went out to Schoodic Point to paint the sunset. None of us were counting strokes, but the sun dropping behind a mountain moves very fast. I doubt there are many more strokes in this than the prescribed twenty.
I took it home to my studio intending to finish it, but there is nothing I can do to improve on what’s there. It says everything one needs to say about the sun setting over Cadillac Mountain without a single extraneous brushstroke. Anything I add would diminish it.
How much is that painting worth, anyway?
Sometimes I am asked why a Cy Twombly scribble is worth $70 million. The high-end art market is complicated, being composed of talent, money laundering, speculation, rarity and social cache (and I have no opinion about the value of each).
The same question might be asked about why this painting is worth the same amount as Lacecap Hydrangea and Daylilies, which is the same size and a lot more complex. It’s not about how much I struggled to paint it (and the flower one was a terrific struggle), but about all the knowledge I brought into the painting.
Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket, 1874, James McNeil Whistler, courtesy Detroit Institute of Arts. This is the painting which so peeved John Ruskin.
James McNeil Whistler was panned by the legendary art critic John Ruskin, who by 1877 was no longer up to the challenge of modernity. Ruskin wrote, “I have seen and heard much of cockney impudence before now, but never expected to hear a coxcomb ask two hundred guineas for flinging a pot of paint in the public’s face.”
Whistler sued. He did not ask 200 guineas for two days’ work, he argued; he asked it for the knowledge he had gained in the work of a lifetime. He won, although he received only a pitiable farthing in damages. The case bankrupted Whistler and probably accelerated Ruskin’s mental decline. However, time has vindicated Whistler.
Art is not judged by the effort that goes into a particular piece, but by whether it ploughs new ground, challenges ideas, is technically skilled and provokes a response.
The one that got away–Lauren Hammond’s color exercise, 9X12, that walked from our Berkshires workshop.
Last week I taught a delightful workshop in the Berkshires. I had demonstrated optical mixing (or broken color), and Lauren Hammond worked hard to execute the concept. Her finished painting was so lovely that I took a photo of it. She set it on the ground while she started something else. Thinking I knew better, I moved it to a nearby table so she didn’t inadvertently step on it. Our group was spread out over many acres, so most of the time, Lauren was alone at her easel.
“I think someone stole my painting!” she texted me. In decades of teaching, the closest I’ve ever come to that was when Sue Leo’s camera was lifted in Rochester’s Mount Hope Cemetery. But Mount Hope is near a sketchy neighborhood in a crime-ridden city. Lauren was in a place where I wouldn’t think twice about leaving my car unlocked.
“She’s just overlooking it,” I told myself, and I went back to help her find it. Other students helped us look and the venue manager contacted all her employees, all to no avail. It was gone. Lauren was the victim of an art heist.
The end of the evidence trail. I photographed it and then cleaned up the mess.
I’m an inveterate reader of mysteries, so I hunted for clues. Aha, I thought, here’s one—a painting imprint on another nearby table. But that, sadly, was where the trail ended. I’m no Miss Marple.
People have posited various alternative theories to me. Perhaps it was mistaken for garbage and thrown away. Perhaps they thought it was left there for someone else to take (as in the Acts of Kindness movement). Perhaps it blew away. Because I saw the scene of the crime, I can tell you with absolute assurance that none of these things happened.
Art heist losses are hard to estimate but they’re estimated at around $4-6 billion US per year. Money laundering in the art market is an even bigger problem. In comparison, Lauren’s painting is a drop in a very big bucket. But I take it personally.
Let this be a lesson to you.
Even the safest painting sites need just one bad person to cause trouble, and there are many worse outcomes than losing a painting. Be in the zone but be aware of what’s going on around you. If you’re at all in doubt, paint in pairs. I’ve painted all over the world and never had a problem, but then again I’ve never had a student’s painting stolen either.
Why you shouldn’t steal paintings. Really.
If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you already know this, but humor me. Stealing art is rotten because:
The artist put time, effort, and years of training into creating that work. It’s no different from any other tangible object with value;
Stealing a painting deprives others of the opportunity to experience the work;
Paintings are personal, so stealing one is personal, too.
But I would never do that!
Photographers are people too, so the next time you’re tempted to use someone else’s online photo as reference for your painting, consider their property rights. Go outside and shoot your own reference picture. If that’s impossible, check Creative Commons for open-access images.
Lauren’s last painting of the workshop. Nice broken color, more challenging design.
All’s well that ends well
My goal on the last day was to encourage Lauren to paint something even stronger than the one that got away. I think she did so. It’s more complex and adventurous in design, but the color is just as well-executed.
Is the light warm or cool in this painting? Two Peppers, oil on archival canvasboard, 6X8, $435.00
Additive and subtractive light refer to two different color systems, each operating under different rules. The difference between the two is fundamental in color theory. They both affect painting, as one influences what we see, and the other influences what we put down on our paper or canvas.
Is the light warm or cool in this painting? Tricky Mary in a Pea-Soup Fog, oil on canvas, Carol L. Douglas, courtesy private collection.
Additive Light
Additive color mixing involves combining different colors of light to create new colors. The more colors you add, the closer you get to white light.
The primary colors of additive mixing are Red, Green, and Blue (RGB). When you mix these three primary colors of light at full intensity, you get white. By varying the intensity of these lights, you can produce a wide range of colors.
This is the light system of computer screens, televisions, and stage lighting. More importantly, it’s the light system of the world that surrounds us, thanks to our sun.
Subtractive Light
Subtractive color is what happens in printing, painting, and any medium that relies on reflected light. In them, mixing means absorbing (removing) certain wavelengths of light to produce color. Pigments, dyes, and inks all absorb certain colors and reflect others.
The primary colors of subtractive mixing are, more or less, those you learned in kindergarten: cyan (blue), magenta (red), and yellow. In printing, black is added, creating the CMYK model.
Is the light warm or cool in this painting? Michelle Reading, oil on linen, 24X30, $3,478.00 framed, includes shipping and handling in continental US.
Color temperature
Color temperature is a measure of the color of light, expressed in degrees Kelvin (K). It describes the appearance of light and how warm or cool it looks to the human eye. Understanding color temperature is essential in painting.
At lower temperatures, the light appears red or orange (warm colors). As the temperature rises, the light shifts to yellow, white, and eventually blue (cool colors). Yes, that’s counterintuitive, because what we call warm or cool is influenced culturally, not by science.
Now that lightbulbs are tunable for color temperature, we may change how we feel about this, but historically, we’ve said:
-Warm light appears yellow/orange, and creates a cozy or sunlit atmosphere.
-Cool light appears blue/white, and creates a crisp and focused atmosphere.
-Neutral light: doesn’t have a color… and neither does its shadow.
Manipulating these in painting gives paintings an overall mood, which is why photographers covet the golden hours of early morning and late afternoon.
Is the light warm or cool in this painting? View from Bald Mountain, 24X36, oil on canvas, Carol L. Douglas, private collection.
The color of shadows
Shadows being the absence of light, they are also the complement of the light source (what’s left when the light is blocked). However, they’re not the complement within the subtractive light system, but the additive light system. It’s not as simple as saying “it’s gold light, so the shadow is purple,” although most people wouldn’t quibble about that.
Every color of light has RGB values, which are a system for representing colors on digital displays. We could find the complement, or shadow color, by subtracting the RGB values of the light from 255, which would give us a blue-violet. However, that would be an absolutely insane solution to the question. Instead, use your eyes, which will tell you that the shadows of evening are blue or violet. Or, better yet, use your imagination along with your eyes.
Bouncy, bouncy light
There are some surroundings where reflected color is so strong that it blows out this kind of light structure. The greens of the deep forest are one, sitting under an awning is another, and my studio with its natural wood paneling is a third. In these instances, the dominant color influences everything.
Learn more
I got home to find that I only have one more seat left in Applied Color Theory, which starts tomorrow. But there are always my workshops, below.
Autumn Farm, Evening Blues, oil on canvasboard, $1449 framed includes shipping and handling in continental US.
I don’t scrub out paintings I don’t like. Often, they are signposts for where I’m heading. This painting is slightly different, because I liked it when it was done, but it was different from much of my work at the time. However, it fits squarely into my oeuvre today.
“A real artist doesn’t need an eraser.”
I don’t know where this comment came from, but it’s destructive. Yes, I own an eraser and I use it all the time. That’s why I draw on Bristol instead of soft paper. ‘Real’ artists work and rework subject matter constantly.
What I think it is supposed to mean is, “don’t mind the imperfections and don’t overwork your paintings to get rid of all their perceived flaws.” I do agree with that. Just as we’ve blurred the line between real human bodies and the airbrushed bodies of influencers, we’ve all gotten used to online images with the weak spots airbrushed out. That can make our own efforts feel wonky to us.
Signposts
Fifteen years ago, I lived in Rochester, NY. It’s a city of indirect light. That tends to make for grey paintings. Today I live on the Maine coast, where things are much brighter. My palette has shifted to far brighter color.
When I first started moving in this direction, the heightened color felt garish. Today it feels natural. But to get to that point, I had to let go when things looked awkward. I’m talking here about color, but it’s true of every aspect of painting, from composition to drafting to mark-making. You won’t know if it’s a mistake until you spend time with it.
Is there such a thing as realism in landscape painting?
Gustave Courbet is considered the father of French realism, but it’s hard to not see the editorial in his work. The same is true of the English romantic John Constable and the American realist George Bellows. In fact, I can’t think of a single great landscape painter whose inner vision didn’t override what his eyes saw.
That’s a good thing, which is why we shouldn’t be too quick to snuff out what we see.
Horses
Some of my four-legged friends from Undermountain Farm in Lenox, MA
If you’ve spent any time with me, you know I love boats and the sea. I’m also rather partial to horses, which is why I set up to do this painting. In the distance, coming down the hill, is the Radnor Hunt, the oldest continuously-operated hunt club in the United States. Mostly, hounds and horses just milled around as they lost the scent, which is a far cry from what I thought the hunt was all about.
Midsummer along the Bay of Fundy, 24×36, available.
Given a choice of painting the same subject en plein air or in the studio, I’ll always go outdoors. I think it makes for better paintings, but it’s also a better experience.
In general, painting from life is superior to painting from photos. Photography works out the subject, composition and color for you, and it’s hard to escape its bossiness. People can work from life within the genres of still life, interiors and figure painting, but the natural world is the biggest and best source of observed reality.
The Whole Enchilada, 12X16, oil on archival canvas, $1159 unframed.
Full immersion
Being surrounded by the environment that I am painting is a full sensory experience. Yes, that can include insects and jackhammers, but it’s more likely to include sweet smells on soft breezes and birdsong.
For every painting location, there are many potential subjects and compositions. I once stood on a hillside and painted in each cardinal direction. I didn’t begin to plumb the possibilities of that site.
Painting outdoors lets me experience natural light in its full color spectrum. Look at any photograph of a scene you know and love, and you’ll quickly realize how photos flatten and distort color. And painting indoors under bad lights is just horrible for your color perception.
I’ve painted in rainstorms, in withering heat and humidity, and in blasting Arctic cold. More commonly, I go out when the weather is moderate, but its changeability has taught me ways to control and adapt my painting, and above all, to work fast.
Dawn Wind, Twin Lights, 9X12, oil on archival canvasboard, $869 includes shipping and handling in the continental US.
The great outdoors
Being an outdoorswoman to my bones, I appreciate that plein air painting lets me work in beautiful places. Standing quietly in one place for hours allows you to see it in a different way from that of the typical tourist. People love the natural world but due to issues of time, money and mobility, they can’t always get to it. (I remind myself to be thankful every day I can climb Beech Hill.) Plein air painting is a way to bring nature to a world that’s increasingly insulated.
On the best of days, you can text a photo of a wood lily or an elk to a friend. That’s humbling.
Palm Tree and Sunlight, oil on archival canvasboard, $869 framed includes shipping and handling in continental US.
Some of my best friends are plein air painters
I know plein air painters from all over North America. The crush of plein air events means we’re often thrown together in ways that forge deep friendships. I might not see them for years, but we fall back into our old rhythms of friendship very easily.
I see this in my workshop students, too. There is something about standing on a rock with the same people for a week that fosters closeness.
Plein air is not limiting
Some of my friends love painting architecture; some like painting in large cities (that used to be me). Some are attracted to the bleak industrial wasteland. Some like the high desert, and others like the ocean. I’m easy, myself; I love the landscape I’m with. But there’s no wrong subject in plein air. Beauty is everywhere, and as long as I’m still mobile, I’ll still seek it out.
Toy Monkey and Candy, oil on archival canvasboard, $435 framed includes shipping and handling in the continental US.
As I write my next class, Applied Color Theory, I am building a framework of the most important aspects of color and light for the painter. Color theory is a comprehensive framework that starts with the color wheel and works out from there. If you know your way through the following concepts, you don’t need more color theory. If you’re fuzzy about them, perhaps it’s time for more study.
Hue, Chroma and Value These are the three properties of color.
Color Harmonies This is the idea that certain color combinations are more pleasing to the eye and can evoke specific moods or responses.
Color Context This includes how colors affect each other when placed side by side and the psychological effects of color.
Prom Shoes 2, oil on archival canvasboard, 6X8, $435.
Color Systems and Models We all learned subtractive color (the classic color wheel) in school, but additive color behaves differently. Knowing how light combines will give you a better grasp on color temperature.
Color and Culture Colors have cultural overtones; for example, we believe red is ‘hot’, blue is ‘cool’ and closely-analogous colors ‘clash’. How important are these ideas to painting, and how much of our color sense is just fashion?
Color temperature All light has a color. All shadow has color. How do we figure them out?
Primary Shapes, 6X8, oil on archival canvasboard, $435 includes shipping and handling in the continental US.
Light direction and intensity Light and shadow are fundamental compositional elements. That includes whether light is soft and diffuse or hard and direct. Closely related is:
Reflectivity Whether an object is matte or shiny affects how it plays in the color sphere.
Transparency and Translucency The ability of a surface to transmit light affects how light is depicted. Transparent objects (like glass) and translucent objects (like frosted glass or thin fabric) have different light interactions from opaque objects.
Atmospheric Perspective Light behaves in predictable ways the farther you are from the object. Can you articulate the order in which color falls off?
Two Peppers, oil on archival canvasboard, 6X8, $435.00
Mood Light can significantly influence the mood and emotional impact of a painting. Bright, intense light can create a sense of drama or tension, while soft, diffused light can evoke calmness and serenity.
Time of Day and Season The color and quality of natural light change throughout the day and across different seasons, affecting how scenes are depicted.
Can I do all that in six weeks?
I’ll do my best. This painting class is open to all mediums and skill levels.
It will run for 6 weeks on Tuesdays, 6-9PM EST. Participants will be sent a zoom link.
Dates:
August 20, 27 Sept 3, 10, 24 October 1
I’m prewriting this before I hit the road to teach at the Schoodic Institute and in the Berkshires. I don’t know how many seats are available for this class by the time you read this. Check here; you won’t be able to register if it’s full.
Cinnamon Fern, 9X12, oil on archival canvasboard, $869 framed includes shipping and handling in continental US.
I have no business complaining about the heat. My friend Pastor John Nicholson of Marion, Alabama recently texted me that it was 91° at 7:45 AM. But just as he’s not acclimated to subzero temperatures in winter, we’re not acclimated to 80° in summer. But that’s what we’ve been getting, and all in all it has been a magnificent summer here in the northeast.
When the temperature rises, I head into the woods. Painting in the forest is lovely on a hot summer day.
How to paint a forest, in a nutshell
Sort out a pattern of lights and darks;
Start with the composition—it’s easy to get lost in the jumble;
Concentrate on details; they’re easier to make sense of than the overall picture;
Think about texture.
Despite a lifetime of looking at northeastern ferns, I have a hard time identifying them, which is why I labeled the above painting as Bracken Fern for so long. A few years ago, a friend gave me a tutorial that ran the full 5.5 miles of the Round the Mountain Trail. I’m sharing with you, so you need never be embarrassed by ferns again.
The Victorians were so crazy for ferns that they coined a word for fern madness: Pteridomania. Among their favorites was Maidenhair Fern, with its dark black stems, delicate foliage, and fan-shaped fronds. It’s the black stem that gives it its name, don’t ask me why.
Sensitive Fern volunteers next to my garage (and many other places). It looks indestructible with its coarse, leathery leaves, but like many apparent tough guys, it’s delicate. Its name comes from the fact that it dies at the first frost.
Interrupted Fern is a weird but handsome plant. Its fronds go from green pinnae at the base to brown spore-bearing pinnae in the middle, followed again by green pinnae at the top.
New York Fern, as you’d guess from the name, is an elegant fern that likes to colonize in tight, compact masses. A lot of them can fit in a small space, and they aren’t too picky about environmental conditions.
Christmas Fern, courtesy David J. Stang, Wikimedia Commons
The fronds of Christmas Fern emerge red in the early spring and mature to a glossy green. It takes its name from the fact that the leaves stay evergreen until the new year’s growth starts in spring.
The blades of Bracken Fern grow almost horizontally, forming a dense canopy. Like many ferns, it’s somewhat allelopathic, meaning it produces biochemicals that suppress the growth of other organisms.
I’m still not sure after all these years whether what I painted above was Cinnamon or Bracken Fern. They look like Cinnamon in my painting, but I’ve revisited the site and found bracken there. But does it really matter? They’re beautiful either way.
