Plein Air Crush

This week I am coming down off of an exciting weekend in Floyd County, Virginia, where I participated in the inaugural plein air event called Plein Air Crush. In total there were about 19 artists participating over the course of the weekend, with judging and awards taking place on Sunday. This year the event centered around Chateau Morrisette Winery, which has some interesting architectural features, lovely gardens and vineyards, not to mention a fine restaurant and some pretty tasty wine. It sounds luxurious doesn't it? But keep in mind I was not doing much sipping. Instead I was schlepping; schlepping a bunch of art gear and standing for hours, out in the elements. It was hard on the body but rewarding for the spirit, and I had a good time painting the new-to-me scenery and meeting other artists.

We converged on Friday evening for a little meet and greet, but the painting portion of the event kicked off on Saturday, where we faced the threat of rain and some pretty dark skies. Painting in these conditions is really challenging because the value range is very limited and the light fairly flat. So I decided to set up in the vineyard where I found opportunities for some strong linear elements and soft edges that provided interesting compositional options:

"Vineyard in Gray Light", oil on panel, 9x12" ©Jennifer E Young. To purchase, contact me!

In the afternoon I decided to venture a little further afield to paint a view of Buffalo Mountain: 

"Buffalo Mountain View" , oil on linen, 8x8"  ©Jennifer E Young

Sunday was the quick draw. It was incredibly windy. Worse than clouds and rain, wind conditions are a nearly impossible situation for the plein air painter because of the danger of having your entire setup topple and/or take flight.  The wind at the winery required that most painters seek a shelterd place unless they had a good way of weighting their setup (which I didn't).

Down at the vineyard though it was much warmer and virtually windless. I hadn't really planned on doing another vineyard piece but I figured it was my best option for success when we had a time limit.

"Sunlit Vines, Oil on linen, 9x12"©Jennifer E Young. Contact me to purchase!

Jennifer painting the vineyard at Chateau Morrisette during the Quick Draw.

We had three hours for the quick draw (which is actually pretty generous). At the alotted time we had to deliver our quick draw painting and the other works we had completed during the event and set up for judging. Steve Doherty, artist and editor of Plein Air Magazine was the judge. I didn't win any awards but it was cool to meet him and I learned a lot about my painting, and even a bit about myself as well.

Setting up for the judgement back up at the winery

Here I am happy and tired. The wind blew up a bunch of dirt on my paintings. I have managed to get most of it off of the two vineyard pieces, but the Buffalo Mountain one was painted really thickly and I don't think that stuff is going to budge. Oh well...that's plein air for you! It was good winery soil at least.

I came home to a messy house and a bunch of dirty laundry, but it was a fair trade for having had time off from mommy duties to do my thing for a whole weekend. (Thanks honey!) :-)

Illuminated

This was a bit of an experiment for me. I pushed the color and moved things about quite a bit, and worked in a much more impressionistic style. I played with layering color and working more with broken color to achieve the shimmering effect I was after. It's definitely more about expression than about straight on  realism.

"Illuminated" Oil on Linen, 24x30"  Jennifer Young

This was in part because my photo reference was very washed out, yet I remember this time and place so much more vividly and with much more richness in color and brilliance.  I had painted a small study on site during a summer trip to Nelson County, Virginia, but couldn't finish it because the light of the setting sun changed so fast and quickly disappeared behind the trees and mountains.

I'm not sure if I will continue in this vein, but I feel as if I have learned something. Here it is in grayscale, which I actually might like a little better (LOL.)

It makes me want to experiment with it again, with a different color palette, to see what happens.

Shadows of the Blue Ridge

Well it took a while but now I've wrapped up my 24x30" studio painting that I started in my last post. I finally got rid of that white canvas. Hooray for small miracles! Here is the painting fully laid in, with the sky. I decided to keep the sky fairly simple in this one because I want to play up the large tree:

Next, I go about refining everything and adding more paint overall:

And then, the trees:

"Shadows of the Blue Ridge" Oil on Linen, 24x30" (SOLD) ©Jennifer Young

Mountain Shadows

Continuing with my exploration of the southern landscape, I started a new 24x30" painting today based on my recent trip to the mountains. Here is the initial tonal drawing to determine the composition and basic shapes. This is an early morning scene so the shadows are nice and long:

Next I start the block in, very broadly, laying in the darkest patterns first, followed by the lights. Aside from the usual burnt sienna I use for the tonal sketch, I have limited my palette to three primaries plus white (cadmium yellow light, alizarin permanent, and ultramarine blue).

The sky will be my lightest light, but I've put off laying that in until I have something of the mountain laid down.

Here's where I am after a few hours' work:

Next I will start laying in the sky and blocking in the haybales before going back in to refine overall. I think I've gotten some good information down so far. Now I just need to keep building on it and solidify my plan. More to come soon!

A gray morning in the mountains

It's been a while since I have painted a studio piece of the American south, but my recent trip to the mountains has inspired me to explore the subject back home in the studio. This little mountain painting was a bit of an experiment, as I tend to shy away from painting gray days. The light is flatter, color is more "local", and values tend to be a lot closer. While I have sometimes been "forced" to paint gray days when I'm field painting, without that beautiful sunlight casting shadows across the picture plane, composing a subject of a gray dayis a challenge I too often tend to avoid. So this is a painting of facing that resistance head on.

"Morning in Gray and Gold" Oil on Linen, 12x16" ©Jennifer Young

It doesn't hurt, of course, that in the mountains many of the grayest days are incredibly stunning and full of quiet majesty and spectacular atmospheric effects. The sun was scarce on the first half of my painting trip, so I had plenty of opportunity to observe these effects.

This painting is based on wiper I did on site. The wiper didn't survive (which is why its known as a wiper!) but the memory did, as well as a number of photos I took of the area. This location is a birding trail I happened upon while exploring Nellysford, VA. I think those yellow flowers are goldenrod (?) They were everywhere, along with many other stunning wildflowers. The main attraction for me though, was the mist and clouds that settled on the distant mountains, with just a bit of the mountaintop peeking through. It was really something to behold.