Independence Day

It was hot and humid and overcast. Our baby had been sick part of the week prior and through the long weekend with a 102 degree fever and hand, foot and mouth virus. And to top it all off, we woke up on July 4th sticky and without power from a tremendous summer storm the night before. But believe it or not, I had a great morning, as I was allowed the privilege of escaping getting outside early to do this little plein air painting.

  "Pond Reflections" Oil on board, 12"x9" Click here for more info, or just contact me to purchase.

The location is Young's Pond in nearby Bryan Park. I've painted this location before a number of times, and this approximate scene once before, which you can see here. There were a number of nearby spots I could have chosen, but on an overcast day it's nice to paint a water effect, as then you have some luminosity built in, when the light is otherwise fairly flat.

I spent about 3 hours on site working on this piece, which was longer than I normally would do on location. But I think the combination of fairly steady light conditions, and my private glee at having the entire morning completely to myself kept me lingering longer than I would have otherwise.

Here's a shot of my setup right before I started.

Next time I would like to get out even earlier than I did, to try and capture that wonderful atmosphere (aka humidity) before it settles into just plain old hot heavy air. But with a baby, you gotta do what you gotta do, and I was happy to get out at all. My setup has remained pretty consistent over the years, with my Soltek easel still being my go to plein air easel due to the ease of use and quick setup time.

The sun made its appearance often enough that shading myself, my painting, and my palette was a concern. I brought my umbrella with me, but it is a pain to set up and doesn't really work that great with the Soltek (one of the easel's down-sides...I've yet to find a really compatible umbrella that can attach to it without falling over.) So If I can get away without, I usually do. This often means avoiding standing in the blazing sun, even if it means forgoing a preferred view. Otherwise my painting ultimately suffers (not to mention my skin.)

In this photo I've set up my painting panel so that the sun (when it peeks out) is behind it, making it shaded. I am relatively shaded by tree branches overhead. Since I am right-handed, my subject is to my left, so that I am not having to reach across my painting when I look/paint. Often times I can shade my palette simply by wedging another panel between it and my painting. In this case I am using a flat wet panel carrier called the Art Cocoon.

This is actually a pretty neat concept for a wet panel carrier, which I read about some time ago on another artist's blog (when I still had time to read them) owned by Ed Terpening . The advantage is that you can use the carrier for different sized paintings with the provided inserts, and it is nice and lightweight and not bulky. But the down side for me is that it is made out of cardboard, which eventually warps (especially in our hot Virginia climate) and when that happens it stops protecting the painting effectively.

For that reason, my go-to wet panel carrier is still the RayMar. It's a little more expensive, and bulkier, but still lightweight. And its coroplast construction means that while it won't last forever, it lasts a good long time and doesn't warp.

Oil paints bursting in flight?

Here is a recent question from a reader that I thought I'd share at blog central:

I am planning to bringing 100s of oil paint tubes back from Beijing and I am wondering if they are at a high risk of bursting? Your advice would be highly appreciated. Best, J.

...and my response:

Dear J- If these are tubes of artist's oil paints, my experience has been that there wouldn't be much danger of that. After all, they are regularly shipped all over the world. And while some paints do contain driers and additives that are considered combustible, most are made with just pigment and a nut oil or linseed oil.

But don't take my word as law. Most of the well known brands will provide material safety data sheets (MSDS) for their art materials, which should provide a flash point of the paint in question (combustibility at a given temperature). You could always check the information provided on the MSDS with the airlines to see what their restrictions are. Most likely you will need to check the paints if you are flying commercially. Otherwise they could get confiscated if you try to bring them in your carry-on (but you probably are already aware of that!)

Good luck! (And check out a prior, more detailed post of mine on flying with oil paints from more info.)

Of Paint and Palette Knives

Here is a recent message I received from a reader that I thought I other blog readers might find of interest: Q: Can you tell me if you use painting knives or if it is all done with brushes? And do you have a favorite brand of paint? -N.M

A: Hi N.M-I paint primarily with a brush, but here and there I have been using the palette knife as a painting tool (rather than just a tool for mixing). If you can get your hands on Richard Schmid's video on painting the landscape (June in particular), he has an excellent demonstration of how he uses the palette knife in his paintings. I am experimenting with his technique (as I understand it) but, not for every painting. So I wouldn't call myself a palette knife painter by any means.

As for paint brands, I'm looking at my paint bins now, and I see Winsor Newton, Gamblin, Holbein, Daniel Smith, M. Graham, Rembrandt, and Old Holland! I probably use Winsor Newton and Gamblin most often, but I have had good experiences with all of the above. I often base my decision on which brand to buy by the pigment I am after. Some pigments seem to be pretty particular to one brand. But even paints that go by the same name can vary quite a lot in hue, value, or color temperature. For instance, Winsor & Newton's Cadmium Yellow Light is warmer and I believe, a bit darker than Gamblin's, which is more lemony. That's not necessarily better or worse-- it all depends on what you're after.In any case, I make sure that I buy professional grade paints, rather than student grade. They are more expensive, but there is a big difference in quality.

I hope this helps, and happy painting!

A neat little tool

I haven't yet had time to edit my new pictures for the vineyard work-in-progress I have been posting about recently. So instead I thought I'd share a neat tool I found online for all of you meticulous types. It is an online proportional scale calculator. This is often the tool of printers who need to know what size a final print would be if an artwork is reproduced to a different size. But I find it a handy tool for anyone who wants to translate a small sketch or plein air painting, (or photo)  into a larger painting. Here are two variations of the calculator, so take your pick. The first is actually from the printer Century Editions' site. The second is by scriptygoddess.com. They can help to take some of the guesswork out of what size canvas you might use that is of the same scale as the smaller work. I am not one to grid out my landscape paintings in any meticulous way, but I do find a proportional caluclator helpful in judging placement (usually via the eyeball method). You can also get a proportional scale wheel at an art supply store, but seeing as I have misplaced several of these over the years, it helps to have an online option!

Painting on a colored ground

Every so often I'll get a question about my painting process that I think might be an interesting topic to share here on my blog. Recently an artist friend asked me about the red ground I prepped my canvases with at one time (I think he must have seen the "Springtime Glory" demo from my site). I'm sure I've addressed toning a canvas a few times here on the blog, but since I've been asked about painting on a red canvas a number of times, I thought it would be a good idea to address this question specifically. Here is his question, followed by my response: Question: Are you still using red underpainting most of the time? Is that landscape specific or do you switch up for sky/water? 

My response: As for the red ground, I never use it any more. I really only used it for landscapes. It was fun because the underpainting gave vibratory effect due to it being a complement to the greens.  But it was too much of a distraction for sky and water, and ultimately I personally found it so for all of my landscapes, especially as I moved a little closer to realism.  Plus I got too lazy to tone my canvases that color as I'd have to let it dry first. Otherwise the red would lift and get mixed into my painting too much. Now in the studio I either just paint on a white canvas, or tone it with just a quick wash of transparent red  oxide (a.k.a PR101- the color I used in the tonal underpainting here).  That still adds a warm tone but is muted enough that it doesn't distract. It also isn't as high staining so I can apply a wash and then start painting immediately after.

*This artist is a studio painter, but I'll add here for the benefit of my blog readers that if I'm painting outdoors, I pretty much always use a mid-toned canvas of either gray, or a wash of trans red oxide or raw sienna, as sun on the white canvas creates too much  bounce and glare.

Bellagio from above; more oil painting w/out solvents

Following up from my prior WIP, here is the final painting. This is a view of Bellagio from a hike we took up to Villa Serbelloni. The villa is now maintained by the Rockefeller Foundation, who uses it as a retreat for  the Bellagio Study and Conference Center for artists and writers (wouldn't that be nice?) For this reason, we couldn't go inside the villa when we visited, but we could tour the grounds, which offers gorgeous views over Bellagio.

"Bellagio From Above" Oil on Linen, 20x16"

SOLD!

Both this piece and my previous Lake Como painting, were done without the use of solvents or any other medium other than small amounts of walnut oil to clean brushes and thin paint when necessary. But even when used judiciously, the walnut oil served to slow drying considerably. At present this is not a huge problem, as I am spending most of my time painting/renovating/preparing home and life for the new baby! But it does change the nature of things and the overall result became more impressionistic due both to the behavior of the paint, and probably also the gaps in my working sessions.

I know that an oil painting requires a certain length of time for all of the layers to fully dry (sometimes as much as 6 months or a year.) But normally the top layers will dry to the touch in about a week's time.  Not so with the walnut oil method, which seems to require at least an additional week to my usual handling time.

Maybe it's just that my painting habits are not particularly suited for this method, or maybe I just need to get used to new ways of doing things. Overall, except at the very beginning stage, I don't paint in thin layers. In fact, while I don't lay it on with a palette knife, I do paint passages that are relatively thick and juicy. But oddly, I experience the most difficulty in the lay-in, (early stage) which I am used to having set up rather quickly.

First of all, in order to follow the "fat over lean" rule, I have been trying not to make the paint too "fat", too soon. So I keep the walnut oil I use in my initial lay-in stage very spare. The result is that instead of a thinly painted initial sketch and color block-in, I find myself with trying to move paint around that has a definite drag and is less fluid. The lay-in becomes more often a "rub-in" with a rag or a "scrub-in" with an old brush, and the edits and corrections are very hard to lift off the canvas.

On the other hand, if I use more walnut oil at this stage, the paint can get too smeary and unmanageable for successive layers, not to mention less stable (with any medium you use, you should only use no more than 20% total volume when mixed directly into the paint, and I usually err on the side of caution and use rather less than that.)

One solution may be to use a runnier paint in the lay-in stage. M. Graham walnut oil paints are such a paint. I do have a few tubes on hand, as I've tried them in the past. As much as I wanted to like them, I normally prefer more body to my paints. But they might just work for my purposes now--but still probably just in the initial stage only. (Incidentally, it's perfectly okay to mix walnut oil with linseed oil based paint, so even if you want to paint solvent-free, you do not need to buy their paints exclusively.)

Aside from walnut oil to thin,  there are other oils to try. Linseed oil is commonly used by artists, both in mixtures of ground paint and in various mediums. And while both linseed and walnut oils are considered to be "drying oils", linseed tends to be the faster-drying of the two.  However, I seem to read a lot about how linseed oil tends to yellow over time. Maybe this is an exaggerated worry, but a quick look at experiments like this one swayed me to first try the walnut oil over linseed.

So, to sum up from this layperson's perspective, some of the pros of using walnut oil to thin/clean are:

• Non-yellowing
• Non-toxic/ solvent-free painting (though other oils can also serve to achieve the same thing.)
• Odorless
• Does not evaporate like solvents, so it seems fairly long-lasting
• Conditions brushes nicely

Cons:

• Walnut oil is expensive! (If you are only using oil to clean your brushes, you could probably get by with a less expensive oil.)
• Slows drying considerably (this could actually be a "pro", depending on your painting technique.)
• Compared to solvent, it requires using more brushes and/or more wiping of brushes between colors in order to keep the color clean.
• Walnut oil is expensive!

A WIP and oil painting without solvents

After a couple of wipers, I finally have at least a work-in-progress to post. I've continued with the Bellagio theme, this time with an ariel view. I guess I'd call this a color block-in:

Why the wipers? Well, I've been oil painting without solvents, and it's taking some practice to get the hang of things. Now as a fairly long-time an oil painter, I'm quite used to being around solvents. I do try to be conscientious of the risks and precautions, so I minimize odor (through ventilation and the use of a high quality OMS) and contact (wearing nitrile gloves) when handling my paints. But otherwise I admit I haven't thought too much about what potential hazards might be involved.

I guess I've been fortunate, in that I haven't experienced some of the allergies that other artists have suffered. But allergies or not, now that I am in the midst of  pregnancy, taking the utmost care in the studio has taken on a new significance. So I decided to do a little investigating....

* Warning, this post is rather long...it's the first in a series of postings about what I've learned on alternatives to my usual oil painting method, presented in my usual rather rambling way. It's certainly not the definitive source on the topic, but may hopefully provide some insight or a jumping off point for other painters who may be wondering about some of this stuff.

Pigments

When considering alternatives to my usual method of painting, I first took a look at the  pigments I was using, simply because they are essentially the same substance found in oils, watercolors, acrylics, casein, etc.  Pigments are the ground powder, either natural or synthetic, that comprises the "colored part" of the paint.

From what I can gather, due to the risk of inhalation, pigments seem to be most hazardous when in their ground, dry form. Some folks using manufactured paints from the tube are rather indifferent in their attitude about pigments in paints, saying, "Well, as long as you don't snort or eat your paints you'll be fine."  Nevertheless, some pigments do contain toxins and heavy metals, which could potentially be ingested or absorbed through the skin on surface contact. So for this reason it's always a good idea to wear gloves when handling them, and avoid eating, smoking, etc., around them, at least not without thoroughly scrubbing with soap before hand.

I put the question of hazards in manufactured artist oils to the maker of the oil paints I use most frequently- Winsor Newton. The technician, Amy Faris, was extremely helpful and very quickly responsive to my queries. Here's an excerpt of some of what she wrote about pigments:

"Depending on the color, our oil paints contain either linseed oil or safflower oil, with the possible addition of a drier, again depending on the color.  Other than than, I am unable to give you any specific recipes regarding the oils, because that information falls under the category of proprietary, and they won't even share it with me." (*Jen's note: this last sentence is one I heard over and over from the manufacturers of artist's materials that I queried directly.)"

"What I can tell you is that all of our products are tested and labeled for health and safety by an independent toxicologist at the Art and Creative Materials Institute (ACMI).  An AP label - or a non-toxic label signifies that the toxicologist has not found anything in the product that can cause you harm, as long as you are using the product in the manner for which it was created - in other words, you are not eating it, applying it to your friend's body, etc.  A CL warning label signifies that the toxicologist has found something in the product that can potentially cause harm.  This CL label is usually followed by a statement on how to use the product safely."

"All health labeling can be found right on the back of every tube of paint we manufacture and on every container of medium, solvent etc.  If you would like more information on the toxicologist or on health and safety in general, please visit the ACMI website at:  http://www.acminet.org/"

"In terms of pigments:  some mineral or metallic based pigments can be hazardous to your health if they build up in your system over time. Lead, cadmium,cobalt  and chromium are some problematic pigments that spring to mind. Generally, the biggest hazard comes in to play if you are working with these pigments in their dry, powder form and are breathing the pigment dust into your lungs.  In terms of the pigment while it is contained in a vehicle (contained in the paint form we are all used to working with) as long as you are not spraying the paint (cadmiums breathed into the lungs prove to be cancer-causing), or ingesting it in large quantities over time ( I sometimes joke about eating it, but if you point your brush in your mouth or eat or drink in the studio with paint covered hands you run the risk of ingesting the paint)  you should be okay.  Paint that contains lead (usually whites such as flake or cremnitz white)  needs to be handled with great care - the lead can be carried through your skin layer if the paint has been diluted with a thinner - you never want to clean your brushes by rubbing them in the palm of your hand - doing so can drive pigments directly into your skin.  Cobalt can be a skin irritant to some people."

...And the vehicles?

So basically, since I don't grind my own paints, I can take care in handling and just make note of the labels (and manufacturers that use such labeling) to make my choice of paint. But what about the vehicles used to suspend the pigment in the paints and give them their characteristics? In many cases it is nothing more than a seed or nut oil (linseed oil, walnut, poppy, etc.) But in other cases, there are other additives, and they seem to be both more mysterious and potentially more hazardous to me (and my unborn baby) since they can be inhaled as they float about in the air. Paint manufacturers are, as I said, pretty hush-hush about the specific additives used in their formulas.  As artists, even with the labeling, it's often difficult to impossible to derive specific information on which elements beyond the pigments in the paint are potentially toxic. But through a very cursory look around the web, I learned that  some of the potential additives to common artist paints (oils, acrylics, etc.) could be various solvents and resins that are volatile organic compounds (toxic inhalants), formaldehyde, preservatives, and mercury. Yikes!

And contrary to popular belief, in terms of tubes of paint, it doesn't seem to me that oil paints are necessarily any more toxic than say, acrylics. In fact, while acrylics clean up with water, many acrylics use vehicles that contain ammonia and formaldehyde that off-gas as they dry.

So, being at best a dabbler in watercolors, not having enjoyed my past experience with water soluble oils, and seeing no compelling reason to jump over to acrylics, it looked like oil painting without solvents was still worth pursuing for me. It would require some changes in my work habits, but if I could use precautions and avoid both the use of solvents to clean my brushes, as well as solvents, driers, and other potentially noxious fumes that come from various painting mediums , it could be done.

And that has been my aim. The W.I.P. pictured above, as well as and the one from my prior post were both done without the use of solvents. I'm using my usual paint brands--just using walnut oil instead of OMS to clean my brushes and a very tiny bit to thin my paint if needed. But it's slow going. This old dog is still having some trouble with her new tricks, and it's taking some getting used to. I'll write more about those challenges in a future post.

October Maples

When I woke up the other morning it was so stunning outside that I decided to leave the studio for a bit and do some plein air painting in my Bellevue neighborhood. Dave and I passed these gorgeous maples on Newport Drive during our walk in the 'hood the previous evening and I made a mental note to check them out again in the morning :

"October Maples" Oil on Linen, 9x12" For more information, contact me!

This is not the greatest of photos, so I will try and re-shoot this tomorrow morning when the lighting is better.  There are some areas where I might've wanted more refinement, but I am going to sit with this a bit and see how I feel about it when I can look at it with fresh eyes.

One thing I realized from the timed exercise I mentioned in my previous post was just how long my plein air paintings look like absolutely nothing. In fact, a common occurrence with me lately is the feeling of a sinking heart as I look at the confusing mess that is my painting and wonder if I might be better off just scrapping the whole thing. Bleh!

But then I'll think something like, "Just work on it a little more and then you can quit if you want to." Only a few strokes later (if they are good strokes) I find myself excited again and some logic begins to emerge.  It's almost as if something switches in my brain (on or off? I don't know.)  Maybe I just let go of the outcome and relax enough that somehow I can see the scene before me not as an overload of "things", but as a rhythmic pattern of lights and darks, colors and shapes.

This is not to say that there aren't areas for inprovement in this painting. But at least I managed to get the impression of place down, which, based on how the painting progressed in the earlier stage, was quite a surpise to me.  I guess the moral of that story is not to give up too soon. Some paintings are indeed "false starts" and probably just doomed to fail. But then there are those that have potential and a solid start and just require more patience and relaxed focus. Bargain with yourself to just stick it out a little longer and see what happens. By doing so, you often have little to lose and much to gain.

Time and process

Well, for the most part, my resolve last week to get "back to painting" crumbled, as I found myself distracted by a number of other issues. I haven't been in the best command of the schedule I'd set up for myself, setting aside my painting time to do a million different errands and tend to personal issues as well. The tendinitis continues to bother me, too, which isn't helping my stick-to-itiveness.  In hindsight, in spite of my injuries, I  probably should have made myself stick as much as possible to the same schedule regardless of whether I'm actually "painting"-- filling the gaps with new art-related activities (like reading one of my gazillion art books!) In any event, I am starting again--finally-- with a color block-in which I'm including below:

Because of the shoulder/arm thing, I've had to make a few changes to the way I work so that I'm not in a huge amount of pain by the end of the day.  I've lowered my entire painting setup, paint for shorter intervals, and also set a timer when I am painting to go off every 30 minutes. It reminds me to stop and stretch and give my muscles a chance to release the locked position I tend to take when I'm hyper-focusing during painting.

Coincidentally, artist Robert Genn wrote an interesting little article last week in his twice-weekly newsltetter about the timed exercises he uses for  attention and focus, (which naturally caught my attention!)  In the article, Genn suggests that by imposing shorter time limits on a work session (in his example 37 minutes), one is required to come into sharp focus, thereby energizing mind and spirit (and often one's painting as well.) I don't think Genn is suggesting that one should always commit only 37 minutes to complete a painting! Rather, these are exercises to 'shake things up' and breathe new life and energy into old, comfy work habits.

It's a good idea. And it's one I've implemented myself (though  I used a kitchen timer rather than an elusive 37-minute hourglass.) While Genn required his students to complete small paintings in his timed exercises, I've also found that the practice works great for plein air and larger studio paintings when you want to track how long you spend working on each stage of the process.

For instance, in plein air painting, where the shifting light already imposes a certain time limitation, the amount of time you spend establishing your composition is important not only to the painting as a whole, but also because it will dictate how much time you have left for the block-in and finishing. So for a smallish painting, I might wish to limit myself to 15-20 minutes to lay in my composition- DING! And 40 minutes for a block-in-DING! That leaves another 30 minutes to (possibly) an hour to make changes, refine shapes and edges and finish before the light changes too drastically (DING! Brushes down.)

You can play around with division of time if you wish, but the result, as Genn suggests, is often that you learn to hone your focus and think better on your feet, without giving yourself the chance to "noodle around" endlessly or jump into detail  too early in the game. It helps in more ways too, than just keeping you on track. For some reason, the timer helps to address all of the canvas during each of the timed stages, thereby avoiding the tendency to  get lost in only working (or overworking) one section of the painting to the sacrifice of the others. I'm not sure why this is. Maybe it's just that using the timer stage-by-stage causes you to take a more deliberate, conscious approach at each stage, making the approach more methodical by breaking things down into digestible chunks.

While the timed-stages works particularly well for plein air painting (when time is truly of the essence,) I've found the same principal can also be worthwhile when applied in the studio, either by similarly timing myself at different stages in larger pieces, or, as Genn suggests, by (attempting to) finish an entire smaller piece in a short interval, as an exercise drill or a warm-up. So I thought I'd try it for the painting above, timing the initial compositional sketch and the color block-in at 15 and 40 minutes, respectively. I don't intend to finish this piece in just an additional hour. It's a 24x30" canvas and I certainly don't want it to look completely slapdash. On the other hand, I do hope to keep it as fresh as possible to re-energize myself now that I'm getting back to work.

Of course, anything can be annoying if taken to the extreme, but I can see how using the timer periodically can serve a useful purpose. It also provides good insight for me about my process, and just how much time I am spending therein.

French market painting #2

Here is something of a companion piece to the other Cahors market painting I posted a couple of days ago:

"Legumes du Jour" Oil on Linen, 20x16"

For both this painting and the previous market painting I have again experimented with a single primary palette of just 3 colors (red, yellow, and blue) plus white. I don't normally use a huge palette any way, but sometimes I feel I can become over-reliant on certain colors. Using a very limited palette helps me to feel as if I am taking back in control of my color mixing and really forces me to think more about color relationships. It also pretty much ensures more unified color. My three primaries for these two paintings were cadmium yellow pale, cadmium red medium, and ultramarine blue, and the white was titanium.

Southern France painting demo continues

This post continues a demo I started last week. To start from the beginning, click here!

Before going too much further I like to get a good feel for my area of interest, so I lay in the general colors and highlights of the wall of the Abbey ruins. I've worked wet into wet to blend the purple shadow colors with the warm local colors of the Abbey wall, which gives me a nice mixture of golds, browns and muted violets.

At this point I am ready to dig in to the rest of the landscape and get that canvas covered. To keep the flow going, I try not to be "stingy with my paint". For this painting I'm using a somewhat more expanded palette than I do when I paint on location.

I  want to have large enough puddles of the colors I see so that I don't have stop every five seconds to mix up more paint. This process is pretty organic so it's difficult to give a step by step process of mixing colors. In addition to blending paint wet-into-wet on the canvas, I also tend to dip into various larger puddles to make new blends as I go along. The most important thing during this process is just to compare one color, one value to the others, constantly asking myself, "Darker or lighter? Warmer or Cooler?"

I also decide to indicate the basic iris colors so that I know where I'm at. I have to be careful here--even the middle value of the purple/blue flowers has a lot of white in it, so I really don't want to paint these too thickly or it will be hard to control the darks, making them muddy and less pure. A lot of these preliminary iris lay-ins will need to be restated, and, of course defined, but I felt like I wanted some indication of them in there at this point so I wouldn't get lost (if that makes any sense!)

Here you can see that I've continued on working my way down the canvas so that eventually everything is pretty well laid in. I've held off putting down much of my strongest highlights. That will be among my next steps, along with further refining, defining, tweaking, and adjusting.

Up to this point I have used just a few brushes. Aside from the one round I used for the linear drawing of my composition in the earliest stages, I've used my larger flats and filberts. Being the very messy painter that I am, I can't tell you the size numbers of any of these, as there is old smeared paint on all of my handles, completely obscuring any info that once was printed on them! I think probably the smallest in use is around an 8 or 10(flat) but the ones I used the most were the largest filberts I have, with widths ranging from 1 and 1/4" to 1 and 3/4". I love these large filberts, as you get a nice thin edge at the tip and a broad flat side too, making them very versatile for my purposes. I could even stand to go to a larger size brush for this size painting, but I need to conserve my expenses so I'm trying to use what I have on hand right now. Even so, if I use the broad side of the brushes I can get a pretty broad and loose stroke and avoid getting too fussy with too many details too early!

To be continued...

French country garden painting WIP, cont'd

Now that my gardens are right outside my studio doors, I'm finding it far too easy to get distracted with gardening instead of painting--especially now that spring is here. I did do some more work on the painting of the garden passage in St. Cirq Lapopie started earlier in the week though, so I thought I'd continue to post the progression. It's almost there, but I will probably do a bit more work on it before it's all said and done:

I've learned something from the last few oils I've done and I'll share it in case it may be of help to other painters. As odd as it seems, I am finding it is actually easier to manipulate the paint and have better effects with my edges if I use a lot more of it. I've never considered myself to be terribly stingy with paint to begin with, (and it may not be all that obvious in this picture,) but lately I've been laying it on pretty thickly and it's like, "Wow, that makes things so much easier!"

When I've taught workshops, I've definitely noticed a certain "stinginess" in beginning painters, both in terms of the amount of the paint colors they'll mix up on their palette, and in the application of the paint onto the canvas. This usually stems from just being uncertain, tentative, and maybe even a little intimidated. But what I try to get across is that in alla prima painting, they are actually creating a lot more work for themselves by mixing up flat little puddles of paint and using skinny, dabby little strokes.

There is a caveat, though (isn't there always when it comes to any kind of painting "rules"?) It helps to have a certain amount of confidence in your drawing and compositional skills if you're going to lay it on thickly (and in fact, this may be part of what's going on with beginners who are feeling tentative and intimidated). Otherwise when painting thickly, you may find yourself needing to do more scraping to make significant changes.

But over all for the kind of direct painting I'm doing, using a lot more paint is helping me to actually have better control AND keep it looser at the same time (if that makes any sense.) Manipulating thicker paint to soften edges and refine shapes does require a light touch though. You aren't moving it around to such an extent that you're smearing it or picking up too much of the underneath and surrounding paint layers. If you do that, there's a danger of having a mud-fest on your hands.

Studio building project- the final stretch

My online presence has been a little quiet lately because we are getting down to the "finishing touches" of prepping my new art studio for move-in. After my lights were installed, I finally came to a decision about the color of the walls, and I've spent the majority of my time in the last couple of weeks painting the walls and trim, installing picture moulding, painting more trim, and touching up walls and trim some more.  (Just one more door to go!) Not only am I body-weary, but I am also decision-making weary. So it is a good thing that most of the big decisions are now behind us. I really had a time trying to decide on wall color. I knew I wanted a color (as opposed to white/off-white). But having had yellow walls in my last studio, (great color for the gallery walls, not great for art-making) I also knew I wanted something that was neutral enough so as not to cast the wall color onto my paintings and palette.

While the color that's so popular right now with many portrait painters (mentioned in this previous blog post) was waaay too dark for my taste, I did like the idea of a neutral gray/green. So I decided to start my quest by playing with a sample of the portrait painters' color (Benjamin Moore's "Mohegan Sage", #2138-30) to see if I could figure out the underlying base color by tinting it with a bit of white.

It may look a little more "colorful" on the computer monitor, but the lightest tint was a fairly dead-looking gray. Benjamin Moore lists Mohegan Sage as a "black", and having tinted it I can see why. It probably is a combination of black with just a touch of yellow. It's very rich in its full strength, but none too inspiring in my tinting experiment! Still, tinting up to an almost elephant gray, I couldn't deny that it is a very neutral color, and thought I could use my tinted sample against some other color swatches to find a related color that was both lighter and more inspiring but still neutral for my studio walls.

What I found was a beautiful rich color that seemed to be in line with the darker sage, though perhaps a tiny bit cooler. It's a color called "Storm Cloud Gray" (also by Benjamin Moore, # 2140-40.)

While this color is a good deal lighter than the dark sage, I was still a little concerned that it would be too dark. So I decided to use it on just one wall as an accent and do the rest of the walls in an even lighter shade that I also liked-- again a gray green called "Paris Rain," (BM color #1501). Here is the result:

Here are the lighter walls running into the deeper accent wall, complete with sleepy husband reporting for cleanup duty last Saturday morning (what a guy!)

I find both of these colors really lovely and pleasing. Sometimes they look more gray, sometimes more green; though in either instance they still remain neutral enough not to overpower.

In the above picture you can also see the picture moulding we installed so that I can hang artwork. Unlike the trim moulding, I decided to paint the picture rail the same color as the walls, both because I wanted to keep the high walls looking "high" and because the picture moulding was fairly plain and nothing special.

Since Dave (and friends) installed both the floors and the trim moulding, I wanted to do all of the painting myself to give the poor man a break. I totally underestimated how much time it would take. I guess it was those high walls that fooled me, but at last it's more or less done and we've had the "SmartBox" delivered (portable storage box). Over the next few we can actually start the process of moving in, assembling furniture, and piecing together my various work stations. This too will take a while (and likely a few more trips to IKEA) but it's actually starting to feel like a real art studio now. I'm excited about the prospect of being in there and getting back to painting again (as in ART) on a regular basis!

The next big challenge will be figuring out some storage solutions that make sense for the new space. Much of that will have to be dealt with after I've gotten my main workstations set up, but I will be sure to blog about it as I go along. Meanwhile, I doubt I'll do much blogging over the next few days, as we will be moving and dismantling my office for a bit.

All aglow with studio progress!

We've had some delays, but lights have finally been installed in the new studio. We still have to get the final electrical inspection, but I'm really excited as I can now move forward and paint the walls and trim. Then we just need to install the sink and address all the little picky finishing, stuff and then I can move in!  I only had time to take a quick snapshot before I head out for a life drawing session, but here's a sneak peek, with more/better pictures to come: (Note: the ceiling fan was mounted with the 6 foot down-rod recommended by the store, but I've decided this is too low so it's getting raised tomorrow.)

I was pretty happy and relieved to see the amount of light we were able to achieve with the fixture/lamp combo I selected. I was also happy to see that the wall color paint sample I'd chosen still looked as I'd predicted it would, without much (if any) discernible color shift due to the installed lights. It was all kind of a crap-shoot, because no matter how much reading and deliberating I'd done, there was really no way to know if my plan was sufficient until the "deed was done" and everything was installed.

In the end I went with T5HO (high output) fixtures with 5000K temperature lamps. These lamps are among the thinner, newer tube type fluorescents on the market. Because they're so new and also high output, replacement lamps will have to be ordered online. But with 24000+ hours predicted in their life-cycle, I shouldn't have to order them all that frequently.

It's pretty bright in there now, but fluorescent tubes are always their brightest at the beginning of the life cycle, with no dust or dirt to diminish them. I've also installed track lights, so in the event that I need more light I can supplement with some of the full spectrum Solux halogen wide beam floods in my work area.

I have to admit, the main delay in installing the lights was due to the fact that I changed my mind about the fixtures. I was getting pretty frustrated with myself and my inability to make up my mind. But my good husband reminded me that there aren't any manuals out there on the perfect formula for lighting an art studio with high ceilings and no natural northern light to speak of. Believe me I've looked!

Initially I was going to go with an open industrial-type direct lighting fixture (the kind they use in warehouses) that would accomodate more lamps and a whole lot o' light:

 I may have over-thought the whole thing, but for the oil painter there IS such a thing as too much light, especially if it's shining right on the painting surface. Not only can it cause glare, it can really skew your perception of colors and values because a very bright light makes your pupils contract so much.

It's the reason plein air painters often employ the use of an umbrella to shield their work from the direct sun. The few times I did try painting outdoors without angling or shading my canvas from the sun, I found my colors and values appeared much too dark when I brought them inside.

So while I wanted a lot of light, I didn't want too much of it either. Nor did I want glare or direct light that cast shadows over my canvas as I worked. And that's the danger with a lot of the high output direct lighting fixtures I was finding--even when mounted at 15 feet up.

After scrapping my original idea, I called a halt on the electrician and went back to the drawing board (and back to "the oracle"--A.K.A. Google-- to search for more ideas.) I eventually found this helpful article from the DesignLights Consortium on energy efficient commercial lighting designs for various functions and environments (schools, factories, offices, etc.)

The article has a lot of ideas about lighting, and delves deeper into many good points I'd already considered about light quality, including the importance of glare control and color temperature.  But there were other points I hadn't considered quite as much, such as issues of reflectance, contrast, and wall color.

For instance, while you don't want lights bouncing around willy-nilly off of a ton of shiny reflective surfaces, you can use reflectance to your advantage. Wall color is important. Darker wall colors have their advantages, but lighter walls and ceilings painted in matte or low sheen surfaces can go a long way towards maximizing the reflectance and distribution of light in a room without the glare.

As to contrast, while some of it is needed in order to define shape, a lot of contrast can cause eye strain and fatigue. So even if the work area of your studio is sufficiently lit, if the rest of the room is dim or dark your eyes have to work a lot harder, expanding and contracting the pupils to adjust light intake each time you look from one part of the room to another.

I'd been so focused on how to light my work area, but now began to consider lighting up the whole studio space a bit more evenly so as to avoid this overly-contrasty affect. Choosing fixtures that have an indirect feature (up-light) as well as a direct feature (down-light) can help with this. By washing some of the light up onto a white ceiling it can reflect back down into the room to diffuse and more evenly distribute light across a broader area.

Armed with this info, I did finally find a fixture that I thought might work. It's actually a commercial light that you'd find in retail stores. It has an up-light feature so we've pendant-mounted them to take advantage of this fact. It also has a wide beam spread and louvres shielding the lamps, which help to soften and diffuse the light even more. I've installed two 8 foot fixtures over the side of my studio where I intend to paint, and one on the framing/office side, which also gets a lot of natural daylight from the east. Each fixture has its own switch so that if I want to work in low light I can douse one or more (for a dramatically lit still life, for example.) These fixtures don't accommodate as many lamps as the industrial warehouse fixture, but since the lamps are high output I think it will be close to, if not more than enough. Onward-ho!

P.S. This is part of a series of posts I've explored while building my new art studio. For my earlier in-depth analysis on studio lighting for artists, go here and here.

Getting lit during the holidays

If you thought this was going to be a post about raucous overindulgence at Christmas parties, you'll be sorely disappointed. ;-) This post is about something else I've been consuming (or rather, something that's been consuming me) -- information about lighting for the new studio.  This post may have limited appeal, but since there is such an overwhelming amount of information both online and off in regards to full spectrum lighting, I thought I'd share some of my thoughts for other artists who might have some of the same considerations. As I'd mentioned in my previous post, I believe the best choice I've found for general non-directional studio light from an artificial source is in the form of full-spectrum tube fluorescents. Of course, full spectrum is a bit of a misnomer, because NOBODY is going to mistake fluorescent lighting (or any artificial light, for that matter) for natural daylight. But what fluorescents do provide is a more even lighting that can't easily be achieved by track lights or other kinds of task lights I've researched. Here are some other things I've discovered:

Fluorescent Full Spectrum Lighting

There are a lot of products out there claiming to be "Full Spectrum" fluorescents, and while fluorescent lighting has come a long way from the lights you've seen in old office buildings or "big box" retail stores, fluorescents simply cannot truly mimic the spectral rendering achieved by natural daylight. The reason for this is that even the best full spectrum fluorescents experience mercury spikes, particularly in the blue and green ends of the spectrum, as well as dips or gaps in the reds. Compared to daylight, where the full spectrum is rendered without gaps, spikes, and dips, it's understandable why some people complain that full spectrum fluorescent lights can seem "cold" or "harsh." Nevertheless, advances have definitely be made in these lamps so that they give off a much cleaner, whiter light than the old yellow fluorescents of yore.

Color Temperature and Color Rendering

I also previously mentioned that the Kelvin temperature of daylight ranges from around 5000K to 5900K.  Actually, this is a bit inaccurate, as there are different temperatures of daylight. But for my purposes, this range is supposed to give me a clean, white light with all colors being more or less balanced with little to no color bias.

But color temperature alone doesn't tell the whole story. Two lamps stating a color temperature of 5000K can still render colors differently, so it's also important to consider the color rendering index (CRI) of the lamp. Wikipedia gives a good definition of CRI in the excerpt below:

"The color rendering index (CRI) (or colour rendering index in British English; sometimes called color rendition index), is a quantitative measure of the ability of a light source to reproduce the colors of various objects faithfully in comparison with an ideal or natural light source. Light sources with a high CRI are desirable in color-critical applications such as photography and cinematography. "

In the world of fluorescent lighting, lamps with a CRI of 80 or above are considered to have high color rendering. But in graphics, photography, and film, there is a big difference between a CRI of 80 and one of 90, so I'll be looking closely at lamps with a CRI of 90 and above.

Quality Vs. Quantity

Okay, great! I know I'll get pretty good quality of light if I can find a lamp in the 5000K range with a CRI of 90 or above. But here's the rub. Typically fluorescent lamps with the highest CRI's have a lower lumen output per lamp (meaning they aren't as bright). So when shopping around, it's important consider the "design lumens" of the bulb or you might not get as much light from your lamps as you expect.

T12's, T8's, or T5's?

Fluorescents come in a number of shapes and sizes. The most common tube-type lamps are probably the T12's, though the smaller diameter T8's are quickly gaining ground and in my town I'm seeing more and more T8 lamps stocked in the "big box" stores. The benefit of the T8 lamp is its ability to give off the same amount of light as the thicker T12's, using fewer lamps (hence less energy) and less mercury. T5's are even thinner, and the same principle applies in terms of light output and energy use, though since they are among the newest offerings they aren't as readily available in my area should I be in need of a quick replacement.

On the up side, any one of these lamps  installed in the appropriate fixture should last a good long while--several years, in fact. Most lamps claim an average life-span of about 20000 hours. Compare that to about 3000 rated hours for better halogen bulbs like Solux, and you can see the advantage of the fluorescents for general lighting (especially on a 15 foot ceiling!)

Let there be light!

So what have I concluded? I'm going to start with some 4-foot T8 fluorescent fixtures and lamps that offer the best color rendering/color temperature/light output that I can find. I suspect I will have to experiment with different bulbs and/or combinations to find a level and quality of light that I'm comfortable working with (see links below for an interesting "studio lighting experiment" and discussion). I also plan to have track lighting installed and will outfit some of the track fixtures in my work area with Solux bulbs and diffusers.  It's my hope that blending these light sources with the natural light from my windows will give me a good combination of clean, balanced, diffused light for my new studio.

Further Reading:

Studio lighting experiment: Check out this discussion on WetCanvas! complete with visuals showing the quality of the fluorescent light with bulbs of different color temperatures.

Is it really full spectrum or a marketing ploy? This Wikipedia entry casts doubt on the benefits and accuracy of products marketed as full spectrum lighting.

More than you ever wanted to know about fluorescent fixtures: This article compares the use of fluorescents versus Metal Halides in commercial lighting, but has some good general info about fluroescent fixtures about half way down the page.

Visual comparison of full spectrum fluorescent lights to Solux bulbs: Keep in mind this is Solux's marketing material, but it does have some interesting graphics showing the spectral spikes, gaps and dips characteristic in fluorescent lamps.

P.S. This is part of a series of posts I've explored while building my new art studio. For my additional in-depth analysis on studio lighting for artists, go here and here.

Still in the dark about art studio lighting

Now that we have the drywall up in the studio building project, I'm anxious to pick out a paint color and get going on the walls. But since the appearance of the paint color is so dependant on the quality of light you have in your space, I've decided I'll need to tackle the lighting requirements first. I have spent waaay too much time reading about "full spectrum" lighting, color rendering index (CRI), foot candles, lumens, and Kelvin temperature, and I can't say that I'm that much clearer on any of it! I knew going into this project that I would not have the benefit of the full natural northern light that is said to be ideal for an artist's studio. But that's okay. I'm kind of used to working with different lighting conditions, and in any event no amount of northern exposure is going to help any artist on drab or stormy days or after sundown. But what I want for the new studio is as much diffused natural light as possible, and supplemental artificial light that comes as close as possible to the color and quality of daylight.

From my reading I have learned that the balanced color of natural daylight has a Kelvin temperature somewhere in the range of 5000K to 5900K. Kelvin temperatures numerically lower than 5000K turn towards the yellow and then red ends of the color spectrum, and higher numbers tend towards the white and then blue ends of the spectrum. As a point of reference, standard fluorescent lighting is fairly warm and yellow at 3500K, and standard halogen tending more toward the red at 3200K.

Keeping these things in mind, my aim is to light my studio (and especially my painting area) with a light that is as pure, balanced, and near to a clean white as possible in order to better see and mix accurate colors in the studio. (Paintings are always going to look a bit different under different lighting conditions, but I hope to avoid a massive color shift once my paintings leave the studio). I'd also like light that is non-directional so as not to cause a spotlighting effect or glare on the reflective surfaces of my oil paintings.

I have looked at a ton of options online (to the point of brain overload!) so I thought I'd share the leading options I'm considering below. Each have their pros and cons, so the answer will likely be to choose a combination solution that gives me enough light without breaking the bank!

Option 1: Install one or more Solatubes.

Pros:

• Bright, evenly diffused and true natural daylight when it's at its best.
• Less expensive than skylights without the spotlighting and worry about "hot spots" sometimes associated with them.
• Uses solar energy, so there's a potential for lower overall electricity requirements.

Cons:

• Costly to install, so even though they require no electrical power, it would likely take many years to recoup costs with energy savings.
• Just as with studios that have northern lit windows, an alternative light source is required for nighttime work, and even likely on cloudy days.

Option 2: Installing high bay, high output compact fluorescent fixtures. (Note: High bay fixtures are optimal in my case due to the cathedral ceiling height of my studio.)

Pros:

• Offered by many manufacturers in a variety of styles and color temperatures, including "daylight" bulbs. (A few resources are listed here.)
• Availability is catching up totungsten and halogen bulbs, and daylight versions are even being offered in the big box stores like Home Depot.
• Bulbs last much longer than incandescents, sometimes lasting for years.
• Much more energy efficient than incandescents and most halogens (fewer bulbs/energy required to achieve the same amount of lighting).

Cons:

• Difficult to dispose of. While there are more and more recycling options being made available, these bulbs create a pollutant due to the toxic mercury within. It can also be dangerous if care isn't taken to handle the bulbs properly in the event of breakage. (The up side of this is that assuming the bulb realizes a natural life cycle, you won't go through as many bulbs as you might do with incandescents due to the extended bulb life of compact fluorescents.)
• I am not convinced that the fluorescent "daylight" bulbs can achieve the effects of full spectrum light, no matter what the packages say, though these newer bulbs certainly are an improvement with a much better CRI than the old "office" type fluorescents of the past.
• Cost: While the fixtures can be relatively inexpensive in comparison to Solatubes and some track lighting, if high bay fixtures are needed the cost quickly edges upwards. Bulbs touted as "full spectrum" are also on average typically priced much higher than incandescents, ranging from $8 to $15 a piece.

Option 3: Solux bulbs used in track or other fixtures.

Pros:

• Chosen by a growing list of galleries, museums (including the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and the Musee d'Orsay in Paris) as well as artists for the clean natural quality of the lights.
• Versatile. Bulbs offered in a number of different Kelvin temperaturesand can be used in low voltage track lighting to illuminate artwork or work area, or in task lamps that can be moved to different locations.
• Small bulbs are a lot easier to store than 4' long fluorescents!
• Long-lasting

Cons:

• These are essentially "directional" lights, with limited spread. While they appear excellent for lighting artwork and even small focused tasks such as reading, they are not going to light up a room or achieve a diffused ambient light. And I'd likely have to focus a number of these lights on my painting area to blend the beams for a large enough  spread.
• More potential for glare on my canvases, due to the directional focus,  though I could purchase the optional diffusers which may help with this somewhat.
• Cost. These bulbs are relatively inexpensive if used selectively, but could be prohibitive if used widely, as bulbs range in price from around $8-up, and the fixtures are not cheap. Task lighting fixtures are also rather expensive.
• Halogens generate a lot more heat and use more energy than compact fluorescents to achieve similar lighting levels.
• I have heard reports that colors shift over time towards the warmer end of the spectrum as the bulb ages (but this is true of most halogens and fluorescents too.)

So there you have it. Okay so I may be overthinking this, but since lots of quality light was on the top of my "ideal studio" list from the get-go, it's pretty important to me. But even after all of the research, I'm not sure if I've really shed much decisive light on the subject! Ideally I'm leaning towards a combination of Options 1 and 2, with #3 reserved for the occaisional supplemental light, if I happen to install tracks down the road.  But let's face it, I also have the very real consideration of a budget to deal with as well, so I'll have too see how well reality meets up with the ideal. I would really welcome any additional suggestions, thoughts, ideas or experiences on this topic, so please feel free to leave your comments on the blog.

On painting that ever changing light

This post is inspired by a comment Molly left for me yesterday on the challenge of painting sunsets en plein air. As I've noted before, this golden hour of the day is my favorite time to be out painting-- but it's also one of the most challenging because the light changes incredibly fast. Since I've made my share of stinkers (and had a few successes too) I thought I'd offer a few tips from what I've observed along the way.

• At first, try keeping it small! This will ensure that you can cover the entire canvas within the time limitations you have.
• Broadly tackle first the overall light and shadow pattern and don't give into the temptation to lose yourself in details in the early stages.
• For as long as you can, try thinking in terms of light and dark, shapes and patterns instead of objects and things.
• Simplify.
• Squint.
• Develop what you know is going to change the fastest.  In the recent harbor paintings I did in Annapolis, those clouds were such an important element in the paintings and I knew they'd change quickly as the sun was breaking through them across the sky. So I set about developing the sky and clouds first, even though I'd merely blocked in the dark shape of the boats.
• Make a commitment. Try not to change your entire painting with each change of the sky (or light). This will drive you crazy and it will quickly start to cause  your painting to look confused. At some point you have to decide on the statement you want to make with your painting and commit to it. Learn to develop those memory muscles so that when the light changes you can recall the moment you were trying to capture. This is why blocking in the overall light and shadow pattern is so very important at the beginning.
• At the same time (and this is going to sound like a contradiction to the previous statement,) if you want to capture that elusive golden moment, you almost have to try and anticipate what's going to happen next and be ready for it. The best way to do this is to observe, observe, observe. Paint at different times of the day often enough and you will really begin to notice and observe what happens to the quality of the light. I find myself doing this mentally now, even when I'm not painting.
• Color is seductive, and it's understandable to want to change and tweak it as the sky gets more and more beautiful with that rosy/golden evening glow.  Sometimes it is necessary to add that flourish of color at just the right moment  in your process to get the feeling you want. If you feel you really must change the color, I'd first try changing the color without changing the value.  It's not as simple as it sounds. Those sunset colors can be pretty intense. Too much white will kill the intensity. Too much change can shift the value (and/or color temperature) to the point that it throws off your whole design. It really is a dance.
• Don't be stingy with your paint. Many don't put enough paint out on their palette, and/or mix smaller piles of color than they'll really need. While I usually keep my shadow areas relatively thin, I can really load it on in the highlight areas.
• Be grateful for the stinkers. (I am still working on this one.) Nowadays, while I still indulge in a brief tantrum, I am more and more appreciating the duds, and how well they teach me. Each one gives fuel to the fire and helps to inform a future masterpiece :-)
• Time is of the essence, but remember, this is a process of both measured intent and spontaneous response. These two approaches may seem to be at odds, but really they can work in tandem. For me, they are easiest to apply if I can relax, have fun, and enjoy the moment.

Annapolis Day 2- A fine morning with guidance from Gruppe

Had a few technical difficulties to overcome before I could post again, but I'm picking up where I last left off writing about the Annapolis paint out. Day two of the paint-out started off great, mainly because I had been able to do a little planning the day before. Painting in an unfamiliar place can always be a little overwhelming. It takes a little bit of time to get your bearings and find locations that appeal to you. This task can also be a little more daunting if you are also painting unfamiliar subject matter. (In my case, not living near a harbor or having much boating experience,  that subject matter would be the preponderance of boats.) To tackle the first obstacle, I spent some time on the first day (in between my morning and afternoon paintings) just wandering around scouting out possible painting locations along the many small harbors. One thing to consider is the path the sun will take across the sky throughout the day from sunrise to sunset. Having already done one morning painting the first day, I began to get a feel for which locations would make good morning setups and which would work better for me in the evenings. (I will also sometimes carry a compass with me to accomplish this task.)  As a result, I found a location in Eastport that I knew would be perfect for an early morning sunrise scene. And in contrast to the first morning when I got started late, I was able to arrive early on day 2 and start painting between 7 and 7:30 a.m.

As for the second obstacle.... the first thing I had to do was to recognize that no matter what I am painting, all I really need to do is paint shapes and the play of light on forms. If you can accurately see what is in front of you as abstract shapes and light patterns (and get a good grasp especially on painting the shapes of the negative space between the forms as well,) form naturally happens.  Having said that, the mind plays tricks on the untrained eye--even sometimes on the eye that has had a bit of training. Boats (like trees and the human face) are some of the things that the mind has long tended to see as symbols. They're some of the things that so many of us drew when we were kids --a sort of half-circle topped with two triangles. So one can easily fall into the trap of painting a symbol of a boat (or a tree or a face) instead of painting the actual shape.

While intellectually I know that all of the above is true, for my own peace of mind, I found it also helpful to consult one of my favorite art books of all time by Emile A. Gruppe. Gruppe was a fine New England painter of landscapes, townscapes and most notably to me, marinescapes . He was active in the 30's on up until the 70's and received training at the Art Students League in New York, and from famed American landscape painters Charles Hawthorne and John F. Carlson. Gruppe was also a wonderful teacher in his own right, both through the school that he established, and through his series of books on painting ("Brushwork," "Gruppe on Color" and "Gruppe on Painting; Direct Techniques in Oil" ).   

All three of these books are fabulous. They are also out of print, making the ones that are still available quite pricey and difficult to acquire. I haven't written much about these books before because there is just sooo much I would want to to say. I can't give proper honor to each of them now without making this post even longer than it already is, but suffice it to say that despite the cost and the regardless of sad quality of the painting reproductions within, they are three incredibly worthwhile and inspiring (if not essential) additions to any landscape painter's library.

For my money, Gruppe was a master of brushwork and composition. Living in New England, he was also a frequent painter of harbors and coastal scenes, which made his book, "Gruppe on Painting; Direct Techniques in Oil," a perfect traveling companion on my trip to Annapolis. I'm glad I grabbed it as I was walking out the door, especially since this particular book has a whole section on painting harbor scenes.  This is not a book of formulas, but rather a thoughtful book with a wealth of things to consider. For instance, here is an excerpt on drawing boats:

"...students have  preconceptions about what a boat should look like. They think of boats they drew as children, boats that were shaped like wooden shoes or bananas, curling up at the bow and stern. And that's how they draw them. But probably no shape could be less like that of a real ocean-going dragger; all those concave lines suggest weakness while the character of the dragger is strong and tough......Remember that the gunwhale of the boat is straight as it nears the bow--it doesn't sweep up like a gondola! And the bow goes into the water in a fairly straight line--it doesn't cut under sharply. Use strong lines to suggest a strong subject."

Just that one snippet helped me immensely, and yet there is so much more in this section alone; on cast shadows, masts, rigging, refraction, smaller boats, and docks and wharves. The conversational tone and the passion in Gruppe's writing helped me to internalize his teachings and carry them with me as I addressed the subjects and painted them from life. Here, finally, is the painting that resulted. I may need to touch it up when I return to the studio, but I was pretty happy about it overall:

 

Daybreak in Annapolis Oil on Multimedia Artboard, 11x14"

On this second day of painting, I was happy to meet more of the artist members of the MAPAPA, so I felt a little more connected and a little less lost. In fact, as I was finishing up the above piece, an artist came up to me with a rather dazed and confused look. She said it was her first day at the paint-out, and she'd been driving around for an hour trying to decide what to paint. I had to chuckle (not at her, but with her.) Been there, done that!

Art Studio update, and which wall color?

Well, we came back from our beach vacation this past weekend to find out that our building permit application for the garage/studio was approved. We were pleasantly surprised, especially considering it only took a week, and we had been warned that this process could take much longer. I'll not gloat too soon though. We have a long process and many permit applications yet ahead; but at least we can get this ball rolling. I've got to get some painting and packing done today, but soon I will share my little floorplan I've worked out for my workspace. Meanwhile, here's a related question I've just received from a fellow artist, followed by my response:

Q: Just moved into my new home. I have a north facing  wall with lots of windows and storage space, now I need a wall paint  color... any suggestions???

-J.A.

Dear J.A.-

I am just getting started building a studio, so this is a topic I need to investigate myself. My main thought is to do something neutral. White can tend to make the light bounce around a lot, especially if you have lots of windows. You might check out artist Casey Child's blog post about the paint color he picked. A lot of portrait painters are into this neutral gray-green. I have no problem with the hue but I'm a little afraid the value shown at the above link would be too dark for me. But it could just be my monitor or his photos --or it could be that the walls don't need to be as light as I think they should be (Any thoughts, anyone?) In any event, whatever color I am considering, I'll try out in swatches in my own space first. Paint colors can look very different from one location to the next.

Wild Roses (France); and thoughts on painting loose

As mentioned in my previous post, here's a new painting about to come off the easel. Maybe a touch or two yet to go, but mostly it's done. Photographing this painting was a bit of a challenge today due to a lack of good light. It's a pretty decent shot, though I may try a reshoot once the sun comes out:

"Wild Roses" Oil on Linen, 20x16" Click here for more info.

This is another scene from one of those beautiful misty mornings in southern France that I've written of before.  Even though this was somewhat after the heavy fog had lifted, the moist air remained, and the diffused, cool light kept everything soft but saturated.

One thing I've been learning from my plein air paintings is that even the less successful pieces done on location have a certain freshness to them (if I don't allow myself to work them beyond the point that I should). There are many reasons for this, not the least of which is that I am painting from life.

But I've also noticed that the brush size-to-canvas ratio is much larger due to the smaller plein air canvases. I don't use tiny brushes (unless I need to sign my name) so I'm really forced to simplify. And I must say, by the very nature of the way I have to approach the painting, I often end up saying more with less. 

I try to keep this in mind on days when I'm working on larger paintings in the studio, and to make a more conscious effort to retain that same kind of freshness and looseness. It's a different matter than plein air painting, but it's been helpful for me to consciously reach for the largest possible brushes to do the task at hand, and to *try* to state things as economically as possible rather than overworking.

It's not an overstatement to say that sometimes my greatest motivations are my limitations. And  in the field, time is a built-in task-master due to the ever-changing light. But in my studio, unless my schedule is crammed full of other chores (as it is soon about to become!) there usually isn't that same kind of urgency. Without that, it can really be tempting to noodle around endlessly.

In my studio work, along with relying a lot more on memory, my challenge is to supply my own urgency, and to work more quickly and loosely. All this and still have command of the paint. There's the rub. After all, loose and quick is pretty pointless if the drawing or composition is weak or if the values aren't right.

It's a lot to consider if you think about it, but it is a fun challenge for me, and hopefully in time I can continue to work even more effectively in this manner on larger canvases still.