Thanks to EmptyEasel.com for featuring my landscape paintings!

A few weeks ago, Dan at Empty Easel was kind enough to feature my plein air painting demo on his art site. I'm thankful to him again, because today he's given me a very nice a write up about the latest landscape paintings I've created for my current show  about the luminous landscape. If you have an interest in the arts, do check out his site. He regularly features the works of artists he's reviewed from around the internet, plus he has wonderful tips for art and painting as well as Internet art marketing. If you're an artist, consider submitting your work or an article yourself for a possible feature.

...And if you're in the Richmond area, my show "Luminosity" is still on view until December 1st, so come by my studio/gallery this Friday during the art walk if you can,  or just contact me to visit the gallery at another time.

Art opening tonight: "Luminosity"

I've been scrambling this week to get everything finished for the opening  for my exhibit of new landscape  paintings tonight here at the gallery, and I'm officially pooped. The good news is, the show looks great, and  I can now take few hours to rest before we open up tonight. Come out and see us if you are coming downtown tonight or are doing the First Fridays Richmond art walk! Here are the details for tonights event:

"Luminosity" Art Exhibit at Jennifer Young Studio & Gallery

Richmond, VA –  Jennifer Young Studio & Gallery will feature new paintings of the luminous landscape by Jennifer Young.  The show opens on Friday October 5th, 2007, with a reception from 6 to 8:30  PM. Opening night music provided by Russell Young. The exhibit continues through November 30th.   Jennifer Young Studio & Gallery is located at 16 East Main Street, two blocks east of the Jefferson Hotel. Click here to view a map and get directions from your location. For additional information please contact us!

One more sunset painting; Day's End, Hatteras

This painting was inspired by the recent trip I took to Cape Hatteras, located on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. The first day we arrived at our cottage, it was quite overcast and gray.  After a 4 1/2 hour drive, we were a little disappointed, but we remained hopeful that the weather forcast would prove to be true and that a clearing would take place by nightfall. I'm happy to say that our hopes were realized. At dusk while we were preparing dinner, one of my friends called out to me, "Come look at this amazing sky!"  I ran out to the balcony to see a procession of dark billowing clouds parading across a magnificent sky that seemed to be painted with sweeping strokes of brilliant color. As we stood gazing at the spectacular view towards the sound, I noted how the backlit beach houses anchored the scene with their simple dark shapes. Here is my rendition of that evening scene:

"Day's End, Hatteras" Oil on Canvas, 24"x30" Click here or on the picture for more info!

Guest posting today

Today I'm posting about my Outer Banks paintings as a guest blogger over at the Queen of the Surf Pirates Blog. It's a fun and informative blog with the latest Outer Banks surfing info, beach news and more, courtesy of Paula Degatto and Sammy the Surf Dog from Nags Head in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Check it out, and thanks Paula for the invitation!

Blue Ridge mountains landscape painting: Lifting Fog II

Here is a painting in my "Southern Landscape" series that I've just completed. This painting shows an early morning Virginia scene of fog rising from the earth on a summer's day. I painted a smaller similar version of this scene some time ago and when I finished that one I knew I wanted to see it on a larger scale:

"Lifting Fog II" Oil on Canvas, 24x36"

I mentioned the other day that these last paintings I've been doing of early evening scenes are lessons in value comparisons. I can say the same for this early morning scene as well. The values are fairly close together in some cases and the value shifts are very subtle, so it can take some doing to differentiate one from another.

 The main thing I do is just to compare, compare, compare. I will mix a big load of color on my palette and dab a bit on the area of canvas that I'm working on, compare that to the other surrounding values before I commit.

Color temperature (warm vs. cool color)  as well as color intensity are other elements that help describe atmospheric perspective in a painting, especially when the values are very close together.

So, for instance, if I want to push a part of the landscape back into the picture plane to add depth, I may cool this area down, gray it down, or use less contrast (or all 3), as I've done with the above lines of trees at varying distances.

By a similar notion, if I want to push a part of the landscape forward I may use more contrast, as well as warmer, more local colors as I did in the twilight painting from my previous post.  Of course, with a blazing sunset in the sky all of this gets a little tricky, but that is part of the fun!

Sunset landscape painting; "Twilight on the Outer Banks"

Fresh off the easel is another landscape painting of my favorite time of day on the Outer Banks. The setting for this painting is again on Ocracoke Island, on a little inlet that has a small beach where you can watch the sun set.

"Twilight on the Outer Banks" Oil on Canvas 24x30" Click here or on the image for more information

I am really enjoying the challenge of these evening paintings. The value ranges are relatively close in most areas of the painting, so I've really had to pay attention to the subtle differences in values and how they relate to one another. I'm still limiting my palette, but depending on what I am painting I vary the palette colors somewhat. I'll write more about what I'm discovering in my next entry.

New coastal sunset landscape painting; "Finale"

Fresh off the easel, this painting is of a spectacular sunset we saw on one of our trips to the Outer Banks of North Carolina this summer. It's Silver Lake Harbor on Ocracoke Island, to be exact. This painting and other recent landscapes will be included in my upcoming show called "Luminosity".

"Finale" Oil on Canvas, 24x36"

I'm calling this piece "Finale" (as in "the grand finale") because, like a finale in a live orchestral performance, sunsets are like nature's final performance of the day. They never fail to dazzle, and yet no two performances are ever exactly the same.

Beach Sunrise

Today I finished a painting of a sunrise scene from last summer when I stayed at the beach in Nags Head North Carolina. For some reason I was intent on seeing the sunrise while we were there. We saw a number of gorgeous sunsets in the evenings but the sun sets over the sound and the sun rises over the ocean. So I nagged my husband to get up with me one morning and catch the sunrise over the ocean. Why I couldn't go alone is beyond me now; but for some reason, he HAD to come. Unfortunately in my exuberance we were about an hour early, so my romantic vision of togetherness under the morning sun soon turned to sitting on the beach in the dark and listening to Dave grumble and shuffle around, trying to find a spot to lie down and finish his night's sleep. Eventually, however, we were rewarded with a beautiful soft misty sunrise over the clouds. Here is the painting inspired by that morning:

I painted this scene with a limited palette (alizarin crimson, cadmium yellow pale, ultramarine blue, and pthalo green, plus white.) This is a scene that called for using a lot of "colored grays". Colors that may even read as "mud" in other paintings, created the soft, barely there light that I was going for. At first I thought I'd have to dip into my arsenal of more vivid colors (like permanent rose and cadmium orange) to get the sunrise effect, but because so much of the painting is muted and soft, my crimson and yellow mixtures really popped. My favorite part of this scene is the way the light skips across the water.

I painted this little study en plein air, and since that time I have been wanting to create something similar, but larger and more dynamic.

I used a very limited palette on this one too, mainly because I was under such limited time constraints and didn't have time to squeeze out a bunch of tube colors. One thing I learned from this little painting is that when painting sun/sky paintings on location you really need to keep your brushes and turpentine clean. You also need to paint extremely fast. Screaming at the changing light doesn't really help, but it may possibly make you feel better.