April En Plein Air!

"Water Grasses"

6x8 oil on linen board
"April Sunday"
11x14 oil on linen panel

It was wonderful to get out and paint this past weekend! We've had an incredible spring so far here in Minnesota. I went painting with Marc the past couple of days. The smaller 6x8 was done on Saturday in WI by a trout hatchery, beautiful place with tons of wildlife all around. The Sunday morning pond piece was done at my Dad's, just North of Stillwater on the beaver dam I grew up on. After a couple hours with a slow start while my Dad visited us while we painted, he discovered my Canon Rebel with all my extra lenses I had in the bag and I sent him off on a photo shoot! :) I finally scraped my first painting and started a new one (11x14 above) I only had about an hour to do this 11x14 so I made a decision to only use my palette knife to paint this one. So, here you have it, palette knife painting. Fun to try once in a while!

Tuesday Color Temperature Class

I teach two classes weekly in my studio, one on Monday evenings and one on Tuesday days. This is a photo of my class from today working on an exercise I came up with a couple of years ago to help painters develop their eye for color temperature and how to identify the color they see in front of them by asking themselves a logical series of questions to work through making the color they see. First, what is the prodomenent color they see chosing from yellow, red and blue. Is it lighter or darker than the color they are attempting to mix? Now, is it Cooler or Warmer? They are only allowed to use a simple palette of yellow, red, blue and white to match the subtle variations of colors I have mixed and they have to match exactly.

There are many small steps between the very basics I shared above but it gives an idea of the concept of identifying and mixing colors. It was really fun today to see the painters who have done this excersize with me in the past and how much further they got this time than last semester! Very rewarding! Great job painters! :)

"Superior Shores"

16x20 oil on linen

Completed, signed and photographed! Just waiting for it's frame to arrive. :)

"Superior Shores"

16x20 oil on linen

My latest work (well there is one currently in the works, not finished yet). I did this painting from a study I did Up North along the North Shore a couple years ago. Interesting how a field study can trigger one's memory so strong that it actually takes you back to the place again. A good friend just told me, memory makes you smart, I'd say I agree. The cool thing is that 2 years later the artistic ability is more refined and things I did not achieve then, I felt I did in this painting. I remember the dance of the flowers in the foreground, like a symphony swaying back and forth with the wind. Very musical!

"Brilliance"

14x11 oil on linen panel

Although I painted this piece a couple weeks ago, I'm just now getting to posting it. This started out as my demo piece during my 2 day still life workshop but I ended up finishing on my own. I was struggling for a bit with trying to capture the brilliance in the red flowers but was determined enough to figure it out. Many times I find it's the problem surrounding what I think is problem that is actually the problem, whew! A mouth full. That did play a part in this painting but it was also the lack of chromacity in my usual palette that was causing some issues. I finally dug through my bucket of paints and found one that was called 'bright red'. :) That did the trick indeed! Do note, I used it sparingly and only at the end of the painting for the little exceptions!

"Crex Meadows In March"

8x10 oil on linen

We've had some unbelievably warm weather for March and as every painter that enjoys working from life out in the field knows, we all jump at the chance to get out whenever the winter breaks and we don't have to bundle in bibs, boots and carharts! Saturday was not quite as comfortable as Sunday (In fact we had a record high of 62 degrees on Sunday)
but still warmer than usual despite the high winds. The wind kept us in the truck 'car painting' but we were still out working from life and it felt great!

This is Saturday's attempt at capturing March's subtleties. Living and painting my entire life in the Midwest, we deal with our fair amount of subtle effects but I have to say that this was about as subtle as I've seen it get! Tough stuff, but really beautiful if you can just absorb it's quietness. Besides the swans and some Canadian geese, we were the only ones out enjoying Crex Meadows, an amazing place of really complete solitude.

Painting White

"White In Italian Pitcher"

20x16 Oil on Linen

Last week I went to the market to find some inspiration in the flower section and ended finding it in all the varieties and textures of white! I never quite know what I'll end up with until I'm standing there immersed in all the colors of flowers. This day it was white! A few years ago I found this old Italian pitcher at a second hand store and thought it would be perfect with this bunch of white.

I used the branch on the table to soften the painting and build some what of a circular composition bringing the eye back around. The one leaf touching the pitcher helps to connect the loose branch to the the pitcher supporting the design.

It's a fun challenge to paint this variety of whites in one painting, I find it very harmonious. I started off by building all my shadows, which were fairly cool compared to the lit areas of white. I'm always concentrating on my 'averages' in each mass before I start breaking in my subtleties. When I paint flowers, my goal is never to paint a literal interpretation of each little petal but rather respond with paint to the character of each flower's growth. I pay attention to their shapes, texture and color temperature compared to what's around them. The more I paint flowers, the more I realize that when I am working and struggling on correcting what I think to be INcorrect, it usually ends up being what's AROUND what I think is incorrect that's incorrect! Whew, ya still with me?? :) And when I fix it's neighboring color and value, I find my solution! Big reminder, everything is relative to it's surrounding neighbor color and value! So, with that said, here you have it, "White In Italian Pitcher"