Posts Tagged ‘landscape paintings’
The Plein Air Critique
If a workshop coordinator has a critique each day, that’s a bonus! “But,” you say, “my oil painting is so bad that I don’t want everyone looking at it”. Let me tell you, there are others in the class feeling the same way. Besides, just as any 10th grader knows, you have to go through grades 1 – 9 to get there, so every advanced artist had to go through the beginning steps to get where she is today.
Here are the positives: There are others in the class, some more learned than you, some less. All come from different backgrounds and experiences and have differing amounts of talent. You can learn a lot just by looking at their paintings and listening to the critiques given to them by the class. When it is your turn to show your painting, it is amazing the ideas people will have for you to improve your painting. You will be subject to ideas that you never would have thought of yourself. All are given in an empathetic and positive manner and you will be so happy you took the risk of showing your work.
The Plein Air Artist Workshop
It was by chance that we met – Anna and I. I had taken my car to the car shop for an oil change. She was already waiting, and the man behind the counter pointed out that we were both artists. What ensued was a conversation that changed my plans two weeks hence.
Anna is an Art teacher at a local high school and was awarded Teacher of the Year for 2010 – 2011. She has been mentored for several years by the Coordinator of the Hameau (pronounced Ham-O ) Farm Studio Artist Retreats which meets twice each year near Belleville, PA, southwest of State College, in the middle of the Appalachian Mountains. Another retreat was coming up in about two weeks and she gave me the information.
The retreat is a week long retreat for plein air painters of all genres and the Coordinator of the retreat is Susan Nicholas Gephart, Central PA Pastel Society President and Instructor at the C. Barton McCann School of Art. She and her assistant, James Farrah, well known Phoenix, AZ, oil painter and watercolorist would both give demonstrations and advise and help students. The cost would be $90 per day plus $25 per day for food. Overnight cabins were available at no extra charge but they had no electricity or running water. When I presented the information to my friends, Betty and Suzanne, they seemed favorably inclined but wanted time to consider, and wanted to pay for a motel room rather than opt for the free cabins. (to be continued)
The Value of Play
Recently, someone wrote to Robert Genn, Canadian artist, asking him, “Do you ever fool around experimenting with your paints, papers and tools?” Genn replied that, “Anyone familiar with the miracle of acrylic painting has tried throwing in texture-enhancing items.” Genn said he couldn’t resist adding sparkle, confetti and streamers, also internal workings of clocks, radios, springs, pebbles, bones, shells and many other things. The point is that play has value in being creative.
The following are quotes from others on that subject. “Play is the essential feature in productive thought,” said Albert Einstein. “Whoever wants to understand much must play much.” (Gottfried Benn) “Necessity may be the mother of invention, but play is certainly the father.” said creativity coach Roger von Oech. “It is a happy talent to know how to play.” (Robert Waldo Emerson) “In art, everyone who plays wins.” (Robert Genn) “Your work isn’t a high stakes, nail-biting professional challenge. It’s a form of play. Lighten up and have fun with it.” (Sol LeWitt)
My Group
Now that I’m back in Maryland, my group will start meeting again on Mondays to paint and talk about painting. Tomorrow, it’s the latter.
We met as students of John Losonczy, art teacher at our local gallery several years ago. For a while we met on Mondays at Val’s extra house in addition to class time on Thursdays. Eventually Val needed the house for something else and our teacher had a terrible accident and was no longer able to teach. However, some of us continued meeting at my house.
At this point, Charlotte takes care of her grandchildren and Lee has moved away. We had a new member for a while -Leslie – but she is a practicing physician and when she stopped working, she took many workshops and now is far superior to the rest of us. We still paint with her sometimes, but most of the time it is just Suzanne and Betty who come on Monday. Tomorrow the three of us, dedicated plein air painters, will meet for the first time in a long while, discuss what happened over the winter and plan for our painting escapades in the coming weeks!
Preparing for Art Class
In preparation for my “Paint Your Passion” class, I finished the landscape in acrylics that I started in class last week. It was to be an abstract scene involving mangroves and water, and I painted it with blue tree trunks and hot pink leaves. I also brought a couple of oil paintings about which I had questions last week, and after critique, had changed. In addition, I also took another two oil paintings I had done but with which I was not happy.
The class critique is so helpful because in this class five other students as well as Teacher give you their views. I learn a lot from their critique of my paintings as well as their critiques of other students’ paintings. Now I know how to fix the problems on the paintings I brought.
As usual, Teacher brings a new idea and some photos. I chose some colorful fish to paint, primed my canvas and started. Next week we’ll see how well I did!
Studying Turner
London is home to some of the most highly regarded art museums. During my study abroad program in London, I made sure to take an art history course that brought us to many of these museums. Part of the course involved each student presenting on a particular artist. The artist I was assigned was Joseph Mallord William Turner, one of the most beloved British artists.
JMW Turner was a master of watercolor landscape painting. He is known as the painter of light and his work is regarded as a preface to Impressionism. Of the Turner landscape paintings I had to choose from, I decided to feature Chinchester’s Canal and The Shipwreck of the Minotaur. The way light is depicted in these two paintings is simply breathtaking.
Gail Boyajian Paintings
Endicott College is currently displaying the works of Gail Boyajian. Her artwork blends classic technique and symbolic themes in beautiful landscape oil paintings. The collection was created over the past eight years and addresses the themes of emigration, migration, vacation, and exploration.
The artist’s landscape oil paintings are rich in color and draw the viewer in to find the hidden elements within each panel. Scale is played with in most pieces through the use of humans, creatures, and birds. In a press release the artist said, “I have come to see landscapes and cities as characters, created by the voices and ghosts of present and past inhabitants, artistic efforts, religious beliefs, geologic formations and life forms other than human, in dialogue with each other.”
Paul Laveille
Thelma and I had dinner tonight with my artist friend, Suzanne, and her husband, Carl. They just arrived from the Eastern Shore of Maryland after two long days of driving.
Suzanne does wonderful landscape paintings, especially of marshes and waterways. She is eager to attend a demonstration which Paul Laveille will be giving at the Bonita Springs Art Center entitled, “Still Life Painting in Oil/Pastel.”
Laveille also has a workshop February 13-18, 2011 in Bonita Springs. The goals are to experience the challenge and pleasure of creating beautiful paintings from ordinary objects, to see how light is used to create form and how color can be used with strong values to create dynamic still lifes, and how to paint what we see instead of what we think we know. It sounds to me like a great opportunity to train your eye is seeing what is really out there, and a wonderful workshop to attend if you paint in the traditional manner.
Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse (1869-1954), leader of the Fauves, adopted Gauguin’s flat surfaces, use of visual symbols, and clashing colors in his landscape paintings. His colors want to play. His figures are stylized, rendered in a few fluid lines with almost no modeling – just two-dimensional figures. Matisse’s islands of color were revolutionary – they are geographical locations, places to hang out. Also, the colors are alternately hot and cold, harmonious and discordant, which keeps your eyes moving quickly over the canvas – as if you were being playfully chased by “wild beasts.” This enhances the-joy-of-life feel of the painting.
Matisse’s command of anatomy enabled him to reduce shapes to their most basic contours. He discovered how to express emotion with a single line or series of lines. He wrote, “I cannot copy nature in a servile way. I must interpret nature… – when I have found the relationship of all the tones, the result must be a living harmony of tones, a harmony not unlike that of a musical composition.”
Studio vs Outdoor Painting
When San Diego artist Scott Prior was asked, “What do you prefer about plein air painting over creating landscape works in the studio?” he replied, “I like being able to see the natural light in front of me and being out in the elements – feeling it all. Just working from photos in the studio is not the same”.
Recently, I spoke with Mary Ecroos, a well known local plein air painter. She said she was doing more studio work now, but every so often she must do plein air painting to refresh her vision.
After many years of learning to paint in the studio, when I first discovered plein air painting, I was sold! I can see the landscape so much better, feel it, and see the distances and colors much better. My out door landscape paintings have an energy that my studio paintings never had.