Posts Tagged ‘plein air’
Plein Air Painting at Wild Acres
For 5 years, each July, I attended an art workshop at Wild Acres, North Carolina, about 40 miles from Asheville and 3 miles from Little Switzerland on the Blue Ridge Parkway. I felt like a kid at camp. All I had to do was eat, sleep and paint as the food was prepared for us and when the dinner bell rang, we all assembled in the dining room for a wonderful repast.
On Fridays, each class showed what they had done for the week – the printmakers, the ceramic artists, photographers, studio artists, and plein air artists. I was amazed that consistently, the paintings of the plein air artists had much more color, feeling and life than those of the studio artists.
Gauguin in Tahiti
Gauguin took his oil painting discovery even further in Tahiti, which also did not fulfill his dream of finding the “noble savage” – as Europeans had already turned the island into an extension of Europe. But he was able to use the contrast between what he had hoped for and what he found. He often placed a primitive scene in the foreground and images of civilized life in the background, and eliminated perspective and shading so the background encroached on the foreground.
Gauguin’s manipulation of traditional perspective and his expressive use of color had a major influence on the late -19th- and early -20th-century art movements especially Fauvism and Expressionism. In 1901, Picasso saw several Gauguin paintings at a friend’s home, and they inspired him to launch into his Blue Period. It is no wonder that he is among the founders of modern art.
The Flatwoods Preserve
Today was another good day for plein air painting, so my friend and I set off again for Pine Island. We stopped at the Flatwoods Preserve near the southern end of the island.
Flatwoods Preserve has a hiking trail just over a mile long and several hikers passed by and said “Hello.” There is not much else there except slash pine trees, dead trees, local grasses and palmettos.
The birds soared overhead, the planes left vapor trails and the clouds moved slowly across the sky. Whether or not my picture turns out well, I still had a great day!
Plein Air Painting at RRC
Last Friday, my friend and I packed all our painting equipment in the car and set out for the Randell Research Center on Pine Island. We have been there other years so it was not new to us. She planned to use two 10″ x 20″ canvasses as a diptych because the 18″ x 18″ canvasses which she had ordered had not arrived yet. I had a 30″ x 30″ canvas that I wanted to use.
After 2 hours or so of plein air painting, we were ready to call it a day. She had used only one of her canvasses to paint a shell mound and it was completely covered with paint. (That’s the first objective – to get the canvas completely covered!) I chose a grouping of palm trees with a few deciduous trees nearby. My drawing was finished and some photos taken. I had started painting the grass and mulch around the trees – going from bottom to top of the canvas – not my usual method. I’ll have plenty more to do on this painting back home in the studio!
The Randell Research Center
The Randell Research center (RRC) is a program of the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville, Florida, which has conducted research and educational programs in Southwest Florida for over 20 years. The RRC existed since 1994 when Donald and Patricia Randell gifted 53 +/- acres of the 200 acre Pineland archeological site to the University of Florida Foundation.
With more than 28 million specimens and artifacts in its permanent collections, the Florida Museum is the largest collections based natural history museum in the southern United States. These collections are the foundation of the Museum’s scientific research and university teaching programs. The Museum also uses these collections to inspire and educate the public about Florida’s natural history and rich cultural heritage.
On a recent Heritage Day the theme was “Art, Authors and Archeology”. Landscape artists were doing plein air paintings, an author was selling his books, and archeologists were having children sift sand from the Indian mound through a 20″ x 20″ screen to show them how archeologists research the life and times of the Indians.
Pissarro: The Father Figure
Camille Pissarro (1830-1903) was the father figure and peacemaker of the Impressionists. He mentored Cezanne and Gauguin and cautioned them “Do not define too closely the outline of things. It is the brushstrokes of the right color and value that should produce the drawing.”
A patient teacher, Pissarro instructed Cezanne in how to control form through color and diagonal strokes. Cezanne called him, “humble and colossal.” Pissarro was a dedicated plein air painter and he daily took his canvas in search of a scene which he reproduced with bright colors and patchy brush strokes. He is also known for bustling Parisian street scenes filled with people and carriages rendered in spots of colors, as if viewed from a second story window.
Renoir: Happy People in Pretty Places
Pierre-August Renoir (1841-1919) thought a picture should be a pleasant thing, joyful and pretty. He loved painting lovely female faces and forms, sunlit meadows and gardens, and open-air cafes.
Renoir invented the dappled-light effect which he used so effectively throughout his career. He never used black and sometimes his figures went off the edge of the page. His early paintings have a snapshot feel – a slice of life has been captured on canvas before the scene shifts. The dappled light, the quick brushstrokes and sketchiness of painting resulted in a distinctive impressionist look.
Later, instead of focusing on fleeting moments, he wanted his art to make a lasting impression. He went to Rome to study with the Renaissance masters and especially liked Raphael’s work. As a result, his figures became much more solid. Solid figures and blurred backgrounds became the trademark of his mature style.
Monet: Painter of Light (Part II)
In his later years, Monet captured the light by painting series of the same scene painted at different times of day. The landscape paintings of his haystack series is especially well known, and you can almost tell the time of day by the shadows in the painting.
Most of the Impressionists were not accepted into the juried Salon exhibits, so they held their own exhibits allowing everyone to enter. At the first one in 1874, among other works, Monet showed his painting, Impression: Sunrise. That name inspired one critic to condemn all the paintings as “impressionistic”, or unfinished. Although the name was intended as an insult, the artists liked it and it continues to this day.
Monet: Painter of Light (Part I)
Claude Monet (1840-1926) worked in plein air and his style came from a shift in focus. Instead of looking at the object itself, he focused on the patches of color forming the object. He advised: Merely think, here is a little square of blue, here is an oblong of pink. Paint it as it looks to you, the exact color and shape of the patches.
Monet had found a different way of painting by capturing the subtleties of light and color and he experimented with the effects of light throughout his long career. He often painted patches of complementary colors next to each other. This causes your eye to rapidly bounce back and forth between the two colors, giving a shimmering effect. Sometimes we say the painting vibrates, and the end product was a freer looking painting.
Manet: The Leader
Edouard Manet (1832-83) is often called the Father of Modern Art. He was classically trained and often borrowed motifs of the great masters and painted something similar using his new approach, his innovations with color and brushwork.
Earlier artists began their paintings with a layer of dark paint then built layers on top of that, waiting for each layer to dry before applying the next. The result would be a gradual refining of color but required weeks or months in the making.
Manet preferred to finish his paintings in one sitting. He painted alla prima. He also painted in patches of color, cutting out in-between values to make sharper contrasts. This technique made his painting look flat and “in your face,” an appearance the public did not appreciate. Whereas in the past, paintings gave the impression of a window to a view, the viewer now had to look at the surface of the painting.