No time to be fussy

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Rapeseed Fields in Southern France

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Third Time Around

Cypress Trees in Southern France

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Transformation of a Painting

The top painting began as the painting below. I thought I had resolved the painting, cleaned my palette and brushes, shut off the lights and returned home. Next morning when I arrived back at the studio I noticed that the dark spaces between the branches of one of the larger trees on the right was too dark in value and came forward rather than recede. I thought it would be simple enough to make the adjustment. One small adjustment led to another. I added a bit more definition to the small, isolated tree in the mid-ground area on the far right. I lost the subtlety I had liked in the grassy area. The painting lost its spark for me.

I'm not sure what happened next. Perhaps I began making a few more adjustments. At some point, the painting began to take on a new life, a far more vibrant life than the original version. The image began to have a heartbeat and I responded by giving it air to breath and space through which to move. I have had this experience many times while painting with watercolor, but only recently have I experienced it while oil painting.

Transformation is thrilling. Allowing the painting to go in a totally new direction resulted in a far stronger painting.

Getting around to Playing

After working for about six hours on the two paintings of Gaudi's walls of brick and stone I felt tight and lacking in creativity. It is one thing to look intently at a scene in front of me and to respond to the details that I pull out of the reality. It is quite another to study a photograph with the same intensity. Photographs are terribly limited when it comes to color. They can't help it. The color is created by pigment, not light. Translating pigment to pigment is quite different from translating light into pigment.

After deciding it was time to stop working on the brick and stones, to let the paintings dry and hope for a bit more energy to come from the next layer of glazing, my choice was to lock up shop and go home or to paint the first layer of glaze onto the last of the Road Series canvases. I had decided to use the painting Morning Dance as inspiration and to see what might happen. The painting is not at blue as it appears here.

With simplicity in mind I began to paint; I began to smile, to feel that rush of pleasure when something unexpected begins to happen. My fatigue vanished and I followed the muse. The final painting is another example of how working on a series results in breaking through barriers and finding myself in a new, unexplored territory. I adore simplicity, yet it is so difficult for me to express well. This painting is finished and I am delighted with the results.

Straube Center Fall Art Show

The exhibit at Monsoon Gallery closes on November 5th and the exhibit at Straube Center opens on November 7th.

Several of the paintings that have been posted over the past five months were not included in the current exhibit at Monsoon Gallery. I eliminated half a dozen from the Road Series and all of the architectural series. The architectural series, inspired by the works of Gaudi, will hang in the Straube Center Exhibit.

Painting Out the Road

How refreshing.

As the painting developed, the road became less significant. During the final stages, nothing about the road worked anymore, the shape, the value, the color.... , it had served its purpose of being the seed and it was time for the road to vanish and vanish it did.

Clinging to elements in a painting that no longer work can be disastrous to the final outcome of a painting. Flexibility, willingness to allow the painting itself to begin dictating the resolution of composition, of color, of character and personality is an essential part of the creative process. Knowing exactly what the outcome should be and making sure that it turns out that way negates any chance of creativity being part of the process.

In order for a canvas to develop a personality, a direction of its own, a painter must start somewhere, plant the seed, do all she can to nurture the seed and then let go of the controls when she sees that something other than a duck has hatched out of the egg! For those of you who missed out on the joy of sitting on your mother's lap and listening to her read to you, I'm making reference to The Ugly Duckling by Hans Christian Andersen.

On The Road #1

On The Road #1 was the first of the series Between Here and There. This painting has undergone more drastic changes than any other painting in the series.

The first glaze, a light value glaze of cool blue convinced me that I would, in spite of my doubts, enjoy the technique of glazing. I thought the composition was strong and I looked forward to the dramatic impact of the final painting. The second glaze, the glaze applied over the trees and over both the sky and the road, also went well. Without hesitation, except for the week of drying time between glazes, I applied the third glaze, a darker blue of the sky and a variety of greens on the trees. I did not plan for my emotions, so terribly susceptible to the moods of those around me and to the pressures of daily life, to take control of the painting. Without realizing it I changed a perfectly calm and evocative mood into one of frenzy and discord. The clouds shot diagonally across the narrow canvas in a state of frenzy.

At the next sitting, I painted out the lower clouds believing I could taming the energy of the upper clouds to my advantage. I was wrong. During the next sitting I painted the clouds out completely and pruned the tree on the right significantly. The following session involved further pruning of the trees on the left and total removal of the tree on the right. I was getting into a more Zen state. In addition, time had passed since I had started the series of Sky,Road and Trees. I'd grown quite weary of the subject and needed to do something drastic just for the fun of it.

During the past few days I've been reflecting on the direction of my painting. How does representational work really fit into my life, or does it at all? In the September 2nd Twice-Weekly Letter by Robert Genn wrote about refocusing on what one's passions were as a child. With that in mind I went back into the painting with a lighter touch, adding happier colors into the sky and allowing the trees to be more playful. At this point, the road seems to have very little to do with the painting. I will deal with that at the next sitting.

Thunderstorms

Summer is not my favorite season. For me, the highlight of summer is thunderstorms. I love lying in bed, total darkness except for the flashes of lightning, the wind causing the curtains to billow into the room and the sound of rain on the gutters and ground. The sound of the rain pounding on the metal roof at the studio is even better.

A powerful storm moved through in the early hours of the morning taking with it the electricity at the studio. I've painted in the dark before, no reason to break my routine due to lack of light. A perfect opportunity to play with my paint, using extreme colors calculating the mixes in my head and making sure the values worked. Even after the electricity came back on I continued to play. As much as I have enjoyed working on the Road Series, I have also felt restricted by working representationally and focusing on relatively realistic atmospheric conditions.

One of the benefits of painting a series is that after having solved many of the common problems presented by the series, I can't help but veer off in another direction that usually suggests a fresh approach and ultimately stronger work.

Sky as the source of color scheme

The underpaintings shown are a mix of viridian, cadmium red medium and white. Yesterday I applied the first glaze to the square painting illustrated above, a landscape in Northern Portugal. I started the session with a neutralized blue-gray to the sky. My attention was focused on mixing colors to create distant atmospheric perspective. When it came to the foreground greens I found it difficult to mix colors that didn't make my stomach turn and cause a sense of depression to deplete my energy. After several hours of struggle, I was able to mix brighter, yet still grayed, greens and an odd, but not unpleasant sense of light began to give life to the painting.



Today's session started on a second canvas (same underpainting colors) with a different approach to the sky, a bright, yet light value mix of cobalt turquoise and white. The color of the sky determines the light source and therefore affects all the other color mixes on the canvas. If the sky is gray, there are no blues being reflected off of the landforms in the shadows below; nor are there warm yellows reflecting off of the landforms in the sunlit areas since the sun is also blocked. Therefore only grayed variations of all the colors are possible if I am limiting myself to reality which, of course, I am not. Reality is only a starting point. When the sky is blue, the shadow areas will reflect a lovely blue variation of the local color and the sunlit areas will reflect white or yellows variations of local color. As the sun sets and the sky becomes more purple with oranges reflecting off of the clouds, the same colors appear in the shadows and lit areas of the landscape.

I remember the first winter after discovering alizarin crimson. It was the early 70's. Winter no longer appeared gray, white, black and brown with a blue sky overhead. Everywhere I looked I saw crimson and purple brambles, hillsides of lavenders and pinks. My eyes, having awakened to the crimsons of the leafless trees and bushes, became aware of the bright blues in shadows cast upon snow next to the sunlit yellows and oranges. Once again, painting is awakening me to new colors and nuances of color that have surrounded me all my life without my taking notice.

Creeping Up on Color

July in New Jersey challenges me to find interest and variety in the color green, even when painting in the studio. Using a limited palette makes it easier to create variety in my greens without introducing a green from a totally different light source. The fact that the same limited palette can be used to express landscapes at different times of the day and under different weather conditions might appear to contradict my last statement. I use a large sheet of glass as a palette allowing me to leave many piles of mixed paints spread about the surface. If the colored piles don't work well together on the palette, the colors won't work well together on the canvas.

I am finding that cool greens work better than warm greens when glazing over an underpainting of cool red. Both cool and warm greens work well over a warmer toned underpainting. Each day another positive aspect of underpainting reveals itself to me. Because the hues of the underpaintings are varied, I am forced to explore different choices for the glazes such as grayed greens, purple-greens and strong blue-greens.
The strong yellow-orange underpainting of the sky in the last two images forced a stronger blue that moves toward a lighter lavender and ended up suggesting one of those peculiar weather situations where it is raining a few miles up the road while the sky above is still a bright blue. The trees ahead, closer to the storm, are a cool, gray-green, while the trees closer to the foreground are a warmer, grayed green.

An unexpected result of painting landscapes in the studio is that I see the combinations I've created artificially in real landscapes. I've learned more about atmospheric color schemes in the past month than in a decade of plein-air painting. I'm looking forward to packing my gear and setting up outside this fall. Perhaps I will do a quick underpainting in acrylic so that it will dry quickly and I can immediately begin to overpaint in oil.

Link to page on website featuring progress of these paintings.

Exhilarating Fun

I began today's painting session with both excitement and apprehension. As I squeezed paint onto my old RCA Television Glass Pallette (saved from my family's first television in the 50's) I reminded myself that the results of first time efforts are often less than visually pleasing. This was my first experience applying thin glazes over a complimentary underpainting. The last thing I expected was to have so much fun, starting with the first brush stroke.

I'm curious as to how these new paintings that require months of alternating drying periods with glazing will influence my pleine air work. I will continue to post photos of the paintings as they evolve.

Already, I am seeing colors differently as I drive along our country roads, the light flickering between the tree branches of the dense wooded hills.

Cleaning House

I've been trying to simplify my life. Hah! That has always been the greatest challenge.

While sorting through my studios, the home studio and working studio, I found I have too many dangling projects...too many copies of "The Collie of Castle Hill" (the children's book I wrote and illustrated) and too many Limited Edition Giclee Prints of Captured-Digigraphs, Digital Photographs and Reproductions of original paintings. I have made a promise to myself to either make use of the things that are taking up room in my workspace or throw them out. With this in mind, I have decided to list some of the giclee prints on eBay. I have also opened an online Etsy.com store to sell small originals and prints. I love the idea of Etsy because it focuses on items Made by the Artist! and not bargain basement specials.

That said.... I continue to do my little studies. I find that I am becoming more aware of my obsessiveness over composition. The two versions of the painting of Round Valley Reservoir illustrates the lessons I learn from these little studies.

The image on the left was the first version of the painting. I thought it was finished ... a quick study.... no big deal. Hah! When I looked at it the next morning, the triangle created by the tree trunks in the middle of the painting drove me crazy. My eye could not leave that spot and it wasn't a very interesting spot to be stuck in.

I painted out the annoying tree trunk. Now the horizontal branches on the far right are causing me a bit of lost sleep, but not enough to change them. It is a 5"x8" study... not a 5' by 8' painting.

Thanks to these little studies, my large paintings will reap the benefits of the compositional errors that would be magnified in the larger works. As I look at the images on the blog, the triangle is not as distracting as it was in my studio. It does, however, block me from seeing past the grove of pine trees. I love traveling into the unknown.