Mountain Maryland Plein Air

7x8 pastel

This is an amazing event. Not only is the landscape inspiring, but the people are warm and wonderful! I love participating! Here are two paintings from my week in Cumberland, Maryland.

21x23 pastel
Now off to Nova Scotia!

little bits of orchestration

30x40 oil on linen

Little bits of orchestration are the small notes (changes in color) placed that allow the entire opera (of the painting) to sing together. The diva has her place but those other small notes help her sing. I have searched for those notes of orchestration on this one and it's coming close. The photo doesn't seem to do it justice as the bottom half has a wonderful vibration.

the moment before night

This moment in time is the most challenging since it lasts about 3 minutes then there is dramatic change- darkness.

roads with an edge

My roads series is developing into fun with design and now, with edge. hmmmm

venus comes out to play and singing the blues

another 6"x6" pastel, venus comes out to play

New thing- I am using watercolor paper, but no watercolor. Instead I am sanding it to a soft velvety finish. Feels good on the fingers.

Singing the blues 6x6 pastel

I keep experimenting with new color combinations, but using the same field. Color, but grays still rule.






PS A big thank you to all the wonderful people who came to the gallery last night and celebrated with us!

study for night

twilight 10x9

twilight 2 10x9

Night time, the later part of twilight...those few moments ...the sun has set the sky is darkening.  Ahhhhh. Maxfield Parrish did it in a way that can't be topped. I have spent many nights, months of nights just walking at that particular moment. If I am home making dinner I just pop onto the deck for those moments. It might last 5 minutes maximum. Memorizing. Finally I attempt the beauty of that light. It will take many times to find a way.
Oil underneath, on Uart, pastel layered on top.

BTW Today is my celebration. It's one year now and I am healthy! Yay!

memory paintings at dusk

How much color can go in a  nightfall painting and still say dusk? Honestly, I am not sure. So I keep experimenting and using my memory, instead of plein air painting. Some consistencies include that after the sun sets the tree edges have a warm color, the ground is cool and the rest of the landscape is much darker.
These are both from my soccer field. We had a thunderstorm during the week and afterwards was glorious. Brilliant color and small puddles of colored water. I let it sit with me for days and finally painted today. The underpaintings were different. The top on has an acrylic underpainting, somthing I decided to do in order to push the intensity. The bottom one is a rubbed in pastel underpainting. Softer.

Always searching...
Now back to cutting boards, preparing frames, and packing all my stuff for a week of plein air painting at the Mountain Maryland Plein Air 2011. Think successful thoughts for me, k?

wonder is the key to discovery

about 10x18 pastel on wallis

Wonder is the key to discovery. You can easily see this is true when you watch young children. It is no different for adults.
That brings me to explain why I am vacuuming  old paintings and making nocturnes from  memories long past. It's actually quite exhilerating and freeing to just work on the paper and just see what happens. I choose colors because I like them and I watch to see what happens if I...?

pink nocturne

9x9 pastel and watercolor on wallis

Lately I haven't been sleeping that well so I am out and about early. It's great for getting work done and exploring nocturnes. After yesterday's beautiful small snow the landscape has changed completely. City lights make the moist particles in the air glow with color..this morning it was dusty pink before sunrise. My chant was- close values, limited color.

If you haven't seen Sam's post yet you must. I laughed until I cried.

nocturnes

Nocturnes continue to fascinate me. When I was in NYC this weekend I sought out all the ones I could find.
 I noticed a couple of things they had in common.
*limited color, most artists chose burnt sienna in the land and blue in the sky- some were green blue. Lights were often done with yellow ochre/yellow .
*it's all about value and the values are often closer together
*my favorites tended to have blurred masses

whistler

Robert Henri

Rembrandt

Whistler

This is a long way of saying yesterday I began a nocturne, but by bedtime I had wiped the whole thing away. I decided that I needed a "removed grisaille" to figure out the masses of value and not get stuck in the details. I continue to experiment with making the grisaille off the painting. Yesterday's painting had the grisaille on the board. Simple shapes, close values. I don't know if you can tell in the drawing below: there is a house, a shed and trees. I will try to see how little information I need to give.

mine

moving the grisaille to a new place

11x14 pastel on somerset
Rather than paint a traditional grisaille on the canvas I am working the values on paper and then transferring the concept of the value to color on my painting. This idea comes from my plein air nocturne done last night.When I was working with Kay this weekend she was so helpful in reinforcing that I already knew. In the workshop she had us do value studies (something I LOVE to do)- This is mine.
Rather than paint a grisaille on my canvas I will use my grisaille  as my reference- A REMOVED GRISAILLE.  She talked to me about painting with my oils exactly as I paint so naturally with my pastels. I mix colors of pastels on the paper- why not mix my paints on the canvas?  She showed a really interesting video about Wolf Kahn that videoed him doing exactly that. It was like a huge "ah ha" moment. Why am I constantly fighting who I am????? Remember I talked about giving permission? Well this is about giving permission to be authentic. There is not a meticulous bone in my body..I am exhaustingly energetic (as my husband and friends will confirm) I prefer large movements to small motions...Why on earth have I been holding back? Kay suggested to go much bigger canvases and bigger 1 , 2 and 3 inch brushes so that I can move.
So that is where I am now.
Toodles for now:-)

nocturne-pastel, plein air night tips

pastel on very thick twinrocker paper-a warm tone..maybe sand
With my mini reading light in hand and the evening weather delightful, I decided to work plein air. Not being able to see made my decisions quick and small. I think this pastel took 15 minutes. It's about 9x9 inches.
Four tips:
* Keep your pastels in order so when you can't see you know where they are (no wolves in sheep's clothing!)
* The darks are very dark, but more interesting if they have color, not black.
*When choosing darks you choose from a family. A nocturne is often blue...or violet.  They are typically cool, but I have seen warm ones that are beautiful. (Rules are meant to be broken)
*The differences you make in the land are more about temperature shifts not value. This will be more evident in the oil I have been working on, using this as a study.
I am using rag paper and no watercolor... it's faster and more immediate. I have found that if I rub the pastel in deep I can layer a lot. It also allows me to be bolder with my mark...calm sections and sections with exciting calligraphy.

nocturne

8x8 oil 
I am having a very hard time photographing this nocturne. When it dries I will try again. What you can't see is the very small changes in color temperature across the land. The value is the same, but (when you can see it ) you can read the structure of the land. The color temperature defines the form.

chain bridge nocturne

oil on linen 8x10
So many artists have done beautiful nocturnes; Whistler, Remington and Inness, just to name a few. Then of course we have the contemporary blogger, Marc Hanson, who just finished his month long Nocturne Marathon. Please check out his amazing blog. You are in for a treat. Marc fills his blog with excellent information and beautiful paintings.
I am rising to the challenge. While I have observed many, painted a few, in oil and in pastel I know that I have alot to learn. Two things that seem to be true; cool light and much less color.
For this one I used a warm underpainting (after viewing the Whistlers) Then my love affair with color kindled..in earnest (below). Read too much color. 

Deborah Paris pointed out to me that it had too much color to be night. True.  The value shifts were right, but not the color. Now after a series of viridian, ultramarine blue, burnt sienna, and chromatic black glazes, it looks like night. I thought it also needed one lighter value in all the dark, which explains the brighter moonlight.

When puzzled I often change the mode in Photoshop (CS3) and that allows me to easily see the value. Remember value does the work, color gets the glory. I think I should simply write that on my hand each day...like a tattoo. I can't be reminded enough!
My goal is to learn that if color is to be exquisite, it needs to be controlled.

nocturnes/dusk/Whistler and my struggles

 Whistler, Nocturne in Blue and Silver: The Lagoon Venice
Lately I have been studying the light of the early evening hours. It's always good to go and look at inspiring works as well. Who  better to look to than the man himself?...Whistler. Downtown in the Freer Gallery of Art there is a wonderful selection of his gorgeous nocturnes.
My special interest is in his blue nocturnes of Venice and the Battersea bridge. For these he painted on a deep red or mahogany panel. It glows through the thinly layered blue/gray paint. That's what makes the blues sing. Whistler painted with sweeps of color..just the perfect sweep..no more no less. If it wasn't just right he would wipe it off. Because of the beautiful "simplicity" In his time Whistler's nocturnes were not considered "real art." They just seemed too easy... Oh to be that good!
Whistler said that his palette was where the painting took place. He felt that once all the colors were mixed on the palette the painting was almost done.  So much precise thought went into making a beautiful harmony. He pre-mixed all his colors.  For what I understand his colors included: raw sienna, raw umber, yellow ochre, cobalt blue and then 3 reds, an orange red- I think - vermilion, Venetian red (cooler, bluer red), white and black.
Below was my first try three layers, all wiped away...already!

Below that is the second start. I felt more burnt sienna was necessary before putting the blue/grays on top. It was too light and there was no glow. Never be satisfied with OK, it must be right.

More as it develops.

another much better nocturne and more whistler quotes

6x16 oil on wood
Another try at a memory nocturne. Pushed the value of the land to be darker which implies about 4:00am, while yesterdays' was right before sunrise. I am working on wood again..birch this time-love it!
Scratching, rubbing and stroking the oil paint to experiment with what it will do.


I will once again end with two famous quotes from James Abbott McNeill Whistler in reference to his nocturnes:

They are "not painted to offer the portrait of a particular place, but as an artistic impression that had been carried away [from the scene]."

I wanted to indicate an artistic interest alone, divesting the picture of any outside anecdotal interest which might have otherwise attached to it. A nocturne is an arrangement of line, form and colour first. the picture is throughout a problem, that I attempt to solve. I make use of any means, any incident or object in nature that will bring about this symmetrical result.

He said these quotes during the court case Whistler vs. Ruskin. This was the case where Whistler became bankrupt. He risked everything for an opportunity to assert the supremacy of art over the increasingly powerful domain of criticism (Ruskin). Yay Whistler!

Nocturne of Green

5x12 pastel on BFK (right), detail-left
A nocturne is a musical composition inspired by the beauty of night. It was Whistler who first applied musical terminology to visual art by titling his paintings Harmonies, Nocturnes, or Symphonies. In his essay "The Gentle Art of Making Enemies," he wrote: "As music is the poetry of sound so is painting the poetry of sight." Painting for Whistler was about  arranging colors in beautiful harmony.
Whistler was on my mind as I painted this variation. I am preparing for the color work on the painting I prepared yesterday. What better way than to do another variation based on the color harmony I desire for this painting.
Sometimes painting is about planning, sometimes it's about insight and intuition, and most of all sometimes it's about happy accidents that are recognized before covered!

Nocturne, #1

8x10 pastel on Uart
Done from memory and notes from the summer, this painting started with a grisaille, upon which I pasteled directly (no watercolor.) hmmmm. It's my first attempt at a nocturne. I have had it in my mind for a long time, I simply had to soak up the color and understand.  This is the added on version. The first I posted at 5:30 am. When I returned to the studio at 1:00 it was obvious the painting needed more (thanks Doug.)
Maybe someday I will try to rig up my easel for plein air at night. Any tips friends?