"EN PLEIN AIR" AT R S HANNA GALLERY

Okay, first of all I have rethunk my promise to post twice a week. Ain't gonna happen. In my typical fashion I bit off more than I can chew so I have to back off a bit and post once a week. If for any reason things happen to warrant two posts in one week...I will do so.

Now to today's post. Earlier this month along with Marc Hanson, Frank Gardner and Hodges Solieau I participated in the "En Plein Air" show at R S Hanna Gallery (www.rshannagallery.com)in Fredericksburg.

The event was well attended and Shannon put on a stellar reception like she always does.

All of the artists works were elegantly displayed in a front room. I was extremely pleased with the corner displaying my new work.

With Shannon Hanna in my corner, all smiles and enjoying the  reception crowd. Below are a few of the pieces I presented at the show.

"No More Harvests"  9" x 12"  oil

"Red Rock Canyon"  12" x 16"  oil

"Along the Blanco"  12" x 16"  oil

"Work Horse"  12" x 16"  oil

The reception was on a Friday night, but I took a couple of days before the show to do several on location paintings and take a bunch of photo reference for paintings that will be done in the studio later. The highlight of my trip was getting to spend a day painting with my good friend Bob Rohm.

Bob and I spent the morning painting Cow Creek a few miles east of Marble Falls. It didn't take long before the heat baked us and we retired to a local eatery for iced tea and burgers.

A DAY IN THE FIELD and THE RETURN TO BLOGGING

First let me apologize for being so absent from Blogger. It has come to pass that posting a painting on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest has become so much easier and the responses come back so much quicker that blogging has taken a back seat to the others. I recently posted a painting on Facebook and within a single day received 158 responses and comments. My typical post on Facebook gets 30 or more "Likes" and comments. I've never had that kind of response on Blogger.

So I apologize for being such a sap for that little "Like" button. I am recommitting to writing two blog posts a week, one on Sunday and one on Wednesday. Some of the posts will be about current events and workshops and others will be about techniques and tips for all  the artists following my blog. So with that in mind let's get started...

I recently began forcing myself out of the studio. I do this when I see my studio work becoming stale. There has to be a level of excitement as I paint or I become bored and rapidly lose interest in a painting. So what follows is one of my recent days in the field.

My basic field equipment. In the backpack is my palette, panel holder and paints. The other backpack is for camera equipment. The other two bags carry my umbrella and a tripod.

My on location set up. I use the En Plein Air Easel. I've had this one for a little more than a year with no problems. The kit comes with the palette, panel holder and tripod. Notice the side tray for brushes and the custom designed turp can that sits in a hole in the bottom middle of the pallette. I have found the turp location to be the most convenient of all plein air easels. To the bottom left you can see that all my paint, brushes, paint scrappers and extra palette knives are in a plastic fishing worm box. 

Here's my palette. I use the exact same colors in the studio. From bottom left going clockwise the colors are Mauve (blue shade) Coblat blue, Ultramarine blue, Cerulean blue hue, Windsor green (Thalo), Cadmium yellow light, Yellow ochre pale, Windsor yellow deep, Cadmium orange, Cadmium red light, Alizarin, Burnt sienna and Titanium white. 

My first scene of the day is this run down farm house.
It is an overcast day which is a good thing because the light will remain consistent for several hours. At the same time its a bad thing because I like painting when there are stronger shadow patterns which are available on bright sunny days.

After about thirty minutes I have most of the painting blocked in.

An hour an half later the painting is finished. 

I'm off the find the next painting. I have no plan, just driving along the highway, taking a few back roads that look interesting and hoping for the best. Stopping every once in a while to take photos.

My second scene of the day. I actually drove around this corner in the road and saw the tree in my mirror. Made a u-turn and gave the scene a second look. 

The temperature has climbed into the 90s so I seek shade under the tailgate of my car and a large Shade Buddy umbrella.

A quick sketch of the scene. I decide to leave out the telephone poles. I will probably put them in if I do a studio version of this.

My first thirty minutes of blocking in the main shapes.
I put in that distant blue streak to establish depth in the painting.

This is about an hour and forty minutes into the painting and I'm getting really tired and the heat from the road is really giving me a headache.

I punch up the color and hue in the foreground. This keeps most of the interest in the front part of the painting and adds more depth so that distant hill looks really far away.

At this point I'm an hour from home and fairly fried physically and mentally so I take back roads all the way home stopping every once in a while to take pictures. Below are a couple of scenes I photographed that I will probably do studio pieces from at a later date.

All in all a good productive day in the field. Hope you enjoyed today's blog post. If you did please leave me a comment. Wednesday's post will be a review of the "En Plein Air" opening at R S Hanna Gallery.

"EN PLEIN AIR" AT R S HANNA GALLERY

"EN PLEIN AIR"

Featuring the work of Rusty Jones, Marc Hanson, 

Hodges Soileau and Frank Gardner

Opening reception Friday, June 7, 2013  6-8 PM

R S Hanna Gallery

208 South Llano Street

Fredericksburg, TX  78624

830.307.3071

www.rshannagallery.com

RUSTY JONES, Texas

www.rustyjonesstudio.com

"I believe plein air painting is the purest form of painting. It forces you to make quick decisions and rely on your gut reaction to the scene in front of you. There's no time for second guessing and it isn't for the faint of heart. You have to fight bugs, wind, rain, heat, snow, snakes, predators and any number of other things that make creating a work of art difficult. But at the end of the day, when the paintings are done, there is an undeniable sense of accomplishment and you realize that an entire day painting the beauty that surrounds you is a great day."

"Work Horse"  12" x 16"  oil/linen

"Red Rock Canyon"  12" x 16"  oil/linen

 Marc Hanson, Colorado

www.marchansonart.com

A viewer of my paintings wrote to me recently and had this to say, "Your landscapes are so evocative, for me so emotional! You have a gift for portraying more than realism in your landscapes-not something fantastical, but something simultaneously approachable and not. Not everyone will do what you do, but so many of us are deluded or ambitious enough to aspire to." This very generous and kind statement describes exactly how I would hope that my art is received by those who view it. I try to live up to this ideal with each painting."

"Scarlet Skies"   11" x 14"  oil

"Entanglement  11' x 14"  oi

Hodges Soileau, Florida

www.hodgessoileau.com

"I believe an artist should strive for something more than just the technical skill in their work. There is a feeling, or reaction, that one gets when standing in front of a painting or piece of art. Sometimes, it's not an easy thing to describe. It might be the sense of place in a landscape, the light on the subject, or a fleeting expression in a portrait. These are the types of reactions that one hopes are communicated in his or her paintings. The best scenario is when the technical and the emotional part of a painting is inseparable."

"In for the Night"   16" x 20"  oil

"The Loner"  12" x 16"  oil

Frank Gardner, Mexico

www.frankgardner.com

"Cabalgata"  24" x 20"  oil

"La Capilla Afternoon"  14" x 11"

"My paintings are interpretations of my experiences. They come from my desire to share the beauty that I see every day by arranging bits of color and ideas to tell a story. Drawn to the colors of fleeting light effects on the landscape I try and accurately represent color I see. However, I also interpret and push color if it is useful to convey how the scene makes me feel."

"OLD VETERAN" STEP-BY-STEP

The "Old Veteran" is a magnificent old Cypress tree that is clinging to the edge of a cliff at Point Lobos State Park in California. It is one of the featured attractions along the north rim trail. The problem with doing a painting of "Old Veteran" is its like doing a portrait. It is a structure that is painted often and is a recognizable form. So the trick is to try and capture the true essence of the form while maintaining your own interpretation of it. My other problem is when I paint large I tend to tighten up. One of my goals this year is to do larger plein air work so staying loose in the studio will become less of a problem for me.

I start with a rough line drawing using thinned down burnt sienna on a toned canvas. The tone is pure cadmium orange. This orange tone will show through the paint, especially in the shadow areas and give the painting a vibrant feeling I could not capture if I tried to paint it. I must be careful to make sure the "Y" shape made by the fork in the tree is not in the center of the painting. This would be a design disaster so I set it just off-center.

As with most paintings, I start by painting in the shadow patterns. Here I am painting the underside of the main Cypress tree forms. Notice how much ultramarine blue I'm putting into this area. I already know I'm going to be painting the light areas of the tree trunk with warm tones, so this cool color in the shadows will enhance the warm colors I put down later. By enhance I mean it will make them appear warmer than they really are.

When painting the shadow areas I paint them darker than they really are because I typically will go back into them later in the painting and lighten them with reflected lights. Because of the large fan like dark shape at the top of the painting I put in a similar dark shape at the bottom. This will create balance in the painting. I take this shape all the way across to the bottom right of the painting. This creates a visual block so the viewer will be forced to enter the painting from the left side. That's the plan anyway...it may change as the painting progresses. Also notice how I warmed up the shadow directly under the tree with burnt sienna and cadmium orange.

I want to create the feeling of aerial perspective so I paint in the distant trees. Here I am painting in the sky holes with a blueish-green color.

  

This shot gives you an idea of the size of the 
painting. I am beginning to paint the tops of the tree.

My typical studio setup. Painting on the easel, a color photo next to it so I don't have to turn my head and in the background you can see the large HD TV. The TV is attached to my laptop. On my laptop I have my reference photo in Photoshop. This allows me to zoom in and out of the photo reference so I can see details and I can brighten or darken the photo as needed. 

 

From this point forward I will basically work from the top of the painting down. Here you can see how I have separated the main tree from the distant tree.

I have painted most of the trunk and the background behind the tree. It has been a challenge, because I want this area to be warm but the trunk is a blueish/grey color which turns green when I try to warm it up with yellow tones. I solve the problem by adding bits of pink and cadmium orange in a broken color application. This way the viewer's eye will combine the colors and interpret this area as I intend.

Now I have moved down to paint the cliff. This becomes more of a design exercise than a painting of this area. This is the one area where I feel I can get away from my photo reference and just paint what I want to support the rest of the painting. If I over render this area it will take away from the tree so the challenge is to make it look rocky, but not attract too much attention.

 

Remember earlier when I said the orange underpainting would show through and create a vibrancy. You can clearly see it over on the left side.

 

I've gone back in and warmed up the tree trunk and defined the shadow pattern. I think this creates an interesting play of light.

 "Old Veteran"  18" x 24"  oil/linen

The completed painting. What do you think?