Author: Joan Vienot

Posted on 10/17/201304/03/2024 by Joan Vienot — Leave a comment

The Present Moment — A Showing of My Art

Grayt Grounds of Monet Monet to showcase local artist Joan Vienot Nov. 2 – 17

“The Present Moment” show features landscapes painted in oil

A story by Lori Ceier, Walton Outdoors, http://www.waltonoutdoors.com/grayt-grounds-of-monet-monet-to-showcase-local-artist-joan-vienot-nov-2-17/

Artist Joan Vienot painting plein air at Grayt Grounds. Her work will be featured Nov. 2 – 17. Lori Ceier/Walton Outdoors

A one woman show of works by Walton artist Joan Vienot will be on display at Grayt Grounds of Monet Monet in Grayton Beach Nov. 2 – 17, 2013. Opening night is Nov. 2 from 5 – 8 p.m.

Cheri Peebles, owner of Grayt Grounds is excited about the show.

“My idea is to have a coffee house that is diversified and a service. Featuring local artists is good for the community and neighborhood,” said Peebles.

Joan Vienot’s history of making art in Walton County goes back to the first gallery in Grayton Beach who showcased her watercolor paintings of the dune lakes, Bay, the Gulf, and all things that grow and flourish along the coast. Her passion for the natural beauty of this area has led her to become a fine art painter. Vienot’s outdoor paintings done ‘en plein air,’ in the moment, capture the beauty we recognize as the paradise we live in here in Walton County.

The show will feature her plein air style 8”x10” oils on canvas offered in an affordable price range. There will be between 40 -50 works on display.

“I paint what I see, in the moment, which is reflected in my preference for figure drawing and plein air painting. The greatest pleasure for me as an artist is the capture of the present moment, a little piece of Now, or at least my impression of the Now. When painting on site outdoors, or figure drawing, the scene or the pose is very likely to change during the process of drawing or painting it. I enjoy that hurried pace, the rush of the capture, the challenge of the media, and the ongoing quest for quick mastery. In each case, the subject must be portrayed in fairly general terms, with only enough detail to lend unique identity and a little atmosphere. I must forgive myself for a bit of inaccuracy in favor of conveying the essence of the subject in an abbreviated period of time, rarely doing much correcting when I return to the studio, preferring to let my interpretation of the moment stand on its own,” said Vienot.

Below find a sampling what you may see at Vienot’s show:

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About Joan Vienot
Vienot has a BA in Fine Art from the University of Northern Colorado. In addition to teaching art to high school students, she is involved as a volunteer for the arts in Walton County, serving on the board of directors for the Cultural Arts Alliance and co-chairing the A+Art Committee for CAA, which showcases member artists’ work at the South Walton Center of Northwest Florida State College.

Recent exhibits and publications:
• Emerald Coast Plein Air Painters booth at ArtsQuest 2013
• Scenes of South Walton, 2012, Honorable Mention for “Aster Reflected,” at Hidden Lantern Gallery
• CAA Directors Show, 2012, Bayou Arts Center
• A Passion for Art, 2012, A+Art, Northwest Florida State College
• Figure It Out, 2011, Studio b
• Photography for The Stand Up Paddle Radio Show: published in The Paddler ezine, and Standup Journal

To learn more, go to joanvienot.com.

Posted on 09/26/201304/03/2024 by Joan Vienot — Leave a comment

Brighter Colors in Plein Air Painting

Oil painting of Hogtown Bayou looking west from Cessna Landing

I was showing a friend my paintings in my studio last weekend, and she remarked on the light and color of one row of paintings, which indeed were more vibrant than almost all of my other work. I explained that none of the five were plein air, that they were exercises done in a workshop I took last summer, from Julie Gilbert Pollard, “Wet and Wild: Painting Vibrant Water Scenes in Brilliant Color” (See my blog post). Ordinarily, that would have explained the difference as far as I was concerned, but I started thinking more about it. Granted, Julie taught us to use bright under-painting, and to use color for its value, rather than strictly for its hue. But as I looked around at my paintings, I realized that at the time I was painting them, I thought I was painting very brightly, but in the studio they looked a less brilliant. Then it dawned on me — I try to paint the colors that I see when I paint plein air. And usually the sun is shining brightly, so light and color are at their optimum. But when I bring my paintings indoors, the light invariably is never as bright as the sun, even using “daylight” bulbs. When I take those same paintings into the sunlight, they are much brighter. So I realized that in order for my paintings to have the same brilliance of color indoors that I see when I am painting them, I might need to paint with brighter color than what I see. I’m going to think about that some more.

For today’s plein air session I took some canvas panels that were already under-painted, like we did in that workshop in July. I had under-painted two 8×10 panels with red, and a third 6×6 with sort of a buff color. I let some of the under-paintings show through, not covering the entire canvas with paint. and I scratched out some of the grass and tree trucks, revealing the underlying color. Below are my results.

Posted on 09/13/201304/03/2024 by Joan Vienot — Leave a comment

Photography: Good Morning!

Photo of the dock at the boat launch at Point Washington, FL, by Joan Vienot

Many mornings before I go to work, I will see a view that begs to be captured, the image that starts my day. I post these morning photos on Facebook, with perhaps a wistful comment about my day-job cutting short my enjoyment of the scene. This was the image I shot yesterday, the dock at the public boat launch in my village, Point Washington, Florida. The view looks out over Tucker Bayou extending into the eastern Choctawhatchee Bay, in Northwest Florida. It is one of my favorite areas to canoe and stand-up paddle.

Usually when I post to my personal page in Facebook, I set the post-privacy to friends only, but when I uploaded this image yesterday, I accidentally uploaded on the public setting, and it spread like wildfire. Ordinarily I have a few “likes” and maybe one or two instances where people have shared my image onto their own page. This photo had been shared 119 times in one day.

This view is iconic for the area. certainly, but there was a quality to the light, a certain late-summer gold on the grass, that I could see between the trees all the way from my house a good ways up the bayou. The attraction was such that I took only a few seconds to brush my teeth before rushing out the door to capture it, afraid it would change before I could travel the long mile to get there. I took a couple of shots with my good camera, and then I shot this one with my iPhone 4S for immediate upload. Some of my friends on social media have told me they enjoy my morning shots, and it is gratifying to hear their comments. Sharing an experience or a perception through an image makes it more meaningful to me. But the number of “shares” on social media has surprised me, and I am pleased that so many people appreciated this simple scene. Thankfully, I had remembered to watermark it with my website, which if the image is not altered on purpose, allows me to retain a connection as it travels the web.

My website is being updated. When I saw my image starting to go viral, I called my webmaster to ask him to put Facebook “share” buttons on my site so the path would be circular, from the Facebook image on my personal page, to my website, and then back to my Facebook art page. He responded immediately — kudos to Brian at www.andersonsolutions.com

Posted on 09/11/201304/03/2024 by Joan Vienot — Leave a comment

Painting Plein Air At Home

Oil painting of the view into Tucker Bayou

A nice thing about plein air painting is that it can be done anywhere outdoors. I am fortunate to live in an area of wonderful natural beauty, so everywhere I turn, there is a scene worth painting. I didn’t want to make the 30 mile drive into town to meet up with my plein air group, so I stayed home. The trees were tinged with fall colors, and the sky had returned to blue, after days of haze. It was a great day to paint. But I was in a bit of a rush this morning, wanting to finish by a certain time in order to be able to go to a poetry reading. After an hour of painting fast-and-furious, I left my easel setup on my dock, running to the house for a quick shower before driving to the reading.

Posted on 09/07/201304/03/2024 by Joan Vienot — Leave a comment

From Mosquitoes to Fire Ants: Plein Air Painting in Florida

What I did not write about in my blog post last weekend, Plein Air at Torreya State Park, Bristol, Florida, was that there were a few bugs. Mosquitoes and spiders to be specific. Actually there were more than a few. There were gazillions of them. I stayed covered up with a long-sleeved shirt and long lightweight pants the entire 95º weekend, despite the humidity. It was in the early hours of the first night that I realized I had made a terrible mistake, that I had failed to consider all the possibilities for my heavenly plein air retreat in the woods. It never even occurred to me that I would actually need the repellant I always pack when I backpack.. After suffering through the first night with not one but two mosquitoes in my tent, I learned that I would need to slather every square inch, exposed or not, with a good herbal repellant. The mosquitoes bit right through my clothes.

Ordinarily the suffering that goes with plein air painting is mimimized by the thrill of the process. There is nothing quite like the race against time to figure out and capture the light and colors of a scene. So began my painting at this week’s session with the Emerald Coast Plein Air Painters at Grayt Grounds of Monet Monet, a coffee shop occupying a copy of Giverny complete with gardens and a water lily coy pond near Grayton Beach, Florida. It has become a favorite location for our group. There must have been 15 or 20 painters there this week. I had gotten a good start when I became aware of something biting my ankles. I swatted a couple of times, sprayed some repellent on, and kept on painting. All of a sudden with a clear understanding of what it must be like to be burned at the stake, I looked down to see the horror of a whole troop of ants setting my ankles on fire! Anyone who lives in the southern United States knows exactly what I am talking about, but anyone not from the South cannot even imagine it. Fire ants have a strategy of climbing onto your feet and legs en masse with the stealth of a cat burglar, and then upon some mysterious signal, all biting at the same time. It literally feels like your feet are on fire. Determined to hold my position and finish my painting, I found an extra paint shirt in my pickup and laid it on the ground in front of my easel. Unbelievably, it worked — the ants stayed underneath the shirt while I stood on top of it. Above is my painting of the building called Monet Monet at Grayton Beach, painted from the top of the fire ant mound across the street. I almost always re-size my paintings for internet publication, but I decided to post a higher-resolution version so you can see the details. You may have to click on the image when it first opens, to allow it to display at full magnification. It’s not as distinctly focused as I would like, but it gives you an idea of the number of colors and fast-and-furious brushstrokes that go into a 2-hour painting. Click here for very large image Of the Monet Monet painting.

Last night I had a little fun painting in my studio. I have mentioned before that I serve on the A+Art Committee of the Cultural Arts Alliance of Walton County. We will be showing members’ art made on 10″ x 10″ wood panels in a show called “One Size Fits All”. All the panels will be priced at $100, of which the artist will get $80 and the remaining $20 will go to CAA. I’ve already painted the two panels I am submitting, which I blogged about in Painting Under The Gun. But if any of our paintings sell, we are allowing the buyer to take it home with them, and the selling artist then can fill the empty space with another painting. I decided to paint a couple of extra paintings because I intend for mine to sell. (Hint, hint, local patrons!!) I love the iconic blue herons we see here everywhere there is water — docks, shorelines, even roadside ditches. I tried out a new color combination in this painting. I used a craggy piece of driftwood to make the lines of the grasses, which resulted in a much less controlled and more interesting jumble of lines than if I had put them in with a familiar tool or scraper.

Posted on 09/01/201304/03/2024 by Joan Vienot — 1 Comment

Plein Air at Torreya State Park, Bristol, Florida

Oil painting of Apalachicola River through the trees from the bluff above

Oil painting of the hillside by the campsite overlooking the Apalachicola River

Oil painting of grasses beside the campsite overlooking the Apalachicola River

A few weeks ago I bought myself a toy, a “Guerrilla Painter” thumb-box, which is a small wooden box that opens into a plein air panel holder and palette and brush and paint holder. The box fits into a small carry case and has a hole in the bottom for your thumb so you can hold it like a painter’s palette. It comes with one 6×8 gesso’d hardboard panel, and I also bought 10 resin-impregnated 6×8 cards to paint on. I primed the cards even though you don’t have to, so I would be painting on a familiar white surface.

I thought a camping trip to a local state park might be the perfect opportunity to try out my “thumb-box”. A friend had made reservations at the best primitive campsite Torreya State Park has to offer, and Friday afternoon found us backpacking the short one-mile trail to set up camp. I also had packed my full plein air set just in case i didn’t like the Guerrilla Painter, so I carried it in on the next trip when we went back to the truck to get water. My full set has arm straps and a campstool attached, but no hip belt, so you carry the whole thing on your shoulders. It became very heavy on my shoulders, so getting a hip belt is now a high priority!

I had never camped with painting being the sole purpose to the trip. My friend took off for a hike each day, and I was left to paint to my heart’s delight. I tested the Guerrilla Painter, using a limited palette, only 4 colors and white. At right are the three 6×8 pieces I did. I used less paint than I would have on a textured canvas. I learn something on every painting I do. The first day I was determined not to use green straight out of the tube, even though I was surrounded by green in the forest. So I mixed some greens using of course blue and yellow, but I also put blue next to yellow in many places, to give the illusion of green. On my third painting, I painted the grasses near the edge of the campsite sometimes using red instead of green. That interested me — I may do a series.

There was one challenge I did not resolve, when painting with the Guerrilla Painter. I use my left hand to hold my rag or paper towel, to clean my brush, but holding the Thumb-Box with my left thumb meant that I had to hold my rag between my index and middle fingers, wiping my brush without being able to see it underneath the box.

The second day I opted to paint using my standard plein air easel and full paint set, since I had gone to the trouble of packing it in. I usually end up using a limited palette anyway — it helps to tie the painting together, because the same colors get used in many different places. Below are the two 8×10’s I did with my regular set-up. This time I mixed a lot of different greens, but attempted to keep most of the foliage details a little vague. I felt if I was distinct with the tree trunks and branches, they would explain the foliage.

Oil painting of Apalachicola River Bluff campsite 1

Oil painting of Apalachicola River Bluff Campsite 2

Posted on 08/25/201304/03/2024 by Joan Vienot — Leave a comment

Making Sense in Plein Air

Oil painting of parked boats at a yacht club

Ugh! Boats again! Last week we met at a yacht club, and as much as I love sailing, and water sports of any kind actually, I certainly struggle when we paint boats. Parked in the middle of a giant circle drive were every kind imaginable of dinghies, sunfish, motorboats, rowboats, sailboats, you name it, in various stages of neglect and disrepair, to one side of the more manicured grounds and view of the docked yachts. I chose to paint the clutter. I wisely drew the shapes first, spending some time in what I imagined to be organization of geometric shapes, but that preparation did not keep me from getting lost in my own composition, numerous times. I was barely halfway done when fellow painter Sandra strolled past with her completed painting, and I asked her if she was going to do another, and she said, “Joan, it’s 11:00, it’s time for critique!”

It’s always a thrill to see what the other painters have managed to do during the same time period. We all are having essentially the same experience in the same location, but looking at everything from another point of view and with varying media and skill levels, so rarely are any two pictures similar. I can safely say that no one did anything as hodgepodge as my composition. I still am trying to make sense of it, even after coming home and finishing it in my studio. I think the shapes all give the right idea, but I’m not sure if anyone would guess that this actually is not my first painting ever.

Posted on 08/14/201304/03/2024 by Joan Vienot — Leave a comment

Plein Air at Grayton Beach State Park

Oil painting of dunes at Grayton Beach State Park

The last time I painted at Grayton Beach State Park, it was pouring down rain, so today’s partly cloudy skies were a treat. A lot of painters showed up. I didn’t work as hard at accuracy, instead trying to capture the general impression of the funny-looking clumps of greenery on top of the dunes, and exaggerating the texture of the sea oats. These are the two 8 x 10’s I painted, oil paint on canvas panel. A number of visitors to the park passed by, all pleasantly wishing me a good morning, a few stopping to see what I was doing.

Posted on 08/09/201304/03/2024 by Joan Vienot — Leave a comment

Figure Work After Months of Landscapes

Painting of blue-gowned woman sitting against pillows

Fellow plein air painter Judy Dewar initiated her new studio by inviting a few artists over to work from a live model. It was a pleasure working beside Judy, Beckie Perrott, and Marian Pacsuto. I initially intended to paint for the whole session, but a repair contractor was supposed to come to my house, so I needed to be ready to leave on short notice. I took drawing supplies, thinking I would draw until the contractor called, meet him and let him in and come back to Judy’s studio to paint for the rest of the session. The contractor had not called by lunchtime, so I never got out my paints. I enjoyed the 2- and 5-minute warm-ups, using charcoal on good manilla newsprint and on gray student-quality paper before moving on to a 20-minute session using my favorite drawing media – graphite and white nupastel. I drew on tan-tinted Mi-Tientes paper, which has a nice squared texture. For my last piece, over the course of two 30-minute sessions, I used some oil pastels which I had never used before. I had a student-quality set of oil pastel crayons that I’d had for years and years, and a dime-store set of oil pencils for the finer work, both of which I brushed with turpentine after laying in the colors. I gave that final drawing to the model. Below are my warm-ups and my two final pieces. By clicking on them you will get a larger view.

Most of my paintings and images are available for purchase. Contact me if you are interested. — Joan Vienot

Posted on 08/07/201304/03/2024 by Joan Vienot — Leave a comment

Plein Air Near Crab Island in Destin, Florida

Oil painting of the long docks near Clement Taylor Park, Destin, FL, with 6 pelicans

Oil painting of the long docks near Clement Taylor Park, Destin, FL, with no birds

This week the Emerald Coast Plein Air Painters met to paint at Clement Taylor Park in Destin, Florida. Every week, One member emails everyone with the location of the next session, where we each paint and then meet after 2 or 3 hours for a critique followed by lunch. Last time we met here, I painted the foliage and reflecting pond by the side of the park. I blogged about it: https://joanvienotart.wpengine.com/landscape/simplification-plein-air-2-5811.

Today I walked down to the waters edge where I was entertained by the array of pelicans on 6 pilings, one perched on top of each. A nervous blue heron was less than 15’ from me while I stood on the park dock. Families were starting to roll their carts of fishing gear and coolers out onto the dock. The colors in the water were intriguing me, but I couldn’t decide what part of the wide-angle view of long neighboring docks I wanted to paint. So I decided to paint two paintings, which can be hung side-by-side.

A man stopped to watch me paint when I was first starting, and we talked for a minute. Like me, he had studied art to be an art teacher, and was looking forward to his soon-coming retirement when he could return to his art.

I admired his 2-year-old daughter’s Flavor-Ice popsicle, and he had her go get me one. Yum – one of my favorite treats! Grape! He later emailed me a photo he had taken of me, above right.