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Posted on 04/16/201404/03/2024 by Joan Vienot — 1 Comment

Plein Air in Fresh Air

Oil painting of the four trees in front of Nick's Restaurant at Basin Bayou, Florida - www.joanvienot.com

Oil painting of the old fishing boat, Pompano, at Nick's Restaurant - www.joanienot.com

After a month of high pollen alerts, torrential rains have cleaned the air and a very chilly air mass ushered in an ideal day for plein air painting, with stark shadows and bright colors. I met up with the Emerald Coast Plein Air Painters at Nick’s Restaurant in Basin Bayou, which is on the north side of the Choctawhatchee Bay, halfway between Freeport and Niceville, in Northwest Florida. Shortly after we arrived, the neighbor released his penful of exotic chickens, and they provided distraction and amusement while we painted, the young roosters strutting around, trying their first crowing in cracking, adolescent voices.

I remembered what I had learned in Morgan Samuel Price’s workshop 2 weeks ago. I worked with the intention of creating the illusion of space, with horizontal surfaces catching much more light and vertical surfaces much less, using values to lead the eye through the painting.

For my first painting, I was interested by the four trees along the shoreline, so I opted not to include the boat, “Pompano”, which stood on dry-land props between two of the trees. My interest was that one of the trees was as orange as it was green. After I finished it, I painted a second, smaller painting, this one of the boat. Both paintings accomplished what I set out to do.

Posted on 03/30/201404/03/2024 by Joan Vienot — 1 Comment

Studying from Morgan Samuel Price

2014-0323 Apalach Afternoon Behind the Island — The view from where I stayed

2014-0324 Coombs Inn — Coombs Inn and the Church

2014-0325 Scrub Oak Grove — Scrub Oak Grove, St. George Island

2014-0326 Apalachicola Marina — At the Marina Under the Bridge

2014-0328 Rainy Day at 'Up the Creek' — “N 2 Deep”

Last week I attended a plein air painting workshop in Apalachicola, Florida, taught by Morgan Samuel Price. The location of this fishing village is just two hours from my home, an easy drive but far enough away that I chose to stay in a rental property rather than commute. I learned so much I hardly know where to begin. It will probably take me years to assimilate it. The difficult thing about an intense learning situation, is that much of it is communicated abstractly in words and absorbed into the left brain, while painting is performed on the right side of the brain. Fortunately, Morgan demonstrated during and after each lecture, to help us make right-brain sense of the concepts she was teaching. And she didn’t seem to mind repeating answers while each of us gained just enough understanding to ask the same question the previous student had just asked. “Morgan, what colors are you using now?” “Ultramarine blue, cadmium red light, and hansa yellow,” Morgan would answer. And the next student would ask, “Morgan, what colors did you mix to get this color?” And Morgan would patiently answer, “Ultramarine blue, cadmium red light, and hansa yellow.” To be fair, though, the different colors we were asking about were entirely different colors — it’s just that Morgan is a wizard at color mixing, and can make any color on the palette out of ultramarine blue, cadmium red light, and hansa yellow.

The first day, Morgan taught us about various materials and how to hold the brush for different angles of brushstrokes, and she taught us about color value, intensity, and temperature. She taught us more about those topicss every single day. She also taught us about color in context, about composition, about creating the illusion of receding space, how light falls on horizontal surfaces vs vertical surfaces, how the eye moves through a painting, and even how to doodle on a scratchpad that sits by the telephone. She taught us about clarity of value and precision of shape. She taught with ease and good humor. And she patiently answered again, “Ultramarine blue, cadmium red light, and hansa yellow.”

We had some good sunshine the weekend before the class, but our only sunny day during the class was the first day, Monday. After watching Morgan paint a simple alleyway with so many luscious values and such obvious perspective, making it look oh-so-easy, she turned us loose to paint in the afternoon. I choose the bright yellow siding of the Inn where everyone else was staying, and tried to capture the perspective of the sidewalk receding toward the church in the background. Even in my frustration (left brain / right brain confusion), I already had begun to learn. It is in the struggle that I find I truly learn, whether the painting shows that learning or not. There is some confusion between the palm tree and the porch roof which makes the porch roof look like it is angled wrong — it’s not. But as we joked in class, sometimes we need arrows and words printed on our painting to explain different elements. My painting of the Inn could use several arrows.

The next day we drove to St. George Island, and I painted a grove of scrub oaks which had a play of light on the tree trunks that interested me. I struggled with that light, but Morgan said to be definite with it — so I put down my tentative little brush and made some bold swaths of light, giving it much more of the feel that I wanted.

On Wednesday, two of the other students and I got lost from the rest of the class. We painted near the base of the bridge to SGI, at a marina. I painted on 16×20 canvas panel instead of my usual 8×10. I enjoyed using bigger brushes, but found myself being very stingy in mixing my colors, never mixing enough paint. It’s difficult to paint with no paint on your brush.

Thursday found us at Scipio Creek, at another marina at the north edge of Apalachicola. The pelicans and seagulls put on a continuous show for us while we caught the hazy pinks and lavenders in the middle ground and the muted grays in the distance, in contrast with the richer colors and more contrasting values in the foreground.

And then, sadly, it was Friday. I painted beneath the overhanging deck of ‘Up the Creek’ Restaurant, with a vicious thunderstorm popping lightning all around me. Nearby strikes three times chased me back further underneath to the center of the marine storage area under the building, which I imagined was safer. All of the colors of my scene were washed out, at times it being so dark there was no color at all. The last thing I painted were the reedy grasses and trees in the background, when suddenly I realized it was time to critique, so I packed up and hurried back. I will dim the intensity of color on that foliage to make it recede more — it’s a little too bright, like the sun is shining on it, which it wasn’t.

A plug for my excellent host, the owner of the property where I stayed, Robert Lindsley: Visit the Robert Lindsley Studio and Gallery at 15 Avenue E near the waterfront in Apalachicola. And to the VRBO agent, my new friend Mike Klema — just search “VRBO Apalachicola” for Vacation Rentals By Owner, and Mike’s units will come up. He was very accommodating, and I loved my place behind the island, right on US 98! I had the thrill of seeing both the sunrises and the sunsets, as well as the parade of fishing boats every morning, and the abundant species of birds. I’ve posted below a few photographs of my week, which all in all I enjoyed very much.

Sunrise	Sunset	Low tide	Atmospheric scenery
Fishing boat	Eagle below my house	Demo in the alley	Class and demo on the beach
Morgan critiquing	iPhonography Bicycle	iPhonography Grasses

Posted on 03/06/201404/03/2024 by Joan Vienot — 1 Comment

Plein Air to Colorado and Back

Photograph of the moon setting over Buffalo Mountain, in Silverthorne, CO, with the alpenglow preceding the sunrise — Photograph, moon setting over Buffalo Mountain in Silverthorne, CO, in the alpenglow of the sunrise

If you’ve been following my blog, you know that this year I have the intention of attending as many workshops as I can afford, to learn as much as I can from artists whose work I admire. At the very least, if i am traveling anywhere, I am justifying it by taking my paints.

So last month when I traveled to Colorado for my Dad’s 94th birthday and then to the mountains to play in the snow with my two sisters and their families, I took my Guerrilla Painter’s Box, with every intention of painting every day. I had forgotten that where there is snow, then it probably will be snowing! So the light was too dim for inspired painting, and the weather suitable only for playing in the snow, until the last day I was there, when the sun finally came out. I stepped out onto the front balcony and caught the view of the mountains across the way. I left that little 5 x 7 painting there with my sister as a small thank you for the adventures.

I took a lot of photos, thinking I would paint more snow scenes later, but life has been hectic since I returned, so I only managed one, at left.

Yesterday I again painted with th Emerald Coast Plein Air Painters group in my home area in Florida. We met at Baytowne in Sandestin, FL, and I painted the brightly colored shops reflecting into the pond. It was chilly, and the light was low, with rain predicted, but the lake was flat and the reflections just a bit choppy. To brighten my colors, I choose a canvas I had under painted orange, and I allowed some of the orange to show through my colors, and I scratched off some of the paint in places where I wanted lines, so the lines shine a bright orange.

We met near the fountain for our critique. Another artist had the misfortune of dropping his painting and the edge of it sliced a diagonal scrape across the face of my painting, so I had some repairing to do afterwards. I am happy to report that the painting is no worse for the wear. sometimes these sorts of things happen when you are painting outdoors — it’s all just part of the experience, where things are never entirely under control.

Posted on 02/05/201404/03/2024 by Joan Vienot — Leave a comment

Plein Air Painting – Practice Pays Off

Last weekend I painted a community street scene in the studio, using photo references, after attempting it plein air. The architecture was filled with straight lines, which are a torture for a freehand painter. I can fudge and fake the branches in a bush, but architectural lines for the most part look right only when placed nearly exactly where they in fact are. So the painting of the street scene was a serious challenge for me.

But the practice served me well when I painted today, making the straight lines of today’s structure seem like child’s play by comparison. I was in fact surprised at how quickly I was able to make an effective representation of this mansion at Eden Gardens State Park where the plein air painters met this morning.

The light was peaking in and out of the clouds, and when it peaked out, the building and middle ground lit up with vibrant color and the huge oak in the foreground became a stark silhouette.

Next week I travel to Colorado to visit family and to play in the snow in the mountains. I will take my camera and some paints with me.

Posted on 02/03/201404/03/2024 by Joan Vienot — 6 Comments

Painting Plein Air in Rosemary Beach

What a difference in the weather this weekend! After an ice storm paralyzed the Deep South midweek, I was so happy to be painting in my shirtsleeves on Saturday! And what a change from last weekend, when I was painting at the Chautauqua Festival in my snowsuit!

The Rosemary Beach Foundation offers a “Girls Getaway on Superbowl weekend, and plein air painters were invited to paint there. This made the third weekend in a row for me to be painting plein air. I painted for the sheer enjoyment of it. I was out in the open, near the road and near the sidewalk, so I had many visitors, making it a fun and interesting day. I painted the Town Hall and Post Office, at right. Those buildings actually are white, but what interested me was the face of the Post Office, showing the golden light reflected from the side wall of the Town Hall. From where I was standing, I couldn’t actually see the directly lit side of the Town Hall. I could see the shady sides of both buildings. To make the reflected light really obvious, I painted both buildings lavendar.

After lunch, I turned 180º and began painting the street scene northward on North Barrett Square, from Wild Olives towards the Hidden Lantern Gallery where our finished paintings were being displayed. I worked quickly, trying to catch the gist of the architecture. Clouds had come so the shadows and lighting I had enjoyed in the morning were diffuse. I could see that my perspective was warped, but I wasn’t terribly invested in the painting as a finished product. I continued painting in order to learn how to handle my brushes and make convincing architectural shapes.

A student on a bicycle approached and we talked a little and I learned he was an artist. I asked him his website, but he said he was not yet that “advanced”. So I told him he could see more of our work in front of the Gallery, which he apparently viewed and then came back to further engage me. He started by saying, “I disagree with what you are doing.” I should have bid him adieu right then and there, but I was intrigued, and gave him my attention. He offered his limited view of creativity, that there was no value in painting what someone else had already created, such as architecture. It sounded like this might not be the first time he had given this speech, and it sounded like some of the pointless arguments I had heard in college, as to what is “legitimate” art.

By this young man’s definition, I doubt that he would have appreciation for a musician playing a symphony written by someone else, or a dancer performing someone else’s choreography. I lad lost interest as soon as he said he didn’t paint things that were “already painted”. But he pressed his point until I actually started to get irked. It became clear that his intention was to dismiss plein air painting, and to elevate his style of expression, whatever that is. I abhor “exclusive” thinking.

One of the things I have so enjoyed among nearly all of the artists I have met at this “mature” (middle-aged) point in my life, is their support and encouragement of each other. an attitude of INclusion, not EXclusion.. I believe that no artist should be discouraged from whatever path they are on at the moment, and their work should not be judged as to its “legitimacy”, but rather that anyone making any effort to express themselves visually, should be encouraged, that all artistic expression should be supported and nurtured. In fact I think that everyone is an artist, and we ought to help each other retrieve that creative spirit, whether singers, or carvers, or painters, or poets. It is a shame that so many people, somewhere along the way, stop trying. I guess it takes a good streak of stubbornness to retain creative drive, because somewhere along the way, every creative person must overcome the energy of those claiming their expression to not be “good” enough, or expressive enough, or “legitimate”. It was when this student dismissed my protests by pronouncing “The truth hurts”, that I realized the depth of his arrogance. I told the young man that it was better to support and encourage other artists, and not to judge their efforts and try to discourage them.

I thought it was going to rain the next day, so I stayed in my studio, and I repainted the scene I had been painting the day before, using black and white photo references (above right). Later that day, I about dropped my teeth when I drove back to the Hidden Lantern to pick up the painting I had done the day before, discovering that the street was made of dark gray brick-pavers, not the red-orange color I had painted. It never even occurred to me that they might be something different — red-orange seemed so right! So there you are, a true enough representation of the shapes that interested me, coupled with my own sense of what the street “should” look like, Ha! Another fun thing about plein air painting, or even studio painting from photo references after doing a plein air study, is that if I paint the same scene again, even from the same vantage point, it would turn out to be a completely different painting.

Posted on 12/30/201304/03/2024 by Joan Vienot — Leave a comment

The Setting Sun – Working From Photo References

Oil painting of the Gulf of Mexico at Sunset, with oranges reflected on the emerald green sea

Oil painting of the Gulf of Mexico shoreline, with people silhouetted against the purple and peach-colored sunset

Oil painting of sea oats silhouetted against burnt-orange clouds over the Gulf of Mexico at sunset

Painting a sunset, during a sunset, would be very difficult because the light changes so fast. But the subject begs to be captured on canvas. Since the weather was chilly this weekend, and it was warm and cozy inside my studio, I decided to take a few stabs at it using photographs I have on my camera phone. Photo references are not ideal for making a painting, because the camera does not catch everything the eye can see, and the camera certainly does not capture the sound of the waves, the warmth of the evening sun, the changing patterns of the waves, and the shifting latticework of shadows and light. So I rely mostly on my sensory memories of the experience, some going right to the core of my own being, reflecting whatever might have been challenging me that day, whether work-issues, relationships, or even the existential questions of existence itself.

I have painted many a sky using watercolor, where the happy accidents often end up being exactly the right shape, color, and mood. Oil painting is so much more deliberate, that I found myself questioning whatever made me think I could be a painter. Plein air painting has allowed me to develop a much looser, impressionistic style, so I expected more immediate success with my sunset skies. It took more time than I thought it would. I can see that I need to practice more, if the sky is to be the subject and the focus of the painting.

The most elementary and powerful form of defining shapes is through silhouette, which sunsets encourage. My first attempt does not have any foreground shapes other than the beach itself, and I think the next two are much more interesting because of the silhouettes of the figures in the middle ground of the second one and the sea oats in the last one.

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 03/30/201304/03/2024 by Joan Vienot — Leave a comment

Plein Air Painting Progress Report: Leaps and Bounds!

Oil Painting of Old Boat "Pompano", Nick's Restaurant, Basin Bayou, FL I am starting to see in color. That may sound strange, but the fact is that most of the time in my normal everyday activity, I hardly pay attention to color. When I was focusing on figure drawing, I occasionally used color, but for the most part I was focused on line, shape, and value, usually rendering the whole piece just using a black-white value scale. Now that I am painting again, I am noticing for example, when a white railing is picking up the blue of the sky, or how intense a green becomes when it is contrasted with red. I am finding that much of what I think I am seeing as different tones of a color are actually the same color which looks different depending on what color is next to it. I am particularly challenged by all the greens I see, when landscape painting. If I try to mix an exact shade of green, it often seems muddy compared to what I actually see. Who knew, that Einstein’s theory that everything is relative applies to painting as well as nuclear physics, that the better way to achieve a color is to find the color next to it which gives it the quality I want. Resisting the temptation to launch into that as a metaphor for life, I’ll instead move on to my adventures in plein air painting over the past week. Last week we painted at Nick’s Restaurant, and I bemoaned the fact that I know very little about boats. The next day I decided to take another run at the featured boat, using my photo references, and came up with the piece at top right. It was the little paprika-colored spots of rust washing out from the old nails in the hull, that gave the greens and turquoise the punch I wanted. So I wafted a little of that color into the foreground grasses too.

This week is the largest of the spring-break tourist weeks in the beach resort communities of Panama City Beach, Seagrove Beach, and Destin, FL. So when the announcement came that the plein air painters would be meeting at the docks again in Destin, I knew the drive would take all the fun out of the adventure, so I opted to paint from my dock in my back yard. I had thought I would be painting my view of the creek leading into Tucker Bayou, but when I looked upstream, the color of the bayou grasses intrigued me. My initial 6″ x 6″ study, left, did nothing for me by way of planning my painting, but rather served more like a singer doing la-la-La-LA-La-la-la scales to warm up her voice before performing.

I needed a warm-up! The temperature was less than 40 and the wind was chilly. But it was a clear spring day with bright light. I roughed in the composition and then went to work on the trees at the edge of the Bayou. The spring gold-greens of the new leaves contrasted with the rich, dark pines and the shadows underneath. I resisted the impulse to paint the shadows a colorless dark value, which has the potential to suck the life out of a painting. Instead I darkened my green shadows with a touch of the same deep red I used to tint the pink flowering trees in my distant neighbor’s yard. I stuggled with the grasses, because the shiny highlights were picking up every color of the palette. Uncertain whether I was just making a mudpie, I plowed onward through the painting, until I was satisfied I had achieved an approximate similarity to the colors I was seeing. My two cats initially were scared by my unusual activity on the dock, but they grew braver throughout the 2 hours, wrapping their tails around my legs as I scratched some final textures and highlights into the grasses and the tree trunks. Upon completion, I stood my painting up against a piling and stepped back from it only to have a bitter wind gust blow it onto its face, requiring repair where it had landed on an edge of a dock board. Remembering the worm crawling across my finished painting two weeks ago, I decided that paintings are not really finished until restored from an inevitable mishap at the very end.

The day before yesterday I was excited to find a delivery frames on my package stand as I entered my driveway, so even though it was late, I spent the next couple of hours framing my earlier paintings done in November and December of last year, when I first resumed oil painting after a 30-year hiatus. Looking at them, I realized that I am growing by leaps and bounds. The rate of my improvement surprises me. I thought I would progress more slowly, and even be tempted to give up, because oil painting so intimidated me, no doubt from my tortured efforts during and shortly after college. I find I am enjoying the time limitation of plein air painting, which while still allowing for tortured effort, does not allow it to continue for very long, with only a two hour window before the light changes so much that further attempts at capturing an impression are not worthwhile.

I continue to play with my photography. I am learning about photo-editing, taking a class in Photoshop Elements from Jackie Ward at Northwest Florida State College, South Walton Center. She is teaching us what Photoshop can do. It’s difficult for me to remember. My poor brain may be overloaded, trying to run my business, my day-job, the one that pays the bills, while I try to learn more about photography and painting. I still enjoy the easy editing that can be done with Snapseed App on my iPhone. Yesterday I paddled my canoe on the Bayou with a dear friend, a fellow photographer. You can’t take a bad picture at sunset! Most of my editing of my iPhoneography consists of simply straightening the horizon line and perhaps a little cropping, but I had some fun dramatizing and saturating the photo below.

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

Posted on 02/15/201304/03/2024 by Joan Vienot — Leave a comment

Types of Lighting

I am teaching a “Back-to-the-Basics” drawing class for the Cultural Arts Alliance of Walton County. This week we talked about three different types of lighting: silhouette, high contrast, and full-values. For a silhouette to be effective, it is essential that the subject be recognizable by its outer contours, since there is no interior development. Below are some examples of sillouette. Please forgive the quality of the photographs — they are meant for illustration only.

In high contrast, interior development is in only two values. This allows for a more ambiguous outer contour because the development inside the form identifies the subject. Below is a drawing done in high contrast.

Full-value development is the type of treatment we are most familiar with, where we can easily identify the subject because the interior development is in a full range of values, like the drawings below:

Many artists will use all three of these methods of describing shape, within the same drawing or painting. Silhouettes require less attention, and if executed in middle values, can provide wonderful background imagery, effectively breaking up negative space and often repeating forms found in the foreground, as in paintings of flowers for example. Even when the lighting is shown in full values, often the lighting will simplify into high contrast or silhouette, especially towards the edges of the composition.

Silhouettes can be extremely powerful. Some of the happiest ooo’s and ahhh’s will be heard when you show a painting of a brightly colored sunset with silhouettes in the foreground.