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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. |
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Tag: plein air
Plein Air at Torreya State Park, Bristol, Florida
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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.
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Plein Air 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.
Figure Work After Months of Landscapes
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
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Plein Air Near Crab Island in Destin, Florida
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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.
Brighter Color in Plein Air
Last week I was late getting to the weekly plein air session. Each week the Emerald Coast Plein Air Painters receive an email telling us where and when we will be meting to paint that Wednesday morning, and what time we will be meeting for critique afterwards. We usually paint for 2 or 3 hours, depending on what time we get there. I had a few tasks I had to attend to, so I was late arriving, and rushed to get started, failing to sketch my painting before starting, and only half finished and generally dissatisfied when it was time to break for critique and lunch. We had met in the Village of Baytowne at Sandestin, and I had chosen to paint a part of the carousel near the central pond. I picked the rooster of the carousel because it was bright and shiny and sassy. When I returned to my studio, I started over and re-painted it, above left.
This week we met at Grayt Grounds of Monet Monet, a coffee shop with wonderful gardens in back, styled after the gardens and home of Monet in Giverny, France. There were at least 16 happy painters, working on everything from the statuary and other yard art to the flora to the building itself, and one painter even painted another painter.
I think the instruction of Julie Gilbert Pollard in the workshop I attended a few weeks ago helped me with the use of brighter colors in my paintings these two weeks. Certainly in the painting I did yesterday, I purposefully used dark valued intense colors where I wanted dark values, instead of mixing dull grayed darks. As a result, the whole painting has a much more intense tone. My shorter, blocky brushstrokes also represent a significant change, but I think they make the terra cotta fountain look metallic. I will try to remember to use that type of brushstroke next time I am painting metal.
Water , Water, Everywhere – Julie Gilbert Pollard Workshop
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| Last week I learned that water can see. Who knew?! That was just one of the hundreds of tips Julie Gilbert Pollard gave in her workshop in Panama City Beach, Florida, “Wet and Wild: Painting Vibrant Water Scenes in Brilliant Color”. This tip came on the first day, when we were working on reflections. In other words, Julie said, “Water reflects as if you were looking at the scene from its vantage point.” To illustrate, if a dead tree is angled out over the water sideways to the viewer, the reflection is a reverse mirror image, the same size and directly underneath the tree, in reverse angle. But if the tree is angled towards the viewer, the tree above the water will appear shorter due to foreshortening, but the reflection will be much longer in proportion, because the water is “seeing” the tree from underneath.
So I look at reflections differently now. I look at color and shapes differently too. Everything is more colorful since that workshop, and I am seeing much better. I find this is always the case after any period of immersion in art, that I see better and am more aware of colors and shapes. One of the other participants in the workshop said that one of the few things you get better at as you age, is art. I laughed, but I understand that statement. We worked in the classroom, from sample photographs Julie provided which illustrated the concepts and techniques she was teaching. She used the first four chapters of her Adventurous Oils, a Workbook Companion to Brilliant Color as well as several hand-outs. It was a treat being taught by someone who understands how artists learn, who was able to paint and talk at the same time (no small feat, integrating both the left and right brain at the same time!), and who was able to provide constructive assistance as we worked on our various pieces. And the participants were a happy bunch, the paint-mixing and experimentation punctuated with their softly-spoken stories to their table-mate and their laughter. My own table-mate, Faye Gibson, owner of Meacham Howell Design, also was using oil paint; the rest were painting with watercolor. Since the instructor was giving demonstrations in both watercolor and in oil painting, I brought in a 6-color Walmart watercolor set and made a watercolor painting and then painted an oil painting the second day when we were studying waves, shown at left. The watercolor painting was snatched up by a good friend of mine as soon as I posted it on Facebook. |
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The fourth and fifth days we were supposed to finish the paintings we had started the first 3 days, but I had already finished mine and painted a second one each day too. Plein air painting has made me pretty quick. So the fourth day I cut a few flowers off the crepe myrtle bush in the parking lot, and put them in a pitcher of water on my desk, thinking I would learn to paint the pitcher full of water. But the flowers fascinated me, so I painted them primarily, with only a suggestion of the pitcher underneath. Our technique for the day was negative painting, where you paint the negative space surrounding the form. My efforts taught me the techniques, but made the painting very twiggy, so the following day I painted out most of the twigs and branches, and it became flowers again. |
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On the final day, the technique assignment was to paint a scene in pure color, using colors straight out of the tube, or pre-mixed, using colors for their inherent light-dark values instead of as color. I again painted with a palette knife, using the wave photos for reference. Anywhere there were dark values in the painting, I used ultramarine blue, violet, and reds, and cobalt green, lavender, and orange for the middle values, and orange and yellow for the lighter values, with white for the froth. The idea was that if you took away the color, the painting would read correctly as a black-white-gray value study. So I took a photograph of my painting, and then de-saturated it to remove the color, and was pleasantly surprised that indeed, it looks “right” as a value study. To top off the workshop, there was a drawing for one of the instructor’s paintings, and I won it! Icing on the cake! |
 Joan Vienot with Julie Gilbert PollardPhoto by Helen Ballance, Beach Art Group |
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Plein Air Under The Picnic Shelter
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It’s a rainy day in Florida today. For being the Sunshine State, we certainly have had our share of rain this year, at least in Northwest Florida, where I live. Our plein air painters group was scheduled to paint at Grayton Beach State Park today. With 100% chance of rain, and with it already 100-percenting since the wee hours of the morning, accompanied by flash-flood warnings, it is not surprising that only two of us showed up. I was first to arrive, choosing a pavilion where I could see the distinctive stand of trees across the lake, that everyone here knows as the Umbrella Trees. The rain had slowed to barely a sprinkle and some little woods rats were squirreling around in the wildflowers beside the pavilion. I would see something move out of the corner of my eye, and then if I kept looking, I would see the second one follow the first. They were completely camouflaged when they were still.
Soon after fellow plein air artist Ed Nickerson joined me, the bottom fell out of the sky again. Colors in the distance muted to grays, and the foreground colors intensified by contrast. We both had time to paint two small paintings before the mist of heavy raindrops bouncing off the tin roof and blowing onto us chilled me to the bone. I headed over to Grayt Grounds for a cup of good coffee before running an errand and returning to my studio.
Middle-Aged Artists
I sit in my studio, with the sound of soft pastels marking on paper in the background, as my friend makes a study of a peach on the other side of the room. She is finding Art now, as the duties of raising her children near completion. It helps that she has an eye for composition, being a photographer. Natural talent makes her a quick student – if I show her something once, she can do it, and she is brave, discovering tricks and technique on her own.
I am realizing that this is a common occurrence. People spend the first half of their lives doing one or both of two things, earning a living, and raising a family, and then re-discover their creative expression in middle-age.
This certainly is true in my community. We have a loosely organized network of women artists here. One dedicated member, Donnelle Clark, maintains the list of email addresses and the schedule of members’ homes where we meet once a month for potluck and for show-and-tell. Each member brings one or two things they have been working on, and has 3 minutes to talk about what they have produced. Weavings, handmade dolls, paintings, quilting, stained glasswork, story-telling and bookmaking, sometimes poetry, you-name-it, are shared in the space of just a couple hours, and I always come away amazed at the creativity. Most of them, like my friend, have finished raising their children and now have time to devote to creative expression.
I know from my own experience, though, that it takes some effort to overcome inertia. For about 8 years, I had been receiving the email notices of when and where the local plein air painters’ group was meeting the next Wednesday, always intending to go, someday. For 8 years, there had always been a conflict of some sort or another, and I had always allowed the conflicting event to win out. In February of this year, I was attending some meetings on Wednesdays for a project I am volunteering for, and when I hesitantly told the chairman I wanted to start plein air painting the next Wednesday in March, she immediately changed our meetings to Tuesdays! She honored my intention more on one shy request than I had myself for 8 years!
Of course I have to be flexible. Last week I had to miss painting with the plein air group because I had scheduled the hanging of an art show I was coordinating for A+Art at the local branch of Northwest Florida State College on Wednesday. I got up early and using a few photo references, painted the study of water lilies (above right) before the show installation.
Today I was again back out with the group, painting at Cessna Landing, on Hogtown Bayou, Santa Rosa Beach, Florida. The weather was beautiful, with a pleasant soft breeze and only one quick-passing shower that barely spattered us. My painting from today is above left.
Below are my friend’s studies of a peach. We worked with the shape, color blending, intensifying color by using compliments in the background, the shape of the shadow, and the importance of small details that identify the subject. I demonstrated with a quick sketch, and then Leslie produced these two studies. Her first one we agreed came out looking a little like a tomato, but the second one is definitely a peach. It’s fun to have such a good student, with natural talent. Look out, art-world, here comes Leslie Kolovich!
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Plein Air: Battling With Nature
Every geographic area has its plagues, I suppose. Here in Northwest Florida, our plagues are yellow flies from mid-May through the middle or end of June, and in late summer or fall, dog flies. I react badly to yellow fly bites, getting a huge hive within minutes. If I put a good anti-inflammatory cream on the bite right away, I will avert a reaction. My plein air painting backpack is stocked with a strong repellent, and the best anti-inflammatory salve I can find. I used both today.
We painted at Eden Gardens State Park, which is just a hop and a skip from my home. I cajoled my dear friend, Lori Ceier, into coming out and painting with us. Lori is the producer of my favorite website for local activities, www.waltonoutdoors.com. Lori claims not to be an artist but I think what she really means is that up ’til now, she has preferred photography to painting.
Having recently completed my training as a Reiki Master, and thoroughly convinced of the Law of Attraction, nevertheless, during yellow fly season, I still cover most of my skin with clothing and put repellent on what’s left. I fared pretty well, until the last half hour when the frustrated flies were fairly spitting their venom. We all stopped painting soon then, and went to the screened pavilion for our critique. Lori took a series of Photos showing the progression of my painting, and posted them on her Facebook page for WaltonOutdoors.com.
Plein air critique is interesting. We each put our paintings up in a row and everyone ooo’s and ahhh’s and then each artist talks about their piece, the challenges they faced, what their intentions were, etc., and then the group might offer a suggestion for this effect or for that one. If an artist has had enough of that fun, he or she might end the suggestions by saying thank you , y’all have given me a lot of ideas, and then we move on to the next piece. Generally though, these are what I would call “soft” critiques, in that all of the artists are so encouraging — no one ever tells you that maybe you should take up sculpture or some other art form.
I felt so brave when I was painting, daringly putting a muted purple in the trees in the background, and a bright purple in the shadows in the foreground, and painting the silhouette of the foreground tree leaves a deep red-violet. But when I look at the painting from any distance, the purples just become dark values, not daring at all! My intention was to paint the background trees and grasses with brighter colors and more detail, and the foreground with broader brush strokes and less detail. I think everything turned out more or less as I had hoped, except for the color of the water. When I put the rich red-violet trees and shadow patterns in the foreground, the water of the bayou in the middle-ground, which I had painted a light pinkish blue, became more muted by comparison, almost a light gray.
In general, I’m pleased with the overall impression of looking out at the bayou through very large trees. The barely visible picnic tables show the scale of the trees.
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Most of my paintings and images are available for purchase. Contact me if you are interested. — Joan Vienot