Problems with Green

Frequently I hear the complaint many artist's have, "I can't find anything to paint where I live, everything is green".

While taking care of some family issues in Florida ,I took some time out to paint. It's challenging designing paintings when you are surrounded by many similar  types of vegetation.

To alleviate the "Green" problem, I have a simple three plan objective in place. 

First, organize your masses in light and shade pattern. Light and Shade is beginning of understanding of light key.

Second is to make your color notes within the masses separate and distinct from one another. This is the fun part of the painting where you can actually go over the top with color. Make bold and beautiful  pure color notes as possible. The last objective is to resist green in your masses only use when you must use the green. 

Trying to express light key and organizing your masses is essential to plein air painting. By the time you adjust the painting a few times; you begin to see that vegetation and foliage isn't as green as you might have thought.

Warm and Cool Colors

This weekend I taught a class on color at the Cultural Center of Cape Cod. I painted a couple demonstrations from life and made a few simple charts for students on warm and cool colors.

Breaking down color into it's most basic elements helps the artist to determine warm verses cool colors.

I broke down a simple painting in a very basic warm and cool abstraction.

Then I show the example of how the warm colors help to understand the light key of a sunny day.

Cultural Center of Cape Cod Demonstration

Yesterday, I painted a demonstration painting at the Cultural Center of Cape Cod in Yarmouth. The demonstration was well attended and many artist friends of mine showed up to support my demonstration.

I usually paint a still life but since my workshop coming up is going to be about painting Landscape I decided to go ahead and paint a landscape demonstration.

Using two different paintings as reference,

 I divided the painting in half and on the top painted a sunny day rooftop scene underneath I painted a cloudy day marsh scene.
It was really helpful to see the two very different light keys.

Painting In The Dunes

Last week I went to visit a friend who won a lottery to stay in a dune shack in Provincetown. The Dune shack is named Boris. I thought it would be interesting to insert what is written in Wikipedia about the Dun shacks of the Peaked Hill Trust.

Artists and writers lived in the primitive dune shacks, including Harry Kemp who proclaimed himself "the Poet of the Dunes,"^[2] Jack Kerouac, e. e. cummings, Norman Mailer, and Jackson Pollock.^[1] The shacks have never had electricity, plumbing or running water.^[1]

Writers who wrote about the dune shacks, besides Thoreau, included Henry Beston whose The Outermost House chronicles a season spent living in the dune shacks and Hazel Hawthorne-Werner who wrote Salt House about her year in 1929 in the dunes.

Today there are 19 dune shacks in the historic district, 18 of which are owned by the National Park Service. Private individuals are able to enter a lottery for an opportunity to reside for a period of time in the shacks. The only way to tour the Dune Shacks is through Art's Dune Tours in Provincetown.

Limited Palette Verses Full Color Palette

This summer while teaching a workshop, I made a demonstration Painting. I divided the board in fourths making four small paintings.

One painting is a sunny afternoon light key, the one to the right is a cloudy day morning. It was interesting to see how many different colors I was able to come up with in the limited primary palette.

The two painting on the bottom are the same two different scenes using a full palette. This study was painted with a painting knife.

Four Harbor scenes 11x14 oil on masonite.

A Home At Last

At the bottom of Mechanic Street in Provincetown is an iconic red house. The sign on the building says "A Home At Last".
While looking around in the west end of Provincetown, I was inspired to paint a 6x8 painting of Mechanic street.
After completing the painting, I thought I would do a step by step demonstration painting showing the simple lay in and development of a sunny day landscape for my upcoming workshop.

In the first square one color is used only to start the painting. On the right another color is mixed in the mass shape creating two colors. The next two are three colors and the last has four.

I always tell artist's I don't paint my landscapes this way but I think it's impossible not to use color when you simplify color mixing. Once you see the color you can make the color. I find this a fine exercise in color study. Organizing your masses of color spots is key in seeing the difference and
comparing color  notes.

A Home At Last 6x8 Oil on Board

Demonstration At the Falmouth Art Center

The Falmouth Art Guild is an art guild that has hosted my workshop for the past three years. I enjoy going to Falmouth and teaching even though it's quite far from Provincetown for several reasons. First Falmouth
 is a beautiful town and second the Falmouth Art Guild is a well organized and equipped facility.
Yesterday I gave a demo at the art center to entice students to attend my workshop next month, May 19th and 20th.
I Painted a typical seen of rooftops from Provincetown. I used a small reference and then sort of painted the rest from memory. It was strange to paint this way but I was able to explain some of the points I will cover in next months workshop.