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.

Sarasota Workshop

This weekend I taught a one day workshop in Sarasota.
 Because time is limited getting down a few fundamentals is essential.
I started with a demonstration on starting the painting by making color notes using one color note for each mass.
After I covered the board with a color for each mass, I stopped and had the students paint.
Having the a two part procedure to the demonstration helped to make everyone's paintings more organized.

I then went back to my demonstration and finished the second step of the demo giving the students a chance to do the same. I found that by breaking up the demonstration students had a chance to go slower and work on their painting without getting ahead and making mud.

At the end we lined all the work up to see the progress. I was encouraged to see all the paintings had a nice light affect.

Trolley

Over the past couple years I have been changing my street scene focus. Instead of painting light filled empty streets, I thought it would be time to put some interest in the painting by creating scenes that indicate busy life that is happening all around.

The Old Town Trolley tours is a constant in the Key West , street scene I decided to put it in my painting. 

I made a small sketch, as it came by. I worked on the other sections until the trolley came past again ten minutes later. 

The colors of the trolley harmonize with the rest of the painting. The trolley gives the painting a southern look as well.

Developing Your Landscape Color Study

Challenged by my class I put together a painting that shows the development of a landscape painting.

 When starting the painting we start with simple mass color shapes. From these simple mass color spots I being the process  developing the masses in an accurate account of how I am seeing.
The beginning shapes are crude and over the top with color. It's better to have strong color that expresses light.

This method of painting was passed on from Charles Hawthorne to his student Henry Hensche.
This is one way to study color.

I make a small drawing with a blue pastel pencil as a guide to where the masses will be. Then I paint the masses simple with as pure color as possible. I mixed all color on the board with a painting knife. 

When studying the color in this way it is best to use pure color and stay in step 2 as long as possible. 

You may want to restate the masses a few times before moving on to step three. Only when you are satisfied with the masses first statement should you move on. I keep a  be a small white line between the masses (illustrated in  step 2), in case I need to restate the mass. The line also helps keep my masses distinct and pure.

Simplifying Your Painting

Pablo Picasso once stated; "It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.
For me the challenge is to make my paintings simple and direct. The design of the painting is really the back bone of the painting and when you are able to think in abstract terms your painting is simplified.

I started this Key West street scene with abstract shapes. My design was simple and I made very few color choices in the beginning, but kept a sense of purer color, in order to not make mud.

I find by having a simple organized start, and a good design the painting paints itself. I keep working these simple color notes until I have accomplished my goal of expressing the light falling on this street on this particular morning.

Hemingway House

Last week I painted  at the Hemingway House with the Key West Plein Air Painters. The Key West Plein Air group is open to anyone who would like to paint with them on  Wednesday mornings. 

It was a chance to meet other local artist's and see this historical property. The Hemingway has wonderful gardens and grounds.

Islamorada Workshop with Larry Moore

I got a chance to hone some skills by taking a workshop with Larry Moore, on my way to Key West.
The Workshop was three days.
Larry started the workshop with a talk then a demo.

We where encouraged to work on small oil sketch's to create simplicity.
Larry talked about materials and using different tools and surfaces to create our paintings.

The second day we worked on a four more oil sketches after another demo by Moore.

Larry used an underpainting in his second day demo.

The last day the demonstration was started with an underpainting where house paints where used as an underpainting.

I found the workshop very helpful in thinking of new ideas about surface and materials. Larry worked a bit with me on my brush work. I enjoy trying new things and growing in my painting. I'm glad I took the workshop it was a great way to start the new year with some new instruction.

Here is my first morning painting, where four paintings are worked on no longer than half hour.

The second day after the demo we worked again on small paintings.

This small painting was worked on the last day at Robbie's. Mostly I watched the demonstration.