Plein Air in the Shenandoah Valley

The Shenandoah River from Culler Overlook, watercolor, 10" x 14"

This past Saturday was the Plein Air Paint Day organized by Art in the Valley Gallery in Front Royal. The event coincided with the Annual National Public Lands Day, so everyone could enter the Shenandoah River State Park without paying the usual entry fee. This was a perfect opportunity for me, since I'd yet to visit this state park some five miles south of our town.

It was drizzling lightly when I woke up, and I was worried that our plein air day would get rained out, but the forecast didn't call for rain, just cloudy and overcast. So I packed up my gear in the car, made a sandwich for lunch and headed down to the gallery for our check-in. The gallery owners and staff are so nice! They had coffee, tea and scones to munch on at the gallery, and they had prepared goodie bags for all of us artists with water and snacks to take with us.

I arrived at the State Park and proceeded to Culler Overlook, which I'd been told gave the best panoramic views of the river. The view didn't disappoint--the wide bend of the river here reminded me a bit of the famous view of the Chama River in New Mexico, except that our hills here are covered with greenery, and show little of the underlying rock.

Two painters were already standing at the overlook--one gentleman had his painting well under way, and I recognized the other gentleman as Armand Cabrera, whom I'd met in the gallery at one of the opening receptions. Armand had not started on his canvas yet. I figured it might be a little too crowded with three of us there, so I walked down the trail leading below and found a nice spot under the shelter of some trees, just below the boardwalk--perfect!

I went back to my car and brought my gear and chair down. My working surface was relatively small--one quarter of a watercolor sheet, so I decided to paint only one side of the bend of river, to simplify the composition, and that worked.

After about an hour or so, another painter came down to the same spot to join me. I'd met Laura at the gallery before, but had forgotten her name. She told me she'd started blocking in the composition for her oil painting the day before, and set up behind me. Unfortunately, she seemed to be using turpentine (yuck!) rather than the less vapor-laden turpenoid and the fumes wafting down weren't pleasant. I tried my best to ignore it--thank heaven we were outdoors, and I could get up and walk around a bit to get away from it when it became too much.

After a while a young man showed up, who introduced himself as Casey and told us he was working with the gallery to take photos of the artists during the event. We obliged him by carrying on while he took his photos. Around twelve-thirty I took my lunch break, drove down to the visitor's center to use the bathroom and came back to eat my sandwich.

As the afternoon wore on, Laura and I chatted and I felt comfortable enough to tell her that she should ditch the turpentine because of its health hazards, and use turpenoid instead, with gloves on her hands to keep from absorbing toxins through her skin (she was picking up a lot of paint and turpentine on her hands). All these useful things I learned from my previous association with the Mid-Atlantic Plein Air Painters Association (MAPAPA), bless them!

The one good thing about having a cloudy day was that the light stayed consistent throughout the day, allowing for plenty of time to work on our paintings. It rained all of the next day-- almost an inch of rain-- so we were very lucky to have had the plein air painting on Saturday after all.

The paintings will be on exhibit at the gallery starting Oct. 12--can't wait to see what everyone else came up with!

A Challenging Week

Still Life #2, oils on canvas board, 12" x 9"

After a very challenging week at work, I headed over to Lee's studio for an afternoon painting session. He'd set up two still lives for four of us students to work on, both using challenging colors. I picked the one with the purple cloth backdrop, not only because it was closest to where I'd set up, but because these were colors I rarely see in nature, much less paint.

This painting isn't one of my best. I had a particularly hard time articulating the difference between the purple cloth in the light and in shadow--it doesn't even look like it's deep purple, does it? Dealing with the reflections in the shadows of the bowl and pitcher were equally difficult. Looking at Lee's demo piece and how he dealt with these areas was helpful, but with the best will in the world, I was too worn down and distracted. In the middle of the session, my office called on my cell phone--that broke what little concentration I'd been able to muster!

By four o'clock the light was fading fast, so this was as far as I got. I lingered a bit talking to Lee about the state of art in our current cultural climate. He brought up an interesting point: what eclipsed the impresionists at a time when they were at their peak was the modernist movement, which dealt with abstraction from nature and breaking down of all the "rules". Now that the "contemporary" artists deal with abstractions of an abstraction and there are no rules--where exactly does that get us? Other than the current ego marketing, that is, where the artist becomes his own creation to sell because he really has no other actual commodity such as "art" to market--those are merely pieces of any old junk passed off as art (because the artist says so). Is it any wonder the public is confused?

Which is why we really need to get back to having standards and actually learning to draw, paint, sculpt, or whatever by going through a process of practical training in an apprenticeship. And why Lee believes that the plein air movement is reinvigorating American art at this moment. I agree with him, or I wouldn't be there, of course. Looking at the light teaches us how to see color in all its infinitely rich possibilities, and yet make it new.

To my dismay, I came home to open my Artist magazine yesterday and read among the predictions in "The Future of Art", the writer believes the plein air movement, "which has been going gangbusters since the 1990's, will wane as a marketing genre." How about it, fellow artists, do you agree?

Un-local Color

Spa Creek, 2nd week of class, 8" x 10"

What a beautiful day! Driving to Annapolis there was lots of "atmosphere," that light mist that suffuses everything around here on early fall mornings, fogging the distance. A bit of it stayed in the air as our class set up to paint at the same location as last week, this time in color.

Trying to find the right colors to render the effect of sunlight and shadow on the trees and water was much easier after Lee's demo and his explanation, and here's my painting, with a little help from our teacher. I 'm starting to understand how to organize my paintings better so I can achieve the effect I want. Now I'll be off to practice some more: the weather promises to be wonderful all weekend.

Tilghman Island Workshop

I had a great time at Walt Bartman's Tilghman Island workshop this past weekend. Walt is an inspiring teacher; his range of knowledge and thought is amazing. The workshop started Friday with a lecture at his Summer Duck Studio, and these photos are of the first demo he did that afternoon. The heat made it difficult to work except in the shade. We painted until sunset, then went out as a group of 18-22 for a late dinner. There was a full moon: I had just enough energy after dinner to wander about the moonlit grounds of the Black Walnut Point B&B where I was staying. The stiff breeze from the south was delightful, the point of land giving one the feeling of standing on the prow of an enormous ship, with a large wooden cross at the very tip of the land's end.

On Saturday morning Walt gave a lecture on color, then we were free to paint anywhere around the island we wanted. We came back to the studio for critiques around 3:30, and enjoyed a fabulous crab feast afterwards. After dinner we drove out to Knapp's Narrows inlet to paint the sunset, and then do a night painting. For my night painting, I figured being a guest at the Black Walnut Point B&B afforded a unique opportunity to paint this unusual location, so I went back there to paint alone in the total darkness with the aid of a miner's headlamp. As I was getting ready to set up, the moon rose from the water, so orange it seemed like the just-set sun rising anew. I sat down with a glass of wine and looked at the moon for a while, then got up to paint. After spending most of the day standing, my feet were killing me but I became so absorbed in my painting, I was totally oblivious to the mosquitoes flying up my shorts, biting the parts of my legs where the spray hadn't reached, until the next day. I packed up around eleven-thirty and collapsed onto bed.

Sunday morning we met at the inlet for painting. Camille, another student who lives on the island, had a wonderful canopy and was so kind to offer me its shade--I couldn't have lasted even an hour in that heat if it hadn't been for that. Walt worked on quite a large painting standing completely in the sun for several hours--incredible stamina and dedication!

Time went by so fast, I was surprised to come back with seven paintings, some in nearly complete condition (though in need of "fixing"). I headed home after our final crits totally exhausted, sunburned and grubby, yet full of new ideas and insights. Even the traffic cooperated and didn't come to a standstill until I reached the Bay Bridge, speeding me home as I gazed upon the distant skies with new eyes.

Painting at the Secret Garden Tour in Annapolis

Annapolis Secret Garden Tour

(image from last year's Chesapeake Life magazine article)

This coming weekend of May 31-June 1, I'll be in Annapolis, painting in two historic gardens that are part of this year's Secret Garden Tour, organized by the Hammond-Harwood House.

Gallery 1683 arranged for several of us artists to be able to paint in these unique private gardens during the tour. It will be interesting to be "on show", doing my painting while the public troops by. I just hope I can do justice to the gardens and have my paintings turn out well despite the added pressure. I also hope this will generate enough interest in our art so we may sell a few works. Please go on the Secret Garden Tour and stop by Gallery 1683 at 151 Main Street in Annapolis, one block up from City Dock. The gardens should be lovely this time of the year.

Plein Air

Last weekend's plein air workshop in Cambridge, Md was wonderful in every respect. It's so rare to have a marvelous instructor like Sara Poly, a congenial group of painters and perfect weather all at the same time! Covey Point Farm is a lovely place on the water, with fabulous views all around, the converted barn comfy.

Painting in the sun (or shade) for five to six hours a day is hard work, though others in the group said this was a relaxed pace as far as painting workshops go. Sara had us do exercises such as 50-stroke paintings, that were beneficial. Making every stroke count was hard, but great discipline. My art leaped light years ahead in just a couple of days, and I feel much closer now to being able to paint oils the way I want to: looser, and full of luminous natural color.

This is my last painting at the workshop, not quite finished, but my best by far. I'm hooked on painting plein air; it's one of the most challenging yet satisfying things an artist can engage. How I wish I could spend more time painting and taking workshops. I'll have to work on that some more.