Lessons from the Field

"I'm still learning that there are no mistakes, only discoveries."
                                                                                                    ~ Fernando Ferreira de Araujo

We've been blessed with a long, beautiful Fall this year and I am trying to get out and paint in the field as much as possible. Yesterday I packed up my supplies and headed to a state park near us and spent the day painting on location. I found that the park had thoughtfully supplied me with plenty of convenient picnic tables near scenic views. A good thing, since I have yet to get an outdoor easel. 

I spent the morning at this lovely spot next to the river. A single loon kept me company, floating and diving in the river right around my vicinity. It called once; that hauntingly beautiful wild call that nature sounds relaxation CDs have made so cliched. 

I also spotted a coyote wandering around in the rocks and scrubby junipers across the river from me (too far away for a picture). The paint flowed from my brush onto the canvas almost effortlessly. I was brimming with contentment. If only I could do this every day!

After lunch, I scouted out some other spots with painting potential and ended up being inspired by this group of boulders in the afternoon light. The rocks were a dream to paint, with delicious purples and rust colors. 

My models. They were wonderful at holding a pose for a long time.

As I drove home, I was so proud of the little paintings I had done and so filled with bliss from the day. I unloaded the car and put my pieces in a prominent spot where my husband couldn't miss them when he walked in the door. 

After I unpacked everything, I glanced at my paintings again and did a double take. They looked nothing like what I'd done in the field! The colors were very pale and washed out, the values in the boulder painting were flat. What the...? Oh, crushing disappointment! I was so tempted to hide the paintings, but I bravely showed them to my husband anyway. He was supportive (of course) and we discussed what might've gone wrong. Best we could figure, my eyes were tricked by the intensity of the light. After a little research on the internet, I found that this is a common problem for beginning plein air painters. Suggestions ranged from getting an umbrella, to turning so that your canvas and palette are in the shade, to toning your canvas so that you aren't staring at a blindingly white surface while trying to figure out colors and values. 

What happened to all the yellow ochre and earth tones I thought I used? Why is this SO green?

We also thought that perhaps wearing sunglasses had affected my perception of the scene, but last week I did another painting with sunglasses on and it came out just fine. Maybe I should name that piece "Beginner's Luck".

Beginner's luck

Today it is overcast and blustery, so I can stay inside with a cup of tea and contemplate the challenges of painting on location, as well as fritter away more time surfing the internet trying to decide which of the hundreds of plein air painting set-ups I should get. So many choices: Pochade box or French easel style? Traditional easel legs or tripod? The wooden set-ups are so beautiful, but also way more expensive. The metal ones seem more compact for carrying, and more rugged for outdoor terrain, but they are not lovely. The internet is also full of artists with DIY pochade box instructions (just google "make your own pochade box" and you'll see what I mean). If you have any experience with outdoor painting, please leave your opinion on a potential easel in the comments section for me. You can also tease me about my newbie mistakes in the field. Thanks!

 

Maine Coast Work-In-Progress

"All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make, the better."
                                                                                                 ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

6" x 6" oil study for Lifting Fog

As I've said before, I am head-over-heels in love with oil paints. So far, it seems like anything I did in acrylic, I can do better in oil. How long the honeymoon will last I don't know, but wow I'm enjoying this!

The other day I ran across a photo I had taken years ago on the coast of Maine. I immediately wanted to try painting it and so I did a little 6" x 6" painting as an experiment. I was happy enough with the outcome to decide to work it into a bigger painting. At the urging of a friend, I had gotten a 12" x 12" cradled panel to try (Ampersand 2" deep cradled Gessobord, to be exact), and have been waiting for the perfect subject to paint on it. This seemed like as good a subject as any.

Initial paint layers

I really like the golden tones in the initial study, but the coast had an almost reddish color to the rocks so I played that up in this painting. I also wanted to make sure the trees in the background were not as dark as in my study. I wanted to push them back farther into the painting, and also have a little hint of water vapor in the air around them as the fog burned off.

The lovely easel that is displaying my work-in-progress in these photos was an anniversary gift from my husband this year. Sorry Marilyn, but art supplies are this girl's best friend!  

More progress

While the first layers of paint on this piece dry, I've been taking advantage of the beautiful fall weather we've been having and getting out and doing more plein air painting. We live in what is considered a high desert region and the oil paints are holding up to the dry air and strong sun admirably. As soon as I can get good lighting for photos, I'll post some of my little in-the-field paintings.

Plein Air Painting

"To look, to see, to understand, to capture - however imperfectly - is to be part of the land in a way like no other."

                                                                                                    ~ Jan Blencowe

Jeanne MacKenzie demonstrating how to paint en plein air.

I've just returned home from my annual trip to the Susan K. Black Foundation Workshop in Dubois, Wyoming. To be surrounded by such beauty and to get to spend every day with so many other artists was fantastic as always. 

Three years ago I tried plein air (from the French, meaning "open air") painting with the group, but my acrylic paints dried out the second I put them on the palette. This year I decided to try plein air painting again, since I now paint in oils. I was much more successful this time around! 

Jeanne Mackenzie led the plein air instruction at the workshop and spent a whole day walking us beginners through the process. One of the exercises she had us do was to work from photographs while outside. This allowed us to get a feel for the equipment and how the paint reacted to the elements without having to also worry about distractions like the constantly changing light. I also got some practice in typical plein air activities such as rescuing paintings after they get blown over, and picking insects and bits of plant matter from the paint.

First attempt from a photo

Second attempt from a photo

(I don't know who took the photos I worked from, so I'm sorry I can't give proper credit)

My first attempt in the field.

The next day we traveled about 10 miles out of town and Jeanne let us loose in the field - literally. There were cows grazing nearby to add to the ambiance. It was a beautiful sunny day with some fall color in the grasses and the distant trees. The wind was even kind enough to be gentle. I was thrilled with my first attempt at plein air painting - it actually looks like something!

My second attempt in the field.

The clouds had taken over on the day we headed up into the mountains. I found a lovely scene of a mountain stream flowing below some craggy peaks. I was surprised to see the painting come out so dull because in reality the colors around me were quite bright. I was so excited by the experience that I sometimes forgot to clean off my brushes; that may have contributed to the dull colors. I learned that many plein air painters have two of each kind of brush - one for light colors and one for dark colors - to minimize this problem. I also learned that I need a lot more practice with painting water!

Aspen showing off.

As we drove back to the conference center for lunch, the sun finally decided to come out. It lit up a stunning grove of aspen in peak fall color. There was even a convenient turn-out on the highway so we could stop and take pictures, but we didn't have time to get out our paints. Two days later I passed this same spot on my way home and was surprised to see the color in the leaves completely changed to a dull yellowish-brown. Fall is very short in the mountains!

I hope to do more plein air painting here at home as I really enjoyed the experience. I found it very satisfying to paint from a scene right in front of me rather than working from a photograph. My love affair with oil paints is also still red hot and I'm anxious to paint with them any chance I get. Plein air gives me a good excuse!

Another Landscape Attempt, Part III

"Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time."
                                                                                                                - Thomas Edison

Still not finished, despite the frame.

And so I keep trying. This painting is so, so close but those grasses in the lower left corner are driving me nuts. They feel unnatural, contrived. I may end up painting most of them out. The color of the water appears unnatural as well, but the other day I was driving along and noticed a similar scene and the water was indeed that color. I may still tweak it, though. I'm also undecided on what I think of the mountain reflected in the water.

It may sound like I'm being critical and have a lot of doubts about this piece but I really am pleasantly surprised at how it is turning out. It would just be wonderful if I could resolve the trouble spots and have a "keeper" landscape painting in the end. I found the perfect frame for it, after all.

Another Landscape Attempt

Nothing makes me so happy as to observe nature and to paint what I see.

                                                                                                    - Henri Rousseau

Starting a new landscape painting in acrylic

In between all the birds I love to paint, I continue to dabble with landscape painting. The reason I like the idea of painting landscapes is the same reason I like to paint birds - I see something so beautiful that I feel compelled to paint it. When it comes to landscapes, this has been very frustrating since what I see and what comes out on the canvas are usually two very different things. The only way to overcome this problem is to keep painting and slowly, slowly, I am figuring out how landscape painting works. Someday I hope to be able to combine my two favorite subjects so that the birds in my paintings can be in attractive habitats! 

Learning Landscapes

I love landscapes, but haven't had much of a chance to practice the painting technique. The challenge for me is getting my head around the color value choices that allow one object in the painting to appear in the foreground while another seems to be pushed way back into the distance. Since most of my work is essentially bird portraiture, this is not something I regularly think about when painting and I haven't worked with it enough for it to feel natural yet.

Although I well remember the classic exercises in art class where you draw a series of mountains going off into the distance and the mountains become bluer and fade as they progress, those always seemed to be stereotypical mountains. What happens when the distant mountains are not all that distant and are covered in dried grasses (warm colors) rather than trees (cool colors that lend themselves to distance)? I suppose the next question would be why would I choose such a subject when I'm just a beginner at this. I have to learn to crawl and then walk before I can run, right? Well, I've always been stubborn like that.

Anyway, while Paul and I were essentially homeless this summer we took a road trip across the country and one morning we had the good fortune to go to Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota. I know North Dakota ends up being the butt of a lot of jokes and people look at me funny when I say it is beautiful there, but it is! We had a wonderful time in the park (stay tuned for future posts on that), the wildlife and scenery was so inspiring and I knew that eventually I'd be using my reference photos for some paintings.

So here I am, twiddling my thumbs waiting to hear back on the countless job applications I've filled out in the last few weeks. What a perfect time to put all of that nervous energy to work! I also had some Claybord laying around that I was just looking for an excuse to try out.

EXPERIMENT 1 - BEFORE


Everything was in place but it lacked depth. (The trees also looked suspiciously like evergreens, not cottonwoods.) Time to think about my color values.

EXPERIMENT 1 - AFTER

Hopefully this version has more depth, with the river, trees and hills falling visually
into foreground, mid ground and background.

I'm not sure the study is actually done yet. I may still go back and change a few things, but you hopefully see the difference (and some improvement) between the two versions. I had fun with this and hope to do more again soon.

And now some thoughts on painting on Claybord -



1). Prime it! Even though the Claybord is essentially already primed, I paint using very thin washes of acrylic and that pure white background just shown through my first few layers like a light. Next time I will use a good layer of mid-tone grey before starting my painting.

2). I liked working on something with a good solid back and being able to pick it up while I was painting on it. I know a lot of painters work on masonite for the same reason, but I haven't tried that yet. I've worked on canvas panel before and although that's solid, it does have a tendency to warp a little with use.

3). I don't actually know if this is a function of the Claybord or of the extremely dry environment we're now living in, but my paint layers dried almost instantly. Sometimes I didn't have time to move the paint around on the surface before it dried. Also, sometimes when I painted a new layer on top, some of the previous layer lifted off a little. Again, I don't know if that was the climate or the Claybord.

I'd be interested to know anyone else's experiences with painting on Claybord, and your thoughts on landscape painting as well. Thanks!