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!

More Etching And A Little Woodblock Printing

"The true method of knowledge is experiment."
                                                 ~ William Blake

I think the worst thing about going away is when you come back and settle into your old life it's as if you never left. Except for all the unpacking we've yet to get through, being home is making me feel like this summer in Philadelphia never happened. Luckily, I've got all the new knowledge and artwork to prove to myself that it did happen.

During the last two weeks of my printmaking class at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, we worked independently on whichever printmaking methods we wanted. I knew I wanted to experiment more with etching, particularly the inking process to see what different effects I could get. I played with multiple colors of ink and on some of the prints I took a Q-Tip and wiped away the ink in certain areas to try to get a highlight effect on the shells.

 

We also worked with woodblock printing, which I liked very much. I had assumed that carving into wood would be harder than carving into a linoleum block, but I was surprised at how easily it carved. I was also intrigued by the idea of brushing the wood with a wire brush to bring out and print the wood grain along with the carved image.

This barred owl image was a lot of fun to carve. I then inked the block with two different colors - black on the owl and a very dark blue on the sky. As you can see, the inks ended up looking pretty much the same. Overall though, I felt this woodblock print was successful enough to whet my interest in more experimenting at home.

Back in the Spring, I had hinted that there were multiple big adventures coming up for me. My time at PAFA this summer was just the start. Things are about to get really busy around here...

Hummingbirds

Dinner on the wing

I had promised you hummingbird pictures this summer, but I've discovered that ruby-throated hummingbirds, or at least the ones at my father-in-law's place, are very camera shy. The female hummingbird seems a little less concerned about my presence than the male, so I managed to get a few decent photos of her from a respectful distance. The male, however, is very nervous and will even scold me if I'm on the far end of his flightpath to the feeder. I only managed to get this one blurry shot of him through the kitchen window, but at least his gorget was brilliant. 

 

All that sugar makes for a very high-strung bird

There seems to be just one male and one female hummingbird here. There could be other individuals that I'm not able to differentiate from each other, but since I've never seen any battles between two males or two females, I'm guessing there's just one of each. If the male catches the female at the feeder, he will chase her away. I find this interesting because where we live, rufous hummingbird females will chase away the males. Male and female hummingbirds will only associate with each other to mate, otherwise they are very antagonistic towards each other.

Pen & ink drawing of some hummingbird nestlings

I found this old pen & ink drawing I did years ago of some nestling hummingbirds. Unfortunately I can't remember what species they were. My cousins had a cabin in northern Idaho and a hummingbird built a nest and raised two babies right outside their window. We were lucky enough to visit just a few days before the babies fledged. The tiny delicate nest made of lichens, moss, and spider webs was a marvel of engineering.

I'm being lazy today and not including a quote with this post. I hope you'll forgive me.

Paintings and Drawings

"Practice doesn't make perfect. Practice reduces the imperfection."
                                                                                      ~ Toba Beta

Chambered nautilus study in colored pencil

My father-in-law's shell collection continues to inspire me. My enthusiasm has caught on and now he is searching the house for long-forgotten boxes of shells to give me. He found one box the other day that included a magnificent chambered nautilus shell.

The nautilus is a cephalopod like an octopus or a squid, however its tentacles do not have suckers. It is also the only cephalopod with a protective outer shell. It has changed very little over the millions of years that it has existed, so it is considered a "living fossil".

My nautilus shell model, I fear, was store-bought. To stem the decline in nautilus populations, some countries have banned the commercial trade of nautilus shells, but others have not. I will try my best to make lots of beautiful art with this shell, as I would never buy one myself.

Plate of Shells - 6 x 6 acrylic on canvas panel

Here's a little painting I did of an assortment of shells. The plate wasn't perfectly flat in the middle, so the shells sometimes rattled and shifted positions when I would walk around near the little table I had them perched on. The painting was really finished 2 hours before I put down the paintbrush, but I kept fussing with it and of course ended up overworking it. Oh well.

After 5 weeks of class, my first figure painting in oil is done.

I finished my figure painting in class at PAFA. We'll start another painting with a new model this week. I'm excited to try a new painting, but this week also marks the half-way point of our summer adventures. Nooooooooo! How can it be halfway over already!? I haven't even gotten my fill of East Coast pizza yet - and believe me, I've been trying!

My Favorite Woodpecker

"Without birds, trees would be very lonely and men too!"
                                                        ~ Mehmet Murat ildan

I won't say that woodpeckers are my favorite birds since there are so many fascinating types of birds; pelicans with their built-in fishing nets, hawks with vision eight times better than ours, hummingbirds that hold their nests together with spider webs, but woodpeckers are up there on my list. However, I can unequivocally say that, from the first time I saw them featured on a nature show, the acorn woodpecker has been my favorite type of woodpecker.

My first sighting of an acorn woodpecker was outside of Portland, Oregon a few years ago. The single dejected specimen sitting motionless high up in a tree was a far cry from the lively and comical birds I expected. Maybe it had been a particularly gloomy winter in Portland that year. After fifteen minutes of observing this bird and seeing nothing more exciting than it turning its head once, I walked away hoping that my second sighting would be more in line with what I had heard about acorn woodpeckers.

 

It's taken a few years, but recently I was in California and finally had the good fortune to spot more acorn woodpeckers - this time a group of them checking out a power pole near our hotel. They were everything I'd hoped for: gregarious, vocal, colorful. They didn't seem to mind all the traffic speeding beneath them, either. The fifteen minutes that I spent observing this group before they flew off to a grove of palm trees more than made up for my first sighting.

One of the fascinating things about acorn woodpeckers is that they hoard acorns by drilling individual holes in trees or telephone poles (or wood siding) to store each of their hundreds of acorns in. I didn't get to observe this behavior, but this 3 minute video from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology has some nice footage. I'm hoping that if I'm lucky enough to see acorn woodpeckers a third time, I'll get to see their acorn storage system in action.

Round 'Em Up!

"Drawing makes you see things clearer, and clearer and clearer still, until your eyes ache."
                                                                                                                      - David Hockney

Male broad-tailed hummingbird glistens in the morning sun.

You may be familiar with the idea of a cattle roundup, but a hummingbird roundup might be a more unusual concept. Every spring a hearty group of volunteers captures and bands migrating hummers at a ranch tucked away in the mountains. For one day, they invite the public to come and observe, ask questions, and maybe even hold a hummingbird.

The beautiful setting for the Roundup

I have never seen so many hummingbirds buzzing about in one place. Four species are found in this one area; broad-tailed, black-chinned, rufous and calliope. In a typical roundup, the volunteers examine an average of 600 hummers.

Feeders are placed inside of cages to capture the hummers.

Trained volunteers measure and weight these tiny birds. 

If a hummer doesn't already have a leg band, they are given one.

After their physicals the hummers are marked with a spot of temporary paint so they aren't captured again,
then they are released. It often takes them a moment to get their bearings before zipping off.

A sketch from my notebook. 

By using binoculars and patience, I was able to sketch the activity at a hummingbird feeder. The hummers are so quick that I couldn't draw individuals. Each time a different hummer would visit the feeder in the same position as a previous one, I could add a little more to my drawing. I still have the  wrist brace, but despite it being cumbersome I didn't want to miss this opportunity to observe and sketch on this amazing day.

Four and Twenty Blackbirds

"Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure
as long as life lasts."
                                                                                                                     - Rachel Carson

Male yellow-headed blackbirds gorging themselves on insects.

We just had one of the best birding days EVER. The kind where you feel exhausted at the end of the day because of the sheer number of birds observed. Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge on the Great Salt Lake is an important fueling stop for migratory birds, many of which have traveled from South America and are still headed further north, some as far as the Arctic. Phalarope, white-faced ibis, avocet, coot, great blue heron, great egret, cattle egret, stilt, white pelican, grebe, ducks, swallows, raptors, curlew, whimbrel, western kingbird; our senses were on overload.

One of the most amazing things we saw were flocks of male yellow-headed blackbirds in a feeding frenzy. I'm not that knowledgeable about the types of midge-like insects that live in marshes but whatever they were, there were millions of them. From a distance, the swarms rising up into the sky looked like dark smoke. Everywhere we looked, there were yellow-headed blackbirds on the ground eating these insects. We'd never seen so many of these beautiful birds all in one place.

Swallows collecting mud for their nests.

Clark's grebe enjoying a morning swim.

An avocet taking a well-deserved break after its long journey.

Unfortunately my artistic endeavors have hit a bit of a snag. I've got tendonitis in my right wrist (in three places!) and have to wear a brace for a month. I still manage to sketch and paint a little but my hand cramps up pretty quick. Hopefully as I get used to the brace that will improve.

Brace or no brace, there are important things that must be attended to.

Autumn in My Sketchbook

Watercolor of fall leaves.

Happy November! We reached 70 F this week so it didn't feel particularly like fall here, but the season is still making itself known in other subtle and not so subtle ways (like snow last week!). Here are a few things I've done lately with an autumnal theme.

Graphite sketch of a horse chestnut.

Last summer when we found out we were going to be moving again, I made a promise to myself that I would hit the ground running as an artist in my new community. I guess I succeeded in that regard because I now have 2 commissions to work on. This is wonderful news of course, but it may mean that my blog posts will be a little more sporadic than they have been lately.

Wings

Dragonfly on a lotus bud at the Lan Su Chinese Garden in Portland, OR

Although I am still finishing up the curlew painting, I am already reviewing my reference photo collection in anticipation of my next painting. Each time I go through my reference photos I notice that I definitely like subjects that have wings. I've got lots of good mammal reference shots, and I've even got some interesting fish photos but I never seem to choose those subjects to paint. I'm much more interested in birds and insects and I'm sure if I had any reference shots of bats I'd be painting them, too. (Wildlife artist Carel Pieter Brest van Kempen has done some beautiful bat paintings, but did you know that Vincent Van Gogh painted a bat?) I've just got a thing for wings, I guess.

One of my first attempts at an acrylic painting, inspired by the photo below. 5" x 5" on canvas.

A beetle of some sort on a death camas.

Both the dragonfly photo at the top of this post, and this silk moth photo below appeal to me. (The silk moth would make an absolutely beautiful watercolor, don't you think?) Perhaps one of them will be my next subject. But I also know how fickle my muse can be and I may end up doing something completely different. For me that's the fun of inspiration, but chances are whatever I end up painting will probably have wings.

A silk moth at the Lee Metcalf National Wildlife Refuge visitor's center, in Montana. 

Nature IN My Studio

My guest, apparently measuring a little over 1 centimeter.

We can find nature everywhere, even inside our homes. I had an unexpected guest in my studio just the other day. I spotted him (her?) jumping from brush to brush on my desk.

After a quick visit to BugGuide.net, I identified my visitor as a Phidippus audax, or a daring jumping spider. I noticed it would extend its two front legs towards its next destination and wave them slightly for a moment before jumping over to it. Perhaps it was calculating the distance?

The red spot on his abdomen is rather handsome.

I had a tricky time trying to get a good photograph of the spider as it was very sensitive to my movements and would hide behind my brushes if I moved towards it at all. As much as I would've liked to have sketched my guest, it was too small to see well from a distance that didn't scare it, so I simply enjoyed watching it explore my desk.

Painting and Petroglyphs

The scenery around Dubois was arid but beautiful.

Being surrounded by so many talented plein air painters can be a little intimidating when one is just a newbie, but by Thursday I was itching to get out in the field and give it a go. After another delicious lunch at the conference center, we headed south-east of Dubois to the Torrey Lake area and set up our easels below some interesting boulders and rocks. Painting was a bit challenging, however. The sun was strong and the wind had picked up, so any bit of moisture in my paints (not to mention my skin!) evaporated in record time. I realized that painting in acrylics was going to be nearly impossible so I switched to watercolors and just did some sketches of the area. Not for the first time I wished I worked in oils, but even the experienced oil painters were cursing the conditions.

Watercolor sketch of the boulders above Torrey Lake. I used a lot of dry brush technique on this one without really meaning to!

 In the rocks above our easels, other artists had left their mark hundreds, maybe thousands of years ago. Petroglyphs were scattered on the rocks and boulders around the area we set up in. According to the book "Plains Indian Rock Art" by James D. Keyser and Michael A. Klassen, this ancient rock art is considered part of the "Dinwoody" tradition, found almost exclusively in the Wind River area of Wyoming. I was in awe and wished I knew what the pictures meant.

There was a bird-like figure to the left of this petroglyph. I can't even guess what this one depicts, though.

I spotted these petroglyphs under a rock overhang, sheltering them from the elements.

After sketching for a while, I drove further around Torrey Lake and spotted some immature common mergansers out on the water. Mergansers are diving ducks and have very thin bills with serrated "teeth". They eat fish and other aquatic life. 

An immature common merganser having a nice day at the lake.

It seems like there's always some sort of Murphy's Law of Wildlife Observation at work; if I see some great wildlife, there won't be any place to pull over or safely observe it from. This time however, the birds were kind enough to be near a lake access area so that I could watch them for a while. 

Some pencil sketches of an immature common merganser sunning itself on a rock.

As the afternoon wore on, the angle of the sun just lit up the fall colors around the lake. I took lots of reference photos for future paintings. The trip out to the lake was not particularly successful for plein air painting, but I enjoyed sketching the area and the birds, and the petroglyphs were definitely icing on the cake.

The Fall color was spectacular.