Paint Out Panorama

The Paint Out mentioned in the last post took place over the past weekend. Around twenty painters of all kinds gathered along the west bank of the Des Moines River last Friday evening near the new skateboard park. Across the river is the Chinese pavilion with its distinctive roof line and the Ray Asian Gardens stretching along the eastern bank southward. The expanse of green and the trees made an interesting contrast with the rectilinear building shapes of condominiums and apartments. The Iowa capitol is peeking from behind the reddish building on the extreme right.

"The Ray Asian Gardens," oil on panel, 8x16

This piece began like many with a wash of burnt sienna, then a rough composition of basic shapes, then building form and color. The light faded from the brightness of late afternoon to shadow within less than two hours, so I detailed this one in the studio from a reference snapshot.

Paint Out

Paint out events--plein air oil painting, mostly, seem to be proliferating. The trend to painting outdoors has doubtless contributed enormously. A Paint Out can be a quite formal outdoor contest with invited professionals, complete with big prize money and sales. Other outdoor painting events are often more informal ones that are open to all, professional or not. Whichever, the painting takes place in a specified location, rain or shine, and the works are commonly shown afterward. 

"Gray's Lake," oil on panel

 

This weekend is just such a Paint Out here in Des Moines. Mainframe Studios, in conjunction with the Salmagundi Club of New York, Polk County Conservation, and The Blok (an art supply store here) is sponsoring and promoting the event. Any level of painter is welcome, from beginner to pro, and resulting works will be exhibited. The locales are chosen for the event to lend coherence and community, each will be the feature of one of the three evenings of plein air painting. Any medium is welcome--oil, pastel, watercolor and others. Locations chosen were the new Des Moines Skate Park, along the Des Moines River; Easter Lake Park on the east side of the city; and Gray's Lake Park on the near south side. 

The artists will exhibit and sell their works (if they choose) at the Mainframe Studios' First Friday, September 3.

Magic in the Mountains

For the past week we've been visiting friends in the Allegheny Mountains. Like many, I always thought that the Appalachian Mountains was the name, but the Appalachian chain encompasses mountains stretching from the Adirondacks far in the north through the Smokies in the south. The Alleghenies was at one time the name for about the southern third or so but now is said to be the southern and western area of this chain of ancient mountains (they're more than 450 million years old). Whatever, it's a beautiful area of folded earth and cool rivers. Our friends live along one of those, a tributary of the Jackson River in southwestern Virginia. 

"Across the River, August 2021," watercolor on paper

The river where we stayed is the Cowpasture River, an unspoiled, clear-running tributary of the Jackson River, which in turn flows into the James. The countryside is the Alleghenies, cloaked top to bottom in old-growth forest. People have lived and worked here for centuries, unlike my home in Iowa. Here, there is magic in the mountains.

I painted the watercolor above while sitting in a chair on the bank, shaded by an ancient sycamore. The river whispered past, clear and cool. Downstream a family was floating on inner tubes and laughing. I sketched the main composition very loosely, laid on several mixes of greens and yellow-greens, then sketched a portion of the details using a technical pen.

Make More Art

Art lovers agree that the arts are necessary and important. But why? What is it about art--specifically visual art--that makes it so? Neuroscientists have been working on the idea for a number of years. A study published in the online journal PLOS One indicates that making visual art increases the neural connections in a large network of the brain, the default mode network, which is involved in thought of oneself and of others, but also conceptual things like time, task details, daydreaming, story comprehension and more. The increase in neural connections was demonstrated using magnetic resnonance images. Those increased connections seemed to occur in subjects who were making visual art, not simply observing it. The study was quite small and so far has not been expanded or repeated.

"In the Rose Garden," watercolor on paper, 2021

The default mode network has been hypothesized to be relevant to disorders that include Alzheimer's, autism, schizophrenia, major depression, and PTSD, among a number of others. Although it isn't clear if increased connections are a good thing, it's also known that in autism and certain other ailments those connections are few. 

The lesson from this small study is pretty clear. Making visual art can be a way to increase connections in the brain. Those increased connections may be important to improve certain mental conditions. So it seems clear that making art, simply to be making it, may be one of the healthier activities you can pursue. 

Make more art!

Workshop Excursion

The Saturday sketch group made a special trip to Winterset, Iowa last Saturday. Winterset is forever known as the setting of The Bridges of Madison County, both in the book and the movie. The film was not only set but made here, too. One of our group invited us to come to a watercolor workshop she was holding there, and four of us showed up. 

The day began threatening rain but by the time we got to the town park the sky was clearing. We arrived and set up in a shady spot not far from a covered wooden bridge, the Cutler-Donahoe Bridge, built in 1870 and moved to the park just over a century later. Winterset is something of a tourist town because of the covered bridges (there are a half dozen), but also because John Wayne was born here in a small bungalow a handful of blocks from the park. The town is picturesque too, and was the setting for another movie back in the 1970s. So the park sees many visitors. 

Photo credit: Kristine Price

The workshop was for people interested in beginning to paint outdoors with watercolors, and several of the attendees had art experience in other mediums like acrylics and printing. We grouped on a grassy slope under some giant old trees. The bridge seemed an obvious subject and I eventually chose a spot about thirty yards from one end, originally in some nice shade. As it happened, the majority of the group chose the bridge as well. 

The day was fine, low humidity and a fresh breeze now and then. We worked about two hours altogether, taking time now and then to get up and walk around. Visitors to the park stopped to talk from time to time, many from out of state. There were families out for a Saturday picnic, or simply visiting the park.

Using an about 11x14 watercolor pad, I sketched in the bridge and surrounding trees plus the near approach to its entrance. Using washy watercolors I laid in the sky color and a mid-range of greens, reserving the lights. The red of the bridge provided a punchy counterpoint to the darker greens of the evergreen on the right and the more yellow-greens of the grasses and shrubbery. I worked from big shapes to smaller ones, spending a lot of time trying to be accurate. When I was working, a woman stopped to talk and offered to buy the painting, before it was finished. We dickered a bit and in the end I added the last touches and she took the painting below home. She is an art teacher in northwest Missouri who just happened to be visiting that day and enjoyed the work. Thank you, Kristine Price. 

"The Cutler-Donahoe Bridge," watercolor on paper, 11x14

Parodies

While copying masters is a good way to learn, those copies--studies really--aren't sold. They're learning tools. But there are plenty of ways that classic art is copied, if not in exact detail, and used legally. The main way is by making a parody of the classic. There are masterworks galore that have been parodied and used advertising or sold outright. "American Gothic" by Grant Wood (an Iowa artist) is probably one of the top ten paintings that have been parodied in everything from TV commercials to artworks. A good example is "God Bless America," an enormous sculpture by Seward Johnson. The sculpture was temporarily erected in Grant Wood's home town of Anamosa not long ago and drew notice in the Des Moines Register. 

The huge pair of figures is different from the two in American Gothic because they're full-length and there is no background. Nonetheless, they're a kind of homage and a parody. 

Grant Wood, "American Gothic," 1930

Installing Seward John sculpture "God Bless America" 

Like American Gothic, the famous and lonely image of late-night in a New York diner, "Nighthawks" (1942) has been widely parodied. The great  Gottfried Helnwein made what is probably the most famous (and my favorite) in "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" (1984) by substituting Humphrey Bogart, Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, and Elvis Presley for the anonymous originals. 

 

 

Edward Hopper, "Nighthawks," oil, 1942

Gottfried Helnwein, "Boulevard of Broken Dreams," watercolor on paper, 1984

Master Copies

Through the ages artists have copied the work of others. Artists then and now copy mostly to learn: how did the master mix a certain color, how did he make those brush strokes, what went into the composition, the figure or face, and on and on. Rubens copied daVinci. Manet copied Velazquez. Van Gogh copied Japanese prints. I am no exception. Over the years I've copied artists from daVinci to Freud, including Durer, Velazquez, Hals, Fragonard, Kathe Kollwitz, and even Andy Warhol. Here are a few.

"After daVinci," digital drawing

In copying Leonardo (above) my interest was centered not only on his flawless technique but also on continuing to practice using a digital art program called Sketchbook. This particular drawing was done using an old technique called chiaroscuro. 

"The Large Turf, after Albrecht Durer," watercolor and ink, 2012

One of the true art masters of the last several centuries is Albrecht Durer  (1471-1528). In particular, his watercolors of seemingly mundane subjects--a rabbit, a lump of grass and weeds--simply sing, even after half a millennium. When I copied The Large Turf my interest was simply to understand what could have been involved in making such an image. This work is a large one at something like 11x14, bigger than many watercolors I'd done up to then. 

"Rene Descartes (after Hals)," oil on panel

Probably one of the greatest portraitists in history is Franz Hals (1580-1666), the great Dutch painter. Arguably, his bravura brushwork has never been equalled. His portrait of the famous mathematician and philosopher has been a particular favorite of mine and I copied it simply out of an enduring respect for the work.

"Self Portrait (after Kollewitz)," oil on panel

In making a copy of Kathe Kollwitz' self portrait bust the point was to capture an emotional likeness. Ms. Kollwitz (1867-1945) was more graphic artist than painter, and her self portraits are particularly poignant. She grew up in Germany and suffered through several of that nation's wars, in particular World Wars I and II. She was a brilliant artist and the first woman elected to the Prussian Academy of Arts, but the wars took her son Peter in 1914 and the Nazis took her professorship and prevented her from exhibiting. This is a monochromatic oil but the original was a bust.

"George Washington (after J.C. Leyendecker)," oil on panel

This profile portrait of George Washington is a copy of an illustration by the great J.C. Leyendecker (1874-1951), who illustrations reached millions in the early 20th century. His way with color, brushwork, and composition are wonderful. I did this copy some years ago to study how he put this particular portrait together. The original was a painting of a framed portrait with a white background, but I added the red and white strips as an allusion to the U.S. flag.

Keeping It Fun

After decades of drawing and painting, how do people keep at it? For me, the answer is that it has always been fun, above and beyond all else. There is a deep satisfaction in making things and an even deeper sense of satisfaction, even joy, in making them well. Learning new information and new skills is at the root of that satisfaction. You start with native ability, add information and practice, and improve whatever talent you have. For me, then, art-making is a continual process of tuning and re-tuning. And that alone makes it fun. 

"17th Ave NE", ink and watercolor

One the most recent re-tunings in my work has been to move outdoors in the warmer months. Although I had done plein air watercolor work for years, plein air oil painting eluded me. In years past, discouraged by a few sporadic outings I had avoided plein air painting. But the year before the pandemic, after much thought, I began working outside in oil paint.  

"Downstream, Druid Hill Creek," oil on panel

At first much of my outdoor oil painting took place outside my small home studio. It was simply easier to carry a few supplies outside to a deck or under a stand of trees. It was easier to duck indoors to warm up if the weather was cold, as it is here in early spring. 

One of my first outdoor oils is "Downstream, Druid Hill Creek," painted more than two years ago from the deck outside my home studio in springtime. The fun of this piece came from the simple process of doing it out in the elements as the light and conditions changed. Unlike watercolor--a reasonably quick medium, particularly in small formats--oil painting seems to take me longer owing to properties of the medium and different behaviors of the paint. Even so, this small painting took only about two hours and the results were pleasing. The main composition has enough abstract elements to be pleasing and the colors and values are harmonious. The key after these early efforts has been to continue to do the work because without continuous work (practice) even the greatest talents grow dull. Below is a small oil from last week. The setting is a new underpass from Gray's Lake (in the background) into the vast area of Waterworks Park. I did this one morning when the sun had risen midway in the sky.

"The Bike Trail, Waterworks Park," oil on panel