Winter Looms

Saturday brought another session of sketching in the afternoon. Luckily the weather was reasonable, if not really warm, though the wind was fairly brisk most of the early afternoon. We went to Union Park, a beautiful spot above the east side of the Des Moines River. With the trees now leafless you could see the downtown skyline against the sky with a curtain of trees in front. The river flowed silvery at the foot as well. You could almost feel winter, crouching behind the horizon.

I sat at the top of the hill above the park entrance and gazebo to sketch. But the wind! At first it wasn't so bad but the gusts made it hard to keep the watercolor sketchbook on my knee. Facing the conditions I decided to be as broad and minimal as I could in painting the scene. I drew a quick layout, then washed on a cerulean sky. Next I mixed a warm dark for the bank and skyline then worked in the trees in the foreground and gave the river some dark reflections. A technical pen helped with the finish. I emphasized certain parts of the buildings by reinforcing the darks and added branches, twigs, the far river bank, and a few details here and there. The painting below is about 5x10 in my sketchbook.

The King's Painter

Lately I've been reading a new biography of Hans Holbein (1497-1543), The King's Painter:The Life of Hans Holbein, by Franny Moyle. Just published, it is the first biography I've read of the great master, although I've admired his work for decades. For me, and I suspect for many, Hans Holbein the Younger (his father was an artist too) was born in Augsburg, Germany but spent the majority of his working life in Basel, Switzerland. Even so, it is mostly his works from England that attract attention. The justly famous Portrait of Sir Thomas More, the great English lawyer, scholar, humanist and statesman is a perfect example. It is now in the Frick Collection in New York.Scatt

Hans Holbein the Younger, "Sir Thomas More," oil on panel, 1527

Sir Thomas More was a staunch supporter of the Catholic Church against the Protestant Reformation. Although he met favor with Henry VIII, the English king, he was forced to retire after Holbein painted him. Henry made himself head of the English church, removed power from the Pope and therefore allowed himself to marry Anne Boleyn.

"The Ambassadors," oil on wood, 1533

In any event, the new biography is a thorough one, though the author seems to digress a bit too often for me. My copy is an electronic one, with illustrations at the end. One needs to refer back and forth in order to completely comprehend the author's descriptions of particular paintings, of which there are many. That complaint aside, the book is well written for a general audience, rather than a limited one of connoisseurship. In particular, the author explores Holbein's penchant for allusion and perspective in his work, none less striking than The Ambassadors, his portrait of two French men who had come to England on diplomatic missions. The most striking feature of the work is the anamorphic skull in the foreground, which can only be understood as a skull from an extreme angle. 

Ms. Moyle has written an engaging and interesting biography of Hans Holbein that nearly anyone who enjoys art would find entertaining.

MVIS 10th Annual Show

The name of the Missouri Valley Impressionist Society (MVIS) sounds like a regional organization, but membership is actually open to artists from everywhere. Actual physical exhibits are held only in states in the Missouri River watershed, but otherwise the organization is a national one. Most exhibitions are limited to members. 

The 10th Annual Juried Art Show by members opened last weekend at the Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art in St. Joseph, Missouri. This year I was honored that my plein air oil, "Upstream, April Light" (below) was juried into the exhibition. It's a painting of Druid Hill Creek, which flows north just outside my studio. When this was painted the honeysuckle that drapes the banks is spring green against darker trunks, shadows and leaf litter, so much so it almost glows. This work was painted on the spot, outdoors. It was a pleasant, soft spring day with warm sun and a gentle zephyr of a breeze. One of the exhilarating challenges of outdoor painting is trying to capture the fleeting moment, the flash of bright leaves against dull backgrounds, the ripple of smooth water over a rocky bottom, all set off by subtle shadows. Sometimes as you're painting you think, "this is never going to work," but thank goodness a lot of the time it does. This one was fun, once it was finished.

This year's the MVIS Juried show runs through the new year, to January 9th. It's a beautiful show. Other plein air works from last year and this are collected on my website. www.garyhoff.com/collections/pleinair. 

"Upstream, April Light," oil on panel, 9x12, currently available

One Year Ago

 

About a year ago, November 5 to be exact, I painted the north shore point of Gray's Lake, our local gem of a park. It was morning, probably about 10, and sunlight slanted low from left to right, filtering through bare trees across the distant bank. The sun was bright on the tall grasses and sand along the shore and the still water gave back beautiful reflections. Iowa in autumn. Wonderful.

The Asian Pavilion

Back in July I posted about the Asian pavilion, a beautiful Chinese-style building set on the east bank of the Des Moines River across from downtown. It's the central feature of the Robert Ray Asian Gardens. The garden area includes stone lanterns, sculptural rock formations and decorative plantings. I had painted an 11x14 plein air of the pavilion that I included in the blog, enjoying the way the roof lines and the curves step back, so like branches of a huge tree. Mostly that time I wanted to capture morning light on the roof and surrounding tree branches. Since then the gardens and river have become a favorite for plein air work and those paintings in turn fuel later studio compositions.

"Landmark," oil on panel, 9x12, available

This is a studio painting derived in part from plein air studies like that one. In this small oil my intent was to contrast textures from sky to trees to roof. The roof and its ornamentation compelling sandwiched between the organic forms. The deep reds and greens of the pavilion against broken clouds made a satisfying pattern of abstraction. 

This particular work is featured this month on my website. 

The Greatest Generation

A few years back a newscaster published a book about those who came of age during the Great Depression,and fought in the Second World War or worked selflessly at home during the conflict. They did what they did because it was the right thing to do. That generation, born roughly during the first quarter of the 20th century, are passing now, and the youngest of them still living are in their nineties.

Congressman Neal Smith

Not long ago, one of the greatest of that generation died at 101 years old. Neal Smith was his name, and he was born and lived his life here in Iowa. He worked farming and running a gas station before the war. During the war he fought in the Pacific Theater as a bomber pilot, where he was shot down and earned a Purple Hear. After the war he attended college, then law school, and eventually ran for the House of Representatives. Although he disliked Washington he often said he kept returning because that was where there was work to be done. In the end he served 36 years in Congress, longer than anyone from Iowa ever had. Neal Smith was soft-spoken, humble, and dedicated to public service. In recognition of his contribution to the nation and his state he was honored many times while he still lived. The Federal Building in Des Moines bears his name, and so does an enormous nature preserve in the central part of the state, among others. 

I was privileged to know him as a fellow member of a local service club, which he attended almost without fail until reaching nearly 100. The pandemic prevented his attending during the last year or so of life, but before that he was a fixture at meetings, where it was my privilege to spend time discussing all sorts of issues and ideas with him. Even at his advanced age, Neal was keenly interested in national and state politics, social trends, and new ideas. We will miss his gentle smile and quiet wisdom. Truly he was an eminent person in the Greatest Generation.

Aspens in Iowa

Most people associate aspen trees with the mountains. But aspens grow quite well here in Iowa too. This stand of buttery yellow ones has flourished here, now reaching almost fifty feet in size. 

I painted these in one of my larger watercolor sketchbooks using a set of "inktense" watercolor cakes from Derwent. The colors just seem to pop.

Iowa Prairie

Northwest of Des Moines is Jester Park, an enormous area encompassing woods and prairie and bordering a big reservoir, Saylorville Lake. The park has a golf course, equestrian center, nature center, outdoor recreation center and much more. Last summer I was part of a small group of invited artists who spent two days painting outdoors, and I posted several paintings here from that event. The paint out was intended to promote the county conservation board, which superintends it, as well as the park itself. 

"Jester Park Prairie," oil on panel, 2021

One of the views at the western border of the park is a patch of Iowa prairie that also encloses a sculpture walk with full-size bronzes of various animals that inhabited the area--bison, elk, and so on. It was fun and instructive to paint the roll of the landscape, and the dozens of colors it held.

Blazing

This fall the weather has been wet--more than six inches of rain through October--but not so very cool. In fact we've yet to have even a light frost along Druid Hill Creek. The trees are changing more slowly, mostly rust and red with tipping yellow-greens here and there. As you'd expect, leaves have been fluttering in the crisp northern breeze. 

Outside my studio, the small trees along the creek bank have suddenly blazed into a mass of golden yellow. I stood at the window and sketched them in pencil and watercolor, not spending any time on detail. Using a set of Derwent "Intense" colors gave an idea of the saturated yellow and yellow-orange leaves against a bright clear sky.