Looking Back

This is a good time of year to review previous work. The winter is over and spring is warming the countryside, so it won't be long until most painting time will be outdoors. Thinking of the plein air year to come, I've looked through some of last year's work. 

"Adirondacks," oil on panel, 12x9

This view of a peaceful little lake in the Adirondack Mountains is an outdoor work from a retreat I attended there last June. We painted two or three (sometimes more) small plein air works every day for a week. It was a fine event, full of new friendships and lots of inspiration from the beauty of the mountains and the quality of the work. 

"Upstream," oil on panel, 9x12

Later in the summer while spending time with friends in Virginia I had time to paint the view from their front yard--a placid river. Like so many of my outdoor works it's on a standard size canvas panel that fits my pochade box. The canvas is glued to a Gatorfoam board (a kind of styrofoam sandwich) that is very light and easily portable. Another plein air work of the same locale, "Across the River" (below) became the basis for a much larger studio work over the winter. The woods on the opposite bank glow brightly near sunset.

"Across the River," oil on panel, 9x12

Reviewing past work is useful because it jogs my memory and brings more possibilities to mind, both for upcoming outdoor work and new studio pieces.

Unvanquished

"Invictus 2020," oil on canvas, 36x18

As noted elsewhere on this blog, cities are where the majority live today, both in this country and in the world as a whole. So although plein air landscapes and studio landscapes have occupied a great deal of my time lately, cities haven't been far from my thoughts.

"Invictus 2020" is a recent cityscape that celebrates how the United States and New York City were able to transcend the covid pandemic. Invictus, of course, is Latin for unconquered. This large studio work was inspired by a 10x8 oil sketch of the famous Chrysler building that I had called "Invictus," and painted to celebrate how Manhattan had overcome the attacks of September 11, 2001. In that time, before the pandemic, the attack was likely the biggest trauma and challenge faced by New York. I wanted to comment on how well the city was responding to the pandemic but wanted to set this work apart from the earlier one.

 

 

 

 

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Related:

 Cityscapes

 Cities Full of People

AAPL Spring Show

About a year ago I was honored to become an Elected Artist Member of the American Artists Professional League (AAPL). With that election came the opportunity to exhibit with other professionals in the League, both online and in person. These days, even though the pandemic seems to be waning, opportunities to exhibit work virtually is a plus. 

Not long ago I was notified of acceptance of a piece previously posted here several times, "The Golden Hour," into the AAPL Spring Members Show (click the link to view it on my website). This particular work has also recently been featured in a Salgmagundi Club exhibit in New York. It's a view of a Virginia river during that fleeting moment when the sun sinks to the horizon and sets the world aglow. This one is an oil. 

"By the Creek," casein on Bristol,

In contrast, "By the Creek," which was my first acceptance to an AAPL show, was done in casein, an unusual medium today that reminds many of acylic because it is water-based and dries like lightning. 

"Fall on the River," casein on Bristol

Another favorite casein of mine is "Fall on the River," which was actually done outdoors an not in the studio. In this case my intent was to abstract the shapes and colors as much as possible, with less attention to detail. Perhaps I'll do some more plein air casein work this summer.
 

Watercolor Wanderings

One of my habits when traveling is making watercolor postcards to mail home to friends and family. The time and expense involved is minimal and recipients seem happy with them, so I've kept up the practice for years. 

"Schefflera Sunset," watercolor postcard ca. 2000

This particular postcard was one of my first watercolor postcards, decades ago, and unpublished until now. The second postcard, below, is from a vacation in souithern France, also long ago. Whatever these works lack in finish is offset somewhat by spontaneity and chutzpah. Regardless, they keep me working while traveling and provide something that friends back home like to receive. The foreign postage and cancellation and the personal paintings are an important part of the pieces, too. Several of these are framed and hang happily in various places.

"The Yellow Cafe, Arles," watercolor postcard, 2012

 

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Related:

Travel Postcards 

Postcard Travelogue

Sketches of Spain 

Memory of Washington

As mentioned in several previous posts, one of my winter-spring studio rituals is searching out and reviewing previous work. Sometimes that means dusting off older sketchbooks or even resurrecting drawings or paintings that have somehow been shuffled to the bottom of several stacks of such materials. So this week I found a watercolor sketchbook full of drawings and ink and wash paintings of a visit to Redmond, Washington. 

The area around Seattle, including eastern suburban communities like Redmond, is mostly forested with evergreens of several kinds. For someone like me from the Midwest, the backdrop of spruces, and the like is jarring at first. This sketch, from 2009, was done one dawn in a pocket sketchbook that I carried back then. The tall, tall trees against a different sunrise than we see in Iowa made this one a "keeper."

The basis for the sketch was actually an ink drawing of the trees and underlying foliage. I overlaid wide washes of "dirty" sky colors and then mixed a dark, cool array of greens for the evergreen boughs and underlying shadows.

Bottles and Light

Although the past several years of my painting interests have involved painting water and light, among other things, it is light that forms the thread of my works. A few years back it was glass and light in still life works. The real fascination for me is what happens as light encounters either of those two. Water and glass alike can transmit, reflect, and refract light. Their perceived appearance in fact depends heavily on the angle of incident light, too. 

"Winter Bottles," oil on panel, 8x10

"Winter Bottles" is a good example of how light can seem trapped inside a glass container. I saw this on my work table one winter afternoon and quickly painted it. The light was bright but indirect but somehow a small bottle of linseed oil seemed to possess a hidden glow.

New Fall Landscape

Although the spring season is moving along, damp and cold weather plus other circumstances have kept me in the studio. It's a good time of year for making more finished landscapes, like "Fall on the River," below.

"Fall on the River," oil on wood panel, 9x12

The setting of this painting is a bank of the Raccoon River. The river meanders and winds through lowlands not far from my studio, making it a constant target of opportunity. This painting is based on plein air sketches from early last fall as well as much personal observation. In the distance, sunlight is reflected onto the woods and rock of the bank as the river turns. Trees along here that change early in the fall seem to fade from green to yellow-green before going golden. The sky begins to look a bit colder, but summer isn't finished just yet.

Rainy Day at the Dome

About a month ago the sketch group dwindled in the face of cold, dreary conditions to only a handful. Thinking that the weather might close in, we made our way to the domed Des Moines Botanical Center, a wonderful melange of indoor specimens under the dome and extensive outdoor gardens. The Greater Des Moines Botanical Garden (to use it's official name) opened as the domed Botanical Center in 1979 and now has grown to a much larger facility, but the dome remains the centerpiece. 

The dome seemed a good choice that day. Dark clouds boiled along the northwest horizon, across the Des Moines River, as we went inside. No sooner had we ducked into the humid interior but a violent thunderstorm exploded overhead, complete with thunder and lightning. We settled on a balcony that overlooks a tangled mass of tropical vegetation that includes several species of palm trees, including banana palms, orchids, ferns, and much more. It's a wonderful and warm refuge during the cold months. 

"Under the Dome," watercolor on paper

With a cup of hot tea to warm up, I made this watercolor sketch in the usual order. That is, graphite layout sketch, then large masses of color, then details, then ink lines for definition. Several other groups of people were there, one woman on her computer. The ribs of the geodesic dome and the translucent panels made an interesting backdrop for the selection of figures I decided to include. The mini-jungle protrudes above the balcony railing. The blurred and unfocused outdoors was one of the challenges that made me want to do this one. 

Watercolor is a great choice for sketching on the fly, whether indoors or out. You can carry a little half-pan palette, a pencil, tech pen and brush in one pocket. And of course water is readily available, though I also like to use a waterbrush.