Reviewing

One of the things that I do is to review previous work after it's had some time to retreat from memory. This week I spent some time looking through older plein air works, mostly from several years ago. These are studies rather than finished paintings. That is, they're fodder for studio works to come and as such haven't been displayed before.

"Blue Spruce," oil on panel 9x12

This one, "Blue Spruce," dates from July 2019 and is the view across Druid Hill Creek from my studio. I stood on the bank and painted this study in one two hour session. The main interest was the varied textures of foliage and undergrowth, accented by the light blue evergreen

"Out Back," oil on panel, 9x12

Another from the same month is "Out Back," which features the two trees but omits the spruce. The dappled light, varied leaf shapes and myriad greens were the attraction. 

Though neither of these works can be called a complete painting, they each serve as painted memory.

Hazy Day of Summer

Last Saturday was the first time out with the Saturday sketchers in three weeks, and it happened to be the hottest day of the year. We gathered at the local art center as usual and motored out to one of the lesser-visited city reservoirs. It's as small lake behind an earthen dam, surrounded by mature trees and parkland. Even though it was well above ninety degrees, the wind brought some coolness from the lake. I set up on a picnic table in dense shade where I could see the top of the dam beyond a big expanse of water. The small domed building is at one end of the dam, presumably housing technical equipment.

"Maffett Dam," casein on panel, 6x8

People who have read this blog lately know that I've been contemplating a return to casein for outdoor work. Saturday was the day for a lot of reasons. For one thing casein dries very quickly so if it was useable in high temperatures and windy conditions it's likely it will be useful at other more hospitable times. For another, my small paintbox contains everything I need except water and brushes, so the medium is pretty portable too. I painted Maffett Dam on a panel previously toned with burnt sienna. You can see hints of the toning in the foreground and at the zenith of the sky. I began with a faint graphite layout of major shapes, then dove right in with color. Casein dries in minutes, rather like acrylic, and doesn't reactivate with water the way gouache or watercolor do. So it's ideal for quick layering of color, which is how I approached the painting. Throughout the work you can see examples of layered colors. The image gives an indications of the heated, hazy air, a feature of casein as it dries matte. It does photograph well, which accounts for its use among illustrators of decades gone by.

One More

I've posted a few casein paintings from years past as a review and a stimulus to do some plein air work with the medium. Just today an old memory surfaced, "Coffee," a work on paper dating to 2017. This particular painting began as an experiment in the casein medium rather than an attempt at a finished painting. But as the work progressed I was seduced by the two primary colors, the repetitive bulb shapes and the off-white neon tubing. As the work progressed to more and more detailed the quick drying casein made layering, highlighting and the like considerably simpler.

"Coffee," casein on paper, about 7x10

So, this painting seals the deal for me. I'm going out with casein in the next few days. I might even take it out when the Saturday group goes, this weekend.

---

Similar Posts

Casein Again

AAPL Spring Show 

The Ford

As a beginner, it was important to me to make a recognizable and believable image of whatever my subject might have been. Portraits, of course, should look like the sitter, and so on. Beginning painters like I was often slave away to not only make their picture recognizable but detailed and identical. That is, the temptation is to show the item in detail, so that many times we produce detailed but somehow stiff and lifeless pictures. We protest "but it was there!" when a mentor or colleague points out our obsessiveness, but eventually we learn to edit, suggest, indicate, and soften our edges and brush strokes. And we learn to compose and recompose.

We eventually learn to compose on the fly, rearranging the landscapes before us to become different scenes altogether. A good example is The Ford. The setting is Druid Hill Creek about a half mile north of my studio. It is a small creek, probably ten feet across and usually no more than six inches to a foot deep, flowing briskly. At this particular spot, there is a group of boulders placed by whomever maintains paths through these woods, probably truly intended as a fording place since the banks on each side upstream and down aren't very useful. This angle is one I've studied for many months, and the distant stone bridge isn't there; it's actually a concrete street culvert over the creek. The main masses in the painting are pretty much the view, but houses and electric lines fill the far distance and were edited out while painting.

"The Ford," oil on panel, 16x12

The Ford is a studio painting done from reference photos and many personal visits. Unlike many of my landscapes, this one wasn't preceded by a plein air study. I began with a burnt sienna tone, then a warm block in of the main shapes. Proceeding dark to light and top to bottom, I painted in several layers of progressive but controlled detail until it was time to stop.

Plein Air Oil

Last time I mentioned that we've been here in Virginia for about a week, relaxing along a beautiful river. The river is just outside the door, a constant murmur of water and a central fact of life. You can spend hours on its banks or in the crystalline water. For me, this is one of the unspoiled and special places. You can relax here and simply study the water. 

One of the things that makes moving water a fascinating subject is how changeable it can be. One moment the water is transparent, nearly absent, and the rocky bottom ripples with light; the next the sky is shining in bright blue bars across the surface. The movement changes, light changes, and more. For a painter, the challenge is to observe closely and sharply, then put down paint in a meaningful way. You have to be quick, and acute. This 9x12 is a view of the opposite bank of the river where we're guests. The folks who host us have been living along these waters for more than six decades, and one can see why. 

"Along the Cowpasture River," oil on panel, 9x12

Almost Heaven

This week we've been visiting friends in southwest Virginia, not far from Roanoke. This range of ancient mountains is part of the chain that extends northeast from here, through Pennsylvania and farther north as the Adirondacks. This part is the Alleghenies, humped and ridged and clothed in deep green. We're staying on a small clear-flowing river with old friends. 

Lewisburg, watercolor on paper, 9x5

We spent one afternoon in a town forty miles or so away, Lewisburg, West Virginia. It's an old old town in Greenbrier County, founded in the late 18th century as people began moving in from farther east. As you would expect, much of the town dates from the 19th century, and the main street has been beautifully maintained and restored. 

I spent some time ambling along, exploring a book shop, two or three galleries and antique shops, and an Irish pub. The sketch above is of that main shopping street in hilly Lewisburg.

Seeing and Painting

If you're a painter who has attended workshops or painted alongside others, you have probably noticed that when it is time to begin a picture, outdoors or in, the impulse is to grab a brush, dip it in paint, and get going. Time's a-wasting. Get some paint down. Make a statement and go from there.Maybe that's not the best approach. 

Years ago, a mentor gave me one of the best pieces of advice about painting: "Look more than you paint." That is, the actual work of painting (realism anyway) is done in the seeing. An artist should see the big shapes, patterns of light and dark (values), perspective in all of its forms (linear, atmospheric, etc.), colors and their complements, plus specific details and considerably more. If we think of it, that list can apply to a portrait, still life, landscape or whatever. Understanding and reviewing the properties of the subject is how the painter discovers how to begin. 

"Raccoon," oil on panel, 9x12

Painting "Raccoon," last Saturday, I stood along the bank, almost in the river, painting the lush woods along the Raccoon River in a familiar spot I've visited many times. It was early afternoon, so the shadows were more vertical than horizontal. I began as always with a thin wash of burnt sienna to establish the basic composition and value patterns. The greens of the trees and undergrowth looked quite dark in places, but here and there bright yellow-greens predominated. The opposite bank of the river bend juts into the frame, an ochre-red color of sand, debris and small rocks. That color, in shadow is echoed on the left side. To make this picture, I spent a great deal of time trying to see big color shapes--not objects but colors--and how they fitted together. The light-shadow patterns in the trees were particularly important. Looking at the water I made reflections that were in the pattern I saw in the water, then painted ripples and lighter sky reflections over the deeper darks. In the end, observation and painting took about an hour. Clearly this is a study and shouldn't be taken as an example of a finished studio work.

If one spends most of the time groping instead of studying, painting will take longer than necessary. So paradoxically the longer you look the quicker you can paint.

A Journal of Druid Hill Creek

The great thing about sketching--regardless of medium--is that the result is a sort of journal, a visual notation of the world. Some artists more or less sketched their way through life--Andrew Wyeth for example. A while back I put together a Powerpoint of a year along Druid Hill Creek, comprising a set of watercolor sketches, mostly about 5x9 in small pocket sketchbooks.There are a baker's dozen of these small watercolors, about one a month.

Click to enlarge

A Cooling Memory

While thinking about the blog I ran across an unpublished watercolor from last February. Not an unusual thing, but with the heat this June--temperatures over 90 and high, muggy humidity--a memory of the crisp winter air and infinite sky was welcome.

There's something satisfying about the limited range of colors and the simplicity of a winter landscape. This particular view is a familiar one to anybody who reads the blog. It's Druid Hill Creek flowing north from my window. The weather had turned colder and nearly six inches of new snow had fallen the day before. I don't know about you but looking back at a wintry view doesn't cool things at all but it does make the heat more bearable.