Favorite Artists 17- Hans Holbein the Younger

Self Portrait, ca. 1542

Hans Holbein the Younger (1497-1543) is not only a favorite of mine but probably of many others. Many have seen his astonishing portraits from the court English King Henry VIII, but his oeuvre includes many other astonishing works. Studying his works--particularly his portraits--the first thing that strikes me is the utter acuteness of his vision. Holbein has an truly astonishing eye for telling detail, besides making what appear to be incredibly realistic images. 

He was German, born in Augsburg though most of his working life was spent in Basel, Switzerland, and in England. He was taught first in his father's workshop in Augsburg and later as apprentice to Hans Herbster in Basel. He may have visited Italy at some time during youth as well. With his elder brother Ambrosius, he became a journeyman painter in Basel around or before 1515 and began a busy career, designing woodcuts, painting portraits, and other works. With his father, who was a master painter and draftsman, he undertook a long project in Lucerne, painting murals, in 1517.

"Erasmus of Rotterdam," 1523

In 1519 Holbein returned to Basel and was again busy and successful. For the succeeding seven years he did murals both outside and inside (notably for the Town Hall), a series of religious works, portraits, designs for stained glass windows, book illustrations, and even alphabet design. In short, he was a master of many arts. But it was Holbein's portrait of Desiderius Erasmus the philosopher, theologian and scholar, who was already world-famous. It was his portraits of Erasmus that in turn made Holbein world famous as well. 

Certainly, it was his portrait of Erasmus (and a letter of introduction from the subject) that gained him work in England, where he went in 1526. Holbein's situation in Basel seems to have been less successful by then, possibly owing to the Lutheran revolution in northern Europe. Whatever the reason for his move, Holbein was quite successful in England as well. Hosted by Thomas More he had access to much of the Royal Court despite being a foreigner, and painted quite a few members. His most important commission was a portrait of his host, who would become Lord Chancellor. Holbein only stayed in England for two years before returning to Basel and his family, having earned a great deal. The atmosphere in Basel was difficult, though, owing to religious ferment. Iconoclasts destroyed religious imagery, including some by Holbein, and there was a reduction in commssions for religious work.

"Sir Thomas More," 1527

"Thomas Cromwell," 1533

Eventually, in 1532, Holbein returned to England, though society was hardly less turbulent than in Switzerland. King Henry VIII was launching his own version of rebellion against the Church, seeking to set aside his marriage to Catherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn. Holbein's former patron and host Thomas More. The latter, as Lord Chancellor, felt unable to approve the move and so resigned his position in 1532. As a  foreigner dependent on the good will of the Court, Holbein distanced himself from his old host in favor of the newly-powerful Boleyn family and Thomas Cromwell who became Henry VIII's most important advisor. His portrait of Cromwell, made a year or so later, is a telling likeness, austere and grim.

It was during these years that some of Holbein's greatest works were made. Perhaps the most praised and most puzzling is "The Ambassadors," a double, life-size portrait of two Frenchmen, one the actual ambassador to the English court of Henry VIII and the other a priest who would later become Bishop of Lavaur. Holbein larded the painting with metaphor and allusion. Most prominent is the anamorphic skull--that grey smear across the bottom. If you can approach the picture from high on the right or low on the left the smear becomes a toothless skull, a "memento mori." There are musical instruments, scientific instruments, a globe, books, rich draperies and a thick rug, and all of them have significance in the context of the sitters' identities and the religious and social turmoil of the time.

"The Ambassadors," 1533

"Charles de Solier, comte de Morette," 1534

One of my favorite portraits from these years is seldom seen, the exceptionally powerful half-length portrait of Charles de Solier, who acted as ambassador to England in 1534. Henry was attempting to gain French support for his abandonment of Catherine of Aragon. Charles looks difficult to influence, to my eyes. 

As painter to the crown, Holbein made a number of portraits of Henry VII, and oddly the one that is still most famous was destroyed by fire in the late 17th century. That work was so famous that many copies still exist, some of which give us a close idea of the grandeur of the original. Another (below) that has survived suggests to me the corpulence and smallness of Henry, wrapped in fur, silk, and precious metals. There is a kind of cruelty in the smallness of the monarch's mouth. Given Holbein's acuteness of vision, this king looks like a dreadful person.

"Henry VIII of England," 1536

Holbein died in London in 1543, possibly of plague, although the cause of his death is disputed. 

You might enjoy The King's Painter, a biography of Holbein by Franny Moyle, published last fall.

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Also in this series:

Favorite Artists
Favorite Artists 2--Chardin
Favorite Artists 3--Grant Wood
Favorite Artists 4--Diego Velazquez
Favorite Artists 5--Andrew Wyeth
Favorite Artists 6--Wayne Thiebaud 
Favorite Artists 7 - Edward Hopper
Favorite Artists 8- Nicolai Fechin
Favorite Artists 9- Rembrandt 
Favorite Artists 10-Hokusai
Favorite Artists 11-Franz Hals

Favorite Artists-12-Vincent 

Favorite Artists 13-John Sargent
Favorite Artists 14-Thomas Eakins 

Favorite Artists 15-Ilya Repin

Favorite Artists 16-Albrecht Durer

Utensils

Although subjects like flowers, wine bottles and glassware, fruit and the like are traditional in still life, there are many other possibilities. A few years ago one of my own interests was kitchenware. That is, implements and appliances you might find in someone's arsenal. Some of the objects chosen at the time were humble, some were antique, and some were just for the fun of it.

"Alone," oil on panel

"Alone" is very small at 8x6 and monochromatic. A study of a salt shaker, painted on a gessoed panel, it was done with raw umber and white. From this small beginning grew several years of small quick paintings, often with a food- or kitchen-related subject.  

 

"Creamer," oil on composition board

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A good example of the work of those years is "Creamer," another small oil, painted on an archival composition board. It's about 9x6. The composition and opportunities for interplay of color and edges were what drew me to this particular subject. 

"Breakfast," oil on panel

With "Breakfast" came more objects in the painting. This particular work is 8x10 oil on panel. The work was done as a study of how to render the shiny, white enamelled surface of this old coffee pot The antique pot paired well with a checkered tablecloth and chocolate donut. A perfect breakfast.

Outdoor Morning

As the weather has warmed, time for outdoor painting has expanded. With good sun and no rain it's possible to go out practically every day. The first couple of week of June have been particularly good for plein air painting. And of course the Saturday group goes weekly, like clockwork. 

"North Shore," oil on panel, 9x12

With "North Shore" I began going out earlier in the day, looking for that beautiful slanting light that sets things aglow. This particular plein air painting was done on the northern shore of Gray's Lake, less than a mile from my home studio, in two early morning sessions. As I nearly always do I used a 9x12 panel, thinly washed with burnt sienna to do away with the blinding white of the priming. Starting at the top and working down I washed in colors thinly at first and then with more bodied paint. The red-tinted surface served as a middle value and a nice complement to the myriad greens of the landscape. After letting thin paint set for a few minutes I painted the greens, mixing the color from various blues, yellows and black. As an exercise, I tried very hard to make a stroke of paint and then leave it unblended, particularly in the top three-quarters. The foreground water was blended to smoothness to suggest a still surface.

Summer Sketch

Although the season is still officially spring, the past few days have certainly felt more like summer. The spring has been damp and often cool but now a warm spell has settled down, spurring verdant growth and sudden sweat. Today the high temperature at our place was 99 degrees, and the humidity was a similar number. Gardens are lush. 

The Saturday sketchers met last weekend after a morning of rain was followed by partly blue skies. We elected to gather in the formal rose garden behind the Des Moines Art Center, where we usually meet to decide the day's location. The roses are in full flower, filling the formal beds with reds, pinks, yellows, a beautiful bed of pure white roses, and more. The roses are flanked by stone and by two small shady pavilions. We sat just outside the formal beds and painted. At one point I got up to stretch my legs and walked into the mass of flowering plants. The scent of roses was nearly overpowering in the warmth and humidity. 

This is a view of one corner of the rose beds with a pavilion in the distance. It's about 6x10 in one of my sketchbooks. 

Pen and Ink Project

Drawing in ink with a steel-nibbed dip pen is an admittedly old-fashioned medium of expression. But pen and ink has a long and distinguished career, likely dating into prehistory. Certainly pen and ink drawing was used in ancient Egypt and other parts of the ancient world. In the middle ages and into the ferment of the Renaissance, drawings with pen were used as preliminary layouts for paintings and can also stand alone as art. In the modern era just over a century ago pen and ink was widely used in illustration, then the most widespread published art. But with photography, movies, color print reproduction and so on, drawing with a pen--whether the traditional dip pens mentioned above or more contremporary technical pens--has fallen into disuse. 

A half-century ago black India ink was the accepted ink and the crow quill was the nib of choice. Various companies still manufacture and sell the small nibs known by the name, which you then mount in a holder. The pen is recharged simply by dipping the tip into the ink bottle, hence the name. 

Once the market for ink illustrations faded, there was still cartooning. Even into our own era, cartoonists of various sorts have used ink as their medium of choice, whether laid down using a technical pen, a dip pen, a brush, or some other implement. But as computer generated drawing has become more and more intuitive and less technical, even older cartoonists do much of their work using a computer and a drawing tablet. 

"Home Place," ink on paper, about 7x12

Imagine my surprise to be asked to produce an ink drawing not long ago. The commission was for an image of a farmhouse and various outbuildings, the client's childhood home. The reference materials were scant, but after a number of studies we achieved an acceptable final result. For the most part the studies were done with dip pens but the final image was a very large drawing. Above is one of the studies done for the project, pen on paper.

Sunny River

This view of the Raccoon River and the pedestrian/bicycle bridge (a repurposed railroad bridge) are brightened here by the late May sunshine. The river is mostly slow-moving and sluggish until the farmland upstream is deluged. Then it becomes a real torrent. Just now, as the sun rises higher in the sky, the distant foliage has turned a yellower green and even the rusty old bridge seems more trim and shiny. 

"Bridge on the Raccoon," oil on panel, 9x12

As is almost always my practice I toned this Gatorfoam-backed linen panel with a thin wash of burnt sienna before going to darker and more opaque passages to set up the basic composition. After a few minutes to allow the initial lay-in to dry slightly I went in with full color, mixing a variety of greens from combinations of cad lemon, cad yellow, cobalt blue, and ivory black, with a touch of raw umber here and there. Because of the sun's movement I only worked for about ninety minutes during each of two painting sessions before finishing this.

Ai-Da

For decades the idea of computer-created art has been discussed or predicted or even heralded as having arrived. There are computer programs that generate colored images, based on programming of course. Some of those programs actually produce physical paintings when coupled to another machine. Now, of course, we have robots, artificial intelligence, and a great deal more technical expertise than even five years ago.  

Ai-Da and self portrait

Now we have Ai-Da, a robot that is said (on its website) to be "...the world’s first ultra-realistic artist robot." Originally publicized in 2019, Ai-Da has made a portrait of Queen Elizabeth in honor of her 70 years on the UK throne. Ai-Da is named after Ada Lovelace a 19th century woman who is often called the first computer programmer. Ai-Da is equipped with a female human appearance but underneath is an artificial intelligence, camera eyes, and the ability to draw, paint and sculpt with a mechanical arm. This is a machine that can make original images based on what it records via the cameras. 

So the question becomes, are the images made by Ai-Da art? There are likely to multiple answers, of course. A number of art critics deny the images are art, even if they seem artful since the machine is neither a person, nor self-aware. Ai-Da cannot be an artist because although its machine eyes record what is before them, the program doesn't "see" in the sense that humans do. Perhaps so. But Ai-Da has already had shows, a featured website and a great deal of publicity.  

Ai-Da "Algorithm Queen"

For me, the AI behind the rubber face hasn't quite gotten there yet. Instead Algorithm Queen and the self portrait above are both more like digitally manipulated photos than drawings or paintings. There are quite a few, though, who are hailing this as the beginning of true independent computer artists. 

Perhaps.

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More:

Ai-Da the Robot 

But Is It Art? 

Umbrellas

Over the years umbrellas have featured in quite a few of my paintings, whether similar to Friday's post or otherwise. You see a lot of umbrellas in a city, whether the weather is wet or not. Sometimes umbrellas are for shade, not protection from rain or sleet. In the last post, "Goodbye" had a lot of them. 

"The Pink Umbrella," oil, 10x8

Here are three "umbrella paintings," as I sometimes call them. In each the weather is different and so the effects needed are different. "The Pink Umbrella" is a rainy day painting, complete with smeared colors, watery surfaces and muted reflections. It was the high point of view that attracted me to this particular composition, but as always the rainy day was attractive as well. 

In "Sabrett" the weather is dry and sunny but our point of view is the deep shade of tall buildings. The composition was mostly abstracted, except the figure and the two umbrellas over his hot dog cart. A relatively narrow range of values helped make the muted colors more realistic. 

Finally, in "Union Square, Winter," the weather is entirely inclement--a blizzard in fact. The blowing snow obscures everything beyond the middle distance, even the light from streetlamps. Distant buildings are mere blue shapes in the white wall of snow.

"Sabrett," oil on panel, 9x12

I suppose you can lump these together as pictures containing an umbrella, but they're also quite different from one another.

"Union Square, Winter," oil on panel, 10x8

Rainy Scenes

Some years ago, rainy weather fascinated me as a painter. When the skies go grey and misty and the light becomes flat and shadowless, when rain falls steadily, the scene is ripe for more drama than a sunny day.

Hoff, "Goodbye," oil on panel, 2009

In a city, in the rain, things begin to look smeared. Buildings, pavement, streetlights, even faces lose definition. The world turns into shades and tints and lights shimmer and float. "Goodbye" developed from a city sketch of pedestrians in the rain. Here and there, the shiny pavement reflected shop lights onto the people hurrying along in the downpour. For me the composition is more effective for lacking a definite horizon, suggesting the complexity of city streets and intersections. 

Still Life

Diego Velazquez, "Old Woman Frying Eggs," 1619. A bodegon.

Like most, a great deal of my work once was still life. A still life is simply a drawing or other image of a group of inanimate objects. It doesn't matter if they once were animate; they are not at the moment they're caught in the image. Certain paintings that do contain an animate object are also considered still life--an example is the Spanish bodegon or kitchen painting, that often has a figure or two. But usually when we think of still life we think of the inanimate.

Still life is a great way for beginners to work because everything can be arranged, not just the objects themselves but their lighting and surroundings. Many painters have some kind of light box with three sides that can be set up rather in the way movies are set up. The painter can juxtapose green apples, red peppers, an orange, and a glass of water, for example, in a pleasing arrangement and paint the result. Contemporary painters do just that, but in the past the idea wasn't simply to show a pleasing arrangement or show one's technical skills. 

Hoff, "Risk Factors," oil on panel, 2008

From the 16th century into our own time, still lifes have served as metaphors. One important type of still life is the vanitas, a reminder of our universal mortality. Vanitas refers to a phrase from Ecclesiastes "vanitas vanitatum, omnia vanitas"--that is, "vanity of vanities, all is vanity." Vanitas paintings often include symbols of transience such as soap bubbles, a skull, a snuffed candle. Other kinds of still life have show opulent spreads of food and drink--known as "breakfast paintings" in Holland at that time. Even these sumptuous, rather decadent images contain hidden meanings. 

Rembrandt, "Side of Beef," oil on panel, 1655

 

 

 

 

Some still life isn't easily classified. For example, Rembrandt's "Slaughtered Ox," now in the Louvre, does show a inanimate object, this time a side of beef in a slaughterhouse. The painting is relatively small but has an enormous impact. It is indeed classified as a still life, but carries an implicit message about life and its transience. Why the great Dutch painter made this painting remains unknown, but it has inspired others--notably Chaim Soutine and Francis Bacon.

Hoff, "Onion," oil on panel, 2011

Still life is clearly more than a collection of objects. But sometimes that's all it is. Many beginning painters have tackled the subject of a ripe apple, or a pear, or a glass of wine, or even all three in the same painting. For practice a good idea is to include objects that echo solid geometric shapes--spheres, cylinders, cubes and similar solids, pyramids, and so on. 

 

Hoff, "Bedtime Snack," oil on panel, 2006

One great way to build momentum in the studio is to do small, daily studies of various objects like that apple (left), or perhaps a glass of milk (below). The daily painting habit plus the use of small support sizes means that you can practice without worrying over time and expense or getting to precious about each individual work. 

For anyone who wants to advance skills in all phases of painting or drawing, give daily still life painting a try.

Plein Air at Last

After waiting and longing for plein air work for three or four months spring weather has at last allowed me some time outdoors. During the past week sun and warmth predominated over grey skies and damp, so that I was able to get outside with my Open BoxM and actually do some oil painting. It isn't that there haven't been outdoor opportunities, of course. The Saturday group goes out weekly, rain or shine, and I've had a few outings with them, as far back as March. But watercolor and oil paint are quite different. Watercolor is quick, portable, transparent and oil paint is slower in execution and drying, semi-opaque and considerably less easy to transport. 

I finished a single plein air oil this week, 9x12 on panel, completed on the spot. The Raccoon River is nearly always a slow, lazy stream colored a warm brown-green by silt from farmland upstream. Because it's so near it's one of my favorite subjects. 

"Raccoon Bend," oil on panel, 9x12

It is a certainty that this summer and fall I'll be spending more time on the river bank.

A Spring Sketch

The spring season is at last more like spring and less like either fall or summer. The temperatures have moderated, spring storms are lessening, and trees and gardens are in flower. Near us is an arboretum with several dozen flowering trees. Blazing temperatures forced the trees into massive flower, but the high temperatures were threatening, so last Thursday a handful of mates from the Saturday sketch group made our way to the arboretum for a painting session. Although I could have used oils, I had already spent several hours working en plein air and wanted to switch gears so I used watercolor. 

"In the Arboretum," watercolor and ink on paper, 5x10

The day was pleasant, with a little south breeze and fair skies. I laid in the composition lightly in pencil, then painted broad color washes, becoming progressively more detailed. A technical pen made adding the ink lines simple, at the end.

Ink

Like most people, I first learned to draw with graphite, many decades ago. But it wasn't very long until I started drawing with India ink--commonly just carbon black in water, but often with something added for durability, like shellac. My first drawings were mostly done in basic drafting classes at a vocational college, but later elective work included illustration techniques like shading, stippling, hatching and air brush. One of the first, harsh lessons that ink taught me was the penalty for mistakes. Erasure of ink is very difficult, if not completely impossible. But ink gives wonderful results, a great range of values, and ink can be brushed, applied with a pen, blown (airbrushed) and so on to achieve a wide range of effect and textures. Making illustrations taught me care using ink while gaining enough experience to reduce mistakes. 

In the heyday of illustration, a century or more ago, pen and ink drawings were common in mass media. Magazines and newspapers were a huge market for illustrators' work. And so ink drawings were the rage because they reproduced so well in black and white. No need for expensive color processing. Today pen and ink used much less often. Nonetheless, I like doing pen work from time to time. 

"Salisbury House," ink on paper, 8x10

For example, "Salisbury House," is an ink and ink-wash drawing from several years back. It began as a lightly drawn pencil composition which I inked first with a pen to show basic outlines. The dark masses were brushed with ink, sometimes diluted to half strength or quarter strength, sometimes full strength. 

"Kerry," in on paper, 5x7

 

 

 

A considerably more casual and sketchy drawing is "Kerry," done in a pocket sketchbook in less than ten minutes. In this particular work  I used a technical pen while scribbling and hatching for dark masses. This is about 5x7. 

 

 

I like cartoons enough that I once had the fantasy of becoming a cartoonist. While that pathway was enticing, in the end painting was my major passion. Nonetheless I still do a cartoon once in a while, just for the fun of it. This one is a parody of perhaps the most famous underground cartoon of the hippie era, "Keep on Truckin'" by RCrumb. I drew this parody using a dip pen and ink. Dip pens have a steel nib that you dip repeatedly in ink, unlike most technical pens these days. And unlike tech pens, nibs allow variable line thicknesses, a real asset in experienced hands.

 

Folds

A few years back I wrote about learning to draw folds in drapery from one of my masters. Drapery and clothing are difficult. Breaking folds down into a few easily recognized and drawn types is the key to learning how to draw fabric. The ubiquity of folds in clothing, furniture drapery, curtains, and a multitude of other items means if you're going to draw or paint realistically, it's critical to understand folds. 

There are six or seven basic folds that fabric repeats: diaper, pipe, half-lock, spiral, drop, and zig-zag fold types are common. Diaper folds have a kind of droopy, swaggy appearance because they occur when a piece of cloth is supported in two or more spots. Drop folds occur where fabric hangs from a single support and drops straight toward the floor. Pipe folds are so-named owing to their resemblance to pipes--a stage curtain is a group of lined-up pipe folds. Half-lock folds are found when a tubular piece of cloth is bent, for example elbows in a shirt. Spiral folds occur in tubes of cloth as well, making spirals around the circumference. And zig-zag folds, again occur often in tubular fabric structures like pants and shirts. 

Diaper Folds

These configurations occur again and again in sculptures dating from antiquity and in paintings dating to at least the 15h century if not before. anyone who aspires to draw and paint figures must eventually grapple with how cloth drapes and folds and clings to the human form. It's worth reviewing once in awhile.
 

Drop Folds

Pipe Folds

Half Lock Folds

Spiral Folds

Zig-zag Folds

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Related:

The Wall of Pain

Another Spring Watercolor

Our cool wet spring has kept me indoors longer than intended this season. The uncooperative weather has featured mostly cloudy or grey days without much shadow--what skiers call "flat light"--which blunts visual interest. Most of those grey days were also rainy. Regardless, I still have the view from my studio of Druid Hill Creek.

Now that the days are longer and somewhat warmer, the honeysuckle along the creek has burst into leaf. The frothy green is beautiful against what's left of leaf litter, bare branches, and dark soil. Yesterday I stood in the window and did a small watercolor in one of my sketchbooks.

April Sketching

The advance of spring has been glacial so far. Even into early May we've had grey skies and rain. The warmth you'd expect has yet to materialize. Farmers are behind in their plantings and I'm behind in outdoor painting. The Saturday sketch group remains intrepid though, going out rain or shine on Saturday afternoons. These little watercolors that I make are great fun and help me mark time until I can manage full-scale plein air oil painting. 

"Early April, Gray's Lake," watercolor on paper

April was less cruel than you might expect, but stayed cool and mostly cloudy. The watercolor and ink sketch I made that first week of the month shows the drabness of the woods at the edge of Gray's Lake. The grass hadn't even begun to turn green.

"Waterworks Park, April," watercolor on paper

Three weeks later (above) the grass in the park across from the lake has gone bright green and hints of green are showing in the woods beyond the Raccoon River. This view is a road through Waterworks Park that winds along the river and into even wilder areas. I love to paint there. This particular watercolor was done from my car--a cloudburst kept me there for the entire painting time.

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.