Plein Air in Converse, Indiana

I joined the Indiana Plein Air Painters this year and this is the third paintout I've attended. Held in Converse, Indiana, this paintout was sponsored by a number of small businesses in the town of Converse.

I had never heard of Converse before I visited it for this event but I left with a positive feeling.

Unseasonably warm weather arrived with the first day of fall, and coincided with the paintout, titled "The First Brush of Fall". The 90 degree weather was not exactly conducive to plein air painting but that's part of the challenge when you enter a plein air event: you must be prepared for everything- even pouring down rain.

I painted a pastel of a farm on the first day and made the mistake of standing in the sun because that's where the best view was! It was the first time I'd used pastels in the field and I was not too happy with the support I used-- a handmade board primed with a mixture of gesso and marbledust. I think I should have sanded it.

Seasonal Stuff

This is a painting of tomatoes and peppers given to me by my neighbor. I kept the piece very warm and used a lot of cadmium red to achieve this. Even the background is quite warm, but it's still red, which really keeps the focus on the peppers, because they are a complimentary green.

First Time Art Collectors

I recently came across a blog post about art collecting on the Invaluable blog, which you can find here. Celine Rabago makes good points about collecting art, and the most important is this: collect what you love. This is the crux of the matter, isn’t it? Don’t buy art because it looks good with your couch, or you think it might be worth more someday. Buy art because it speaks to you.

The mother of a man who has some of my work hanging in his café owns one of my paintings. It’s a painting of an old woman raking leaves in front of a barn. Her dogs are lounging nearby. Every time I see this woman she makes a point of telling me how much she enjoys the painting and how she sees something new in it every time she looks at it. She has it hanging in a prominent place in her dining room where she can look at it when she has her meals. She is a collector who knows what she loves.

I’ve had a few collectors purchase art because they are interested in studying my painting technique. While they admire the painting and are happy to have it hanging on their wall, they are also interested in acquiring knowledge about how it was created and they want to examine it closely at will. I’ve purchased paintings for this reason too, specifically two demonstrations that were done by well-known artists I took workshops with. The paintings remind me of my experiences and are also souvenirs of a sort. I value them because I watched the process of creation from beginning to end.

Sometimes a collector will purchase a painting because it reminds them of an event or a place they have visited and have fond memories of. A number of my lighthouse paintings and at least one painting I did in Paris of L’Opera were purchased by collectors who were attracted to the scene because it brought back memories of a vacation.

When I first began selling art on the internet a collector purchased more than twenty portraits from me within six months. I discovered that this man enjoyed collecting for the sake of collecting. He had acquired so many pieces of original art that he had begun to hang them at the college where he worked. Had collecting become an obsession with him? Who knows? One man’s passion is another’s obsession and I would never fault anyone for purchasing original art from genuine artists when there is so much crap from China being passed off as ‘original’.

So while there are numerous reasons to collect art, the best reason is always because you love it and you want to see it and enjoy it every single day.

Light and Shadow

This is an example of a plein air painting that I began in the field and finished at home in my studio. I'm not always able to finish my outdoor studies. Sometimes the weather changes. Other times I spend too long on the details and the light changes so much I find myself doing what's known as "chasing the light."

For whatever reason, there are always going to be paintings that look great and need no modifications when you view them later, and there will be painting that need touch ups. Some plein air artists are purists. They won't modify a painting. Instead they will call it a field study and perhaps create a new painting using the study as a basis for color and value.

I'm not a purist. I don't want ugly paintings hanging out near me, so I will try to bring the painting to a place where it satisfies me. I've learned that I have to do this within a few days of painting the subject outdoors or my visual memory of the scene is likely to be gone. I also need a photograph if there was architecture or a building in the scene, to double check the perspective.

In this painting of a light post at Lakeside, Ohio, I knew I wanted to define the curves on the decorative roof accents and lighten the areas in the sun.

I'm displaying a photo of the finished painting, along with the photo I took as a reference to show the finished piece is not a photographic rendering. I maintained the structure, design and hues of the original and only used the photo as a guide to render the building more accurately and to place my shadows consistently. That's one problem with painting outdoors: your shadows will always move when you're painting on a sunny day.

Sunny Day Lakeside

9" x 12"

Plein Air Paintings

The annual Lakeside Paintout is this weekend and it promises to be a hot one. Today was humid. Tomorrow will be worse, so I am hoping there will be a breeze down by the lake. Maybe I should paint in my bathing suit so I can jump in the lake when the beads of sweat start sliding off the end of my nose.

Peach Cottage and Cozy Corner

9" x 12"

Copper Reflections

I purchased this copper incense burner and the antique medicine bottle on eBay a few weeks ago with the intention to use them in my still life setups. The first time I paint an object I am learning its shape, and it takes longer. I have discovered that the more times I paint the object the more accurate I become. The same goes for fruit. The first time I painted pears I struggled with the anatomy and now I paint them quickly, while keeping in mind the variations in shape and form from variety to variety as well as from specimen to specimen. These are Bartletts, I believe. When I purchased them they were quite green and they seem to be moving toward a more delicious if not as attractive yellow. It end to reply on my instincts when it comes to composition. If it looks good and fills up the space and there are interesting angles when I look through my viewfinder I am good to go.

Copper Reflections 11" x 14"

Green Pots with Orange

I am trying to put a bit more thought into my still life paintings by adding different textures and surfaces, varying the light, the colors, the materials and the fabric etc. The contrast between complements is the focus here. The orange seems even more orange than it actually is because the post are blueish green. The dark battle is there for balance and to stabilize. The grapes just nag out because I like the way they look against the white fabric. I am focusing on improving my edges and my compositions this year to create more unified pieces. So my New Year's resolution in the studio is 'think before you brush', very similar to the one I have made for my personal life: think before you speak. This doesn't always equate to the fastest paintings but it's not really about speed when you're in the studio.

So far, I like the way things are going. Now if I can only maintain. That's the difficult part.

9" x 12" Green Post with Orange