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| Ruth Ann’s Garden, 9×12, oil |
I just finished up a two-day, oil-only plein air painting workshop in Lima, Ohio. It’s hard to believe, but in this meteorologically-busy spring season, we had two days of really excellent weather. Comfortable temperature and humidity, plenty of sun, and no bugs. We all remarked that plein air painting doesn’t get any better than this!
Last year we painted barns; this year, we focused on one of Lima’s beautiful city parks. This one had trees, water, flowers – everything you could ask for. (We were even interviewed and taped by the local paparazzi, the local newspaper and TV station.) I did a garden painting plus a tree painting demonstration of a shagbark hickory. Here are some photos to show you a bit of the workshop.
Now we are on our way home. We still have about 2000 miles to go, and we’ll include one family visit in Vermont. Most likely, my next post will be from Campobello Island. We can’t wait to get there!
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| We stopped at Kewpee’s for dinner |
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| Painting at Faurot Park |
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| Shagbark Hickory, 12×9, oil |
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| Art Barn Shadows, 5×7 pastel |
I just finished teaching a three-day, oil and pastel plein air painting workshop at the Art Barn in Valparaiso, Indiana. Indiana has become one of my favorite places to teach over the last couple of years. At the Art Barn, we have it all – ponds, meadows, woods, barns, burros and yes, even chickens – and 69 beautiful acres to wander in. This year, because of the early warm weather, we missed the dogwoods blooming, but we got the locust trees and some very pretty late spring greens. I’m already looking forward to next year!
To whet your appetite, I’ve included a few photos plus a couple of demonstrations from the workshop.
Now, we are on our way to Lima, Ohio, to teach a two-day, oil-only plein air painting workshop. I’ll report on that soon.
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| Janet Sullivan, Art Barn Founder and Guest Chicken Wrangler |
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| Demonstrating in the Field |
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| Painting by the Pond |
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| Barn Tree, 12×9, oil |
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| Spring Chickens, 12×9 pastel |
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| The Old Mill, 9×12, pastel |
I just finished teaching a two-day plein air painting workshop at Water Street Studios in Batavia, Illinois. Batavia is one of my favorite small towns for a workshop. Called “The Windmill City” because it was once the country’s largest producer of windmills, it boasts many cultural amenities and beautiful parks. We painted in two of the parks and enjoyed views of old mill buildings, waterfalls, graceful oak trees and lots and lots of Canada geese. Above is one of my demos from the workshop plus some photos.
I hope to teach another workshop here next May. If you’re in the Chicago area, it’s not far – less than an hour. Watch my newsletter for announcements or, if you’re not on my mailing list, sign up here.
Now we are on our way to the Art Barn at Valparaiso, Indiana. We’ll be painting on the Art Barn’s property – 70 acres of woods, meadows and ponds, with chickens and cows and yes, an old barn! We’ll even have the Chicken Whisperer in attendance; he’ll make sure the chickens hold still long enough for us to paint them.
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| Spring in Santa Fe! |
As we planned our cross-country trip, we decided to stop in Santa Fe for a day. Santa Fe, if you have the time and energy, is always worth the visit – especially if you’re a painter and you want to see what’s happening in the galleries. It’s been about a year since we were here last, and I’m glad to say the City Different hasn’t changed much. Our visit this year was timed particularly well, since everything was in bloom – roses, lilacs, ornamentals we don’t know the name of, and all of it at once.
We did note some gallery closures and changes. Our old favorites are still there – Ventana, Meyer, McLarry – but we were pleased to find a few new ones. Also, Sage Creek Gallery, which I always found hard to get to at its old location, is now conveniently located on Canyon Road. Here are some notes from the road.
At Hunter Kirkland Contemporary, we ran into the beautiful color harmonies of Gregory Frank Harris:
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| Gregory Frank Harris, “Pecos River” 38×40 oil |
At S.R. Brennan Gallery, I finally got to see some of Adrian Gottleib’s fantastic figure work:
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| Adrian Gottleib, “Truth Corrupted by Vanity” |
At McLarry Fine Art, I encountered the work of David Ballew:
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| David Ballew, “Spring Afternoon in Santa Fe” |
And finally, Ventana Fine Art had some nice new work by my perennial favorites, Doug Dawson and Albert Handell:
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| Doug Dawson, “Fountain of Light” 34×38 oil |
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| Albert Handell, “Very Early Spring (Dogwood)”, 12×18, pastel |
We’ll get back to Santa Fe again. It’s always inspiring to stop.
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| “Thunder Mountain Colors” 9×12, pastel |
The time has come to say goodbye to Arizona and head east. East for us is a 3500-mile trip with a final destination of Campobello Island, New Brunswick. Along the way, I’ll be teaching workshops in Illinois, Indiana and Ohio. As always, though we have enjoyed our winter here in Arizona, we’re looking forward to hitting the road and finally being back at our quiet island home again.
Spring is already moving into summer here in Arizona, and the roses are beautiful in our community. But by the time we get the Campobello, it will be barely spring, and our lilacs there will be just starting. The apple trees will be another month before they strike their floral crescendo. May is always a slow start for the Maritimes, and we’ll have some fog, some rain and some cool weather. But it won’t be long before the sun rolls back the fog and hammers the sea into a broad blue shield.
By the way, in case you aren’t on my newsletter mailing list, here is a link to my latest newslettter.
I’ll write again from the road.
Update! We liked the retreat so much, we’re going to do it again in April 2014. Visit www.pleinairzion.com for details as they develop.
The final day of our plein air painting retreat dawned clear and warm. After a quick breakfast, we hustled out to Court of the Patriarchs to finish up the paintings we’d started yesterday. The great thing about splitting the painting over a couple of days is that on the second day, there is no messing around. You know where you’re going to set up, you’re familiar with the scene, and you’ve already figured out most of the problems. Basically, you set up your tripod and go. I finished up a couple of pieces. Here’s one of them, a 12×9 oil of Mount Moroni.
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| “Mt Moroni Shadows” 12×9, oil – SOLD |
Afterward, we went back to the house for lunch and said goodbye to a couple of participants who had to drive to Las Vegas for flights. Once lunch was done and the goodbyes were said, some of us headed for the shaded deck to tweak the week’s paintings. It was hot – over 90 – but the shade was cool enough, and we got some good work done.
As evening drew on, we decided to head out for one last field trip. Destination: Grafton. Grafton is a ghost town, and perhaps best known these days for having had a small part in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. (It was the scene where, if I recall correctly, Paul Newman rides a bicycle to the tune of “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head.”) Grafton and the road leading to it have some of the best scenery I’ve seen all week. For the next retreat we do in Zion, we’ll definitely plan two days around Grafton. Below are some photos to whet your appetite.
This is my final post about Zion. Tomorrow morning the rest of the participants head out. It’s always a sad time, since it has been an intense week of painting and living together. I say goodbye to them, knowing that because we’ve all learned a lot from each other, we are now well-prepared to move on in our lives as painters. And it cheers me to think that I’ll see many of them again someday.
The excellent weather continues in Zion National Park, and so we were up early again for breakfast and to make sandwiches for lunch. Here, Trina mans the lunch counter while some of the others finish off breakfast.
We headed back to Court of the Patriarchs again. (Did I mention this is one of my favorite places?) When we went there the other afternoon, we found it rather warm with little shade; the cottonwoods still hadn’t filled out enough to provide anything other than a diffuse shadow. So, we decided to try it this morning. We got there when the “court” was still in shadow, and sunlight was gradually creeping down the sides of the three Patriarchs. We did some good painting, and Trina caught a turkey in full regalia with her camera.
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| Trina’s Turkey |
Because the shadows do change so quickly on the cliffs, we decided to return to the “court” tomorrow morning to finish our first paintings of the day. I like to sometimes split the painting (as well as my infinitives) over a couple of days; if the scene changes so much that you find you’re working from memory, this is a good way to handle it. The weather in the southwest is usually reliable enough that you can count on the same light at the same time of day.
Here’s one I did finish:
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| Court of the Patriarchs, 9×12, oil – SOLD |
We did our round of “show-and-tell” in the afternoon. Here’s my setup for showing both one of today’s oil paintings plus yesterday’s pastel (both are sold!)
This evening, we had our final group dinner at the Flying Monkey. Although we have one more day of painting together, a couple of our friends will be leaving tomorrow.
My readers are lucky enough to have had one of my paintings photographed, step-by-step, by one of our painting retreat participants. I thought I’d post Nancy Vance’s photos here. Nancy has also been documenting the trip in her blog.
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| Adjusting back at the house |
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| The finished painting – SOLD |
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| Jim and Ed Painting by the River |
After breakfast and an early round of “show-and-tell” in which we shared yesterday’s paintings, we boarded the shuttle for Canyon Junction. This is another of my favorite spots because you can get right down to the water among the cottonwoods and get fantastic views down the canyon toward the Watchman. Today, the water was rushing fast, thanks to some snow Zion had a few days before we arrived, and it was a beautiful blue-green with coppery accents. The weather has warmed up some, and the morning winds have disappeared, so it was delightful down by the water.
I did a 9×12 pastel of the view. I was itching to capture the cool cast shadows on the water and its juxtaposition to the warmer, sunlit water. The view was, really, just secondary.
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| Cool Waters, 9×12, pastel – SOLD |
Afterward, I wandered along the river for awhile, taking pictures, before heading to the Museum for lunch in the shade and a quick afternoon piece of a closeup of West Temple. But rather than show you that one, here’s an oil painting I did the first day of the Watchman.
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| The Watchman, 12×9, oil |
Later, some of us headed back to the house to touch up our pastel pieces. One or two took naps – it’s hard work, being out there all day – and they went out to do a little more painting.
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| Nancy and Lyn Touch Up their Pastels |
Dinner tonight at Cafe Soleil. Then tomorrow, I think we’ll head back to another of my favorite spots,which I’ll reveal in the next blog post.
Today we had a special treat. Paul Bingham of the Bingham Gallery and the Thunderbird Foundation invited us to visit Maynard Dixon’s home and studio and to paint on the grounds. Maynard Dixon is one of my favorite painters, and we were all eager to spend the day at such a historical spot. During the tour of the gallery – Paul made us coffee, too! – I saw some of the most beautiful work by a number of wonderful artists, including some amazing works by Milford Zornes.
Next, we walked through the buildings and toured the grounds. We headed up on the hill behind the property, where Maynard Dixon’s ashes were scattered, and also those of Zornes and his wife. They have a nice view up there, and I bet they’re happy.
Finally, we headed around the property to paint. It was magical, knowing that Dixon had lived and painted there. I painted the overlook from the property to the mountains to the southwest, and then a little sketch of Maynard’s house.
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| Looking Out (Diana’s Throne), 9×12, oil – SOLD |
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| Maynard’s House, 5×7, oil |
It was an exhausting but very productive day. Congratulations to all the participants, many of whom are completely new to the Utah landscape!
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