The thermometer in the car topped out at 104 degrees on the way home. I've just walked in the door after a frustrating morning out in the field and I am exhausted. I set the alarm for 4 a.m. so that I could get up and get out to my plein air destination right as the sun came up on this summer morning. But ignoring all my plans, Nature took her own course and decided to cast a few stray clouds on the horizon, just enough to obscure the sun and completely change the look of the scene I set out to paint. I tried to be patient and wait it out, but by the time the clouds passed, the sun's angle was too high for the effect I wanted to paint. And after that it was just too dang hot to stay outside any longer. Argh. It's times like this that I can't help but think about the comfort of the studio and the quick snapshot I took of the scene when I went past it last week. And the question that so many people ask me: Why plein air? Why not stay in the studio and use those great photos you took? Why haul all your gear out there and stand in the heat/cold/wind/bugs just to do a little painting you could whip out in your climate-controlled studio in no time?

 

The answer is simple: no painting done from a photo can ever compare to the energy, immediacy, and sense of place that can come through in a plein air piece. Somehow the feel of the day, be it heat or cold or wind or just a perfectly pleasant morning, makes its way down the arm and off the brush and onto the canvas. I wish I knew how it happens so I could fake that quality in the studio, but that's the magic of plein air. Our experience comes out on the canvas. All our senses help to create the painting, not just our vision. We hear the cows lowing, we feel the breeze, we smell the hay.....it's all there on the canvas. Even my worst plein air pieces have some small element of that particular day in them. I feel like I'm recording a moment in history: it will never be July 28, 2011 at 6:00 in the morning ever again in the history of the world, but now I have a little bit of it on canvas. How exciting is that?

 

Not all of my paintings are completed on location, and I paint many larger works entirely in the studio. But every piece I paint has its genesis in plein air studies. Working solely from photos leaves my paintings looking flat and unexciting. I use my reference photos to jog my memory or to help me come up with better designs that I may have overlooked when I was on location. But I can't tell you how many times I've discarded a studio painting because I didn't have enough plein air information on the scene to make the painting look convincing and alive. All the answers are outside, and even the most frustrating day of plein airing brings a more acute awareness of the subtleties of painting from life. Those skills honed outside make the studio work that much easier and fun.

 

So now it's 2 days since I wrote that opening paragraph, and what did I do? I went out the next morning and hit it again...driving to that same spot and waiting for the sun. And this time it was perfect--all the things I love about painting outside all came together in a couple of magic hours. I painted two quick studies for a larger studio piece I have rattling around in my head, then rewarded myself with a loose, just-for-the-heck-of-it study on the way home. Standing in the shade of an oak tree with my dogs lounging around my feet, painting blooming oleander and distant hills with no expectations in mind except for the fun of putting paint on canvas: that's just about as good as it gets. And that's why I plein air.

 

 

Although I use a limited palette for my paintings, I always start out by mixing puddles of several colors before I start the actual painting. Doing this accomplishes two things: it helps me to slow down and analyze the color before I dive headlong into painting, and it allows me to have an expanded choice of colors when I begin to paint.  I always mix the secondary colors (orange, green, and violet) regardless of what I'm painting, and the rest of the puddles of color are close approximations to what I'm seeing in the subject matter. Pre-mixing takes some time at the beginning of the painting, but it really saves time once I start to paint: I already have so many colors figured out and can concentrate on the subtle shifts in temperature and value that I'm seeing. Also, I don't break the rhythm of painting to drop my brush, get out my palette knife and mix new color.

Here's a shot of my palette before I start a painting:

 

And here's the finished painting from that palette: The Italian Store 12x12:

When I first started painting, I'd walk into art supply stores and spend hours looking at all the different pigments and brands of oil paints available, and drool over all those luscious colors: aureolin yellow, cinnabar green, quinocradone rose (just the names alone made me buy them).  I'd load up my basket with dozens of tubes of paint and head home thinking that at last I had found the color that would make me a better painter. Age and experience are wonderful teachers, and I finally came to the conclusion that no special pigment would be the key to my success. In fact, the more choices I had on my palette, the gaudier and less-realistic my paintings looked.

 

In 2003, I had the good fortune to study with Scott Christensen, who at the time was using a very limited palette that he had his students  use in his workshops. At first, I was baffled: how could I get a good yellow ochre using only 3 primaries and a couple of grays? How could I get a wide variety of greens when there were no green tube pigments on my palette? But after sticking with this limited palette for a while and experimenting with these colors, I came to see that I could mix just about every color in nature using only 6 tubes of paint. Using this palette also helped me to see and understand color temperature better by simplifying my choices: if the color needed to be warmer, I added yellow; for cooler, I added blue. And I found that the colors I was mixing were so much closer to the reality I was seeing than when I used a broader palette. When there are 20 choices on the palette, I find it's much easier to just say "oh, that's close enough" and dip into a color straight out of the tube , but when I have to mix my colors from the primaries, I get a more accurate representation of my subject matter. Of course, there are certain local colors that I can't duplicate exactly with this palette, especially if I'm painting man-made objects. But I can always get the correct value and the correct temperature, and when those are right, the color reads correctly.

 

Over time, I experimented with adding and subtracting pigments from my palette and settled on the selection of paints that I've been using since about 2005. This is the palette that I use for all of my paintings, both plein air and in the studio:

 

Titanium White (any brand)

Cadmium Yellow Lemon (Utrecht)

Permanent Red Medium (Rembrandt)

Ultramarine Blue (any brand)

Naples Yellow Deep (Rembrandt)

Cold Gray (Rembrandt)

(Please note that the brands of the paints are very important as colors vary widely between manufacturers)

 

There are certainly countless artists out there who use extensive palettes and get beautiful results, and my selection of pigments is just one

way to approach painting. But if you have never used a limited palette, give this a try- you might be surprised with the results and be able to bypass all those rows of paint in the art store next time.

I love the excitement of standing outdoors in the middle of a beautiful scene and painting en plein air, but sometimes it's a nice change of pace to slow down and paint a still life. It's a more controlled, quiet process, and the act of painting becomes almost meditative. Unlike the fast-changing light I often encounter outside, I can make the light relatively constant in the studio, and can control exactly what I want the set up to look like - no cars parking in front of the scene or sun dipping behind the ridge of the mountains before I'm done. I brew up a pot of coffee, put on some appropriate music (opera arias, baroque chamber music, or Gregorian chants), and settle down. I've always been fascinated with glass and collect a variety of colors and sizes of vessels to use in my paintings. The task of depicting transparency while still showing a solid form endlessly challenges me. I've found that I can bring no preconceived ideas to painting glass: it's different every time depending on the light shining on it and through it. With solid, opaque objects, there is usually a predictable light and shadow pattern, with reflected light and highlights thrown in, but with glass, it's never that easy. Only direct, careful observation creates the form. Painting glass is the quickest way I know of to get on the left side of the brain and "in the zone" . When I'm going through a dry spell with my work and need to get back into the zone, I get out some glass and get lost in those reflections and refractions and the pure, abstract joy of painting.

When I first started painting landscapes in oil, I concentrated on painting a lot of quick plein air studies - 45 minutes to 2 hours, max, and I'd be done. It was a great way to get "brush mileage" and to learn to paint quickly and decisively. The drawback was that when I got to the point where I wanted to do larger studio paintings, I always felt like I had to finish them in one sitting - alla prima, like my plein air work - or else they'd loose their freshness and spontaneity. But as I've been painting more over the years, I've found that I really enjoy working on larger paintings for several sessions, making really subtle changes and taking my time with the painting process. Now I put paintings away for a while - anywhere from a couple days to several months - and when I take them back out, I can see better what I need to do to finish them. There's always the danger of overworking a painting, but I feel like I have to take that chance and risk losing the painting  in order to see if I can take my work to a higher level.

I've spent the last year and a half getting ready for my solo show that opens this week. One of the paintings in the show, "Evening Sun" 30x40, went through several transitions before I finally framed it up and took it to the gallery. I had painted the original version quite a while ago, thought it was finished, and set it aside as a "keeper" for the show. But when I pulled it out to frame it a few weeks ago, it was so glaringly obvious to me that I still needed to work on it: the shadows on the rocks were too dark and flat; the sky was too blue; and the trees in the background were too symmetrical and dark. Why didn't I see that the first time around?? The distance of time made me see the painting more objectively. So....back to the easel for yet another round with this one. 

I have a new rule in my studio now: no painting goes out when it's fresh off the easel anymore - the all have to wait for a "cooling off" period before I'm sure they're expressing what I want.

"Sonora Pass Study" 6x8 1st painting of the morning

I love painting so many different subjects- everything from architecture to animals to cityscapes to rural scenes- but my true love is pure landscape. Fast-moving, dramatic light on a vista with no human touches marring the view gets my heart beating faster and makes me just have to get out the paints. It seems like recently I've been painting everything but pure landscape, and I've not felt quite as excited about painting as I usually do. So last week, I decided to put everything else aside and head up to the Sierras to re-connect with my true passion. And the Sierras didn't let me down! I got up at 4, threw the dogs in the car and was at the top of Sonora Pass by 6:30. The sun hadn't quite made it over the rim of the mountains, so it was perfect timing: I had a chance to set up my gear and get all ready for sunrise. This time of year, dawn happens in a flash, and you'd better be ready to move fast. I started with a little 6x8 and had paint flying everywhere..as usual, I got too excited and started out too fast. The second painting, a 10x12, was a little more planned out and technically more successful. But there's something about the immediacy and energy of that first little study that I like - it's emotion on canvas rather than calculated painting. Every good painting should be a combination of both, and this trip to the high country reminded me of that.


"Solstice Sunrise" 10x12 - 2nd painting of the morning

When I have the opportunity to talk to collectors at art show openings, they inevitably ask similar questions about my paintings: Where was this scene? Did you paint it en plein air? How long did it take? Why did you choose this particular perspective? I've decided to use this blog as a chance to let you see a little behind the scenes and find out what goes into the creating of some of my paintings. I'll periodically post images and tell you the "backstory" about them - what motivated me to paint this scene, what happened as I was painting plein air or in the studio, and the particular challenges that I faced in bringing the painting to completion. I hope this gives you a better understanding of my artwork- please feel free to post questions...it's your chance to talk to me without having to go to an opening!

I spent a lot of time this month painting barns in Lodi in preparation for the upcoming show "Rough Sawn" which opens at the Knowlton Gallery in June. At first I wasn't too excited about the subject matter: barn paintings can be so trite and I've always avoided painting them. But as I explored the Lodi area and painted a few of these old relics, I developed a real appreciation for the subject .....and a realization that I had better get my drawing skills honed to a fine point if I was going to paint these complicated compositions with accuracy and confidence. It's easy to just like to paint what you're good at: it's a heck of a lot harder to take on a subject that you know you're more than likely to fail at in order to grow as an artist. I've scraped off quite a few paintings, but after several weeks of pursuing this subject matter, I feel like I'm making progress. My challenge has been to find a unique angle to paint, a different take on the typical barn/mountain/tree painting. "A Cool Spot" comes from the Biglieri ranch in Clements, CA. I stopped to paint the big red barn, but found the design I was looking for when I walked through the packing shed and saw the barn through the open door. Keeping the foreground elements close in value while still giving enough detail to make sense was a challenge, but I had so much fun playing with the tempreature shifts on the cool highlights in the shadows vs. the hot sun highlights in the distance.

Although I enjoy getting together with fellow artists to plein air paint, my truest companions are my dogs Angus and Louie. They're always ready to go, never complain if I take too long, and are filled with joy at the prospect of being outside for the day. We added Lou to our "pack" last August - he's a mastiff/lab cross, 105 pounds at 8 months old and still growing. My first few attempts at painting with the new puppy were predictably chaotic (see photo above) and I've lost more rolls of paper towels to his shredding than I care to admit. But as a woman painting often on my own, I know that my dogs provide good protection. Angus stands and growls if anyone comes near, and Louie's bark would deter just about anything. Both dogs have backpacks, and they carry some of my gear....along with dog biscuits and water. It's gotten to the point where I can't touch my backpack without setting off a flurry of dog joy as they dance around the door, waiting to go and paint.


Angus on a painting trip last winter.


Louie at 6 months

Update to last posting: I've decided to concentrate my web efforts to 3 areas: updating my web site, sending email newsletters, and blogging more frequently. Facebook and all the rest will just have to wait for now. Thanks to all of you who commented last time.

Web sites, blogs, Twitter, and now Facebook: it seems like every day there’s something new that’s come along to keep me from painting. I’m not naïve enough to think that I can have a viable career as an artist without a “web presence,” to use the lingo of the day, but how much is too much? How much time should an artist devote to the internet? As you can tell by the dates on my blogs, I haven’t been the best at writing on a regular basis. I’ve thought of a dozen subjects to write about that might be of interest to people who visit my site, but the challenge is finding the time and motivation to sit down and write.  

The social aspects of Facebook can be fun, and I’ve enjoyed reading other artists’ blogs. I’ll continue to occasionally blog, and I’ve cautiously joined Facebook  But as I’m typing this, I keep looking over at my easel: the 30x24 of Clooney Lake that I started a couple weeks ago needs tweaking- I could use some more temperature shifts in the granite in the foreground, and that line of the rock at the base of the composition is too sharply angled. So do I get on Facebook and add a Friend? Do I write on someone’s Wall? Do I post a video? Add a link? In the end, does that make me a better painter or further my career? The jury's still out on that, but for now, I'm going to go finish that painting.

I started my art career as a still life painter, but once I discovered that I could combine my two favorite things in life - art and the outdoors - I knew I had found what I wanted to do for the rest of my days. Plein air painting has given me the excuse to visit some of the most beautiful areas of the country and to explore places I'd never otherwise go. On Tuesday of this week, I had the opportunity to kayak the Mokulomne River in Lodi - Robin Knowlton from Knowlton Gallery set up the evening event for the artists who are participating in her Delta show (opening October '09). About a dozen artists, including Ray and Peggi Roberts, Gil Dellinger, Terry Miura, Randall Sexton, Clark Mitchell, and Kim Lordier, all grabbed paddles and headed out as the sun set on the water. I've never seen the river from this perspective, and it was spectacular! I wish I could have set up an easel and painted right on the spot, but just juggling the paddle and my camera was enough of a challenge. I'm sure there will be many paintings that come from this trip, and Robin has several other excursions planned for us. I never dreamed when I switched careers to be an artist that I'd have "work days" like this!