No. 3 in the Limited Palette Challenge

Are people who do not paint aware of what goes through an artist's mind before and during a painting session?  I wonder if when I am dead and gone if people will look at the 5 paintings I have executed in this challenge and wonder what on earth I was up to. These 5 pieces will be part of the greater sized Wind Canyon Series, but have their own identity, as the colors used are not the intuitive choices I normally make.  It’s getting hard to stick with just these three colors and black and white to do a painting. The greenery here in New Mexico is not that docile shade of green you can make with blue, yellow and black…….it needs some earth tones in it. And alizarin crimson is NOT an earth color. I have never seen a green in nature that did not have a bit of  real clear red in its makeup, and these greens are decidedly cooler.

For those of you who are not artists, these colors are probably not easy to identify, so I am including swatches I took from the Gamblin paint site, because theirs is the paint I have used for this challenge.

Titanium 

White

Alizarin Crimson

Cad Yellow Lt

Ultramarine

Blue

Ivory Black

Looking at these colors, it is not hard to see the limitations of this challenge. That is especially true for artists schooled in really traditional colors, who use some if not many earth tones.

But I have vowed to complete the series and here is number 3 in the 5 painting challenge. Only two more to go.  This is also Étude #5 in my Wind Canyon series. Fried Egg Trail is what I call this piece. And like the others before it, it is oil on prepared wood board.

Fried Egg Trail - Étude #5
11x14 Oil on Board -  Available   

Gosh, the light was gorgeous as it broke over the far hill so very early this morning. It just hit the yucca and lit them up like candles. The breaking sun skipped along the tops of the fried eggs and made the flowers literally glow, all down through Wind Canyon Drive. Richard Robinsons' rich, deep, voice resonated in my mind, and I could fairly hear him say "And God said "PAINT THIS"".
The profusion of purple flowers have gone, but the white ones remain, pretty but poisonous. Even the cattle leave them alone, so they grow everywhere. I wonder if there is something with the white thing going on here. Datura are poisonous too, and they are pristine in their whiteness and found in abundance on the side of the road as well. 
I was tempted to just sit and drink my coffee and absorb the beauty. That early hour has a magic to it no matter where you are – it’s the time when the world is still and barely stirring, slowly shaking off the cobwebs of night and sleep. But I am determined to finish this challenge, so I needed to paint. I have never done a challenge before, and this is fun  -   sometimes. Other times it is frustrating as all get out.

I think this palette is too ‘precious’ for the terrain here. Maybe I just need to finish the challenge, do what I can with them, and reserve final judgement. 

Doing a series near your home, is a great way to connect to the land and to feel with your eyes, the place in which you live. I cannot recommend it enough. I am really glad to have started this Wind Canyon series. It is making me appreciate the subtle changes in the land as seasons ebb and flow, and has made me more responsive to new places to paint. 

I had a quail for company this morning. He got within 10 feet of me, so I slowly reached for my camera. I wanted a picture of him, with his pretty plumage and cranberry color about his head and throat area. This was the closest I had ever been to one. But my movement spooked him, and off he flew in a flurry of wings and air. He scolded me loudly for having had the audacity of parking so close to his home. These birds may be little, but they are opinionated. I'll try and avoid his nest for number 4 of the challenge. But I will have my camera at the ready, regardless.


Art quote:

After being observed painting a one color glaze over a finished painting and being questioned about it.

“you go back to your art school and tell them that I would smear mud on my canvas if it got me what I want.”          (George Inness)

What on Earth is That Noise?

OK, an alarm clock is not what you would call friendly, normally that is. But I have been sleeping in lately and consequently missing the delicious morning light. Add to that the time of year is where the days are the longest, and morning is coming rather early. I am missing out on my favorite time to paint. So I resolved to use my alarm and got up before the sun. It was an unholy noise this morning. I stumbled in to make coffee, washed, threw clothes on, stashed painting stuff in the car and I was off. Boy was I off. I forgot my tripod to which I attach my painting box. I didn’t realize it until I was at the bottom of the hill, after having scared off bunnies, deer and quail, parked, set the brake and jumped out. I hate this over 60 memory of mine. Does CoQ10 really help?

Back up the hill, into the studio, grab the tripod and race back down. Those deer had to think I was off my rocker. They really did look at me funny. The light was getting all pervasive and the sun was climbing quickly, so I didn’t waste any time setting up. It was going to be really hot, so I washed on the darks more like a watercolor and splashed in the hills after taking a really long hard look at what I wanted as a composition. Sorting the assemblage of shrubs and bushes was my main challenge, along with the execution of the whole painting using Ken Auster’s limited palette. (White, black, cad yellow light, alizarin crimson and ultramarine blue.) This piece is number 2 of the 5 painting challenge, and number 4 of my Wind Canyon series. Keeping in line with my  self-imposed challenges, I was also trying to keep the key of the painting light. To not use too many darks. I kept telling myself to settle on the composition and let it fly. I do sunburn easily and I hate blisters. So I was working against time.

Fried Eggs In The Morning - Étude #4
11x14 Oil - Available

So because I was working quickly, every neighbor I know came by, waving and stopping to visit. It’s a friendly kinda place, Wind Canyon is. But I did finish the painting. I had wanted to get the prickly poppies painted. They are known familiarly as ‘Cowboy Fried Eggs”, white with intense yolk colored centers. You can see them at the bottom left of the painting. What about the title “Fried Eggs in the Morning”???


p.s. I had to edit the Étude #. Apparently your memory isn't the only thing to go to the dogs as you age. You loose the ability to count too.

It's the Location!

More than almost any other pursuit I have ever taken part in, plein air is about the location, location, location.

It’s true that an artist can find inspiration almost anywhere if one only takes the time to look. Think of Van Gogh’s Potato Eaters, certainly an ungainly subject, but treated oh so magnificently.

But I can remember one morning when I loaded my car, picked up a painting buddy and hi-tailed it 60+ miles to go to Batiquitos Lagoon, up the coast from San Diego. It was quite a hike, and the hour was early. The weather was ‘iffy’ for California, with fog covering the valleys. A bit on the cold side for my soft sensibilities. Thank gawd for Starbucks.

It was really eating at me that I wanted to paint the Lagoon. It’s a lovely spot, rustic and secluded along a heavily congested part of the coast. It was spot where I wanted to catch the early morning light on the water as it came up in the East, over the mountains. So I got my friend up, stoked up on coffee and told her that yes it would be worth it. I tell you this so that you can appreciate the lengths that an artist will go to in order to paint in a particular spot. All this on the only morning that I could have slept in.

I got what I considered to be a good painting that morning. In fact, someone else thought so too, because it sold at its first showing. But the morning is one I will never forget. The light was magical as the fog lifted. And yes I did get to paint the lagoon. It’s that bitty piece in the upper right of the canvas.  I still want to paint that lagoon. It’s not about the finished product but about the journey and the location.

Challenge Yourself

Not being one to avoid a challenge…….(says one who went back to school in her late 40s to finally get her art degrees) I have just joined the Limited Palette Challenge on Facebook. This challenge has been setup to see what a body can do using only Ken Auster’s limited palette as a color basis for a painting. This is going to be hard…….after all I travel with every pigment known to man, woman too. The challenge is to produce 5 pieces with only white, black, alizarin crimson, cad yellow medium and ultramarine blue. Can I sneak in Indian Yellow and still be legal? You can see I am having problems with this already. The time limited challenge was over before I actually could join it, so all the pressure is my own. But the learning will be posted here so anyone wanting to can follow along. Failures and all.

I think I am going to do small canvasses, after all this is a learning thing. I will do nothing bigger than 11x14 and some as small as 8x6. I think the hard thing will be to tame the alizarin…..it is the sort of color that gets into your hair, nose, mouth, you name it. I have even found it on my skivvies, - don’t ask. It’s the devil to get out of beige pants after having sat upon it. It is hard to control and oh so strident straight out of the tube. It sings solos even when surrounded by others. Controlling alizarin is like trying to hide the one red-headed kid in the family. It just sorta sticks out. So for me, that will be the hardest part of the challenge. Or maybe it will be the lack of cad red light. I do so have issues with reds. They are hard to keep in their proper places. The Southwest seems to dictate using Indian Red, English Red or Cadmium Reds.

 Alizarin is a color I associate with the Eastern landscapes. I did use it in my Rainy Day at Red Rocks painting that I did in Nevada at the convention. But nothing that day was typically Southwest. The weather least of all.  If challenges make you grow, I am going to be much taller after this, - right.

Wind Canyon Etude #3
During the Whitewater/Baldy Fire
Available

Add to the stated limitations the biggest wild fire that New Mexico has ever experienced and the normal cerulean skies are pretty gray today. The sun peeks through a haze that is ash. The fire is about 50-60 miles from us, but the skies, tastes and smells are here in plenty.

Wind Canyon has the least amount of alizarin I have ever seen in a landscape, but we do have purple thistle and tiny purple flowers right now. That’s it, cause it ain’t in the cactus……oh heck yeah it is, in those tiny purple blossoms at the tips of the cholla. See what happens when you really pay attention? You start seeing things that you never noticed before. And the nice thing is that I can dovetail this with the Wind Canyon series I am doing. Two birds with one stone…….sweet.

How do you work?

There are 2 plein air tips that I want to share because they seem to be at opposite poles of working approaches. 


#1 Stapleton Kearns has a wonderful piece in his blog about premixing your lightest light color. The color you think is actually in the light of your painting. Go here to read in its entirety. Now I absolutely LOVE Stape's blog. He makes you think and he is passionate about plein air and oil painting in general He's an authority in my mind. His comments are typically acidic New England in flavor, but he is a fountain of information and thoughts about why and how to paint plein air. He is what I would call an EXTREME plein air painter. I mean anyone who lists polar boots as a necessity for outdoor painting, does it year round. And how can you not love a guy who puts on a woman's wig and smokes a cigar to take his avatar picture??? Stape is not your average run-of-the-mill milk-toast artist. His advice has rung true in many instances for me, and his knowledge is phenomenal. Stape premixes his light color, the better to use it in all highlighted areas of the painting, producing a well-orchestrated sense of unity throughout the painting.


#2 is Matt Smith, the desert painting guru of Tucson. Matt is wicked skilled, personable, homey, smart, experienced, and generous to a fault about helping other artists better their skills. He has produced two really fantastic DVDs about plein air painting the desert. His advice is wonderful, easy to understand and full of explanation. I have painted the absolute best desert plein air I have ever painted after watching his DVDs. I told him so at the convention in Las Vegas. In fact, its on my Facebook personal page as my banner image. Matt advocates leaving your sky until the very last, so that you key the value of it correctly to what you have already painted. I tried it and for me it worked. That sky was really RIGHT. I valued that piece of advise for painting the Sonoran desert. Other ideas as well, but this one in particular worked for me.

Sabino Canyon, Tucson
Available

So here you have two authorities who both advocate differing approaches to a painting agenda. I hesitate to say system, because both of these men are smart enough to know there are no hard and fast rules about painting other than that fat over lean thing. And to be fair, both of these highly skilled artists paint in entirely different ecosystems, which can necessitate entirely different palettes. I have yet to try Stape's way of working with a premixed color of the dominating light tone. It's definitely on my list of things to try real soon.


Now has anyone else tried both of these working methods? Do you intend to? Or are you in favor of one over the other?

Just do it !

Have you ever had a location stay in your mind and you knew you should paint it? A place that will not leave you alone, and every time you go by it you think “I should paint that”? I did. I finally painted it.

Near Silver City is the lost-in-time small town of Pinos Altos. Hearst built a church there to mollify his wife who said the mining town had enough saloons and fancy houses, but needed a church. It now functions as a local museum and there are art shows there all through the warm months. It was the place where Judge Roy Bean had his store and kept his court. Not too slow to hang anyone, there is a pretty good sized cemetery complete with old tombstones and curious inscriptions. The old saloon and opera house still function and the locals are quite proud to tell you about the heritage. It’s a cool old place. The kind of place where people drive by VERY SLOWLY (courteous to not stir up dust as you paint), roll down their windows and tell you how great your painting is, even when you are simply blocking in.

Old Fort - Pinos Altos
Oil on Linen Panel - Available

I can honestly say that if you have such a place, you should paint it. That way whatever there was that called you to it will be placated, and whatever the place has to teach you, you will learn in the painting of it. I do not paint buildings very much. It’s a real problem for me. I don’t have trouble with the perspective, its just that silly thing where in your mind it’s a masterpiece, and on the canvas not so much. I am never satisfied with my buildings…..they just seem to not be what I had intended. But this time, I learned a lot about painting buildings. This building and wall really are so amorphous, totally nonlinear, that the perspective is all wonky in real life anyway. I will paint buildings more…maybe I won’t post them, but I may.

Is EVERYTHING a series of choices?

If life is the result of choices taken or ignored, how much like life is art? Painting is a series of choices, as is sailing, building a studio and setting up a blog. You have probably noticed a change to the format of this blog. There is a reason. It is not to wake you up, I doubt this venue would do that better than a good cup of strong coffee. I had to change my template so that I could use some enhanced promotion tools. So it was on to the dynamic page and its results. I truly hope you do not find the color objectionable. On my screen it is an innocuous green, rather calming and a good foil for the landscapes. If you do object, let me know. I have already had one rather pointed remark about it. If I have others I will consider a change. 


This change thing has me scratching my head. Choices are everywhere; from the shoes we wear today, or not, to the people we decide to live our lives with and the career paths we follow. Building the studio has been like that too. The lighting was the latest set of choices. I had a rather set idea about how the lighting was to work. It required that my husband understand what I needed. Being the electrician in charge and the major muscle behind all this, he had to be on the same page as I was. He did agree to put in three skylights and after patching a small leak, his first skylights are a great success. The electrical lighting was a series of corrections, a lot like painting, actually. I had explained what I wanted, checked with him and ordered it. 
The lighting had arrived and I drew a diagram of the layout I wanted. That was the concept phase.

Lighting and Drywall Phase

What followed in the execution stage was a graphic representation of men being from Mars while women are from Venus. Because the drawing did not follow what he thought I was saying, he did what he truly thought I wanted. His choice. Sweet guy. Always trying to do what is best for me. Its laughable now. Then, not so much. But this was all before drywall, and so, easily correctable. What the studio now has is a balanced lighting situation with some very directional lighting and some ambient controllable lighting, all which can be on in sync or lit singularly. I now have the best of both worlds, with natural Northern day time lighting, and lighting that is very customizeable as my needs dictate. Add to that a great shadow box for still life, light blocking lined black window coverings and this work situation is infinitely changeable and workable. Sweet.

Drywall In, Floors being installed and Skylights Above -
Outlets for lights Above, Not yet put in

Did I mention he built me my shadow box? Its wonderful. And no, he is not out for hire. Now my choice as to what to put in it to paint. Lemons anyone?