All Things Fine Art

During the month of October, seven students from my advanced painting classes are displaying plein air and studio works at the East Lansing Public Library. Soojin Rye and Heeyoung You helped Barb Schmidt, Library Art Show Coordinator, and I hang the show. Over thirty oil and pastel paintings, completed this past year, are included in the exhibit.

Soojin Rye (left) Barb Schmidt (center) and Heeyoung You (right) hanging the show.

The dedication each of these artists has exhibited in developing their skill has been rewarding to me as their instructor.  It’s a pleasure to work with artists who have a passion for their work and most definitely go the extra mile to master their medium.   I’m delighted and proud to feature these artists in this exhibition along with five of my own paintings. I hope you will make an effort to visit the Library and see this wonderful show.

I've always been guilty of having a good dose of wonder lust in my psychy and a healthy love of deserts, mountains. and marshy creeks.  Unfortunately, these don't exist in the flat farm oriented county where I live in central Michigan. Obviously, mountains and deserts aren't an option for me to paint but by traveling to nearby counties I can and do find lovely marshes and lowland creeks that put a smile on my face and a brush in my hand.  Recently, a landscape artist friend, who feels much as I do about the need to travel for painting subjects said to me "I feel that God played a trick on me".  I couldn't have put it better. How can an artist, passionate about the landscape find themselves living in the flatest part of a beautiful state like Michigan?

"Cloud Burst", 40x30", oil on panelli linen panel

 I could feel sorry for myself and not paint but, I've never been known to be a quiter and I'd be awfully hard to live with if I couldn't have a brush in hand on a regular basis.  So, what does a misplaced plein air painter do to satisfy that daily need for paint and canvas?  For myself, I learned to look at my surroundings with a fresh eye and discovered the less dramatic landscape. It's certainly been a learning experience but I find now that I am quite happy painting scenes using trees and sky as a major factor of expression.  I'm sure I'll always long for the watery scenes of marshes and the majesty of mountains and deserts and there will be a time for them here and there. But, I can also see the beauty of the ages as seen in a weathered tree and the magnificence of the ever changing sky.  

"Winter Tracks", 11x14", oil on canvas.

A turning point for me a few years ago was looking at the art of artists like Richard Schmid and Marc Hanson.  Each of these artists have found beautifully unique ways of creating fabulously rich and dynamic paintings of humble subjects. Just look at Schmid's old farm scenes and Hanson's atmospherically breathtaking scenes.  These artists all chose to make the most of less dramatic subjects but with sensitivity painted them with their uniquely personal vision.

So, maybe there wasn't a trick played on me after all.  Perhaps it matters that I've been forced to really take a good look around my homeland and see the beauty that abounds in it's simple pleasures. It's up to me to see that they are special and to present them in my conversation with viewers as special in an artistic sort of way.

I've seen a lot of artists shy away from painting en plein air on a rainy dismal day. Living in Michigan where we are surrounded by the Great Lakes we have more than our fair share of them as well as bitter winds and temps in winter. If I waited for the optimally pleasant sunny days that California artist's enjoy I'd do precious little outdoor painting. For those of us in Michigan who paint outside regardless of the weather...well, I guess you could say we define ruggedness. 

I'm not a strapping young healthy outdoors male as the magazines love to show standing in a snow bank painting. I'm a gray-haired grandmother with a few years under my belt and I still work in the coldest of weather that Mother Nature can throw at us here in Michigan. I thrive on snow banks! For that reason, a little rain doesn't deter me.

"Between Showers", was painted on a breezy wet morning in the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. When the day is sun "lightless" I shift my focus slightly on the palette and process to capture the moody look of the day without adding the dismal.  First, I feel it's essential for an artist to have a process that they are familiar with and one that works for them. It makes plein air painting so much easier. Most of my paintings outside are approached in the same manner with only slight shifts. On a sunny day I add more value contrast in color shapes and on a cloudy/rainy day less value and color in my large shapes.

If you look intently at "Between Showers", you see my usual process of layering, i.e.: thin cool darks and lighter valued warmer hues in the light areas, applied more opaquely. The warm and high-keyed lights are, of course, relative to the light that the day offers.

There is actually little "color" in extreme darks and extreme lights. Therefore, most color shows up in the mid-tones of a subject. During cloudy/rainy days those mid-tones have a bias towards the darker end of the spectrum being used for the painting. Since there is no direct light (no sun) on such a day, light diffuses and equalizes across the scene.

Given all this, my process then is:

1. Block  in all cool darks, keeping shapes simple and only suggesting local color.

2. Block in light diffused areas, keeping shapes simple, values correct and only suggesting local color.

3. Heighten color and value shifts in mid-toned areas.

4. Work edges

5. Add definition and scroll work where appropriate without going to extremes.

I generally use a number 8 brush when working on an 8x10 panel. This helps to keep shapes simple and doesn't allow a lot of fussing.

Working simply in this way gives me clean and meaningful studies to work from in the studio while capturing the essence of the day. By adhereing to this process my work reflects the day without the dismal.