Two Sunflowers
$300.00 + $10s&h
oil on linen panel by Jeffrey Smith

What ever I’m focused on in my artistic world, it is always nice to take a break from it.

Long months of Minnesota winter, means lots of time working in the studio. For the summer months, I take my studio on the road. Armed with my pocahade box, I head out to experience painting in nature.

Even during the glory days of summer…

Now I’m not saying that I’m ready for another Minnesota winter, but even during the glory days of summer, I can miss the quiet simplicity and convenience of working on a simple still life in my studio.

Nothing livens up my studio like a pair of sunflowers and the warm colors of summer to go with them. This painting was an opportunity to bring some of the summer fun inside.

Poplars on the Mississippi River Sandbar
11×14″ oil on linen panel
$400, free shipping in the US

A lot of people don’t like painting on gray days.

I think they have an image in their heads of standing in front of their French easel in a field of beautiful grasses, the sun shining in from the left illuminating the scene before them.

In reality, the sun is moving so quickly that you hardly have a chance to paint the trees in front of you, let alone the beautiful field of grasses.

That’s where the wonder of the gray day comes in! The light stays consistent for a much longer period of time. It gives time to include the beautiful field of grasses.

Or in this case, I had time to paint the grasses lining the sandy path down to the Mississippi River bank.

Sunflowers and Silver Pitcher
6×8″ oil on panel
$150.00

We have had a cold, rainy spring here in Minnesota.  You have to take advantage of the sun where you can find it!

This painting was done on a day that started out with dreary grey skies and falling rain. All morning long, I heard from the weather guy on the radio that it was supposed to be a total wash out. The entire day…

But then, around noon, the forecast changed. Suddenly, there was talk of clearing.  Talk of the clouds breaking up.

I needed to take advantage of the break in the weather. I grabbed the bunch of sunflowers I had purchased at the grocery store earlier that day to help ward off the grey-sky depression.

I took the flowers outside to the patio and paired them with a wonderfully shiny stainless steel pitcher on a white cloth.

I was determined to making the most of my brief slice of summer.  In the end, the sun lasted just long enough for me to finish this little 6×8″ painting. The clouds moved back in and the rain began to fall again. But I know I did everything I could to make the most of my sunny day. Even if it was only for a couple of hours.

My Thursday night portrait class has come to an end for another session.  I’ll be taking the summer off to paint plein air, and will return in the fall.

The end of a class brings up many emotions. I’m proud of the hard work that my students put in. I’m happy for the results that they all got. More than anything, I will miss the people that I got to work with week after week.

For this class, I painted right along with my class. Think “demo that just kept going.”

This was a great benefit that came from having a smaller group this time. It gave me an opportunity to talk about things as they were coming up for me. I could show the group what I was seeing right on my canvas and talk about and show how to fix it.

Thank you to everyone at The Atelier!

We have finally had some sun here in Minnesota!  Spring is slowly starting to reveal itself. Not weeks of sunny days mind you, and very few May flowers, but the change is underway.

Let the fair-weather plein air painting season begin

I lucked out with a day off during the week. I couldn’t wait another day to get out with my pochade box and do some plein air painting.

I made my way back to familiar ground–a  park that I have painted many times.

This particular space is nestled between the St.Paul Seminary and the Mississippi River.

I like returning to the scene of past plein air excursions several times. I think you get a better sense of the space each time you visit. What is the lay of the land? How does the light change as the day rolls along? Who uses the space?

During the day, I’ve discovered, this park is a favorite spot of several golden retrievers and their owners.

This is Jake

I had my gear set up on the shadow side of a pine tree, my fist full of wet brushes. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a fluorescent orange ball bouncing into view. The ball was followed by a golden retriever tearing full speed after it.

The ball came to rest about 10 feet from me. The dog slid to a halt just past it, turned back, and scooped the ball up into his mouth.

The golden stopped and looked at me as I smiled at him. His owner clapped and whistled, circling around the tree to see what was holding up Jake from bringing the ball back.

Seeing me, she called out, “Jake. Come.”

Turning to me, she said, ” Don’t worry, he’s very friendly.”

“No worries here, I love dogs, especially Golden’s!”

Panting, Jake  looked up at me as he ran past, a wag in his tail and the ball still in his mouth.

Minnesota has had an incredibly cold spring. Super cold. As in–we had snow flurries in the last week of April.

Given the chilly weather, I think I’m not alone in dreaming for warmer days.  Plein air painting out in the sun. Not bundling up. Leaves on the trees.

Sunflower, sunflower

Then, of course, there are the sunflowers. Every year, I make it a point to paint sunflowers at least once.  Usually it’s way more times than that. But at least once, I grab my pochade box and make for the flower fields.

This year, I decided to bring things a little closer to home and plant my own sunflower patch right in my own backyard!

The greens that you see above are the first few sprouts of the spring. They’re a few weeks from transplanting outside, but it looks like spring in Minnesota might be a few weeks from warm enough for the sunflowers.

Another alla prima painting today.

I’m sure that I’ve said it before, but I love painting this little silver jar! There is just something about the round, super-reflective surface that I just find fascinating.

This 6×8″ painting is all about atmosphere.

What does atmosphere have to do with a still life?

An atmospheric painting is about looking more at how each of your elements fits into the spaces that they’re in. In this case, I’m not just painting a green vase or a silver jar.  I’m thinking how they look when placed on a blue cloth next to one another with a warm brown back drop behind them.

A painting like this is made up of color reflecting from the one object and on to another.

That’s why shiny objects like my little jar are so great for atmospheric paintings. The way the jar appears is made up of the reflections of the surrounding objects.

The Studio Landscape in Pastel August 25-27

The Peninsula School of Art in Door County Wisconsin

Date: Thu-Sat • Aug 25-27
Time: 9am-4pm
Media: Pastel • Level: Advanced Beginner and Above
Member Tuition: $325 • Non-Member Tuition: $350

Concept
Explore the process of creating an evocative landscape painting from your own reference materials, with the focus on a solid start. Learn how to successfully compose a picture, and a variety of pastel techniques that promote a good beginning as well as the promising completion of a painting. Discover your own motivations to painting a work to clarify your message.

Experience
Strive to work on a single piece or opt to create several beginnings during the workshop. Group demos and instruction tailored to individual needs reinforce concepts and techniques. Bring your plein air paintings in any media or a selection of photographs for reference.

Light from above is just plain cool!

When I was a student at The Atelier, I was fascinated with the effect that light from the skylight in the main drawing room had on the form of whatever we were drawing.

Nuances were much more pronounced. You could really see the fullness of a curve.  Things that looked very flat under other lighting conditions really showed that they had a lot more to them when viewed under overhead light.

The simplest of pears

I was very much reminded of that with this simple pear.

Top lighting just brings out the form like no other lighting can.

When I looked at this pear with the light coming in from the side, it looked round.  Simple. Relatively smooth. A pear.

Move the light up over the pear, and now I’m thinking of words like sculptural, statuesque, and shapely.

It’s amazing what a change in lighting can do!

Let there be light

More alla prima work this week, but this time I did something a little bit different.

The above painting was done using 2 different light sources. One, a standard 100-watt incandescent bulb. The other, a 60-watt incandescent with a subtle blue theater-light filter.

I attached the standard unfiltered lamp to the ceiling and directed it down onto the table.

My new blue light, on the other hand, was positioned directly on the table. This gave me a shaft of pinkish-blue light coming from the side.

It’s all about the north light

When I was in art school, my studio had amazing natural light. That school’s studios had giant north-facing windows and super-high, 15-foot ceilings!

During my time in school, I fell in love with that cool north light. I declared that there would be no other light for me.

I’m starting to rethink that. Crazy, I know. We artists have always been told that the path to artistic success was lit by north-facing windows.

Getting down to what’s important

The more I paint, the less I’m concerned about the perfect light source and more concerned about how the light is affecting the set up.

If the light is from a north-facing window, what impact does that have on the painting?

What about a fluorescent light? What colors am I seeing? What’s happening to the shadows? To the lights? Does it change the intensity of different colors?

I’m working with an incandescent light; how does that affect everything?

I think any light can be great to light your set up. The fun comes from experimenting.