New Pioneers of the Blue Ridge

My painting group has mounted a gallery exhibit focusing on the new agricultural practices in our Blue Ridge mountain community.   Tobacco is no longer the main crop.  Young people have pioneered organic farming and the farm to table movement.

This farmer, Jim Edwards, caught my attention at the weekly farmers' market.  He was so proud of his pumpkins.

In a later conversation he disclosed that he worked at the youngest on the some of the same land he farms now.  Then it was a dairy farm, now there are beans, corn, pumpkins and bell peppers.  To fund his college education Jim raised beef and tobacco.

The Pumpkin Man

Oil  8" x 10"

       
                                                 

The Maritime Life

There is more to the Jersey Shore than the beach.  There is also a maritime community that was pounded by Hurricane Sandy, but has been renewed.

Here's a little boathouse and dock that's been rebuilt.  Beyond is Little Egg Harbor, although vast it can be very shallow, 2 to 3 feet in many places,  making for distinctive boats with low drafts.

Maritime Life
Oil 5" x 7"

Camp Yonahnoka and Grandfather Mountain

A plein air event was held at Camp Yonahnoka with a stunning view of Grandfather Mountain and Lake Kawahna.  The best part was meeting new painters in the Linville area.  What a blast.

In this painting I was interested in creating values and thereby form with each brushstroke.  It's quite a discipline.

Grandfather and Lake Kawahna
Oil 6" x 6"

Lots of Plein Air

Beautiful weather and painting, what could be better.   Roan Mountain was not to be missed this time of year.  I was lucky enough to meet two members of the North Carolina Plein Air Painters who were there as well.   Scott Boyle, the founder, was there as well as Craig Franz.  I like painting with other painters because one is less of a novelty to the public.  The site of the painting is the old Cloudlands Hotel, only part of a foundation remaining.

Stormy Cloudlands
Oil
5" x 7"

Another plein air event at Duck Dance Farm was to gather material for the Blue Ridge Fine Arts Guild exhibit "Renaissance of the Family Farm".    Since I struggled with the values of the Roan painting a monochromatic study was in order for me.  Kat Turczyn, who organized the event, was kind enough to send me this snapshots.

It's studio time now, the exhibit opens in a month.

A Very Long Hiatus

Never thought in March that so much time would elapse before the next posting.  Two trips to my old home town, Princeton, with added excursions to Philadelphia and the Jersey shore which I had not seen since Hurricane Sandy.  The devastation was much more considerable than what I witnessed in Florida as noted in my previous post.

I'm back in the Blue Ridge, plein air painting which I abandoned a year ago due to medical problems.  Today we were at the Green Toe Ground, an organic farm which started at a CSA and now sells at farmers' markets and supplies restaurants.

Lettuce Fields

Oil  5" x  7"

                                The fields have the bright glowing green of early summer.   

     The Green Toe Ground gets its unusual name from the Toe River which flows next to this field.

                                It's hatchery stocked with trout and its purity is taken seriously.

 .Plein air painting resumes on Saturday at the Farmer's Market  

Remembrance of Hurricane Sandy

The day after Sandy moved north from Jacksonville Beach this pastel was created.  There was no beach, the water was high, but the dunes were intact so the easel was precariously perched there.  The waves were huge and even the most daredevil of surfers weren't present.

After the Storm
Pastel  6" x 8"

I'll be traveling for the next two weeks with painting a possibility if the weather co-operates, in the northeast there are few indications of spring.  In the mountains of North Carolina the ice has melted, and the trees are sporting a red haze of buds.  I'll be sorry to leave my happy crocuses.

Another Time Remembered

A gorgeous fall day on the South Toe River.  The leaf colors glowing on the water surface and splashes of blue reflected from the sky, like being at the bottom of a bowl of color.

October Radiance
Oil Sketch  9" x 12"

Another Remembrance of Wonderful Weather

Up in the Blue Ridge there has been two nights of -4 degree frozeness.   Since some cheering up was needed, back again to the archive portfolio.

The dunes were painted at the Island of Palms, a beach sporting a huge dog walker crowd as the sun rises, and proximity to all that Charleston has to offer.

Time to Go

Pastel  6" x 8"

Looking Forward to Spring

There is ice on the Blue Ridge Mountains tonight.  Organizing the studio in the wake of the 30 in 30,  this pastel surfaced which reminded me that in a few months rather than wintry weather the Catawba rhododendrons will be blooming in the high mountains, definitely something to await with pleasure.

 Near the Appalachian Trail
Pastel 10" x 10"

Now for Something Entirely Different

Blog mavens have told me to stick to one media per blog, but this isn't going to happen today.   Once a year I go to the Penland School of Crafts in the Blue Ridge Mountains to make glass beads.  This takes place in the flameworking studio where rods of various colored glass are melted and manipulated.  

Later I'll work these into earrings and necklaces with sterling silver findings.

Sets of beads destined for jewelry

Laurel at her station

Day Thirty One - FINALE

Leslie of course has arranged for us to end with a flourish, the collages.

30 Paintings in 30 Days, 2015

This month has been an important experience,  I've come to realize how many things I must decline if I am to be in the studio.

Day Twenty Nine - Adieu to Appledom

This will be my last posting for January.  This is my second 30 in 30 event and as last year, a fabulously enriching experience.   Given my physical therapy schedule, I knew before I started that 30 paintings was far too much for me.  Nevertheless, this was a fantastic opportunity to return to the easel after five months of not painting and eight months of not using oils. The support of working with other virtual artists is absolutely enormous.

Since there was a brand new operating system on my computer and a new-to-me camera, for which  there was no time to read the manuals, I was forced to blunder through as best I could.  Time saving in any event.

This last painting was done mostly at my weekly painting workshop, pulling out the traveling oils after a long time.  The apple is a bit fussy, having difficulty understanding the light in a different studio.  The background, as in the other apples still needs something, but I don't know what it is, remnants of an old Bob Dylan song.  But there is an improvement in the plasticity of paint and volume of the apple from the first apple of the Year.

I've made new online friends whose work I plan to follow in this New Year.  Unending thanks to Leslie Saeta who makes this all possible, what a gift we all have in her.

This weekend I am off to the Penland School of Crafts to make glass beads at the flameworking studio for a week.  Although I know I should devote myself to only one endeavor,  I haven't been able to give up the glass, which is so seductive.

Apple Eight
Oil  on Gessoed Paper  6" x 6 "

Fond regards to all my painting pals, see you online soon.

Day 25 Sunday - Back to One

Really exhausted by the multiple apple exercise, it was a relief to return to the single apple today.  I decided to work on the shadow inspired by Jiyoung Kim's wonderful Crescent painting of yesterday.

The shadow didn't turn out to be the star, but the apple has a presence that I like.  It was easier than the previous apples so the work in Carol Marine's exercise has paid off.

Apple Seven

Oil on Gessoed Paper 6" x 6"

Day Twenty Four - My Days at the Apple Factory are Numbered

Today in finishing this sheet I decided to mix the violet rather than use the transparent and expensive cobalt violet.  Also decided to make the brush marks less aggressive to see that result.

What I have learned from this exercise is that the apples can be painted more swiftly if there are individual brushes for colors and values.  One for the apples, another for the shadow and yet another for the background.

What else I have learned has yet to be revealed.  It's ironic that in another week I'll be at a glass beadmaking workshop where the work is repetitive and progress is measured over a period of time.

Carol Marine's Ten Minute Apple Exercise
Oil on Gessoed Paper  3" squares

Day 23 - More Ten Minute Apples a la Carol Marine

This is a new page of ten minute apples.  The previous set of apples ( see the post before last)  was left unfinished at the suggestion of a fellow artist.  We both like it that way, still not sure why.

This time the background is a warm color which I was fighting it while painting, because the cobalt violet is so transparent.  The previous apples utilized a tube of London Winsor Newton cobalt violet, which may be student grade, and opaque. This time a very old tube of Grumbacher (circa 1968) with absolutely beautiful pigment.  In the last two squares I added titanium white for opacity.   I think I'll mix the violet and save the Grumbacher cobalt violet for later. Who knows if it can even be purchased anymore.

Just finished watching Wet in Wet painting video by Michael Chesney Johnson which inspired the use of black, a forbidden color.  It looked so easy to gray a pigment when he painted, I couldn't resist.  So with totally illicit feelings I pulled out my Mars Black and quickened the painting process.

Ten Minute Apple Exercise
Oil on Gessoed Paper,  3" squares

Day 22 - Figure Drawing

A new event here, figure drawing once a month.  Had to set the apples aside for that.  And what a surprise a mother with a 10 month old baby who was stunned by all the attention, not a peep out of him for two hours.  The poses were short.  I wish I could have captured the endearing facial expressions, so fleeting, only a few seconds.

Pastel Pencil 

I was delighted to meet a group of young women who come to this rural area to serve as interns on the local organic farms, one from as far as Sweden.   They jokingly are planning a reality show called "Interns of the South Toe" (which is the name of our mountain stream, a good part of the humor).

Day 18 - Ten Minute Apple a la Carol Marine

In her new "Daily Painting" book,  Carol recommends an exercise that entails ruling a paper off into 2 or 3 inch squares and painting an apple in each with a time limit of ten minutes.  She said that progress will be seen.  Well I saw progress in the first three apples, when the fourth looked liked an olive I stopped.  More tomorrow.

Another person in this challenge confessed that she took fifteen minutes for each apple while doing this exercise.  I premixed much of the paint, but I did hold to the ten minutes.  However using my phone as a timer didn't really work.  As the screen went blank I kept poking it, soon it was covered in paint.  Who has a clock these days?   So I hit upon this art project made by son many years ago.  Just perfect for timing apple paintings.

Day Twelve- Another Background

This painting was an attempt to enliven the background because I found earlier paintings bland.  The traditional draped background Carol Marine warns against, as too complex for small paintings.  So I've been trying other things, and here's another.

Apple Six
Oil on Gessoed Paper 6 x 6

This was shot with a new camera.  The optics are much better.  I can see that it has the same effect as painting one wall of the kitchen, it shows that all the walls need to be done and I need much better lighting.  Both for painting so I can see the brushstrokes more clearly and for shooting so that the light is more diffused.  Carol Marine recommends shooting under an open porch to get that diffused light, but I don't have that.

Day Ten - Reflected Light and Backgrounds

One of my painting teachers, Arthur Gonzalez, manipulates reflected light in his studies, using the complement of the background as the reflected light.   So if a white ball is sitting on  a green cloth the reflected light would be red, rather than green.   I attempted that with this painting, but since the apple is both red and green, and placed on a red background things got a bit hairy.

Apple Five
Oil on Gessoed Paper   6" x 6"

There is something missing in the backgrounds, not sure yet what it is.  Perhaps the apples need to larger as in the detail below.   I thought about patterning, but that's too much to attempt in addition to the manipulation of the reflected light.

Day Eight

Since I didn't paint yesterday,  I looked at dozens of 30 in 30 participating artists.  I have an abundance blogs on my reading list now.

I received feedback from my Impasto Blues post, a palette knife should be tried.  If you are desperate enough to ask for advice why not take it?  I'm not even sure I have the right kind.  The first three tries were immediately scraped.  The fourth lasted until a late lunch, when I decided that the apple looked like a red billiard ball.  I almost scraped that too, but since it was going to be destroyed at any minute, I decided to take some risky moves which actually paid off.  Sometimes that works, more often it doesn't (IMHO).

Apple Four
Oil on Gessoed Paper 6 x 6

I was amazed at how much paint is required to use a palette knife.  I kept mixing more and more.
Also the values are not the same as when a brush it used.  The colors are much darker when applied with a knife.  I mixed colors that looked screaming bright and still needed to add more pigment and more white.  

Comment on Day Six - Impasto Blues

With this impasto technique,  it seems difficult to judge values with artificial light.   I think daytime light which is more diffuse may be better.   It's just been difficult to get to the easel at an early hour.  I have a huge overhead CFL daylight and a similar CFL on a floor stand.  For me the shininess of the medium and the shadows cast by the thick paint are really challenging.  My goal was to make this painting brighter than the last, I did not succeed.

The technique seems very unforgiving in terms of brushes.  I have only two that work, Cheap Joe's Serendipity and a very old Grumbacher which is no longer manufactured.  That latter is my favorite since it has densely set bristles which are very flexible and responsive.  The other "big box" art supply brushes do not have enough bristles and leave streaks.

Carol Marine suggests using Bristlon, I substituted a Red Ruby, which just slipped around the surface not applying the paint.  The bright didn't bend enough to apply the paint a large quantity of paint.

The paintings are done on gessoed paper which may not be the best substrate.

I would appreciate any feedback from those of you who have mastered this technique.

Day Six of the 30 in 30 Event

Didn't like the glittery quality of the medium in the last two paintings, so cold wax and a little gamsol was added to the Gamblin gel today.

Apple Three
Oil on Gessoed Paper   6" x 6"

Second Day of the 30 in 30 Event

Actually it's Day 3 on the official 30 in 30 blog, but since this is my second post for me it is Day 2.

Changed the set up a bit to add another color.  I'm working with very thick brushstrokes which I don't often do.  The oils are mixed with Gamblin Solvent Free Gel.  Tomorrow wax will be added to cut done on the gloss, right now the paintings glisten.

APPLE TWO
Oil on Gessoed Paper   5" x 5"

A New Year and the 30 in 30 Event

The 30 paintings in 30 days event is sponsored by a West Coast artist, Leslie Saeta. I participated last year.  It helped me organize my studio more efficiently and improved my painting because ideas that occurred to me could be implemented in the next painting.  It's so easy to forget.

If you are interested in seeing all the paintings, and there are almost 700 when I last visited, go to http://lesliesaeta.blogspot.com.   Day Two is already being posted since the event started on New Year's Day.  I was at the best party in years, so I'll catch up (maybe)

Last year I painted landscapes from photos.  This year's subject matter will be simpler for two reasons.  The first is that I have physical therapy three times a week as well as a home program following a surgery.  The second is that I am following advice in Carol Marine's new book "Daily Painting".  Her instructions involve very simple subject matter.  So here is Apple One.

Apple One
Oil  6" x6"

                                         

                                          May we all have a peaceful and fulfilling New Year.