Sunset landscape painting; "Twilight on the Outer Banks"

Fresh off the easel is another landscape painting of my favorite time of day on the Outer Banks. The setting for this painting is again on Ocracoke Island, on a little inlet that has a small beach where you can watch the sun set.

"Twilight on the Outer Banks" Oil on Canvas 24x30" ©Jennifer Young

I am really enjoying the challenge of these evening paintings. The value ranges are relatively close in most areas of the painting, so I've really had to pay attention to the subtle differences in values and how they relate to one another. I'm still limiting my palette, but depending on what I am painting I vary the palette colors somewhat. I'll write more about what I'm discovering in my next entry.

Plein air painting tips

The other day Misti posed a few really good questions in my comments section about plein air painting. So I thought I'd share her questions and expand on my response below.

 "I have been wanting to do some plein air work but am sort of afraid of diving in. I think it is the whole finished product I am afraid of as well as the time. How long do you spend working on a painting and what do you do with light changes? or do you choose a specific time when you will have the most time?Thanks!"

Thanks for your comment. As I said in my previous response, I can really empathize with your concerns. It's common to want to feel a sense of accomplishment when you put forth such effort. When I first started painting en plein air, a lot of my studies went straight from easel to the trash heap! It can take some time to really develop a process that works well enough to capture that fleeting light and elusive feeling that inspired you to paint it in the first place.

A few thoughts and suggestions:

• To battle with that ever-changing light, it helps if you make a decision about the light you want to paint, and commit to that even if the light changes and the clouds roll in. This is very challenging, as you have to get your main color and shadow notes down pretty quickly to commit to that idea.
• Due to its rectangular format, a  photograph will already provide a composition for your painting. When you're painting on location it can be a little overwhelming because the scene before you is so expansive and it can be difficult to translate all of that 3-D information onto a small rectangular 2 dimensional plane. 
• To help with this, it is a very good idea to do a little planning even before you start your painting. I like to bring a small sketchbook with me and make some very quick thumbnail pencil sketches before I commit to a particular composition. In this way I can determine where to place my center of interest and how to frame my scene. 
• In regards to "how long," two hours has been the maximum amount of time that I've been able to paint at one sitting on location, and even then that can be pushing it. Any longer and the light has changed too drastically and it just causes you confusion. Better to come back to the scene at the same time again the next day and finish up.
• If a return visit on a subsequent day isn't possible, another option is to take a photo when you start and when you end and use these references to make a few finishing touches to your painting. The danger here is that once you get back to the studio you can lose the information and freshness you've captured on location if you overwork it too much away from the source.
• A better option may be to work small. This is particularly true if you are just beginning to paint on location. Working on small canvases allows you to more easily cover your canvas in the limited time frame. You may feel less overwhelmed and less worried about possible "failure" (though in reality, any time spent learning is never a failure, regardless of the finished product!)
• As for the time of day, mornings and evenings offer the most interesting light and shadow. By noon all of the light is pretty flat and shadows have disappeared, so this is least appealing to me. I find the mornings a little easier than the evenings, simply because the light doesn't change quite so quickly. However, there is nothing so seductive as that beautiful golden evening light. And if you really want to do some turbo-charged painting, try painting a sunset!
• Most importantly, go about it with an open mind and with no expectations other than that you are showing up to learn and to experience. With persistence your studies will get stronger, and the benefit you have gained from the experience will pay off big time for you in your studio work as well. At least, that is what I have found in my own work.

And with those thoughts on plein air painting, I am off for a week to do a little of my own. We're off to the beach and I'd be surprised if blogging will be an option. Have a great Labor Day Weekend everyone and I'll be back to posting when I return!

My plein air demo featured on EmptyEasel.com!

Just a quick note of announcement to say that my plein air painting demonstration is being featured today over at Empty Easel.com.  Thanks so much to Dan for the feature! I've referred tothis site before, and I'll say it again...If you haven't yet visited this content-rich website, I highly recommend a visit. Empty Easel has a lot of great articles, tips and features especially useful to the artist.  His section on selling art online  is unlike anything I've seen elsewhere. Dan takes a serious and in-depth look at different online venues, with side-by-side comparisons of features, costs, ease of use, etc. Lots of data to mull over here and elsewhere on the site. Check it out!

Mini taboret, palette and art caddy

I made mention the other day about my home made mini taboret that I devised (with the help of my husband's handiwork!)  Here it is:

I use this as my color mixing palette and as a holder for a few of my essentials- my oil paints, any medium, paint thinner and paper towels, etc. The main structure is actually this laundry caddy, that is meant to slide in between a washing machine and drier.

The goal in my search for the perfect cart was to find something ready made that I could use directly in front of my easel as a palette area to mix my paints.

I figured if I didn't want to bend over or reach out too far to get to my canvas, I'd like something no more than 12 inches deep, and at the right height so that I could comfortably mix my paints without having to stoop.  I also wanted something on wheels, so that I could roll the cart to the side if I were painting a very large painting.

What I came up with was this art caddy. The caddy required minimal assembly and was only around 8 or 9 inches deep. I'm not a tall person, but still the cart wasn't quite tall enough for me. This is where the handiwork came in. My husband told me to determine how much higher I'd need the top to be in order to comfortably mix my paints. Once this was determined, he built up the height by engineering a little insert cut from two by fours. Then he attached a 12"deep x 36" long board (a shelf left over from an old IKEA bookcase) on top of his insert. Sitting atop this board, I have3 12x12" ceramic tiles. This is my paint mixing area. The tiles are backed with velcro so that if I get very vigorous with my mixing they won't slide around.  I'm not great with cleaning my palette thoroughly, but the great thing is these tiles are cheap and easily found at any Lowe's or Home Depot. If they get too dirty then it is easy enough and inexpensive enough to change them out.  A very handy person could probably easily construct the whole caddy from scratch, but being short on time and patience, this cart works for me! And was far cheaper than anything I had looked at that was comercially produced.

Care needs to be taken when moving the cart. In other words, you can't whip it around very quickly as it is slightly top heavy. This is mostly remedied by putting heavy things (like cans of thinner) on the bottom shelf.  I used a simple bungee cord strung from one side handle to the other to hold my paper towels, and the baskets are ones I found at the dollar store. 

A taller person might require a taller cart (I'm 5'4 1/2" tall) so you'd really need to measure everything to make sure this is the solution for you. There are also expensive easels that actually have tiles along the front part of the easel, and this is another option if you want a complete system. However, I rather like having the cart/palette separate as it is a little more flexible for me to have something that is freestanding.

Art Books; Landscape Painting Inside & Out

In my last post I mentioned Kevin Macpherson's latest book, Landscape Painting Inside & Out. This is a nice companion to his first wonderful book Fill Your Oil Paintings With Light and Color. The latter focuses primarily on plein air painting, while the former encompasses both plein air and studio work. In his newest book, the author does a pretty thorough job of describing his supplies and tools of the trade for both his permanent studio and his portable one. Personally I really enjoyed the photos he's included of his indoor studio, (which is dreamy!) as it gives the artist (who likes to dream) some good ideas about how to plan a good setup. It was interesting for me to see that he puts his taboret in front of his easel, so that his color mixing palette is directly in front of him rather than off to the side, mimicking the setup one would have on a smaller scale outdoors. I work in the exact same way, with a mini-taboret on wheels my husband rigged up for me using a small laundry cart.

Subsequent sections touch on the different qualities of light and their effect on your subject, as well as value relationships and shape relationships. He has an interesting way of explaining the importance of describing elements in the landscape in terms of shape rather than rendering every minute detail. Here the book shows various black and white silhouettes to explain that an accurate contour is what describes an object. For example, one should be more concerned with the shape of a tree and largely indicate this  as one mass, using details such as individual leaves sparingly and just to accent and better define the subject.

This book touches on a lot of different concerns for the landscape painter. Aside from the ones I mentioned above, the author addresses edges, color temperature, and includes a very interesting section on planning and designing the painting. Several of these subjects are covered in just one or two pages, but they are well articulated and will give the serious landscape painter a starting point for further investigation.

After this overview comes what I consider the "meat" of the book--a large section on painting outside on location and another substantial one on translating your outdoor studies into larger studio works. In these sections, as in his previous book, Macpherson provides several very well described demonstrations of his processes. These sections appeal to me very much. I personally love demos, as it is easier for me to understand visually than it is having it explained.

What is particularly interesting to me about this part is the way the author encourages experimentation. He includes a few demos using different limited palettes that give the reader some ideas-- experimenting with an earth primary palette, using a strong color palette, or using a set palette with a monochrome (grey) underpainting.

Different from his last book, Macpherson includes a final section on "The Path to Success". This is really a topic worthy of an entire book (or a series of books). Macpherson goes into no detail at all about how to manage one's art career, but merely touches on some things to think about. Largely he writes about things like being inspired, doing what you love, setting goals, blah blah blah. Sure, all of this is important, but it's dealt with in a pretty vague manner and personally this is the least informative section of the book which covers about the last 15 pages. I suppose it is really just meant to be inspiring, so as long as you don't expect more, you may really enjoy this part.

Overall, this is a very interesting book with some very beautiful color reproductions of the artist's lush, impressionistic paintings. The demos are good, and I like that the breakout topics are geared more towards experienced painters who might be looking to experiment or deepen their understanding of landscape painting.  Macpherson does do a  good bit of selling of his other products, such as his other book, video and his "Kevin Macpherson Plein Air Palette" and "Kevin Macpherson Prochade Kit".  But this to me is only mildly annoying because I'd probably do the same thing if I offered these kinds of products. ;-) And heck! It must have worked...I've ordered his Prochade Kit for myself and will probably blog about it once I've had a chance to try it out.