Artists Gallery Group Show

The Artists' Gallery, the 18 member artists' co-op that I belong to, is having a group show at the Hopewell Frame Shop Gallery:

Artists' Gallery Group Show
March 11 - April 26, 2008
Opening Reception: Saturday March 15, 6 to 8 pm

Hopewell Frame Shop & Gallery
24 West Broad Street (Rt 518)
Hopewell, New Jersey

It's also going be the last show hosted by Abby Frantz, gallery owner. After 32 years of picture framing and almost twenty nine years of running her shop in Hopewell, Abby has decided it is time to move on. During the run of the show, the Hopewell Frame Shop will change ownership, but the new owners will continue to run it as a frame shop and gallery.

"September at Three Bridges" is one of the paintings I'll have in the show, painted on location in the town of Three Bridges, NJ this past September.

Here's the scene I started with:

And her are the steps in my painting process, ugly stages and all. (There are always ugly stages.) Right from the start, I thought the silo looked better with a rounded top on it:

The finished painting:

"September at Three Bridges"
11x14 oil on panel

Abby has been very supportive of the Artists' Gallery and has hosted shows for many of it's individual members over the years so it's sad to see her go, but we all wish her luck in her future adventures. Please come out to the opening on Saturday, March 15 and give Abby a warm send off!

Here is the current list of Artists' Gallery members, all of whom will have artwork in the show:

Beatrice Bork, Gail Bracegirdle, Jennifer Cadoff, Merle Citron, Rich Harrington, Charles Katzenbach, Joe Kazimierczyk, Alan Klawans, Sheila Letven, Florence Moonan, Taylor Oughton, Alla Podolsky, Marc Reed, J. Stacy Rogers, Doug Sardo, Carol Sanzalone, Stacie Speer Scott, and John Treichler.

In Search of White Buildings

Well, I'm back to painting white buildings and shadows. This is a barn I've painted a few times before - it's on the Stony Brook Millstone Watershed Association nature preserve near Pennington, NJ - one of my favorite places to paint:
I wanted to show another set of photos of how I go about painting. In the last series I showed, I don't think the photos were that great - hopefully these will be better:

Step 1: The sketch. The building lines were extremely important to this painting, so that's what I concentrated on - getting the perspective of the building right. Other than that, just a few light lines to indicate the top of the tree line. That's all I needed at this point. As usual, I'm working on a panel toned with a light wash of yellow ocher.

Step 2: Blocking in. I painted the shadows bluer than they were intentionally so I could drag a more neutral grey over it later, but plan on letting some of this bright blue peek through. The rich brown of the background trees makes a good base for the greens that come later. Again, planning to let some of the browns show through. You really have to think ahead at this stage. Looks like a real mess, doesn't it?! Remember what I said about every painting going through an ugly stage.

Step 3: More roughing in. I put some sky color down and softened to the tree line. The grass is blocked in mainly with the shadow color, even though the sunlit greens will be much warmer - again, I'll let some of this blue-green peek through. With some detail in the building and carts, it's starting to look like something.

Step 4: Work on the background trees. I try to get some variety in the greens so that it's not monotonous. Green is one of the most difficult colors to deal with - there can be so much of it in a typical landscape, and there are so many different shades of green - it's hard to pull off sometimes. The sunlit grass color is also added, but note that the building shadow line on the grass is out of perspective. It's easy to forget that even shadows have to follow the rules of perspective. I correct this later.

Step 5: Tree trunks are are put in, and the carts are refined a bit.

Step 6: "Sky holes". I previous steps, the tress were blocked in as solid masses. But if you look at the photo of this scene, there is a lot of sky peeking through the trees. So I start painting some sky color over the trees now - this technique is called painting "sky holes" and you can usually get more realistic trees by carving them up with sky holes, than you can my trying to paint trees into the sky color. It's almost like you're sculpting the trees out of the solid greens and browns. The perspective in the grass shadow is corrected here:

The finished painting:

"Stony Brook Farm Carts"
8x10 oil on panel

I have a few more closeup shots of the finished painting on my main website, here.

The Delaware Canal at Phillips Mill

Here's an attempt to show my painting process. Maybe I shouldn't show the first few steps because most paintings go through an "ugly stage" - I know what intermediate steps are needed to achieve the end result, but some of those stages can look so "off", it can really make me question whether I'm on the right track. Anyway, here it goes, ugly stages and all:

Step 1: Choose the target. I was planning to paint some old buildings at Phillps Mill, Pa. But when I got there, a plein air painting class was in progress and although I knew the instructor, I didn't want to setup in the middle of his class. So I found a quiet spot along the Delaware Canal behind the mill. This scene really grabbed my attention. And it was nice shady spot in which to work:
Step 2: The sketch. I almost always start with a toned canvas or panel. This is an 8x10 masonite panel, with several coats of gesso, and a light wash of acrylic yellow ocher. I prepare these panels ahead of time, so the ocher wash was already there when I setup. Then I very lightly sketch the main lines with charcoal. Charcoal is easy to brush off to correct mistakes, so it's perfect for the initial layout:

Step 3: Blocking in. I like to get the panel covered with paint quickly. It's partly psychological because a blank canvas can be intimidating. The pre-toned panel helps with that too, but its' still good to get some paint down quickly. You might be wondering why violet when there's so much green? There is a lot of violet in the pathway shadows. And this is early spring where many trees are still budding out. It's hard to see from these photographs, but behind the surface green, there's a network of almost bare branches which are a sort of purplish grey. So I start with that background color, intending to let some of it show through when I paint the greens later. I've painted the concrete parts of the bridge way too dark - I should get the main value relationships down at this point - what was I thinking? This is one of those "ugly stages":

Step 4: Introduce more color. The previous step was really just the underpainting. Getting a few more colors down starts bringing it out of that ugly stage. That bridge is still way too dark:

Step 5: Continue refining. The path was underpainted a dark violet because that was the predominant tone I saw. Here I start adding some patches of sunlight to break that up. The physical surface of a painting usually looks better with lights painted on top of darks. I have no idea why - it just does. If I had painted the pathway light, then added the shadows, it wouldn't seem right to me. But maybe that's just me. You have to figure these things out on your own by trying different approaches, and taking note of what works for you and what doesn't. Here, I also introduce some warmer greens along the pathway, to contrast with the cooler greens in the distant trees, and start building a sense of space. I finally lightened up that bridge, but wow - that's way too blue - what was I thinking?

Step 6: Step back and look. Actually, that's something you should be doing constantly. Stand back and compare your painting to the scene before you. Up close, it's hard to see the big mistakes. Stand back, and errors in the drawing, color, or value relationships are easier to see:

Step 7: More refining. Here I add the bright highlights of sunlight reflecting off of the bridge railing and deck. This detail is very important to the painting - that little sparkle brings the scene to life - but you have to resist the temptation to add them in too early. Getting the main color and values right makes a solid painting, and if you add too much detail too early, it holds you back from getting the main harmonies right. Also, I must have finally noticed how wrong the concrete bridge parts were and I warmed up those blues, matching it a little better to reality:

Step 8: More refining. Another step back and I see I had left out some of the main reflections in the water, so I added the reflection for the right side bridge support and the big trees. Working on location, there is a lot to take in, and a short time to do it in! Compare this painting to the first one, and you can see 2 big changes: 1) the tree shadows on the pathway have receded and pretty soon, the shadows will be behind me, not in front of me. 2) the sun has come around and is starting to light the front of the bridge, when before, it was all in shadow. Time to pack up and go home.

Step 9: Refinement back in the studio. Almost all of the painting is done on location. But back home, I let the painting alone for a few hours, and then I can sometimes spot problems that were not apparent when painting under the time constraints of working on location. I don't think I added much, but I did warm up the concrete bridge parts more. It's still more violet than it was in real life, but I'll call that artistic license, and the bridge harmonizes nicely with the foreground shadows and a few patches of violet in the trees.

The finished painting:

"Delaware Canal Bridge"
8x10 oil on panel