Paintings of France, Italy and Beyond

Sorry to say, my blog has suffered a bit from benign neglect since I left for my travels a few weeks ago. Rain and 30 mile/hr wind consumed most of our beach vacation, so while it was still beautiful, there was no chance of painting boats or coastal motifs before the Paint Annapolis competition that followed just a week later.

Paint Annapolis itself was fun and enlightening, but since I am still dealing with shoulder tendinitis and pain, it was physically stressful and pretty exhausting. For the first two days, it seemed that I had brought the crappy weather I’d had at the beach right along with me up to the Annapolis event. The weather did turn beautiful during the last portion, but I think I kind of “blew myself out” trying to get something interesting down early on while the weather was gray and the light exceedingly flat.

The previous paragraph makes it sound like I didn’t enjoy myself at all, but that was not the case! In fact, while I didn’t come home with any prizes, I still received a lot of reward. My early struggles notwithstanding, the city of Annapolis is charming.  I had a lovely host for the event, and everyone I encountered in the event organization, and even in the town at large, was warm and friendly. AND I’m delighted to say that I sold a study right from the easel!  :-)  I also found myself among some incredibly talented painters and it was truly inspiring to see so much fine work being produced by my contemporaries. Almost all of the artists were friendly, uplifting, and inclusive, making the atmosphere feel more like a (highly motivated) community than a competition.  So much so, in fact, that by the time it was all over with, in spite of my exhaustion, I was actually sad to see it end.

“A Banner Day”, Oil on linen, 12×12″

As a painter, I also I learned a lot. I learned that if it isn’t happening, don’t force it. I learned that if the light is truly uninteresting, you’re better off sleeping in a day or two and staying up at night to paint nocturnes!  I learned that in the overwhelm of an unfamiliar environment, I’d be much better off painting simple studies successfully than failing at capturing a very complicated scene. I learned that even in the anxiety of knowing you only have 3 days to paint,  you really do have to pace yourself, take care of yourself, be kind to yourself, and give your mind and body enough time to rest and relax. And I learned that all of the things I thought I knew can so easily fall by the wayside in this thing called “competition”.

As is usually the case with me, I learned much of this more through error than through trial. In a way, the lessons I learned at the competition are only larger-than-life versions of the lessons I learn all the time through the act of plein air painting. These paintings can be like mini thrills-of-victory or agonies-of-defeat, though often they fall somewhere in between. Much is made of the victories (and with good reason) but for the painter who is fortunate enough to recognize it, they all hold value. The value lies in what you take away from it.

p.s. The painting posted was painted during the sunny portion of the event. It’s from the quick draw called “Dueling Brushes”. Please contact me for purchase inquiries. I posted about this event also last year and you can read my account here.

Jennifer Young; Vibrant Landscapes
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I have one more work to share today from the group I’ll be taking to North Carolina for the “All Things French” show next week. This was done alla prima. More fun with light and shadow, and lots of paint! Ah, it’s been such fun revisiting these lovely places through the act of painting them.

“Coleurs dus Sud”
Oil on linen, 20×24″

For this painting and the last one I posted, I experimented with an interesting double primary palette- Titanium white, Cad Yellow Pale, Golden Ochre (Rembrandt) , Organic Vermillion (Daniel Smith), Quinacridone Rose, Ultramarine Blue, and Manganese Blue (Old Holland).  I must say it was a lot of fun playing with these different colors. The gold ochre is dangerously lovely, and the organic vermillion was nice change up from cad. red light. In fact, it’s similar, but the tinting strength isn’t quite as strong so in some ways it was easier to use.

I went with this palette for a couple of reasons, but the key word is “economy”. First it’s an economy of time. The increasing pain in my arms was making it difficult to spend an inordinate amount of time mixing certain colors, even though I’ve learned enough about color mixing to know how to acheive most of what I need. I almost never use any color directly from the tube any way, but it helped to have a premixed earth, for the buildings for instance, and when such warmth in the scene predominates.

Second, it’s an economy of money. I mentioned before that I have a lot of art supplies that kind of fell by the wayside once I discovered some preferred methods and materials, but now I’m starting to revisit those supplies to try and economize where I can. All of the paints and substrates are archival, quality materials, but I do have some far-out tubes of colors–some dating back to before I started painting landscapes!

The paint department at the Lowe’s hardware store near our house has something they call the “oops bin”. These are mixed paints of specialty colors that presumably didn’t come out as expected. I guess you could say that I have my own ”oops bins”.  After limiting myself to nothing much larger than a double primary palette for years (without much variation), I think it’s time to mine some of these strange old friends. Maybe the “oops” will even lead to some ah-ha’s along the way!

p.s. I think I’m narrowing down what the problem in my arms might be. Unfortunately it’s not limited to just my arms and hands, but radiates from my neck and shoulders all the way down both sides. It’s taken a couple of days to write this post, so suffice it to say that my blogging will slow down a bit for a while. (I know I said that before but I really mean it this time!)  Sadly, I will probably have to take a brief rest from painting too. And gardening. I’m typically not too good at “resting” so let’s hope I don’t go nuts in the interim!

Jennifer Young; Vibrant Landscapes
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If you’re tired of French paintings, don’t read this post! I’ve been on a roll. Here’s another one of the Dordogne, with my favorite light and a play of long shadows:

“Dusk Approaches”
Oil on Linen, 20×24″ 

The paint is thick and it’s still a bit soft, but if it sets up enough to receive a retouch varnish, I may include it my show of French works that opens next week. This new piece was done on a rather rougher weave linen than I’m accustomed to using, but since I’m trying to economize, I’m working my way through the art supplies I have on hand (rather than just ordering more of my ’preferred’ materials.)

The linen is a quality product, just not as fine a weave as I normally like; so up to now these canvases have been collecting dust. It came stretched and pre-primed, but I did add a couple of extra coats of gesso  beforehand (with sanding in between) which helped to smooth the surface a little. But still its grip on the paint was significant, so some use of the palette knife came in mighty handy.

One of these days I will do a serious update to my website and post my new paintings there as well. But in the meantime, please contact me for purchasing info.

Jennifer Young; Vibrant Landscapes
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Here is something of a companion piece to the other Cahors market painting I posted a couple of days ago:

“Légumes du Jour”
 Oil on Linen, 20×16″
For purchasing info, please contact me.

For both this painting and the previous market painting I have again experimented with a single primary palette of just 3 colors (red, yellow, and blue) plus white. I don’t normally use a huge palette any way, but sometimes I feel I can become over-reliant on certain colors. Using a very limited palette helps me to feel as if I am taking back in control of my color mixing and really forces me to think more about color relationships. It also pretty much ensures more unified color. My three primaries for these two paintings were cadmium yellow pale, cadmium red medium, and ultramarine blue, and the white was titanium.

Jennifer Young; Vibrant Landscapes
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Following up on my previous post about the Rob Liberace’s portrait workshop, I thought I’d start this entry by posting my painting from day 2 of the class. This was a very different model from the one who sat for us on the first day:

Portrait study- “The Captain”, Oil, 20×16″

I heard quite a few people calling this gentleman the Captain, but I’m not sure if they were doing so because he actually was a captain, or just looked like one! In any event, he was a riot and really seemed to get a kick out of sitting for us. He was an excellent model, able to stay still for an extraordinary amount of time (which he attributed to the fact that he was a long-time turkey hunter.)

I got a little further along with this portrait than I had done on the first day, though I think I had a bit of a handicap to overcome. I had toned this canvas rather too dark. Prior to the class we were sent instructions to tone our canvases in acrylic to a middle value gray. I’m ususally pretty good with my value judgements, but I’d not used acrylics in a long time and they seemed to dry darker than I had expected them to. 

This ground had me feeling like I had to do a good deal of extra work to get rid of it so that I could acheive the fair complexion and hair of this gentleman. Normally the middle value gray would be a nice gauge  for judging mid tones, but with this model’s coloration especially, the darker than mid gray tone was just not helpful.

This next portrait below was actually not done in the workshop, but comes from a session last week after I returned back home. I met up with a local portrait group that meets weekly here in Richmond. I have actually wanted to meet up with this group for quite a while but for some reason the mid-week evening sessions have not jived with my schedule. Any way, this is Joey:

“Joey” (portrait study), 16×12, oil on linen

Since I knew we’d only have this model for a 3 hour segment of time, I thought I’d make it a little easier on myself by choosing a smaller canvas (toned in a light wash of burnt umber, on the spot). As it turned out, I didn’t get much farther with my level of finish; which is too bad because Joey had on a great oversized black leather jacket and was holding a guitar.

Nevertheless, I think this is my favorite alla prima portrait so far, as I was very happy with the likeness I was able to acheive. I  went about it in the same manner as the two previous studies, using same palette as I’d used in the portrait workshop. But this one just seemed to “click” a little better. Even though that electric blue could use some toning down around his jawline, I like what’s happening with the color sense and the brushwork.

I’m missing the portrait group’s meeting this week because I’m going to the Shins concert (woo hoo!) but I intend to keep up with them on as regular a basis as I am able. Whether or not I ever “do anything” formally with portraiture, I’ve made it my goal because I’m convinced that the challenge of working from the live model will improve my abilities to render and to see light and color more accurately overall.

Jennifer Young; Vibrant Landscapes
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