Top ten reasons to paint your back yard garden

1. You can paint it better than it actually looks (a few more roses here, a few less weeds there...)
2. Unlike a public garden, you likely won't get taken unawares by the sprinkler system.
3. You are intimately familiar with how the light travels through the garden at different times of the day.
4. You are intimately familiar with the location of the latrine (and more than likely it will be free and fairly clean.)
5. You can leave all of your gear set up during breaks (and probably won't need to get someone to watch your stuff as you break for the above mentioned latrine.)
6. You can do your part to reduce the carbon footprint (no need to drive anywhere.)
7. Forgetting to pack an important supply is easily remedied.
8. Plenty of opportunity to take weeding and pruning breaks (okay, this might not be such a good thing for your painting, but your garden will love it.)
9. You won't look like a crazy lady wandering through the park staring at trees, with luggage, a big floppy hat, and a compass. (You'll just look like a crazy neighbor wandering around her yard with luggage, a big floppy hat, and a compass.)
10. The reception to the wireless baby monitor extends just to the edge of your yard!

"Under the Limelight" Oil on board, 8x6" ©Jennifer Young

This little painting is kind of a cross between a still life and a plein air painting. The Japanese lantern sits at the corner of my garden under the limelight hydrangea (hence the title.) Since the hydrangea isn't yet in bloom, I've punched up the corner with some potted geraniums.

Island Illumination

The work-in-progress I wrote about earlier this week is now finished. This is from our last visit to Hatteras Island, in the vicinity of Avon:

"Island Illumination" Oil on Linen, 24x30" (SOLD) ©Jennifer Young

Virginia is a beautiful state, but her winters tend to be predominantly gray and brown; at least that's how Richmond winters are.  Not that there isn't beauty in the subtle shades of gray, but after a while it can wear on my psyche.  I guess as I have gotten older, I have become a bit like certain plants- I can get by with less, but I need a certain amount of sunlight to really thrive.

I suppose this is why I am so often drawn to painting light-filled subjects. It just does my spirit good. And so I am taking a little mental vacation here to a beautiful sunset in one of my all-time favorite places- the Outer Banks of North Carolina (Hatteras Island in particular). In the absence of the real-time experience , I can still transport myself there through painting.

Coastal Sunset Painting- WIP

While the last work in progress I posted still seems to be...er...in progress I offer you this new WIP that seems to be moving along a little more easily. I have decided to return to the nontoxic (or less toxic, any way) painting process that I was doing while I was pregnant.  Essentially this process was to paint without solvents and instead to thin the paint and clean my brushes with walnut oil.

What was formerly a struggle to me using this method now seems to be working to my advantage. Working with the walnut oil keeps my paintings wetter longer. This is a good thing for me now, as I am only able to get dedicated painting time for about 3 half-days a week. So I can now return to my painting in a more malleable state without having to feel like I need to rework everything in order to open it back up again (which is what kept happening with the Venice WIP). 

I also decided to try working with M. Graham paints again, which I had tried (unsuccessfully) to use en plein air some time ago. Initially I found them rather more fluid than I was accustomed to, particualrly for juicy plein air work that I need to have set up rather quickly. It was also a hot summer day when I last tried to use them, and what I ended up with at that time was a mushy, gooey mess. But, again, what seemed like a liability is now working to my advantage, and I am really enjoying these paints now, for the precise reason that they are more fluid and very buttery.

For this painting I am using a single primary palette of red yellow and blue plus white. For my red I've chosen Quinacridone Rose; my yellow is Indian Yellow, and the blue is my old friend Ultramarine. I am, of course, also using white, which is my favorite white and what I have on hand, made by Classic Artist Oils. It is buttery, but has a little more body to it and blends nicely with the more fluid colors. This is a really good palette, I am finding, for sunset paintings, as the colors are both rich and transparent and lend themselves to that luminous quality I'm after. And since at sunset everything seems to take on the color of the sky, using a limited palette creates a nice unity in the painting.

These pictures show the progression of my 24x30 inch canvas so far. If all goes well, I should be able to finish this piece today for a posting of the final product later in the week. That is, if I can get myself off of this computer!

Winter Solstice reception Friday at Glave Kocen Gallery

"Snowed Under", Oil on panel, 10x8" ©Jennifer Young

"Winter on the James" Oil on canvas, 9x12" ©Jennifer Young

This is a cross-posting with my newsletter so I hope that the readers of both will forgive the repetition. If you are in the Richmond area, I will be participating in a group invitational this Friday night at Glave Kocen Gallery. I will be one of ten artists featured for this one night event exhibiting winter themed art. But this is not just an art show. It's also a fundraiser for a great cause. Spearheaded by The 1000 Strong Project, proceeds from the sale of the show will benefit Comfort Zone Camp (CZC). CZC offers free camps for kids nationwide who have experienced the death of a parent, sibling or primary caregiver. The 1000 Strong Project has also produced some great art calendars (in which my art will also be featured) that will be sold at the reception to benefit the charity. So if you are in Richmond, come out for some fun, see some great winter-themed art, pick up some calendars for holiday gifts, and support a great cause. Here are the details:

What: "Winter Solstice" Art Reception for The 1000 Strong Project and Comfort Zone Camp Where: Glave Kocen Gallery, 1620 W. Main Street, Richmond, VA 23220 When: Friday, November 12, 2010, 6-9 PM Hope to see you there!

October Maples

When I woke up the other morning it was so stunning outside that I decided to leave the studio for a bit and do some plein air painting in my Bellevue neighborhood. Dave and I passed these gorgeous maples on Newport Drive during our walk in the 'hood the previous evening and I made a mental note to check them out again in the morning :

"October Maples" Oil on Linen, 9x12" ©Jennifer Young

This is not the greatest of photos, so I will try and re-shoot this tomorrow morning when the lighting is better.  There are some areas where I might've wanted more refinement, but I am going to sit with this a bit and see how I feel about it when I can look at it with fresh eyes.

One thing I realized from the timed exercise I mentioned in my previous post was just how long my plein air paintings look like absolutely nothing. In fact, a common occurrence with me lately is the feeling of a sinking heart as I look at the confusing mess that is my painting and wonder if I might be better off just scrapping the whole thing. Bleh!

But then I'll think something like, "Just work on it a little more and then you can quit if you want to." Only a few strokes later (if they are good strokes) I find myself excited again and some logic begins to emerge.  It's almost as if something switches in my brain (on or off? I don't know.)  Maybe I just let go of the outcome and relax enough that somehow I can see the scene before me not as an overload of "things", but as a rhythmic pattern of lights and darks, colors and shapes.

This is not to say that there aren't areas for improvement in this painting. But at least I managed to get the impression of place down, which, based on how the painting progressed in the earlier stage, was quite a surprise to me.  I guess the moral of that story is not to give up too soon. Some paintings are indeed "false starts" and probably just doomed to fail. But then there are those that have potential and a solid start and just require more patience and relaxed focus. Bargain with yourself to just stick it out a little longer and see what happens. By doing so, you often have little to lose and much to gain.