Red Canvases

Since I put my first painting demonstration up on my website a couple of years ago, I have had a number of people ask me about the red toned canvas I used. That demo is a couple of years old. I should probably update that section of my site and add some newer demonstrations, but I just haven't had the time. I used to underpaint many of my landscapes with red (not architectural scenes, however). I rarely do this any more, except when I do my little minis. I used to feel some comfort in having something down on canvas besides the blank whiteness, and the red underpainting was kind of fun. But after a while I found it took too much time to apply the undercoat and I spent a lot of time trying to cover it up in the passages where I wanted it to be cool (such as in areas of far distance.) I think that the reason it still works on the little paintings is that the red undertone does make the colors pop, but with such a small surface I do not need to labor on covering it up for my cool distances.

I will still often tone my canvases with a rather opaque, neutral gray or a warm beige (a tone of raw sienna thinned and scrubbed in a translucent manner over the white of the canvas) when I paint out of doors. The neutral tone of the canvas reduces the bright glare. In the photo below you can see one of my gray-toned panels underneath the plain white ones.

Ideally your palette color should match the color of your canvas for accurate color mixing. In the studio I have a white palette and paint on white canvases. But outdoors my palette is either wood color or a neutral grey. It is not a "must" to match canvas and palette, but it does help to predict what the mixed color will look like when it's laid down on the canvas.

Tags: art painting landscape painting artist plein air

Pochade box

Clouds and rain have been rolling in, so no plein air these last couple of mornings. I have plenty to do in my studio as I'm getting some new work together for a show, so it works out fine. In the meantime I thought I'd focus this morning's post on my one of my plein air setups. There are TON of options out there for plein air painters--everything from pochade boxes to classic French easels and beyond. Early on I had a full size French easel, but I found it to be too heavy for me, and I hated all of the wingnuts. Inevitably one would end up falling off during transport and without that wingnut to secure the easel leg, you're pretty much out of luck. If I ever did get another French easel, I would probably go for something like the Julian half box which is much lighter weight and not so cumbersome, in my opinion.

I currently work with two plein air setups for oils. One of them, my pochade box, I use quite often. Here is a picture of my pochade box:

I hang a roll of paper towels from a bungee cord on the front handle, and a grocery bag also to hold my spent paper towels. My paints, thinner, and medium store below the sliding palette, and my canvas stores in the lid.

A pochade is a French term meaning "quick sketch" and refers to the color studies that artists would create in the open air often for later reference in the studio. Original pochades were popular with 18th and 19th century landscape painters. They were small "cigar boxes" with hinged lids. Like my pochade box pictured above, the lid served as an area to hold the canvas or panel, and the bottom part of the box was used to store paints and a palette. It was a very simple affair and small enough to hold in your hand, sometimes with the use of a little thumb hole cut into the bottom of the box.

Currently pochade boxes range in sizes from 6x8" to 12x16". Prices for pochade boxes range widely, but if you are handy it is possible to make your own, as the design is really very simple. As for me, I am NOT handy like that!

I bought this little 9x12" pochade box online and I like it quite a lot. It weighs about 5 1/2 pounds, and with optional accessories can hold canvas panels from 6x8" on up to about 16x20". It has a tripod mounting plate on the bottom side to mount onto a camera tripod. My brand is a Bogen Jr. Manfrotto tripod, which is lightweight but sturdy.

I am constantly trying to find ways to compact and lighten my setup, but right now I carry all of my supplies in a large tote bag that I purchased from LL Bean (shown just behind my tripod). It works okay for short distances and for flat areas where you can just strap it onto a rolling luggage cart, but if I'm hiking in the mountains, probably not. In that case, I'd probably benefit from paring things down a bit.

Tags: art painting landscape painting artist plein air

Plein air outing (04/11/06)

I woke up this morning to a perfect, cool spring day so I set out early to do a little plein air painting. I experimented with a very limited palette, which was definitely challenging for me, especially when painting outdoors. My colors were three versions of the primary colors, (yellow red and blue, appearing as cadmium yellow pale, alizarin crimson, and ultramarine blue on my palette) plus white. I also added a fourth paint color, pthalo green, which is a highly tinted transparent warm green that can be used to mix a variety of colors beyond just green. My aim is to do some smaller paintings (pochades) as often as I can this spring and summer. On a sunny day, I find that I can only work on one scene for about two hours a session because beyond that the light has changed too drastically. By staying small I can do studies and cover the canvas within a limited amount of time. Small paintings also require you to paint loosely, as they cannot take a lot of detail unless you use a tiny brush. The whole idea for me though is to paint loosely and sharpen my ability to capture accurate color notes and the light effects in nature, not to render everything in a precise manner.

Here is the resulting 8x10" painting I did:

This is a redbud tree sitting along the banks of a little pond at a park near my house. It is definitely loose, but I will need to practice more with the limited palette as I did not get the contrast in the values, nor the colors quite as vibrant as I would have liked. Even so I think it is worthwhile to experiment with the limited palette as a way of really learning more about color mixing. 

I think this is probably about 1 1/2 hrs. worth of work. It may have taken a little less time if some of the park attendants had not come by wanting to chat. It was probably around 10 a.m. by the time I really got into it, and the light moved very quickly. I started out with my easel in full shade and ended with up with my canvas sitting entirely in the glaring sun, which made it hard to see anything. For this reason I decided it was time to pack up. Many people erect an umbrella over their work space to deal with this problem of moving light and shadow. With both the canvas and the palette in the shade, it is easier to see your colors. Dappled light or direct sunlight on the canvas and/or palette makes it very difficult to see and mix anything. I do have an umbrella but I was too lazy to bother with it today. That'll teach me!

I haven't decided if I will do any more with this painting, or if I will just keep it as a reference and as a learning exercise. I don't want to do too much, but I may see if I can push the values (the lights and darks) a little more. In any event, even if some of my plein air paintings never reach the "finished" stage, they are worthwhile for the experience of honing my observation skills.

Tags: art painting landscape painting artist plein air

Digital Cameras

I had some inquiries at my recent workshop about the kind of digital camera I use, so I thought I would post that information here:

What I use is a Canon G5 Digital Camera . I am no expert on these kinds of things, but I did a lot of research before purchasing, and this is a good 5 mega-pixel camera. At the time of purchase it was NOT cheap, but it had the highest number of mega-pixels on the market in an attainable price range. This is no longer so. There are many other very good cameras on the market, but the G-5 is still very good, so I will have to stick with this one for a while longer.

It is not compact, but more like a traditional body single lens reflex camera. This is something I will need to reconsider in the future because I travel so much and now long for something more compact. It does have a good zoom and can shoot macros (for close up shots) which were the two criteria that were high on my list of priorities. But it is not good at all for action shots (something I don't really need for landscapes and city shots).

The only thing I really don't like about my camera is the lens cap. It would be much better if it had an automatic retractable lens, as the cap can sometimes fall off and you end up needing to clean the lens a lot. (I had a time when I was in Italy trying to figure out how to say, "do you have any lens paper?" in Italian. I think I ended up saying like "Do you have anything for to clean this?" pointing at my lens.) This problem may have been remedied in the next generation of this camera though. There is a newer version out now (the Canon G6  ) that has 7 megapixels. There are also other cameras that have 8 MP and more, so one has a lot of choices, depending on the budget of course. Basically the more MP's you have the higher resolution images you can shoot. The G5 has been discontinued, but is still sold through various outlets. Here is a VERY detailed review of the G5.

You can read more about newer Canon cameras, including the next release of my model (the G6) here.
If you have an opinion about a good digital camera with good zoom and macros, feel free to post a comment about it!

Studio Work

Even though yesterday was the first day of spring, it is still pretty cold here. The days are actually varying wildly in temperature, which is typical for March in Richmond. Today temperatures will top out in the mid 30's, but by the weekend it is supposed to be in the upper 60's. Anemones, daffodils, cherry blossoms and forsythia are everywhere, and yet weather reports are actually calling for snow.

So, for a while longer I rely on my sketches and photos to inform my work. I work in the summer months in the studio too, but in warmer weather I can also break out for mornings painting and sketching in the open air. There is nothing quite like working from life. But when conditions are not ideal (or when you have long departed from your subject matter), I have devised (with my husband Dave's computer help and expertise) a way of working in the studio that exceeds working from printed photos.

When I travel to my painting destinations, I take literally thousands of digital pictures. I take shots both up close and far away, and I also shoot the same scene from several different angles if possible. The benefit of shooting digital is that I don't need to buy loads of film, and then worry about whether it will survive going through the x-ray machines at the airports. I can also see my images immediately and delete the ones that are clearly deficient.

When I get home I save my images onto a CD and work directly from a computer monitor that sits next to my easel. As it is, even digital photography is still one generation removed from nature. When an image is then printed off onto photo paper, the scene is even further removed. Printed photos tend to further wash out light areas and blacken out the darkest shadows, so a lot of detail is lost.

Viewing the images directly in digital form on my monitor allows me to see them in a truer light than if I had to print them off. Another advantage is that I can zoom in on a segment of the photo to see more detail--something not possible with printed photos. Of course you have to have taken the picture at a high enough image resolution in the first place, so I have a number of flash cards that hold a lot of large pictures. If traveling for extended periods it is even a good idea to download images along the way to CD or laptop, if possible, so that you have more room on your flash card (or memory stick) to take more pictures!

Here is my monitor/easel setup: