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Sightseeing in Georgia

After class on day 2 and before class on day 3, I went driving around, looking for things, taking in all the sights. I love exploring!

There is always time to look at wildflowers.

Laurel told me this church, which was in the Eugenia Price novels, was a must-see. When she said Eugenia is buried in the adjoining cemetery, I asked for directions. Something was happening inside the church, so I didn’t go inside.

I wondered around among the graves, but didn’t take many photos. It was tempting, because I saw a plot called “Graves” and another one called “Coffin”. There was also one called “Outlaw”. These were people’s names, of course.

I met someone who showed me what I was looking for.

The next morning I drove through the Victorian neighborhood of Brunswick, just being a looky-loo. It isn’t often I get to see such fabulous houses or such a variety of architecture, so I was definitely gawking.

For sale. I wonder how much they are asking. I ducked it (DuckDuckGo is my preferred search engine) and saw there are 800-1600 homes for sale there. Not gonna find this one easily.

Churches on every corner. I didn’t have time to capture them all, but none were the plain-Janes of Tulare County.

I couldn’t figure out the meaning of this. Finally my host explained it to me. It means that bridges ice up sooner than the roads do.

These flowers were profuse and beautiful. I bought a wildflower guide to learn the name. None of the people I was hanging out with had much interest in wildflowers, definitely not the way we have been going gaga in Tulare County this spring.

Marsh, marsh, marsh. This is one of the draws of the area. What’s the difference between a marsh and a swamp? Do people go wading out in the marshes? Are there wildflowers out there? wildlife? Do people drown? So many questions.

My wildflower guide was grossly inadequate.

But, it did have the name of this beauty, an unfortunate moniker of “Spiderwort”. What??

Afternoon Painting at an Estate

Some of this will look familiar to you, since I did a rudimentary blog post while still in Georgia. Boy oh boy am I glad to be back with my laptop!

This is the continuation of the post on Monday about painting at the private estate on St. Simons Island. There were many possibilities, but I knew the clock was ticking so I needed to make a quick decision. I love architecture, so the back of the house won.

The formal garden with a maze was tempting.

This giant oak with wisteria winding up its trunk was interesting.

The moss was very interestingly weird, but would have been impossible to paint.

Simpler angle, and I could ignore the trees in the way.

Finished? I don’t know, because it looks so messy.

This is the front of the house. There was so much to see, and too little time.

Success at Home

Finally, I painted something plein air at home that I like! There are so many elements to making a successful painting, and when you throw in the idea that it is a subjective type of thing, where every viewer has a different opinion, how can a painting ever be judged successful or unsuccessful? De gustibus non est disbutandem which means “it is useless to argue over matters of taste.

Still green, and new blooms in the yard.

There must be something here that I can organize into a decent composition.

Yes, I’d rather be in that little building with my pencils, but sometimes we have to parent ourselves to do the harder things with the better results in the long term.

Yea! I like it! Comb Rocks look a little bit wrong in their shape and I had a hard time determining the darkness of the shaded side and the lightness of the sunlit side. But I think this one is a painting to be proud of in my developing plein air style.

Success!

Morning at an Estate

On day two of the plein air painting workshop, we were admitted to a private estate on 1000 acres on St. Simons Island. We drove about 1-1/2 miles behind a locked gate to reach the grounds of the home. Out of respect for the homeowners, I will eliminate many specifics but will show you photos.

We began the day with a tour by the caretaker, and then were set free to find a place to set up. This time we were on our own; Laurel didn’t tell us where or how to paint, although she circulated among us the entire time (and collapsed my beast of an easel on one visit!)

A couple of original Andy Warhol paintings, Jimmy Carter and Miss Lillian. (Remember, we were in Georgia.)

Oklahoma Judy, Georgia Bill, and Florida Marty discuss the various possibilities for painting.

This looks like a little canal, but sizable boats went past as we were painting.

The pool was about 1/5 full of greenish water.

After wandering around gawking, I chose this view. It was shady beneath the pergola of the pool house.

After lunch, we put the final touches on our paintings and then chose a new location for the afternoon.

And the grandkitties were just fine back at home.

Plein Air at Home

We interrupt this travelogue to bring you more examples of practicing and putting to use the skills I learned in Georgia.

The Kaweah Post Office was awful. I spent more time on it in the painting studio.

Better. The colors didn’t photograph very true. And would you believe I lost 2 palette knives while I worked on this by the side of the road? How annoying.

The next time, I set up inside the painting workshop with the giant doors open up to the outside. This one turned out a bit better than the P.O.

It started out in the usual scary manner.

Am I finished? Who can say except Laurel, and she isn’t here. Looks kind of messy to me.

Finally, in preparation for an upcoming exhibit called “Seascapes”, I went through my photos of beach scenes and chose one to try in the plein air method. This means painting quickly, front to back, dark to light, and finishing in one session. Have you ever heard of someone doing plein air painting from a photo? I haven’t.

Beginning with color in the front. I love blues and blue-greens.

I incorporated my own techniques for getting things more accurate. I wonder if Laurel would be banging her head against the wall at my rebellious ways.

This one was completed while listening to Willie Robertson of Duck Dynasty get interviewed by Donald Miller. He talked a lot about having fun, and I had fun while painting this. Will I have the courage to enter this in “Seascapes”? More will be revealed.

Kaweah Post Office oil painting

Exploring and Sightseeing

First, an update.

Trail Guy wanted me to show you Scout and the grandkitties as they appeared yesterday. They are almost 2 weeks old now.

Now, back to Georgia. It took some focused discipline to concentrate on painting a new way when there were so many new sights to see. I was a good student, but I was eager for the next stage of exploring the area after class.

I want to know how many of the outbuildings were slave quarters, now referred to as “tabby cabins” because of the building material, called “tabby”.

This was not a fancy plantation house; the owners had their fancy home in Savannah.

The wildflowers weren’t profuse like they are in Three Rivers and most parts of California right now, but they were present.

Fresh flowers on the mantel of the fireplace in the building that housed the bathrooms.

I took the official tour of the plantation house. Our guide was knowledgable but less than vigorous, so the outbuildings were not included.

The rooms felt crowded to me. This is probably because we are giants compared to the era when those folks were alive.

Someone spent many hours knitting this bedspread, but what else was there to do, besides tell slaves what to do? So hard to imagine that life.

On the way to Laurel’s house after we painted, she dropped me off at the beach. THE ATLANTIC OCEAN BEACH!

It rained on me while the sun was also shining. I was ridiculously happy about it all.

Lots of weird jellyfish, and I only found 3 shells, which I left on the railing when I put my shoes back on.

After our visit at Laurel’s house, where she gave me a much needed private lesson in brush washing (how have my brushes survived my ignorance all these years?), I went to find the lighthouse that was featured in Eugenia Price’s novels, where I first learned of St. Simons Island. This is not the lighthouse.

THIS is the lighthouse! It is so much fancier than I imagined, all dressed up in a well manicured park area, surrounded by perfectly maintained historic brick buildings.

Look at these shadows on the side of the lighthouse. And you can bet there weren’t perfectly pruned shrubs around it in the era of the book I read.

I wonder if this lightkeeper’s cottage was the original. I wasn’t there during touring hours.

I walked back to the car along the beach, just full of gratitude that I got to be there and see these places.

Travelogue, Continued

On day #2 in Georgia, we gathered at a former plantation to begin painting with Laurel. There were 7 students, from Texas, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Central California. (Yep, I think of Central California as a separate place from the rest of the state.)

The Hofwyl-Broadfield Plantation is a State Historic Site, where rice was grown, and then after Emancipation, the “enterprising siblings of the fifth generation. . . resolved to start a dairy rather than sell their family home”. (Taken from the official handout at the park).

We wandered around doing sketches to get the feel of how to start, and then Laurel demonstrated for us. We followed her lead one step at a time while she circulated among us, offering tips, helps and suggestions for improving our paintings. The most important thing seemed to be setting up in the shade! Yup, humid and buggy, although I was never aware of getting bitten until I was scratching like a mangy dog at bites I didn’t know had happened.

We drove back on a closed road to the main plantation house area.

What is this cool little building?! Oh. It is the bathrooms. The white stuff at the base is old oyster shells – go figure.

Weird cluster of short palms was a common site, ‘though not as common as the sprawling oaks.

The marsh is out there. I wonder if the rice was planted in the marsh. My new friend Cathy is in the foreground, doing her sketches.

Oh wow, I want to see inside the house and inside the buildings and know what they were all used for. And what a dramatic sky!

This is Laurel’s set-up for plein air painting. She is very efficient and paints “all the time”, in her words. One of the many reasons I chose her for my instructor is that she also works from the double primary palette: 2 blues, 2 yellows, 2 reds and white.

We copied. This is my borrowed beast of a french easel with wobbly legs.

Hmmm, this is an ugly beginning, but all of my oil paintings begin ugly so I was not alarmed.

We paused for lunch under the oaks. (There’s my red backpack at the base of my beast of an easel. Trail Guy gave it to me for Christmas in 1986.)

Cathy from Georgia, with Bill from Georgia in the background.

You can see we are all painting the same scene, which is in front of us, but simplified and refined by Laurel. Real life is too full for a little 2-D canvas, particularly in this style of simplified shapes.

That’s all for this painting. Weird for me, but it measured up just fine to Laurel’s and the other participants.

Meanwhile, back at home, Scout and her kitties were just fine.

This was a long post. Tomorrow I’ll show you what I saw after the painting session was finished.

Tried This On My Own

The travelogue is now getting interrupted to show you what happened when I tried plein air painting back home in Three Rivers.

The Kaweah Post Office is a subject which I have drawn and painted many times. I am currently without an oil painting of it, so it is on my list to paint next. “Excellent! I’ll just drive the 6 miles there and set up my easel so I can put what I learned in Georgia into immediate use.”

It was one thing to paint with a group of folks painting along with an instructor; it is another situation all together when most of the people driving or walking past are people you know. (And please, do NOT honk – it is very alarming!) I felt self-conscious and pretentious, but when I looked at my little old Accord, “Fernando”, it brought me back down to reality. And no one has ever died from feeling self-conscious.

My ’96 5 speed 2 door Honda Accord is a tremendous relief after that fancy 2018 Toyota Corolla rental. I couldn’t even work the radio in that unit, and pay no attention to the left foot flailing around, seeking a clutch.

The easel that I borrowed in Georgia was a “french easel”, and it was a beast. (Laurel collapsed it into a pile once when she was helping me!) I have the same type at home, only 1/2 as wide, and it is sturdier than the loaner was.

I began by looking at the PO from several angles and doing the sketches to decide which was best. The angle I liked best was a combination of liking it, and having a place to set up on the narrow shoulder of the road.

That is my little easel with some neighbor’s flag behind. Not much shoulder, but not much traffic either.

Block in the main shapes with Burnt Sienna and French Ultramarine Blue. Yep, did that.

Start putting in the “local color” (Why oh why do artists talk that way??), painting from front to back and dark to light

Keep adding paint. Yeppers, that is painting in a nutshell.

Laurel, where are you to tell me what to do? What to fix? If this is finished or not? I don’t understand when this messy style isn’t regarded by the viewer as messy or unfinished!

Is the painting finished? I don’t know, but I was finished with standing by the side of the road.

A couple of friends stopped by to see what I was doing and said there were some fabulous flowers up the road. Thoughts of those flowers kept me doing my work – seeing them would be my reward.

Satin Bells or Fairy Lanterns? You can decide.

Common Madia (and no, I don’t know how to pronounce it).

This painting is going to get reworked in the studio, no doubt about it. I won’t turn it into my normal almost photo-realistic style, but something needs to be done.

I figured out why I don’t like this style. I’ve been wearing glasses and contacts since I was 8 years old, trying to be able to see details and edges and distinct shapes. Why would I like purposely blurring things? Of course I don’t like it! But, I will continue practicing in this style of painting so that I can paint in Mineral King. Never mind that I don’t want to be working while the entire world is on vacation. It is stupid to not tap into the hoards of visitors, stupid stupid stupid.

So there, Central California artist. Don’t be stupid. Keep trying this at home. You can look at wildflowers when you are finished.

Want to buy a wildflower book? 😎 The signing will be on Saturday, April 27, noon – 4 p.m. at the Three Rivers History Museum.

Fancy in Georgia

Today is my 11th blogiversary!

Now that I have a little distance from my trip to Georgia, I am beginning to sort out all I saw and experienced and learned. In retrospect, everything seemed fancy to this Central California artist/bumpkin. I don’t get out much, other than an occasional Alaskan cruise (2013) or a trip to Israel (2016).

I rented a car in Florida. Florida?? Yeppers. Never been there before. Lots of thoughts about new “economy” cars, which are far to fancy for my liking, and my left foot kept flailing around, seeking the clutch. Never did master the radio.

This lovely 1937 home is where I stayed with my new friends, who now feel like family. It wasn’t fancy, but it was simply gorgeous and gorgeously simple.

I sat under this giant mossy oak to wait for someone to come home after I locked myself out of their house, because I didn’t understand the fancy little gizmo on the door or how to get through the fancy automatic gate on foot.

The main street of Brunswick is very well preserved and landscaped.

Ever seen a green lizard? It is called an anole, “uh- NO-lee”. (Our lizards are fancy too, if you flip them over and see their blue bellies.)

This isn’t fancy, but it is impressive, on the campus of the fifth oldest high school in the country. The name is fancy: Glynn Academy. “Academy”? Yeppers.

This simple window felt almost familiar and friendly after all the other visual excitement.

All of this was my first afternoon in Georgia, before the plein air painting workshop began. There was a brilliantly designed fancy bridge, but I was driving an unfamiliar fancy car with an unfamiliar fancy phone/camera and didn’t dare try my usual drive-by-shooting-by-feel approach.

To be continued. . . tomorrow we begin painting plein air. Because I am back on my laptop, I can size the photos correctly, keep them upright, and type like a full-fingered humanoid.

Author: cabinart

Book Signing Tomorrow