These three turned out pretty well, if I do say so myself, which I just did.
Don’t be scared; these will also turn out well.
Simply Home
CACHE Gallery hours are Fridays 1:30-4:00, Saturdays 10:00-4:00, Sundays noon-4:00.
Three Finished, Two Begun
Painting in the Workshop
Most artists paint in their studios. I reserve my studio for drawing and business-ish activities and do my painting in the building next door, a workshop. This is because painting is messier than drawing.
I started with the commissioned piece which is now called Tom-ato’s Last Mater. A man named Tom was known for growing heirloom tomatoes, and this 1-1/2 lb. specimen was the last one he produced before succumbing to a terrible disease. His wife asked me to paint it for her, and I gladly complied.
Next I decided to make a couple of small 6×6″ fruit-on-the-tree paintings for the Mural Gallery, which has reopened in Exeter after a summer of revamping, refurbishing, and redesigning. Things have changed since it opened 20+ years ago. Back then, it was called the “Mural Gallery” because only Exeter’s muralists could show and sell there. Now we are old (and some have died), so it has opened up to other artists in the area. In addition, the artists who show and sell there have been asked to work one shift a month. (I had mine on October 24 last month.)
The shapes and backgrounds went quickly on these, and I saved the details for another day.
After hanging these on the pegboard hooks to dry a bit, I looked out the window at the studio garden and saw these marauders destroying the foliage. Welcome to Three Rivers, where gardening is war.
At least I have something completed and not destroyed to show for an afternoon’s work in the painting workshop. Yes, I signed it and painted the edges red, so it just needs to dry before getting scanned and then shipped to Florida.
SIMPLY HOME
CACHE Gallery hours are Fridays 1:30-4:00, Saturdays 10:00-4:00, Sundays noon-4:00.
SOMETHING IMPORTANT: Tuesday, November 12, 6:30-7:30, I will give a demo/talk called How To Draw at CACHE. Contact me if you are interested, because seating is limited.
Plein Air or Studio?
This is Asilomar State Beach, the first place I set up an easel to paint plein air, which means feet in the sand, wind in my hair, hair in my eyes, and easel fighting gravity.
This is my painting of Asilomar Beach, brought into submission in the confines of my painting workshop (i.e. studio).
This is Carmel Beach, voted the most beautiful beach in California or the US or ???, as first painted while sitting on a park bench, balancing a pochade box on my lap with my palette of paints on the bench beside, all the while wishing I was down on the sand with my feet in the water, minus the painting.
This is my painting of Carmel Beach, brought into submission in the painting workshop, with the able assistance of some photos where things hold still for a pair of minutes and color can be actually seen rather than squinted and guessed at in the bright sun (or deep shade)
But I’m perfectly neutral on the topic, as you can see.
P.S. At the opening reception of my show Simply Home, an acquaintance of many years said to me, “I’m going to tell you something that will make you mad.” Then he proceeded to say, “You draw better than you paint.”
What would he have said if he’d seen my plein air paintings before I retouched them??
Simply Home
CACHE Gallery hours are Fridays 1:30-4:00, Saturdays 10:00-4:00, Sundays noon-4:00.
P.S. This painting is the one chosen for the publicity for the show. Yes, it is oil on wrapped canvas, but I’m tired of typing that and fairly certain that you are tired of reading it too.
A Studio Painter, for Certain.
The week in Monterey was a great enjoyable time, and also a real learning experience. So many beautiful things to paint, it almost didn’t matter if we drove anywhere or just stayed put.
Plein air has never appealed to me, and it was stinkin’ hard, but I think I got better as the week progressed. I don’t love the process or the results enough to invest in a good easel/tripod set up (those run $700-$1000!) I’m still not convinced that it improves one’s skill; maybe it does if plein air is the preferred style, but honestly, I look at those paintings by people who are a Big Deal and think that someone needs to find a good optometrist.
So, I am fully committed to being a studio painter. It is good to have decided who I am, finally, at age 65, after 18-1/2 years of oil painting. Maybe someday I’ll get a wild hare and try to paint quick, thick, and sloppy slick (but I may not sign those).
However, I don’t consider the time spent painting plein air as a waste of time. It taught me a way to paint a little bit faster, how to focus more on the composition, that my easel was a major annoyance, and now I have the ability to paint plein air, should anyone ask me to do so (more for the process than the product).
You may have heard me profess my love of the beach in the past a time or two. I ordered a stack of snapshots of the beach and waves, along with some smooth 5×7″ boards (called “gessobord”) to practice painting waves and beach scenes. IN THE STUDIO!! FROM PHOTOGRAPHS!
BECAUSE I AM A STUDIO PAINTER!
So there.
Simply Home
Before the Solo Show “Simply Home”
Today’s post is a bit behind reality, a peek into what happened before the show was hung or opened.
When I got home from Monterey, I had to dive into getting all my work together to deliver to CACHE, the gallery hosting my solo show, “Simply Home”.
More than anything, I wanted to detail and finish those 10 plein air beachy paintings. Alas, even when one is a certified grown-up, one does not get to do just what one wants to do. Part of being a real grown-up is being trustworthy, responsible, and following through.
Phooey. So, I boxed up everything, and with Trail Guy’s master’s degree in packanology, we loaded the good pick-em-up truck, and delivered it all to Exeter.
When we got home, I faced some unfinished canvases.
First, there is the fact that Kaweah Arts has sold out of the tall paintings of sequoias and has been waiting for at least one for several weeks. This still is not quite finished here because it needs a signature, the edges painted, to dry, and then it needs to be scanned.
Another painting has been on hold for awhile. Initially I was going to push to get it done for Simply Home, until I realized that if a customer insists on taking home a purchase, I’d better have something ready to plug into that hole.
I started this painting in June.
It seemed daunting until I mixed up the colors and realized that I can DRAW with my paintbrush, using PHOTOS instead of standing outside wishing that the water would just hold still for a pair of minutes.
Yes indeedy, I am a studio painter and probably always will be.
Simply Home
CACHE Gallery hours are Fridays 1:30-4:00, Saturdays 10:00-4:00, Sundays noon-4:00.
Plein Air Painting in Monterey: One Last Peek
Among the 100 or so folks in Monterey at Fall Color Week, there were fantastic painters along with rank amateurs: my work fell solidly in the middle. I am a studio painter, and this whole thing stretched me. I could go on and on about what I learned, but I suspect that if you are not an artist, it will cause you to click off this page, maybe (horrors!) even unsubscribe (but ask me privately if you have questions about the value of plein air painting).
And then there are my paintings. I did 10 total, but only showed 8 of them in the room where we placed them each evening.
And thus we conclude our long series of blog posts “Plein Air Painting in Monterey”.
Now we can return to our regular blogging topics, and maybe I’ll actually finish some of these paintings to where I might confidently put them up for sale.
Simply Home
Here is today’s painting, done in the studio (because I was NOT going to carry my bad easel 4 miles), for Simply Home, a solo show at CACHE.
CACHE Gallery hours are Fridays 1:30-4:00, Saturdays 10:00-4:00, Sundays noon-4:00. 125 South B Street, Exeter, California
Plein Air Painting in Monterey: Sunset and Sundries
Although I am still going on and on about the week of plein air painting in Monterey, now that Simply Home has opened, I will show a painting from the show each day until I either run out of paintings or run out of days.
Each evening I ate dinner quickly, grabbed a to-go cup of decaf coffee, and scooted down to the beach for a little time before our evening gathering sessions. Everyone loves sunset at the beach in California, but most people stayed at the tables conversing and having dessert. It was just too loud in there for me, and the beach was calling.
I never did see the green flash because the sky was never clear in the west. Besides, I’ve never seen the green flash and wonder if it really exists or if it is like Sasquatch.
These photos are beautiful, but in Plein Air World, it is VERY BAD to paint from photos. You may use them for reference, but if you aren’t painting on location, your paintings will be SUBSTANDARD. So there.
(Oh yeah? Whatcha gonna do about it, eh?)
There were a few oddities that caught my eye throughout the week. (I used “sundries” in the title because of the alliteration.)
This car was parked near me when I sat on a wall painting. A very dressed up young woman appeared briefly, but I was too engrossed in my work to figure it out. Probably engagement photos.
This was behind the counter where we got our meals.
This house was next to the building where we had our Rah-rah sessions, and one evening it was lit up like this. Too bad about the car in front. I could paint it; our Fearless Leader told us to only paint houses when there are clearly cars there to indicate that the owner is home, because then you are likely to sell the painting! I was too busy to stand around painting houses.
Simply Home
Here is painting #1 from Simply Home.
CACHE Gallery hours are Fridays 1:30-4:00, Saturdays 10:00-4:00, Sundays noon-4:00.
Plein Air Painting in Monterey: Friends
As we spent time painting or at meals or meetings, we gradually got to know one another and learn names, although there was a lot of name-tag reading all week long. I met John Lynch of Toronto on the first day, so his name got cemented into my overloaded memory.
John spent several mornings working on the same painting. The last morning, I almost shouted, “YOU NAILED IT!”, but I managed to keep my voice down, and he graciously talked to me about the importance of plein air painting. I wish I had recorded his wisdom.
Liesel, my Roomie, cranked this out in one manic session. It sold immediately, and she will be making prints. Here is her website: Liesel Lund Fine Art She is a terrific painter who approaches art entirely differently from me, absolutely committed to making “joyful impressionist” work, which fits with her joyful personality. This is my favorite of her paintings, and although I hinted outright, she didn’t turn it into a roommate gift. (We are exchanging calendars of our work for 2025.)
Eric Rhoads, our fearless leader, is possibly the highest energy, most positive can-do (and does it all) man I’ve ever met. He is the publisher of Plein Air and Fine Art Connoisseur magazines, a producer of how-to painting videos, author of an art business book (out of print), organizer of plein air expos and retreats, and those are only the things that I remember off the top of my head.
I met another Jana, whose last name I never learned. She noticed my name tag and introduced herself on Day 5. We were just tickled to run into someone else with the same not-so-usual name, but I never saw her again. Her husband was there to film an instructional video for Streamline Publishing, and I only got his first name of “Frank”.
Simply Home
And one more reminder of Saturday’s show opening:
Plein Air Painting in Monterey: Sunrises
We were a group of about 100 people at Asilomar, plein air painting together, walking on the beach together, having meals together, meeting together in the morning and the evening, and sharing living quarters (unless we paid an additional astronomical fee for a private room).
With a crowd of enthusiastic painters, I had to work to find solitude. So, I walked on the beach or on the road overlooking the beach every morning. Sometimes I saw other people with our style of name tags, sometimes painting or walking, but also a handful of other morning folks along with surfers.
Tomorrow I’ll show you some of the new friends I made.
Meanwhile, back to the future:
Architecture at Asilomar
Many of the buildings at Asilomar were designed by Julia Morgan, the architect best known for designing the Hearst Castle in San Simeon. She is also known for many fine buildings in Berkeley, AND a building at the Springville Hospital (for TB) here in Tulare County, now torn down due to earthquake standards.
Roomie and I were assigned a room in The Stuck-up Inn.
Our room was shockingly small for two people and all the painting gear. The room assignments were a mystery, because some of the people who paid for a single room had rooms that were much larger. Weird.
It had rooms around a central courtyard, where I sat to paint one afternoon after I had a fight with my easel.
I thoroughly enjoyed the living room each morning before the sun came up. It was a place to be alone (so thankful no one else thought of hanging out there!), to stretch, to read, and to experience some solitude before taking a pre-breakfast walk at (or on) the beach and joining the teeming mass of painters.
In spite of the space limitations, I was completely charmed by the age and the details of the building. As Roomie said, it forced us to spend more time out painting. I was very thankful for the fact that we were so compatible.
Next time, I will show you photos of the sunrises and other things that caught my attention in this week of painting in Monterey.
Meanwhile, back to reality: