Elkhorn Creek with the Plein Air Painters

This morning the Plein Air Painters of the Bluegrass met at Elkhorn Creek close to Peak's Mill for a morning paint out thanks to Betty BeShoar who secured permission from the landowner for us to set up along the creek.
The creek is always a beautiful place to work but I was especially interested in getting in some plein air practice because of my upcoming project. The Kentucky Department of Parks has generously granted me hotel space at 9 of the state parks. While staying at the parks I will be creating plein air drawings of the beautiful landscape. KY Parks are known nation-wide for their beauty and hospitality.
From those sketches I will create larger works which along with the initial sketches will appear in my show at Artists' Attic in Februray 2013.
So here are 2 sketches from this mornings plein air practice session.

"Elkhorn Creek May Morning" 8"x12" plein air drawing on Wallis sanded paper

"Elkhorn Splits" 12"x8" plein air drawing on Wallis sanded paper

Shaker Home East

Today I delivered 10 new pastels to Shaker Village at Pleasant Hill, KY for a 3 person show with Bob Sanford and Dan McGrath. Shaker Village staff will hang the new pieces in the dining room this coming Friday. So while I was there I created this drawing of the east end of Shaker Village -- and I had a lovely lunch with Bob and Dan.

Back to changes. I think this image is a bit blurry. Guess I didn't hold the iphone steady enough but it's hard for me to tell because I had laser surgery yesterday as a follow up to cataract surgery and things are still a bit blurry. Isn't the world amazing now. Laser surgery one afternoon, no restrictions and off to Shaker Village the next day.

Things change so quickly but when I visit Shaker Village it's like life stood still. I like that feeling of quiet. It's very necessary when our world is spinning too fast.

"Shaker Village Home East" 8"x12" pastel on sanded pastel paper

Changing Winds

I've been vacationing in Spain visiting my daughter and haven't been to this site for much too long. Looks like some things have changed and it's funny that the image I created today at Shaker Village is titled "Changing Winds."
So let's see if I can get this blog created and correctly posted.
Along with changes to the blogspot software, I'm having trouble getting my images from my Canon camera to load up in the computer which may have something to do with the new Epson printer I installed. Gr-r-r, I'm not a techie. :-(
Not that you really want to read about this except to say that if the images look different it's because I have to shoot the pastel using my iphone camera which is actually a pretty good camera, then email it to myself to get it into the imac.

"Changing Winds" 12"x8" pastel on sanded paper

Rockcastle County Hike

"No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artists." - Oscar Wilde
In last Saturday's pastel workshop I demonstrated the oil wash method and created "Rockcastle County Hike". The colors are different from the "step by step" that I made for the students to follow and appears in the previous blog. 
The blue sky wasn't very interesting in the "step by step" so I decided to change it to a warm color to coordinate with the warmer fall colors. That created a problem with the color of the birch trees which have very light bark and in the step by step I used a peach color which now is the same color as the sky. Gray was too dull and the tan color was much too brownish so I used a very light lavender over those 2 colors plus edged one side with a cream color for the edge of sunlight.

This is my reference photo taken 25 years ago and it's faded which is good because that gives me more incentive to invent the colors

Before I apply the oil wash a sketch was created on the sanded paper using a soft pencil.

"Rockcastle County Fall" 16"x20" in sanded paper with an oil wash underpainting

 This is the final piece. Compare these colors to the "step by step" colors in my previous blog.

Rockcastle County demo

For my next pastel workshop at Artists' Attic I'm demonstrating an oil wash underpainting before applying the pastel on top.
Richard McKinley is the king of oil washes and he's so skilled with the underpainting that many times he leaves quite a bit of the oil wash showing.
In this example you can see that I have covered almost all of the oil wash-not as skilled with my underpainting as Richard McKinley. However there is still an advantage to the oil wash method.
When an underpainting is created with a very thin application of oil paint, thinned to a stain with turpentine, the initial application of pastel sticks like glue to the sanded paper because there is no underpainting of pastel - no layer of pastel to fill up the tooth of the paper.
The layer of pastel is applied with a very light hand watching carefully to allow the creative play of shapes and colors to emerge from the oil underpainting.

Mingo Flats demo

In the second of a series of Saturday workshop I demonstrated "Mingo Flats Road". First, the students were asked to study the reference photo and see how I manipulated the image to create a better composition.
Here's the reference photo, the sketch and the final pastel created for the step by step demo.
I chose to move the large trees and the house back into the middle ground closer to the background to give room to the mountain and create a sense of the largeness of the mountain.
However, I strayed from the value study of the sketch by making both trees the same value. If I stayed true to the value sketch the tree on the left side of the road would have appeared even further back into the picture plane. And in the value sketch the further back mountain looks as if a storm has darken it with the foreground still in sunlight.
I may have to try this again and I do like the telephone poles - also eliminated from the final piece.

"Mingo Flats Road" 8" x 12" demo on LaCarte sanded paper

"End of the Day"

"An artist's world is limitless. It can be found anywhere, far from where he lives or a few feet away. It is always on his doorstep." Paul Strand
As you know I love working at Shaker Village Pleasant Hill, KY. Last fall I snapped the photograph for this scene and after looking at it often I've finally decided to take it on. I'm interested in the evening light at the end of the day and how it plays along the edges of the horses and buggy driver with the dark barn in the background producing a perfect contrast to the light.
This piece will be in my one person show at Artists Attic in February 2013. My goal is to produce at least 2 new pieces per month along with the pieces I have to create for the art fair circuit this year. That's why I'm starting now!

"End of the Day" 18" x 24" pastel on Wallis sanded paper