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Experiments in Paint
Painting is one of the most challenging endeavors. With every subject, and every painting there are new challenges and lessons learned. I think of each painting as a new experiment. This journal documents the journey.Archives
Category Archives: Landscape
Autumn in California
This week it was clear that the painting that I wanted to do involved sycamores. The America’s East Coast has the beautiful fall foliage of the maple trees. Here in California, we get the more subtle golden orange colors of the majestic sycamores. In the last few weeks, sycamores have started to turn.
As you may have noticed, these paintings are in a 1:2 format (they measure 6 x 12 inches). I have been invited to participate in a small paintings show at the Debra Huse Gallery on Balboa Island, (all the paintings must have these dimensions). It will be very interesting to see how other artists tackle both this small size and the interesting shape.
The light colored sycamore trunks have beautiful cool colors. If I accentuate the blues of the trunks, I can more easily reveal the orange of the autumn leaves.
Canyon Light
On Monday, the second day of the Laguna invitational, I decided to paint the fading light of the Laguna Canyon. I had mentioned in a previous post, that when the light changes rapidly, some artists will choose to do a small field study, and then work the painting into a larger size in the studio. Instead of that approach, I chose a smaller canvas, and mixed enough paint to be able to apply the paint rapidly during the 20 minutes or so in which the light effect is visible.
Canyon Light 9 x 12
Thanks to Doug Stotts a fellow artist who happened to be painting on location and took this picture.
Also posted in Laguna Beach, plein air, Sketch
Tagged Dusk, Laguna Canyon, Plein air
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Solitude
Thank you all for coming to the Gala event tonight, at the Laguna Beach Art Museum. It was a lot of fun to see the work of my artist friends. We had a whole week to paint anywhere in Orange County California, and 44 artists brought a lifetime of experience to interpret the landscape.
Many of you who have visited the Crystal Cove Historic district will recognize this iconic little structure, an outpost. It’s color is a beautiful bright sea green that just shines in the daylight. At night, however, everything changes.
Solitude 11 x 14 Oil on linen
The Backyard Shed
I have been painting this week in the 13th Annual Laguna Beach Invitational. Honestly, I feel like I had a rough start. On Sunday, I attempted a painting that felt very forced. Every brushstroke felt labored. On Monday, I was starting to feel a bit apprehensive when I drove to Silverado Canyon with my painting buddy Jim Wodark (who was also painting in the invitational). Behind the old Silverado Cafe, near the creek, we saw some houses underneath a beautiful sycamore tree. The shed in the back had a small sign that said “Dukes’” which I suspect belonged to a horse or a freakishly large dog. I liked the way the clear and cool October light reflected off the various surfaces, including a blindingly beautiful green lawn.
In the end, I chose not to submit this painting, but I really enjoyed painting it. I started to relax and have a much more productive week.
The Backyard Shed 11 x 14
In the Shelter of Cliffs
At the base of a tall cliff, near a small turquoise lake I set up to paint. What drew me to this scene was the large patch of snow which allowed me to focus on the interesting tree shapes. In the foreground a bed of granite with a few solitary boulders sloped to the lower right. The small bit of visible lake is a similar shape as the white snow behind it, and I am not sure if compositionally that works, but I found it intriguing. To get an idea how high the cliff rise behind the lake see the previous post (October 3- Mountain Lake)
In the Shelter of Cliffs 12 x 16 oil on linen
A Mountain Lake
High in the Sierra Nevada mountains, above Mosquito Flats, there are a series of small lakes called the Gem Lakes. These are a cluster of about a dozen tiny lakes. The last of these lakes is at the foot of a huge cliff. In this painting I wanted to show the scale of cliff in relation to the lakes and trees.
A Mountain Lake 12 x 16
Mountain Stream
In Late August, I had the pleasure of Joining a fine group of artists on a pack mule trip to an area near Chickenfoot Lake in the eastern Sierra Nevada near Bishop, California.
Mountain Stream 12 x 16, oil on linen
Photo By Robert Watters
Also posted in plein air
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The Oaks Beyond
By the time I set up to paint, the sun was high overhead, and the shadows had hidden beneath the trees. This view is from near the entrance of the Caspers Wilderness Park looking east. This is a great park. There is hiking, camping, and plenty of wildlife. Despite this, it is not always easy to find a place to paint.
I found myself trying to become more creative about interpreting the color. Instead of a yellow imprimatura , I decided to use a reddish ground. Despite this, I still found myself trying to faithfully capture the colors of the scene before me. A good friend of mine calls the the “tyranny of the real”.
The Oaks Beyond 11 x 14 , Oil on Linen
Besides issues of color, there were other issues to resolve in this painting. The actual scene had a road and some telephone poles. I initially included them in the scene, but found them both too distracting, so I painted them out. The foreground was largely shapeless, so I rearranged some of the shrubbery and created a visual pass to some interesting passages beyond the near oak tree.
Poppies
After numerous days of beautiful sunshine, we had a thickly overcast morning, so my painting buddy and I changed our plans from painting at a regional park in Orange County, to painting in the high desert above the Cajon Pass (Near the highways 138 & 173 junction), in San Bernardino County.
The large tree on the left, was too dominant, so I made it a little smaller.
Latitude: 34.31116725283859 & Longitude: -117.3411512374878
William Wendt
William Wendt, (February 20, 1865 – December 29, 1946), immigrated to the United States from Germany when he was 15 years of age. Originally working in Chicago, he painted formula pictures while he developed as a painter. In 1894 and again two years later he traveled to California. He must have liked what he saw, because after marrying in 1906, he and his wife decided to move to California. Here his paintings changed. Maybe coming to California changed him. Here, the landscape became holy.
He was a founding member of the California Art Club in 1909, and was elected its president in 1911.
He loved nature and perhaps more than any other California impressionist elevated the California landscape to an almost god-like state. In a letter to a fellow artist, he wrote, “One feels that he is on holy ground, in Nature’s Temple.”
From top to bottom:
Creeping Shadows, 1928, oil on canvas, 30 x 36.
Trees, They Are My Friends, 1931, oil on canvas, 24 x 32 inches
Coast of 1,000 Caves, (dated 1941, painted c. 1915) oil on canvas , 40 x 50 inches
References:
California Light: A Century of Landscapes. Jean Stern & Molly Siple. 2011
Also posted in biographical note, impressionism, William Wendt
Tagged Biographical sketch
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Golden West College Group Show
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