Painting Partners

WAY Out of My Comfort Zone

2012-01-20T14:31:00.000-07:00

Posted by Maggie

I love flowers. In the summer, I have containers and hanging baskets of flowers all over the patio, and there are rosebushes and hollyhocks, wisteria and trumpet vines. I take pictures of flowers when traveling, and never miss a chance to visit a botanic garden.

But I almost never paint them, at least not up close. I've done a few pastel paintings where flowers were incorporated, but I've never painted a vase of flowers. Until now.

One of the other instructors who teaches at the New Mexico Art League, Cynthia Rowland, paints wonderful flowers (and portraits, but I'm not going there yet!) in oils. Yesterday, she gave me a long lesson. I spent the day working on my painting, and could hardly sleep last night because I was eager to get back to it. Of course, since I had to wait for the sun to shine again, as I was using only natural light, it was pretty silly to lie awake thinking about it. But I was excited about the first day's work and looking forward to the next.

While painting in oils is not unfamiliar, changing both the subject and the medium was a push. It was just what I wanted, though, in order to break out of my normal patterns of painting.

Painting flowers from life had its challenges—when I went back to the studio this morning, one of the sunflowers had wilted and could not be coaxed back into position, so I had to revise the composition. I'm used to revising compositions in pastel, and was pleasantly surprised that I could make major changes in oil almost as easily. Next time, I'll remember to take a photo of my set-up in case I have a similar problem.

It's not perfect—I see quite a few things I'd like to change or would do differently if I started over—but in general, I'm very happy with my first attempt at a painting of flowers in oils. I can hardly wait until I can go buy more flowers and try another arrangement.

Sunflowers in Blue Vase, 14x11, oil, ©Maggie Price.

Painting Summer in Winter

2012-01-18T11:53:00.002-07:00

Posted by Maggie

It's been cold here in New Mexico, though lacking in snow or rain. Still, one day I decided to warm up a little by painting from a photograph I took in Colorado last summer.

I decided to do something experimental, using the Pastelmat surface. I like this surface, though I'm still getting used to it. I began with a block-in, using only the sides of my pastels, and using very soft pastels throughout. While I often exaggerate or change colors for an underpainting, in this case I stayed fairly close to the local colors, going a bit darker in some areas than what I intended for the final.

Then I washed over each area of color with alcohol. (In this case, I used ordinary rubbing alcohol. Denatured alcohol is a different thing, and I'll write about that later.)

Moving towards realistic color, I developed the painting, still using only the sides of the pastels, and working until I had covered every part of the painting surface with fresh pastel.

My goal for this painting was to keep it loose and lively, so I tried very hard to limit how much detail I added. It was difficult to define the edges of the trees without going to small strokes, but I continued to use fat soft pastels, hoping that would keep me from getting too detailed.

When I got to this point (above right), I wasn't happy with it. So I took the alcohol and brush and washed the whole thing again. I was careful to keep my colors clean and separate, starting with the lighter values and moving towards the dark at the end. The wash softened edges and mingled color (in spite of my best efforts to keep the colors separated). I liked it better, but felt it needed a fresh layer of pastel to liven it up and remove the muddiness created by the second wash of alcohol. (Left, the painting after the second alcohol wash.)

In the end, I still felt it could be looser, but I liked it. I think it was interesting to use a second wash halfway through the painting, and I may do that again with other paintings in the future.

The final painting, below: Summer Solstice, 12x12, pastel, ©Maggie Price.

Finding Time to Paint

2012-01-03T12:05:00.001-07:00

Posted by Maggie

It's embarrassing to start every blog with the admission that it's been too long since I blogged last. So I'm going to skip that and move on.

Since I posted last, we have been away from home more than we've been home. We taught workshops in Scotland (with an extra week there for a vacation, which is pretty rare, since most of our travel involves teaching), in Arkansas, in Spain, in New York City, and in Georgia. We spent Thanksgiving with family in Massachusetts. There were some occasions when we had as few as three days home between trips. It was crazy, hectic, and mostly fun.

Scotland is one of our favorite places in the world. Painting there is wonderful; there are so many subjects everywhere you look. For this workshop we were on the eastern coast, and I fell in love with the harbors and fishing villages. My favorites were Crail and Pittenweem. As always in Scotland, painting outdoors is a challenge. It's often wet, usually cold, and then there are all the usual problems of plein air painting. But it remains one of the places I love most, and love painting. At left, my partially-completed field study of the harbor at Pittenweem.

At our Georgia workshop, I did one of the demonstrations in oil. As readers of this blog know, I've recently returned to painting in oils, though pastel remains my primary medium.

I chose for my subject one of my favorite spots in Scotland, the village of St. Abbs. Bill and I spent a couple of days there before heading to Anstruther for the workshop. It's a place I hope to return to again and again. I have dozens of photos from this wonderful village and from along the seacoast on the walk we took to St. Abbs Head, and hope to paint many of them, soon!
Above, St. Abbs Afternoon, 11x14, oil on canvas, ©Maggie Price.

After a whirlwind of activity, we arrived in Spain in October for the workshop there. We've held five previous workshops in the tiny village of Juzcar, which until just a few months ago was an unspoiled, undiscovered white village in the Genal Valley of Andalucia. Shortly before we arrived in 2011, though, Sony Pictures chose Juzcar as the "home of the Smurfs" to promote the smurf movie. With the agreement of the village, they painted the entire village, every single white structure, smurf blue. The village was overrun with overexcited children most days, and we took more day trips to quieter, white villages, to paint. The village was scheduled to be repainted white, but as of this posting, the villagers have voted to remain blue. So in 2012, instead of going to Spain once more, we're offering a workshop in Italy in October. If you'd like to join us, I believe I can promise a smurf-free zone.

I'd like to close by promising to post more often, but the reality is I'm on deadline for my third art instruction book, so who knows how the next couple of months will go. I thank you for reading, though, and wish everyone a wonderful 2012.

Time Is Flying, Must Be Having Fun

2011-08-08T16:16:00.002-06:00

Posted by Maggie

I was amazed to notice how long it has been since I posted the last blog. Time has flown by faster than ever this year.

I spent much of the spring getting ready for the IAPS convention. This is such a wonderful event, and the 2011 convention was bigger and better than ever, with more instructors, classes, workshops, and of course, attendees. It occupied most of my waking hours for months and then —poof! It was over. It reminded me of Thanksgiving dinner. You know, you shop and plan and cook for days, and then everyone descends upon the table and suddenly it's all gone!

But it's fun looking back at the convention, and I just posted some great photos on the IAPS web site. Check them out.

After recovering from the convention, I taught a workshop in Santa Fe in July, and then at the end of the month, Bill and I both participated in a plein air paint-out in Ouray, Colorado. The "Paint Out on Main Street" is part of their annual Artist's Alpine Holiday. We chose a painting location just off Main, on the bridge over the river, each of us looking in a different direction. We had fun with the 90-minute painting session, and then to my surprise, my painting received the first place award!

Left, Uncompahgre River Bank, 9x12, ©Maggie Price 2011.
Below left, Untitled, 8x10, ©Bill Canright 2011.

We spent a couple of days in Ouray after the paint-out so that I could do demonstrations for the art association, and we enjoyed the high mountains and the village.

Now I'm working on my teaching schedule for 2012. I'm excited to announce several great workshops are lined up already—in New York City, Oregon, Florida, and France. Details about all these are on my web site, and more will be added later, so check back now and then.

And yes, we are having fun!

Class Demo: Animas River painting

2011-03-13T10:58:00.002-06:00

Posted by Maggie

Yesterday was the first day of a six-week Saturday class that I'm teaching at the New Mexico Art League in Albuquerque. In my classes and workshops, I focus on one technique or subject each day. I like to start the session with my favorite (and easiest) underpainting technique, which is to block in the subject loosely and then wash it with Turpenoid. Depending on the subject, I may exaggerate or change the colors, and I often use slightly darker values for the middle- and darkest-value areas, knowing I can lighten them on the next pass of color.

There are many benefits of underpainting, and I begin over half of my pastel paintings with one of the underpainting techniques. In this painting, the underpainting stage allowed me to solidify the compositional changes I was making from my photo reference, and to lay in a good foundation of values and temperature along with hue. Because this was a class demonstration, I was focused on explaining what I was doing as I worked, and forgot to photograph the progression as frequently as I might have if I had been in the studio. The first photo shows the painting after the underpainting was turped and dried, and after I went back in to do some re-drawing with my soft vine charcoal. At this stage, I was pleased with the composition, initial value structure, and the relationship of warm and cool from the background to the foreground water. However, I could see that I would need to make some changes in the colors and temperatures of the rock formations in order to make them read correctly as to position in background or foreground.

As the painting progressed, I concentrated on establishing local color throughout, and on painting the water with its churning wave action in the middle-ground, and the two fall formations. I didn't worry about the background rocks and foliage in this stage, as I knew I would want to imply more than state their forms in order to make them recede. As I painted the foreground water, I worked on the dark and middle values, avoiding any highlights or light values in this middle stage. When I paint moving water, I like to try to feel the movement of the water with my hand, so as to describe the motion more clearly. In the foreground, the warm color of the water is influenced by the color of the reddish rocks beneath the surface, while the deeper churning water in the middle ground is more clearly the silty-gray-green color of the water. Shadows of objects on the land mass in the top left affect the color as well.

In the final stages, I directed my attention to the focal point rocks. As I developed them, I realized that the bluish cast of color on the rock in front of the focal-point rock needed to relate to it more in color and temperature, and the rocks on the right also needed color and temperature adjustments. The dark shadowed crack on the second rock on the right bothered me, so I muted it to help that rock sit behind the other. Once I had the foreground and middle ground well established, I loosely blocked in and adjusted the background, keeping it muted to recede. Finally, I worked over the entire painting, adjusting edges and values. Above left, Animas River, 16x20 pastel, ©Maggie Price (on white Richeson Premium Pastel Surface, applies to gatorfoam).

Now that I am back home, the painting is sitting in my studio where I can glance at it now and then, and watch for flaws or problems that catch my eye. I'll leave it there for a week or two before I decide that it's truly finished. I've already spotted a couple of adjustments I need to make to the water in the foreground, so I'm definitely not pronouncing it done yet!

Class demos don't always turn into paintings worth finishing or keeping—after all, the purpose of a demo is to demonstrate techniques and give information to my students, not necessarily to complete a painting. I'm very pleased with this one as a demo, though, and I think with a little careful attention, it will be worth being framed.

If you're interested in learning more about underpainting techniques, check out my two new DVDs, each of which deals with a different approach to underpainting.

Old & New Technology: Color Charts on the iPhone

2011-02-20T15:33:00.002-07:00

Posted by Maggie

As followers of this blog may recall, while I'm primarily a pastel artist, I have been working in oils again, off and on, for a couple of years. I'm quite enjoying them, and feel I'm making progress in becoming reacquainted with the medium after years away from it.

I'm going to be working with a limited palette while away on a plein air painting trip in the near future. To refresh my memory, and clarify my understanding of how these selected colors interact, I spent some time making color charts. It's a tedious, but pleasurable, task, and I always enjoy seeing the surprises when two colors combine to make a new color that's not quite what I expected.

Once this task was done, I began thinking about how to use them. I'd like them close at hand when I'm painting outdoors, but at the same time, I want to keep my set-up as small and lightweight as possible. And I had a momentary vision of trying to flip through the color chart with one hand while mixing colors with the other, no doubt in a high wind.

I needed some way to make the charts smaller and easier to access. (Click! Light bulb overhead!) I decided to see if they'd work on my iPhone.

Yesterday, I tested the idea. I photographed one chart, resized the image in Photoshop, and then loaded it onto the phone. Amazingly, it worked quite well. The colors are pretty accurate (okay, not 100%, but certainly in the 90s), and when I enlarged the images on the screen of the iPhone, I could even see the grain of the canvas.

Today, I set up better lighting and photographed all the charts. It took about half an hour to photograph them, download to the computer, resize them, and then load them onto the iPhone. They look great! I can flip through them easily, find the color I am looking for, and enlarge to see the handwritten notes as to the colors used.

I still might put the originals in my bag, but I bet I won't use them.

Workshops Past and Future

2011-01-23T21:17:00.003-07:00

Posted by Maggie

Bill and I have just spent some time going through photos of our previous trips to Scotland and Spain to share with people who might be interested in joining us in one of our upcoming workshops.

Foreign workshops are different than ones at home for many reasons beyond the obvious travel to another country. They are a delightful combination of sightseeing and painting instruction, learning the light and lay of the land we're visiting, and enjoying the company of other artists for days on end. The pace of painting is more relaxed than in our indoor U.S. workshops, as we combine painting with sketching photography, and just experiencing where we are.

I love both these locations, Scotland and Spain. We've been to one or both countries to teach workshops almost every year for quite a few years, and yet we're eager to return. For a quick preview of the workshop experience, or just a vicarious visit, read on:

Memories of Scotland

Here are some photos from previous trips and workshops. Some of the fishing villages and coastal scenes are near or among the places we'll go in 2011. We have the minimum number of people needed to confirm this workshop will go forward, but there's still room for more.

Scotland workshop: Anstruther, Kingdom of Fife, August 27-September 7, 2011

We'll base at the Craw's Nest Hotel in Anstruther, one of the beautiful Royal Burghs in the East Neuk of fife. From there, we'll explore the beautiful rugged scenery of the Fife coastline. We'll paint on the grounds and in the gardens of Kellie Castle, in the villages of Pittenweem and Crail, and in the Botanical Gardens at St. Andrews. For a full itinerary, download the pdf brochure. An added bonus: this workshop is sponsored by Jack Richeson & Co., and all your supplies (including pastels, surfaces, easel, carrying bag—everything you could need down to baby wipes and paper towels) are shipped to the hotel for you and back to your home afterwards.

Highlights from Spain

We've taught five workshops based in the tiny village of Juzcar (pronounced Hooth-car), Spain. The village is in the Genal Valley, nestled in the mountains of Andalucia in southern Spain. The hotel is charmingly rustic in appearance but modern in comfort and convenience, and our Cordon-Bleu chef amazes us daily with the wonderful meals. Last year Bill and I visited Sevilla prior to our workshop, to determine if it was a good location to add as a day trip (it was!), and were enchanted by the town and particularly the buildings and garden of the Alcazar Palace, home to the King of Spain. We included photos of Sevilla in this collection from previous years:

Spain workshop: Juzcar, Malaga Province, Spain, October 8-17, 2011

We'll return once more to Hotel Bandolero in Juzcar, one of the pueblos blancos of the Genal Valley. We'll visit other villages in the valley, and take trips as well to Ronda, to paint the famous bridge from a perfect vantage point below, and to explore the town as well. A day in Sevilla, as well as day trips to Zahara and Olvera, both outside the valley, will round out the experience. And let's not forget the flamenco! An evening performance will give the painters dozens of photographs for future paintings. While this hotel is very small and the group size is limited, we still have room for a few more. Download the pdf flyer for complete information.

Spain or Scotland? We are so lucky, we get to go to both places, and I'm sure we'll enjoy the company of some great artists and make new friends in both workshops.

Same Subject, Two Mediums

2011-01-21T09:15:00.001-07:00

Posted by Bill

Before digital photography took over from film I had a lot of experience with darkroom work, product, architectural and and advertising stuff. I knew all about depth of field, ISO etc. These days I am happy to let my little Canon digital do all the thinking. Just point, zoom and click.

Except for family gatherings, all my photography is done with future paintings in mind. Sometimes I am thoroughly underwhelmed by available scenery, but will go ahead and shoot some anyway. Later I'll start cropping the photos and find things I really want to paint. And then, there are exceptional places like the beach at Bandon, Oregon. Our last visit was on a cloudy day, but I shot dozens of frames because the rocks, ocean and atmospheric effects were really exciting.

One of my favorite scenes is shown in the photo at the top of this blog, which I have now painted twice with different approaches. You'll notice that everything in the photo except the sky is almost monochrome black and grey. The first version is an 11x14" on white Richeson Gatorboard with a solid orange underpainting on the bottom third and a medium value ultramarine blue on the top two thirds. I used Ludwig pastels and Turpenoid for the underpainting. I let a lot of the blue show through on the rocks as I added subsequent layers, achieving the rather cold effect that I remember feeling when I was there in the wind. The orange sand added some needed contrast.
Above, Bandon Sands, 11x14 pastel, ©Bill Canright

My next version involved a faux plein air approach where I put the photo at a distance from the easel and worked in acrylic on a 5x7" canvas board. I didn't do any preliminary sketching, just painted "bravura" with three brushes. I strengthened the blue and added enough brown to the rocks to achieve a more sunlit effect.
Left, Bandon Sands II, 5x7 acrylic, ©Bill Canright

Three Out of Four Isn't Bad

2011-01-04T15:12:00.002-07:00

Posted by Maggie

It's January 4 and I've just finished my third small oil of the new year. My resolve/hope/goal was to paint one a day, but already I can see that is going to be difficult. Maybe as the month goes on I can find time to create two on some days and thus catch up. But three paintings out of four days is okay.

These are small—the one I posted on January 2 was 4x6, as is one of these and the third one is 6x6. But I'm enjoying the small format. When I work in pastel, I like to work on large pieces, most of the time, though I do work in smaller formats when I'm outdoors. But these little oils are fun, so far. I don't like to get into a rut, though, so I'll probably try different sizes later on.

This one is actually my New Year's day painting. I had to let it dry so I could add some more warm colors in the foreground and on the sunlit side of the trees. This subject is one I've done on location in pastel. It's on the Ghost Ranch property, not far off the highway, and when I did the plein air piece (and took the photo) I was standing in front of the log cabin. I've probably taken several dozen photos of this mesa over the years, and painted it more than once. This is the first painting of the subject done in oils. Ghost Ranch Mesa, 4x6, oil on panel, © Maggie Price.

Today's painting is a corner of a building we see on our usual walk. We are lucky to have a trailhead that begins just across the street a little to the south, and the trail goes on for about 4-5 miles. If the weather permits (that means no precipitation, and not terribly hot or cold) we walk it most days, going at least 2-3 miles round trip. We also see this mountain range, the Sandias, from our front yard. I watch the mountain every day, and sometimes I think I should just paint it every day and see how many different paintings I could make of the same subject. But for today's painting, the mountain is the background, and the subject is the afternoon light hitting the corner of the adobe and the foliage in front of it. Adobe Glow, 6x6, oil on panel, © Maggie Price. I made a couple of small revisions after photographing it, and as always, may make further changes on either of these after they "rest" for a while.

New Year's Resolution: Paint More

2011-01-02T16:34:00.003-07:00

Posted by Maggie

I have had the same goal, or made the same resolution, every year for so many years I can't remember when I started. It's a simple goal: paint more. But it can be very hard to meet, as I struggle to also meet other goals related to teaching, writing, etc. (Exercise more is always on the list, too, but I'm not going to discuss that one right now.)

This year my goal has a dual focus: paint more in pastel, but also paint more in oils. I started my painting career (or perhaps obsession is a better word) as an oil painter. Once I began working in pastels, I focused on that medium for nearly 20 years. Then I started dabbling in oils again. You can see some of my first completed oils on my Artblog page on my web site.

Now I'm determined to move past dabbling. I'm inspired by people who produce an oil painting every day, or almost every day, and I'm going to work at that. I'm also interested in working small, since I hope to get out to paint some plein air oils, and those are usually—for me, anyway—fairly small.

My first painting of 2011, mostly completed on New Year's Day, has been set aside to dry so I can glaze an area. So you may not see it for a few days yet.

Here's today's piece. It's 4"x6", and done almost all in one session. Left, Incoming Tide, oil on prepared board, ©Maggie Price. I really enjoyed painting this one. Maybe it's the subject—I lived near this particular beach for some years, and loved it, and visit it every chance I get. Actually, any time I get near any beach, I take every opportunity to study waves and how the water moves.

Maybe it was just serendipity that the painting was fun and went well. But I'm going to believe it's a good omen for the New Year and for meeting my goal.

Painting Sunlight & Shadow with Pastels

2010-12-20T10:03:00.000-07:00

Posted by Maggie

I received something really wonderful in my email: the final image of the cover of my new book, Painting Sunlight & Shadow with Pastels. Published by North Light Books, it's due to release in April 2011. Seeing the cover made me even more eager to see the design and appearance of the inside of the book, but I'm trying to be patient. (That noise you hear is me patiently tapping my foot and drumming my fingers on the desktop.)

As you might guess from the title, this book explores the subject of sunlight and shadow in depth: how to understand the way these elements work together to describe form, and how to paint the effects they create. Of course, there are lots of reproductions of my own work, and I wrote most of the text. But in order to give you examples of different approaches and styles, I enlisted the aid of five wonderful artists. They are (in alphabetical order since they are all on the top of my list of artists): Phil Bates, Liz Haywood-Sullivan, Kim Lordier, Richard Lundgren, and Colette Odya Smith. Their stunning artwork and concise explanations of their methods added depth and richness to the book, and I'm grateful to all of them for their contributions.

The book can be pre-ordered (at a very nice savings) from North Light Books, and later when I have them in stock, you'll be able to order signed copies directly from me through my web site. And of course, they'll be available for sale at the IAPS Convention in June 2011, and I'll be doing book-signings there as well.

Writing a book is a long process, and the journey to publication of this book began over two years ago with my first proposals and outlines. I'm very excited that my part of the task is completed, and can't wait to see the printed results!

Finishing a painting

2010-12-04T14:09:00.001-07:00

Posted by Maggie

When I get close to "done" with a painting, I like to let it rest for a few days or a week. It gives me time to move away from the outdoor subject or the photographic reference, and when I come back to look at the painting again, I can judge it based on its own merits without comparing it to nature or a photograph. Usually, whatever's wrong with the painting or whatever could be improved becomes obvious after a little cooling off period.

I do a lot of demonstration paintings in my workshops, and I frequently don't have time for this last analysis and completion of a painting until I get back home days or even weeks later. In mid-November, I presented a demonstration for the Pastel Society of New Mexico, in the facility where their annual National Exhibition was held. About 40-50 people attended this demonstration, and since it only lasted a little over an hour and people had lots of questions, I didn't finish it. The photograph at the left shows what the painting looked like when I stopped.

The following day, I flew to Cincinnati to film two instructional DVDs (they'll be released in February). After returning home, it was time to prepare for Thanksgiving and a family reunion. So it wasn't until a couple of days ago that I was able to begin studying the painting with an eye towards finishing.

The first thing that really bothered me was the shape of the hill. I'd moved the position of the hill over from the photo reference, so that I could see more water. But the shape no longer worked; too rounded, too unnatural. Then, while I was happy with the foreground colors in the weeds, there were too many horizontal strokes, rather than vertical strokes which would imply upright grasses and weeds.

Finally, colors and shapes in several of the trees, including the dead scrubby trees at the far left, needed to be adjusted. At the time I finished the painting, I wasn't sure I'd like the effect of the roughed-in distant mountains, but as time went by, I decided they were just fine as they were. I didn't want them to draw too much attention, but wanted to imply that the trees on those far-away hills also displayed some fall color.

Above, Fall Palette, 16x20 pastel on Richeson Black Sanded surface, ©Maggie Price.

Now it's time to give it a few more days in the "holding zone" to make sure there are no serious problems. There's nothing worse than noticing a fatal flaw after you've framed the painting!

The Value of Organization

2010-11-14T07:29:00.001-07:00

Posted by Maggie

Yesterday I cleaned and reorganized my travel set of pastels. I do this every now and then, but they really need it after a series of workshops in a short time.

I’m picky about the system which I use to organize them, and like to have each stick in its proper section. But in the rush of doing demonstrations, sometimes I put them back in wrong places, and later that will bother me, so I need to rearrange. This time I was surprised at how many sticks had been worn down to little nubs and needed to be replaced.

For travel, I use the backpack size of the pastel box made by Heilman Designs. I like the way it protects my pastels from breakage, and the fact that skinny little sticks can go next to fat ones and both are embraced by the memory foam and held in place. At home, I have a large box divided into the same six-section format.

Some people arrange their pastels by type (hardness or softness), some by brand, and some by hue. I arrange mine by value and temperature. The divisions are as follows, left to right: darkest dark, middle dark, lightest dark, darkest light, middle light, lightest light. Each value section is arranged with warm colors at one end and cool at the other.

Whatever system you use, I think it’s important to be consistent. When you’re painting, you don’t want to spend a lot of time searching for the right stick of pastel. Rather, you want to know where it is, just as you know where the keys are on your computer keyboard, or as a pianist knows where the keys are on the piano.

The reason I like this system is that, when selecting a pastel, I want to think value first, temperature second, and hue last. Getting the proper value and temperature of a pastel is critically important. When those are right, almost any hue will do.

Most beginning artists have some understanding of value—the relative lightness or darkness of a color—but many have trouble with temperature, the perception of a color as warm or cool. Basically, you can analyze the temperature of a color by breaking it down into components. In the three primary colors, red and yellow are warm and blue is cool. So, you put blue at the cool end of the arrangement and yellow and red at the other. Orange is composed of yellow and red, so is warm.

The difficulty comes with colors that are made from both cool and warm components. Purple is made of red and blue, so you have to look at the color and decide whether it’s more red than blue or vice versa. I put the red-purples towards the warm end and the blue-purples to the cool end. Greens are quite ambiguous, so they go in the middle.

I’ll write more about color temperature and simultaneous contrast in another blog.

Organizing your pastels by this system will take a couple of hours. It’s important to remove all the wrappers and break the pastels into pieces an inch or an inch and a half long, so that you can use them on their sides as well as using the tips.

Once they are organized, you’ll begin noticing immediately when a stick is in the wrong place, especially if it’s off by more than a little. The daily exercise of putting the sticks back in the right place and learning to reach to the right section for appropriate value and temperature will improve your perception of both. As your perception of value, particularly, improves, you’ll see it more quickly in the arrangement of pastels, in nature and in photographs, and place it more accurately in your painting.

At the Alhambra Palace

2010-10-09T08:29:00.001-06:00

Posted by Maggie

On Thursday we spent the day at the Alhambra Palace in Granada, Spain. We had pre-arranged artists' passes, so we were able to wander where we wished and avoid the long lines and timed entries we would have had otherwise. In a previous year when our workshop group went to the Alhambra, we were able to paint, but apparently, they decided at that point to not allow easels to be set up again. (If you're interested, you can read about that painting day on the Pastel Journal blog.) So we packed our sketching materials and our cameras, and set off to see what we could see.

The Alhambra Palace perches on a hill overlooking Granada, which looks like an interesting city to visit in itself. Parts of the buildings date back to the 9th century, but it has been continually added to, expanded, revised and remodeled over the years. It was abandoned for a number of years and then further restorations began in the 19th century. At present the restoration of the Lion Court is under way, as it has been for some years. The lions and fountain were placed in their original position in the 14th century, but had deteriorated over time. The restoration has revealed many interesting things about the lion figures, and the ground beneath the fountain contained architectural remnants as well. The lions are now on display in a special room (where no photography was allowed). Once thought to be all alike, the restoration has revealed quite a few differences between them.

The intricate decorations of carvings and tile are fascinating, but do not obscure the underlying architectural structure. I love the arches and doorways, the reflecting pools and the palms and other foliage surrounding them. I like photographing some of these complex architectural elements, though I wouldn't try to paint them!

After we walked for some hours, we went to a wonderful little restaurant for lunch, then walked some more. It became quite a hot day/ we were all tired by the time the bus collected us and the ride back to the hotel was very quiet.

Time passes so quickly in these workshops. We are all trying to absorb as much as possible, and it goes by too fast. But the paintings, photographs and memories of Spain will stay with us for years to come.

Take me to the river

2010-10-08T13:39:00.000-06:00

Posted by Maggie

Much of what we paint in Spain is architectural—whether it's the white walls and red rooftops of the pueblos blancos or bridges or other subjects. So it was a nice break to go out for a day in the campo, or countryside, and paint natural subjects.

The River Genal runs through the Genal Valley and Júzcar, and while it is not a large river, it has some very pretty spots. The place we went to paint also has ruins of an old tin factory, and while that's still an architectural subject, at least it's falling down stone walls and not white villages. In the area around the ruins are orange and lemon trees, and one tree with odd fruits that were finally identified as persimmon, though they didn't look like the persimmons we know at home.

In the morning I painted a demonstration on how to paint moving water and rocks, which was quite fun after all these days of painting buildings. The river was quite shadowed when I began, but as the day went on it got more and more light. It was cool in the morning but as soon as the sun hit, so did the flies. There's always some problem when you're painting outdoors—if it's not too hot or too windy, then there are probably bugs. Or, sometimes, you get them all. But if the painting comes out well, it's all worth it. Left, my demo, Rio Genal, 9x11, Pastelmat, ©Maggie Price.

What makes a plein air painting a success? Well, first of all, I try not to call them paintings, but rather field studies. Calling your work a field study removes the pressure of trying to create a finished, frameable painting, and lets you just get as much information about value, temperature, color and form as you can get before the light changes. And sometimes, if you're lucky, it's also a painting.

Late in the afternoon I took a few minutes for a really quick study. Working on a dark gray-black, I did this little study of the ruins in about 35 minutes. My goal was to get as much as possible about color and value onto the page in that short time, without worrying too much about composition or drawing. I wanted to keep it loose and free and imply more than state the form of the walls. I'm pretty happy with the resut, Ruins, 9x11, Pastelmat, ©Maggie Price.

It was a nice day and a nice change of pace. We went back to the hotel for an early night and preparation for a very early departure the next morning for our trip to Granada and the Alhambra Palace, the subject of the next blog in this series.

Flamenco!

2010-10-08T10:04:00.003-06:00

Posted by Maggie

Each year so far in our Spain workshop we've scheduled a night to go to Ronda for a flamenco performance. Some people don't like the late night and don't go, but most are excited about the chance to see a traditional performance. The group who've performed for the last few years that we've been here are no longer performing, so this year we went to see a different group. Like the other one, there were three "band" members, a drummer, guitarist and vocalist, but this one only had two female dancers and no male dancer.

Flamenco music is not what I had thought it would be, before I ever attended a performance. Our hotel host David describes it as the Spanish version of American country & western. The songs sound quite sad, but the beat is insistent and energizing. The energy level was important since the performance did not star until ten p.m., quite late for Americans and particularly those of us who had been up early to paint.

Generally, the dancers change costumes for each dance. The whole performance lasts about an hour and a half, with a short break in the middle. I like the costumes—the group we used to see had traditional costumes for each dance, but this one had a more modern approach. Nevertheless, the dancers were very good.

Our chef at the Hotel, Ivan, is multi-talented. In addition to having trained at Cordon Bleu in London and being creative in the kitchen, he is a painter, working in a number of mediums. On the bus ride into Ronda, he mentioned that he had been taking flamenco lessons at the school run by one of the dancers. He's studied flamenco previously but the recent lessons have challenged him to do more. To his, and our, surprise, near the end of the performance, one of the dancers went off the stage, into the audience, and grabbed him by the hand and took him up onto the stage to dance with her. It was great fun to see "our" Ivan dance, and he's quite good. He danced with each of the women, but unfortunately my camera disk filled just after he began. I'm going to have to beg for photos from some of the other people there.

All in all it was an exciting evening and made it hard to go to sleep, what with the music and the sound of flamenco feet racing through my head. I am looking forward to a chance when I get home to paint them from memory and photos.

Painting in Alpandeire

2010-10-05T10:23:00.001-06:00

Posted by Maggie

Today we went to another one of the pueblos blancos in the Genal Valley. Alpandeire is one of my favorite villages. It's sometimes called the "forgotten village," as it has not been modernized as much as some of the other white villages. You often see people riding or leading their horses through the village, and life has not changed much in the last few years, or perhaps dozens of years. The village is a little bigger than Júzcar, having a population of around 200. Today it was bustling as they prepared for a celebration of Fray Leopoldo which will happen tomorrow. It was also a market day, so there were tents with clothing for sale, and a clinic day, which meant the doctor was visiting.

We painted in spite of the unusual traffic and activity. My demo this morning was on aerial perspective and how to make tree-covered hillsides recede or come forward. It is a challenge to see the subtle variations between the mountain ranges and to paint them. To make it more complex, the farthest mountain had bare rock which was somewhat pink in the morning light. Two of the valley's white villages were in my composition, though they were quite some distance away. I am happy with the way the painting demonstrated the concepts I reviewed for the group. Left, White Villages, 9x11, pastelmat, ©Maggie Price.

By the time I finished the morning demonstration, the chill had turned to warmth and we began shedding layers. Most of the painters went to take photographs and explore the village, and I moved my easel a little to paint a closer subject of a white building, tile roof and chimney. I was not able to bring this piece to a point I really considered a finished painting, but it's a good color and value field study. The tile roofs could use some more attention, but at this point I was in full sun and the light had changed. Left, Chiminea, 7x10, Pastelmat, ©Maggie Price.

We enjoyed a packed lunch and painted until 4 p.m., then headed back to Júzcar. On the way back the bus paused for us to take photos of the village from a good vantage point in the later afternoon light. I love the view of the village from this perspective; you get a good idea of its placement in the mountains. We're having an early dinner tonight and then heading into Ronda for a flamenco performance, which should give us all a chance to get some great photographs. I'll post some tomorrow.

A Day in Ronda

2010-10-04T14:19:00.007-06:00

Posted by Maggie

Today we took a day trip to Ronda, which is a larger village in Málaga Province. It is another white village, but has a population of about 40,000 people, which is huge compared to Júzcar with its current full-time residents of 140.

This morning we painted the bridge called El Puente Nuevo (the New Bridge) from a vantage point below the bridge. I love the bridge from this viewpoint. It is great to be up on the bridge looking down at the valley below, but for painting, there is nothing better than being in the field below. The huge rocky cliff face extends from both sides of the bridge, and I've painted compositions looking away from the bridge as well.

Drawing the bridge correctly and carefully is not easy when your time is limited. We had a little less than two hours at this location this morning, and the light was changing rapidly as the clouds moved across. I sketched the subject quickly, and then painted the sky and clouds as fast as I could before the formation changed. As I worked on the cliff formations and the bridge, I watched for the chance to catch the light as it hit specific areas, and incorporated it into the painting as I could. Eventually I had to just go with what I had in the way of light and shadow patterns, though, and not make any more changes. After just at an hour I finished my field study.

The class scattered across the field, and while most of them painted the bridge, some chose to paint the rock formations or the olive fields below. All too soon, the bus returned to pick us up, and we went up the narrow winding road to the village of Ronda. We found a wonderful tapas bar for lunch, and then explored the town, some people shopping and some hiking or finding subjects to photograph. After a while some of us stopped for a cup of coffee. It was a great day and it was enlightening and educational to see all the paintings after we returned to the hotel and set them out for our daily review.

It's challenging when you go to a new place and try to paint a totally unfamiliar subject and landscape. It forces you to really observe, to paint what you see since you don't necessarily know what everything is. It pushes us out of your comfort zone of familiarity into something new, and hopefully that will energize our paintings long after we leave Spain and return home to paint familiar landscapes once more.

Left, El Puente Nuevo, 9x7, Pastelmat, ©Maggie Price.

First workshop day in Juzcar

2010-10-03T13:30:00.002-06:00

Posted by Maggie

It is Sunday afternoon and we have just finished the first day of the workshop here in Júzcar, Málaga Province, Spain. We started the day with threats of rain, so stayed close to the hotel, but happily the rain never amounted to more than a few drops.

I gave a demonstration this morning, and then the painters scattered to various locations, mostly staying close in case the rain materialized. Hotel Bandolero has terraces and patios where people can spread out but still stay close to shelter. People painted throughout the morning, then took breaks for lunch or walks, and most went back to paint again in the afternoon. Painting the white buildings and red tiled roofs typical of the Genal Valley is not easy, and the changing light of the rapidly-moving clouds only complicates matters.

Nevertheless, every plein air painting is a learning experience, and each of the painters gained understanding of the subject as the day progressed. During the coming week, no doubt this subject will become more familiar and the paintings will improve, though in fact they were amazingly good for a first day.

After a little rest we will review the day's work, and then have another wonderful meal prepared by Chef Ivan. It's already a wonderful workshop.

A Day at the Alcazar

2010-10-01T09:55:00.001-06:00

Posted by Maggie

We had a very full day yesterday. We began with a short river tour on the Guadalquivir, from which we could see many interesting buildings and bridges. Then we went back to the gardens at the Parque de Maria Luisa, as we had not seen nearly all of it the day before.

The park is a beautiful place, with a number of really interesting buildings on its outer edges, including the beautiful Plaza de Espana. Inside the park itself you would not know that you're in the middle of a busy city, as all you hear is the screeching of parrots and songs of other birds. We enjoyed exploring more of the park, and found some possible painting locations if we bring the group here next year.

After a late lunch we decided to go the the Palace of the Alcazar. We had explored the area outside the palace, and we thought it was not likely that we could take the group inside for painting, as there would probably be crowds and we might not be allowed to set up easels. Still, we thought it could be a good place for sketching, photography, and a good addition to the tour of Andalusia.

I had read that there were gardens connected to the Palace, but as always the photos and descriptions don't necessarily tell you what to expect. I actually enjoyed the gardens far more than the palace itself, as there was a wonderful combination of trees, bushes, palms, flowers and buildings. There were also fascinating arches and structures that weren't quite buildings but incorporated into the gardens in a way that could make wonderful compositions for painting. There were more colorful buildings and structures in the garden or visible from the garden, which could be really nice elements in a painting as well.

Some of the buildings in the Palace itself reminded me of the Alhambra Palace in Granada, where we took the group on our last Spain workshop and where we will go next week with the group. There were a lot of similarities in the architecture, but overall the Alcazar is not as crowded and not as large, so it would be possible for people to see more of it. I think it will work out well to change our itinerary for 2011 to have a day trip to Seville instead of to Granada. We'll have a shorter bus ride, and more time to explore and paint or sketch, and to see a little more of Andalusia.

By the time we left the Alcazar, we had walked for hours. We walked a little further to a restaurant that we had noticed on the other side of the river. The outdoor seating area was on the second floor terrace overlooking the water and with a view back towards the city. Because we arrived at the unfashionably early hour of 8 p.m., we were able to get a table right at the railing, and watched the sunset change the colors of the buildings and the lights beginning to reflect in the water. It was a perfect ending to a wonderful day.

Sevilla Continued

2010-09-30T02:37:00.000-06:00

Posted by Maggie

Our second day in Sevilla—the first full day—was wonderful in spite of some local problems. There was a general strike, which meant that no buses or taxis would operate, and many businesses were closed. Initially we thought it might create some difficulty but it did not interfere with walking and looking, so we were fine.

In the morning we walked to the area of the Alcazar and the Catedral. We encountered demonstrators, marches and speeches en route but never could quite comprehend what the strike was about. We enjoyed looking at the architecture, though finding potential painting locations was not easy. I am not happy about the idea of setting up a dozen or more easels in crowded areas, but I had thought it might be possible near a particular fountain (above right). However it was far too crowded, and I decided it might be a place for sketching and photography, but not easels. We walked to the entrance of the Alcazar but did not go in; we plan to do that on Friday.

Our guide book had mentioned a park and botanical garden so that was our next destination. It was a wonderful place, definitely on the list for potential painting spots. No admission charge, and broad streets closed to all vehicles except horse-drawn carriages and rented pedal cars, it would be comfortable for painters to spread out. There are abundant fountains, small pools of water, a small lake, and at one end a beautiful building for those inclined to paint architecture. The area in front of that building is being remodeled so was full of equipment and workers, but it looked near enough to completion to think it might be done by next year when we return.

After hours of walking, we found a tapas bar for lunch. I could happily live on tapas. I enjoy having a small portion of several different things to create an interesting meal. We still weren't quite recovered from the trip and jet lag, so the Spanish custom of afternoon siesta seemed a very good idea. When we went out once more, the late afternoon light was incredibly beautiful. The buildings that had been a dull beige or orange earlier glowed in the sunlight, and I took dozens of photographs.

In the evening we met friends for dinner. We walked quite a way in search of a tapas bar with some specific menu items, and while we never did find exactly what we wanted, we had a nice meal. It was fully dark by the time we headed back towards our hotels, and the walk beside the river was great. Some buildings which had not been very noticeable by day were spectacular at night, with beautiful lights and reflections.

Now it is morning in Sevilla and we are heading out to meet our friends and take a river cruise to see even more of the city by water. It is sunny and beautiful, likely to be very warm once again, and likely to be another wonderful day in Sevilla.

Exploring Sevilla

2010-09-28T12:52:00.002-06:00

Posted by Maggie

We arrived in Madrid this morning (though what they claimed was 7 a.m. felt like midnight to us) after a long journey. We had several hours to wait in the Madrid airport before we could get our flight to Sevilla, and we spent most of those hours trying to stay awake. Finally on the airplane, we were able to relax and sleep until our arrival in Sevilla. Our bags arrived as well, we were lucky to get a friendly, courteous and careful taxi driver, and we liked our hotel the minute we got here.

After a little time to recuperate from the trip, we headed out for a short walk to see what was nearby. Our purpose here is to see if Sevilla would be a good option for a painting day trip for next year's Spain workshop, and we have a specific list of destinations to check out tomorrow and the next day. But, in an effort to stay awake until evening local time, we walked for a while this afternoon.

We are staying near the river Guadalquivr, and walked along it and across an interesting bridge. The architecture was interesting as well, even though we did not get nearly as far as the Catedral, the Alcázar or any of the more dramatic and distinctive structures we will explore tomorrow and the next day. Bill commented on the frequent use of gold and yellow trim on the white buildings, different than in the Genal Valley where the roofs of the white buildings are almost always red. Like some of the other cities we visit during our workshop day trips, there is a definite Moorish influence in the architecture.

I wasn't expecting palm trees here. Our workshop location is in the village of Júzcar, Málaga Province, in the mountains. So I hadn't really thought about the fact that Sevilla is a lower altitude and farther south, and thus a bit warmer year round. The palms are wonderful, though, and so are the abundant flowers. I found a number of places along the river where I could be happy painting.

Facilities are important when you're picking plein air painting locations for a group of people. There has to be room to set up easels out of the way of traffic and pedestrians. It's nice if there is shade. And of course, we always try to find places to paint with nearby bathrooms. The people in Spain are remarkably accommodating in that regard—any restaurant or bar will let you use the "servicios" without question, although they are always happier if you buy a bottle of water or a snack.

After a couple of hours of walking, along with a stop for ice cream to rest and to cool off, we headed back to our hotel to rest. It's a bit too soon to decide if this beautiful walkway along the river will be a possibility for next year's painting workshop in Spain, though we might try it out ourselves if we have time. There was certainly no shortage of subjects in today's exploration—but we're off to explore further tomorrow, and who knows what other, even more wonderful things we might find!

Pastel Society of America's 2010 Exhibition

2010-09-28T11:42:00.005-06:00

Posted by Maggie

As I mentioned in a previous blog, Bill and I were in New York to attend the reception and banquet for the Pastel Society of America's 2010 exhibition. It's always exciting to see the paintings—the amazing and wonderful variety of style, subjects and techniques demonstrated by the artists whose work hangs in the exhibitions. And it's fun to see the award winners. Like all artists, I don't always agree with the judges' decisions, but this year I applauded their selection of Rae Smith's painting (left) for the grand prize of $5,000, given by Jack Richeson in memory of Flora Giffuni. Its moody, mystical feeling caught my attention as soon as I saw it, and well before I knew who the artist was.

Rae Smith (left) is the President of PSA, and she spoke about some of the things the society has been doing since last year. One important project is carrying on Flora Giffuni's plan to get pastel teachers into the public schools to teach pastel, since art programs are so often the first thing to go when schools cut budgets.

Rae also presented the PSA Hall of Fame award to Richard McKinley (left), who is well-known in the world of pastel for his teaching and his Pastel Pointers blogs on The Pastel Journal web site. Richard is the 34th artist to be awarded the Hall of Fame designation; the award has been given annually since 1978.

Hearing about PSA activities, seeing the art and watching the artists receive awards is great, but another reason to attend this event is to see artist friends. It seems there are some people that I only see at the PSA banquet or the IAPS convention—though I'd love to see them more often, it just doesn't work out. It was great to see so many friends this year, and enjoy visiting with them before, during and after the banquet. In the photo at left, Jimmy Wright (Treasurer of PSA and a long-time board member of PSA and recently of IAPS) and Richard McKinley and I are visiting in the entry hall of the National Arts Club.

In the photo at left is Jack Richeson, with Rae Smith on his left, taken during the banquet. The banquet is held in the hall where the paintings are hung, so it's possible to continue enjoying looking at the beautiful art while enjoying dinner.

A final event at the PSA banquet is the raffling of a number of paintings donated by artists to help raise money for the society. Bill and I buy tickets, though we are both quick to explain that we never win anything, and just purchase tickets to support PSA. This year, though, to our great surprise, Bill won the painting Juicy Apple by Sangita Phadke (left).

I guess this means that either I can't continue to say we never win anything, or it's the beginning of a change in our luck and we should start buying lottery tickets! I'm hoping it's the latter, although we still won't win the lottery if we continue to forget to buy tickets.

A lesson in light

2010-09-25T18:40:00.000-06:00

Posted by Maggie

Today we visited the museum of the Hispanic Society of America, having heard that the large paintings by Sorolla had been re-installed.

Joaquin Sorolla y Bastida (1863-1923) was a Spanish painter whose work I have long admired for his handling of natural light on the subject. While I don't often paint the subjects he painted—figures, boats, etc.—I am inspired by the way he handles the light falling on and describing the subject. Part of my inspiration for my "sunlight and shadow" underpainting technique which I teach in workshops (and illustrated in my book, Painting with Pastels) came from observation of Sorolla's handling of light and shadow— that objects he painted in full sunlight tended to be warm yellows and oranges, while objects in shadow almost always contained some blue.

The large paintings at the Hispanic Society museum are stunning, and their placement lower on the wall since the remodel of the room in which they are displayed allows the viewer to more fully enjoy them. The fourteen large canvasses are about 12 feet tall, and range in width up to the largest one which fills an entire wall. Each painting deals with a specific region of Spain, and all but one were painted en plein air, despite their enormous size. Photographs taken on my camera cannot begin to do them justice; I hope you will find better images in books or on the Internet to enjoy them. But even with these poor images, you can see some of the wonderful color he used to describe light. In this photo at left (The Tuna Catch), the men on the far right are clearly dressed in white, but when you study the painting, you see that no white paint was used. The lights are described in pale yellows and oranges; the shadows are blues and lavenders, with bits of orange indicating reflected light. The only true white in this painting appeared to be the sparkles on the water.

A closer view of a detail of another painting further illustrates how he used colors to indicate light falling on a white object and his depiction of related shadow colors. There is so much to learn from studying these paintings, no matter what medium you work in. In this detail from the largest, most complex painting, what appears in the photograph to be white fabric is actually pale yellows. The shadows are exquisite blues and grays with wonderful bits of reflected light.

After we spent a considerable amount of time with these large works, we went upstairs to another gallery, and were pleased to find a few more paintings by Sorolla. One of these was his portrait of Louis Comfort Tiffany, painted in Tiffany's garden at his home. A little later, the curator of the gallery was preparing a presentation on a painting by Goya (which we attended and very much enjoyed) and, while waiting for the audience to arrive, he talked a little about the Sorollas. He pointed out that in this painting of Tiffany, there are only two areas of pure white paint: on the right sleeve of Tiffany's shirt, and on the edge of the sail in the harbor. All the other areas interpreted as white have color—Impressionistic color, he called it.

After our visit to the Hispanic Society museum, we went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art for a few hours. It was truly visual overload, and by late afternoon, I could not absorb any more. I love the Met, and took the time to visit my favorite paintings there—but I think I will dream of the Sorollas.

Leavin' on a jet plane

2010-09-22T17:31:00.001-06:00

Posted by Maggie

Tomorrow we're off to New York for the reception at the Pastel Society of America exhibition, and then on to Spain a few days later for a plein air painting workshop.

Not surprisingly, we've spent a lot of time getting ready. In addition to the obvious packing part of the preparation, we had deadlines to meet, and the house to get ready for the people who will be staying here while we are gone.

The packing's the hard part. Dressy clothes for New York, painting clothes for Spain. All the art supplies needed for the two of us to paint and teach a workshop.

I have a good checklist of the things I need to take when traveling by car to teach a workshop, and another one for traveling by air. I much prefer the car. I like picking something up, saying "I might need this, so I'll take it," and tossing it in the car. With the airplane bag limits, everything has to be considered in terms of weight and size.

We take one carry-on bag each, with our pastels, paper, and absolute essentials for painting. If our checked bags are lost, we can buy clothes, but art supplies can be tough to replace, especially in the area of Spain (a small village in the Genal Valley, in the mountains of Andalucia) where we hold our workshop. The nearest art supply store is probably 6 hours away, and I doubt if they carry my favorite pastels. Carrying pastels on the plane means allowing extra time for TSA to scrutinize our bags. Sometimes it takes a long time; other times they don't open them. Sometimes we get pulled out for extra inspection. Maybe it's because of the art supplies, or maybe we just look suspicious.

We put the easels in the checked bag. I use the Sun-Eden set-up shown here, and Bill uses a lightweight, inexpensive Winsor & Newton easel. If they get lost, it won't be convenient, but it won't be the end of the world. Also in the checked bags are extra paper, bungee cords, sketchbooks, watercolors, pens, pencils, hats and jackets. We take as many changes of clothes as possible (there are no laundry facilities in the village of Júzcar), but art supplies come first.

It's hard to decide what to leave out. I opted not to take my umbrella, much as I wanted it, but everything else in the photo here is going. The bag that's hanging off the easel is my carry-on bag; in this photo, my Heilman backpacker-size pastel box is already in it.

The moment of truth is when we weigh the bags to be checked. We did well this time; one was 47 lbs. and the other 37. I moved a few things from the heavy one to the lighter one just in case the airport scales aren't as accurate as mine.

So, we're all ready, and will soon be on our way. I'll be posting to this blog as often as possible during the next few weeks, with images of plein air paintings, painters and places. Hope you enjoy it!

It's not easy being small

2010-09-20T15:11:00.001-06:00

Posted by Maggie

I recently had the honor of jurying the Small Works Exhibition for the Pastel Society of New Mexico. This is a presentation of small paintings which is shown in conjunction with the organization's annual juried national exhibition.

The paintings were amazing. All in pastel, of course, and all within the limit of 48 square inches, or, say 6x8. That's pretty small.

But that got me to thinking about another show held here in New Mexico as part of the Masterworks exhibition—the miniature show, which has a size limit of 20 square inches. That would be 4x5 or some other proportion which added up to 20 or less.

When I paint with pastels, I think of 9x12 as small. My favorite sizes are 16x20 or 18x24. If glass wasn't so expensive and so heavy, I'd probably work even larger. I love the freedom of movement of a large surface, the expressive sweep of a stroke of pastel laid down swiftly and firmly.

But, having juried this show, I decided I'd try my hand at a really small painting, using the under 20 square inch limitation of the Masterworks miniatures. I used as reference an oil painting I'd done on location not long ago, which was 6x8. How hard could it be to reduce that to fit onto my little scrap of paper?

Very hard.

In case you haven't noticed, most pastel sticks are big. I particularly like the fat square Ludwig pastels, the really fat round Richeson handmade soft pastels, and quite a few others, none of which I'd noticed were not small. Until I tried to work in those little tiny areas of my painting. The final painting, which will probably not go into a frame because I don't have any frames that small, is Arroyo on a Gray Day, 3.5x5.5 on Pastelmat, ©Maggie Price.

Now I'm going to go paint something big, like maybe 11x14.

Colorado Paintings, Part Three

2010-09-12T09:53:00.001-06:00

Posted by Maggie

Our second full day of our mini-vacation in Colorado did not start out as planned. We went to one of the painting locations we'd selected the day before, but the light was very different and we weren't happy with it. We decided to go paint the pond we'd looked at the previous day, but on the way there, realized that the morning light would not give us the same reflections we'd seen the previous afternoon. So we took a drive up a mountain road to a trail head where we knew there was another pond, surrounded by tall pines, that often has beautiful reflections. The road isn't long, but you can only drive about 20 mph or even less, and you have to watch for deer and other critters.

We finally arrived only to find the pond covered with an unattractive brown scum, and no reflections whatsoever. We took the long drive back down the mountain, and decided to have lunch, go hiking and then return to the other pond with great afternoon reflections a little later.

It was worth the wait. The light was perfect, there was a slight breeze, and we were able to set up our easels right on the edge of the road. The reflection of the mountain, trees and grasses was stunningly beautiful.

I'm enjoying using Pastelmat for plein air paintings. The surface feels smooth to the touch, but you can put quite a few layers on it, and it grabs the pastel and doesn't let go. The ability to quickly cover the surface is a real advantage when you have to work fast in changing light. For this subject, I chose dark gray (I think they call it anthacite) which gave me the dark value to start with. The hill in the background was covered with pine, but had lots of deep blue shadows. I concentrated on implying trees rather than describing each one, then moved quickly to the fun part, which was the reflections and the objects reflected in the water. I love painting water with reflections, but this was one of the first times I'd tried it on Pastelmat. (I usually use Richeson Premium Pastel Surface or Wallis Sanded Pastel Paper for this kind of subject.) You can't really do any blending on Pastelmat unless you practically fill the tooth, but I didn't need much blending anyway, so I was happy with it. Afternoon Reflections, 9.5x12, ©Maggie Price.

Although we were only a few feet apart, Bill chose a little different view, and concentrated mostly on the water. He worked on a 9x12 piece of white Richeson Premium Pastel Surface on Gatorfoam. In spite of beginning with white, he was able to quickly get the rich dark colors he wanted in the water. His subject is mostly about the water and reflections, so he moved the land mass up in the composition to emphasize the water. In comparing our two paintings, I think I like his composition better. Mine is divided a little too evenly between land and water. But that's the thing about plein air painting—especially when the light is changing fast, you have to make fast decisions and you might later wish you had done something differently. I really like the moody quality of this painting of Bill's, Roadside Attraction, 9x12, ©Bill Canright.

By the time we finished these, it was time to head back for dinner. We left for home the next morning, having enjoyed a brief, but rejuvenating, retreat to the southern Colorado mountains.

Colorado Paintings, Part Two

2010-09-12T09:32:00.002-06:00

Posted by Maggie

Our second pastel painting session was under entirely different light conditions than the first session of the day (see Part One for the first session's paintings). Many clouds had moved on, although some that remained were as storm-threatening as the earlier ones. I had hoped to paint the river, but it was muddy brown from the previous day's rain, so we chose a spot along the road not far from the river. Both of us selected subjects involving buildings, though we were looking in opposite directions.

I never used to paint buildings. I didn't find them interesting, and when you're painting outdoors, the light changes so fast you can't spend a lot of time drawing. But once I started teaching workshops in Europe, I learned to love painting structures. They can add an interesting element to a painting. I also became comfortable with the understanding that my paintings done outdoors are field studies, and that means I'm looking for accurate color and value, and an understanding of the light and weather conditions and how they affect the way light and shadow describe form. So my drawing doesn't have to be perfect. It also helps that many of the buildings I end up painting in Europe are falling down.

This subject appealed to me because of the shape of the road, and the way the house is mostly hidden by the hillside in front of it. I felt it gave the building a little sense of mystery. And I didn't have to draw the whole thing! Most of what you see is roof and chimney, and the rest is implied. I also liked the shapes of the cloud formations, and blocked them in very quickly. They were soon gone, but I had enough information to complete them. Fall is just coming to this valley; there were touches of yellow and even orange in some trees, and the odd bushes in the right foreground were already yellow, rusty red and orange. I worked on a light gray piece of Pastelmat, almost exactly the local color of the gravel road. It was interesting how that neutral color worked for this late morning light. Left, River Road, 9.5x12, pastel on gray Pastelmat, ©Maggie Price.

Bill chose a subject in the opposite direction, with very different light. The tall trees almost obscured the buildings, giving them a mysterious, moody quality. He worked on a black surface (Colourfix), which really helped set the mood right from the beginning. Bill often works on black. He says his favorite part of the painting is putting in the highlights and on a dark surface he gets to do that right away. There's a bit of the dark surface showing here and there in the darkest areas, and it works really well. I really liked the bit of blue sky he put in the top left corner and how it complemented the rest of the composition. Left, Pump House, 12x 9.5, pastel on black Colourfix, ©Bill Canright.

By the time we finished our second session, the winds had picked up and were threatening to blow over our easels. The afternoon got windier still, so we spent some time taking photographs and picking out a painting spot for the next day, described in Part Three.

Colorado Paintings, Part One

2010-09-12T09:11:00.001-06:00

Posted by Maggie
August was an intense month. We had a long trip to the east coast in July, so Bill spent much of August catching up on all those things that pile up when you're away for weeks. For me, the month was computer-intensive, as I prepared files with convention information and registration for the International Association of Pastel Societies' Ninth Biennial Convention.

So we needed a break. We didn't have a lot of time to go far, so we went to southern Colorado, a lovely location southeast of Pagosa Springs. It's a place we go often and know well, so we can jump right into painting without having to spend a lot of time learning the landscape.

Our first painting day started with clouds—lots of clouds. They were moving fast, but not really threatening rain. We set up along the edge of a lightly-traveled road, looking over the valley, which is ringed by mountains on three sides. Our vista was of a fairly low range of mountains and hills, mostly covered with forest.

I've been experimenting with a relatively new surface, Pastelmat. It comes in a number of colors, but for this piece I worked on white. Normally I start a landscape painting by painting the sky, but for this subject I blocked in a light layer of color over the land mass first. While we were setting up, I'd noticed the occasional light hitting the trees and creating brilliant patches of lighter greens, and I hoped I'd see that happen again. Patience paid off, and when the light illuminated an area, I quickly laid it in. At the same time, I noted the breaks in the clouds with a sky-blue, then massed the clouds in as fast as I could. I particularly liked where the clouds drifted over the tops of the mountains, and put that in place the minute I saw it. The clouds moved and shifted before I could finish them, but I stayed with the composition and just looked at other cloud formations for color and value. In a little less than an hour, the light had changed too much to go any farther, so I stopped. Left, Fast-Moving Clouds, 9.5x12, ©Maggie Price.

Meanwhile, Bill began with a warm gray piece of Colourfix paper, and chose a vertical format. He concentrated on the clouds first, and since he was looking in a different direction, his clouds were a little more stormy and threatening. He mentioned that he's more used to working on the Richeson Premium Pastel Surface, and in fact had thought that's what he picked up, but the Colourfix has a little less tooth than the Richeson. However, it was sufficiently toothy for a quick field study. Once he had developed the cloud formations, he quickly blocked in the land masses and the foreground trees. Left, Storm Chaser, 9.25x10.25, ©Bill Canright.

We packed up our supplies, headed back to the cabin for a quick snack, and then moved down the hill to our next painting destination, described in the next blog, Colorado Paintings, Part Two.

Venice Revisited

2010-09-06T14:47:00.001-06:00

Posted by Bill

Normally I avoid back-lit subjects because too much of the scene is nothing but silhouettes. However, Maggie took a photo in Venice a few years ago which caught my eye because of the wonderful sparkling water and the easily-interpreted action of the gondolas. Our guy in the foreground was clearly waiting for the others to get out of the way.

The reference photo was taken just following a rain so everything was clean and the air was clear. The photo had a few modern boats in the distance, but I liked the timeless quality achieved by leaving them out. The photo tried, as usual, to lead me astray—in this case, with a blue sky and turquoise water. I tried painting it that way, but it didn't work, as the sky and water seemed unrelated. So I put a little turquoise in the sky.

The photograph also had a solid, featureless shadow going from the gondola to the bottom of the frame. I thought this made sense as the vertical planes of the gondolas were solid silhouettes, but when I made the shadow solid, no matter how much I fiddled with it, it just didn't work. It finally dawned on me that the water was horizontal and that if had I been standing on the dock looking at it, I would have seen ripples even in the darker water. Changing that really worked.

The final painting, above left: The Patient Gondolier, 24x18, © Bill Canright.

In the photograph, there was also a weird thing poking out of the back of the boat that looked like a detached leg pointing at the sky. This definitely fit the rule: "If you don't know what it is, don't paint it." On the other hand, If I'd left it in I would have had a name for the painting. I could have called it A Leg Up.

If I'm ever in Venice again I am going to try to figure out what it was. Perhaps someone reading this can enlighten me.

The Hat Dilemma

2010-09-05T09:37:00.000-06:00

Posted by Maggie

I almost bought a new hat a couple of days ago. There was a really nice one on the clearance rack—white, with a nice large brim, and a fabric that would handle being stuffed in a suitcase to take on a painting trip. It was tempting.

I already have a few hats. I just don't like any of them.

Bill says you have to approach the subject of hats with the idea that all hats are stupid-looking. Then you just pick the least dorky one, plop it on your head and go. I'm not totally happy with knowing that I look dorky. Especially when we're painting in Europe, where I stand out far too much anyway, because of my un-dyed hair, my jeans, and my comfortable shoes.

So I thought about buying that new hat, but then I decided to come home and take a good look at the ones I already have. I pulled them out of their various hiding places.

When I don't take a hat on a trip, I end up buying one. That's how I got the white one from the Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney, the blue one from Barbados, the straw hat with the colored bands from Mexico, and even the purple baseball-cap from Scotland. All the rest of them have been purchased in an attempt to find the perfect, comfortable, sun-blocking painting hat.

My current painting hat is the sage-green one on the right. It's lightweight, washable, can be packed without too much wrinkling, has a big brim to shade my eyes and a great long flap on the back that keeps the back of my neck from getting sunburned. But it's really, really dorky-looking.

So maybe I'll go buy a new one after all.

Bad photos

2010-09-04T19:04:00.000-06:00

Posted by Maggie

I've said for a long time that painting from bad photos can be a good thing. When you have a bad photo, you know you have to make changes. It frees you from the temptation to copy your photo, and the resulting painting can move far beyond the photographic reference.

But there are bad photos, and then there are really bad photos.

Bill and I try to walk every morning. We know it's good for us. But some days, the only thing that gets me out the door is the scenery. We're lucky to have a wonderful walking trail that begins just across the street. We have a spectacular view of the Sandia Mountains from our front window, but it's even better on the trail.

As we approach fall (okay, it's already fall, but I'm in denial), the sun rises later each day. Consequently some days it's just coming up over the north end of the mountains as we start out. I never remember to take my camera, but I always have my phone in my pocket. (No one calls me at that hour, thank goodness, but I just can't go out the door without my phone.)

So I took these photos of the sunrise, and the resolution on my phone camera is, admittedly, bad. (I haven't upgraded to the iPhone 4 which supposedly has a better camera.) I printed them to paint from, and all the detail was gone. The color wasn't too bad, but then again, it wasn't too good. I wanted to combine elements from the two photos, and in the end, I also had to rely on memory.

I struggle to keep from putting in too much detail. With these photo references, it wasn't as hard as usual when I'm working from photos. I couldn't see any details.

I'm really happy with the mood, atmosphere and lack of detail in the finished painting. The combination of the two photos worked well, and I feel I managed to understate rather than overstate, for a change.

Maybe I won't upgrade my phone, and maybe I'll paint from phone photos more often!

Above left, Morning Walk, 7x9, pastel on Pastelmat, ©Maggie Price.

New work in acrylics

2010-06-25T14:07:00.000-06:00

(Posted by Bill)
Recently I began working in acrylics. My gallery suggested that in the summer when there's a lot of tourist traffic, people might buy small pieces that weren't under glass, as they could pack them in their suitcases or carry-on bags rather than having them shipped.

I started my art career as a self-taught oil painter when I was 14. So, first, I thought small paintings in oils would be a good idea. But I really didn't like how long it takes them to dry. Having worked for the last 7 or 8 years in pastel, I'm spoiled. I like to lay a color down and be able to immediately lay down another color over it. So I thought maybe acrylics would be better, since they do dry quickly.

Here are the first three that I liked well enough to frame.

Down by the River, 9x12
This acrylic painting took me about three times as long to complete as it would have in pastel. It was my fault, not the medium's. Working in pastel for the past six years I had fallen into the habit of making corrections whenever I noticed the drawing or color problem. I liked using dozens of pastels and hopping around more or less randomly with no worries about used up or dried up paint. With acrylics you can't come back later, without re-mixing the color you need and that was where I lost a lot of time.

Still Standing, 8x10
This scene caught my eye as walked in the foothills of the Marlborough area in New Zealand's South Island. I did a pastel on the spot which didn't turn out very well. It was one of those situations where the wind forced you to hold the easel with one hand and paint with the other. And flies love it when you have both hands busy, especially those flies in New Zealand and Australia, which are more determined to crawl on you than American flies. Fortunately I had taken a good photo before I started painting on site, and that's what I used as reference for this acrylic. The best and worst things about acrylics are that they dry fast. With this piece, I had to do a lot of layering and the fast drying made it easy.

Standing Tall #3, 8x10
Several years ago I did this same scene twice in pastel, once plein air and again as a workshop demo from a photo. So I was very familiar with the subject, and thought that might help in working with a new medium. The cliffs are almost monochrome and were perfectly suited to a dry brush technique which I remembered from the distant past when I worked in oils. What I had forgotten was the time spent and the wastefulness of mixing all your colors.

I'll admit that pastels have spoiled me. I like grabbing the color I want and having it ready to use again today, tomorrow or next year.

Three Versions of a Subject

2010-04-13T13:59:00.000-06:00

(Posted by Bill)
Some months ago, I was interested in a creek formed by the falls in Yosemite. The dense foliage created interesting light effects and the overall darkness suggested it would be good subject for my first use of a black surface, the Richeson Premium Pastel Surface on Gatorboard. I spent about 45 minutes on it, proving to myself that a dark scene like this would would let me concentrate mainly on the highlights with a few middle values, letting the black surface remain untouched. I was amazed by how fast it became a believable representation of the scene. (Left, Below the Falls I, 9x12 pastel, © Bill Canright.)

Quite a while later I used a photo of the same spot to do a little study on white Wallis paper. Of course, simplification was automatic on such a small panel. I was able to guess at a portion of the stream that didn't make much sense. But I still spent close to two hours on this version. (Left, Below the Falls II, 9x6 pastel, © Bill Canright.)

A few days later I tackled a much larger version on a white surface (Richeson Premium Pastel Surface, Hardboard) with a split underpainting, using a light turquoise for the top half and a green/brown for the bottom half. Underpaintings can be created in a number of ways, from a complex drawing and color layer to a single tone of color on the surface. I like to do simple shapes, or as in this case, use just a couple of colors.

In this larger version, I had to resolve the weird shape near the middle of the stream, which I had handled with simplification in the small versions. The shape might be of a log, a chunk of concrete, a very smooth rock or a moose carcass for all you could see in the photo.

It proved the rule, "never try to paint something if you don't know what it is." You'll either make up something based on a subject you know well, or paint something stupid looking. Eventually, toward the end of the second full day I eliminated the whole problem with a placid pool of water. By providing the eye with a quiet place to rest it actually improved the overly busy scene. (Left, Below the Falls III, 20x16 pastel, © Bill Canright.)

Looking at the three together, it's interesting to see the similarities and the differences.

Step by step

2009-12-21T15:11:00.000-07:00

(Posted by Maggie)
I haven't been painting small paintings for a few weeks, as I've been working on several large paintings in a row. I thought it would be interesting to try to post a step-by-step sequence of this recent one. It's a complex subject (maybe sharing a studio with Bill got me interested in painting complexity!) but the way it developed is interesting, I think.

I worked on an 18x24 Richeson Premium Pastel surface, black, on Gatorfoam. It's one of my favorite surfaces. I love the richness of the color applied on the black, though there's a danger of getting the whole painting too dark. In one of the later steps, you'll see the background mountains lighten a little; that's when I realized they were too dark to recede properly.

What intrigued me about the subject was the contrast of those rocky cliff-like mountain sides against the aspen and scrub oak. The reference photo was taken high in the Sandia Mountains when we were hiking the La Luz Trail. These mountains have towering cliffs and rock formations of a unique rock (known as "Sandia Granite") which, though it may appear gray from a distance, has a wonderful variety of pinks, oranges, rust, brown and many other colors. I'm still not sure but what this painting isn't too busy, but the subject itself is very busy!

Above, High Country Fall, 18x24, pastel on black Richeson Pastel surface, © Maggie Price.

Painting the Deep Forest

2009-12-21T15:07:00.000-07:00

(Posted by Bill)
I am often intrigued by heavily forested areas like this one. What fascinates me, among other things, is the sparkles of sunlight that filter through the trees here and there. The difficult part is the complexity of the trees, limbs, rocks, shrubs, dirt, etc. The photo I worked from, posted here below the painting image, shows you just how complex it was.

I always try to simplify, and usually find it difficult. But working on a small format, such as this 4x6 inch surface, forced me to simplify the subject. Now that I've done this, I think I'll try painting it again on a larger surface, and see if I can retain the simplicity without losing the sparkle of the light.

Above, Deep Forest, 4x6, pastel on Art Spectrum "supertooth" paper, © Bill Canright

Sometimes "busy" is necessary

2009-11-18T14:44:00.000-07:00

(Posted by Bill)
During a recent visit to the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas, near Placerville, California, I wandered up and down the American River and shot some great fall scenes. While there, this old, moss covered tree caught my eye. Light sparkled through the surrounding trees and occasionally flashed on an orange or red leaf.

I felt that the thick complex of trees and branches was an important part of the feel of the place. The challenge, on this little 5x7 board, was to simplify without losing the busy effect. I hope I succeeded. I worked on a black Richeson Gatorboard surface.

When Leaves Fall, 7x5, pastel, ©Bill Canright, $75

Chamisa Challenge

2009-11-06T11:39:00.000-07:00

(Posted by Maggie)
In New Mexico, the colors of fall are mostly gold: golden aspen, golden cottonwoods, and golden chamisa. The chamisa are more plentiful across the valley in and near the foothills of the Sandia mountains, but there are some here and there on the west side of the city. We have access to a wonderful trail that begins just across the street about a half block away, and we try to walk there nearly every day. There aren't many trees, but the views of the mountains are wonderful, and we frequently see quail, roadrunners, jack rabbits and bunnies. Once in a great while we see a coyote, but it's more common to hear them than see them. About a mile along the trail, there's an area where a lot of chamisa grow. We watched them turn from their summer colors of bluish-green to the fall greens and the spectacular yellow blossoms.

I painted this mostly with a brush, but saved the chamisa blossoms for the palette knife. I like the texture of the blossoms that the knife created. The ability to create surface texture is one of the things that's luring me back into working with oils.

The chamisa are fading fast and the cottonwoods are turning brown. It's sad to see the brilliant stage of fall ending, but there's always the anticipation of snow on the mountain and the chance to paint it.

Above, Chamisa, 5x7, oil/panel, ©Maggie Price, $75

Painting rocks under water; no snorkel required

2009-11-03T12:59:00.000-07:00

(Posted by Bill)
Okay, bad joke. But painting underwater rocks is fun, especially when they're under some relatively clean, shallow water. You can achieve a believable effect with just three values of the same hue. In this case, a cool green. You can also use a little of a warmer color picked up from the dominant local rock color.

Addendum, by Maggie: I've learned a lot from watching Bill paint underwater rocks over the last few years. I think the most important thing you have to achieve is a feeling of layers—the underneath layer of rocks and river-bottom, the layer of water, and finally the layer of the surface. In this painting, the water is shallow, as Bill notes. So there's really just the bottom layer of rocks and sand, and the top layer of the surface of the water. He's created that top layer with just a few marks to indicate the movement of the water.

This river in northern California is very beautiful, especially in the early spring when it runs deep and fast. It's also the greenest river I've ever seen. Bill caught that color perfectly in this painting.

Above, Smith River Shallows II, 6x9 pastel, ©Bill Canright, $95

Teaching and Learning

2009-10-26T14:30:00.000-06:00

(Post by Maggie)
This weekend, I gave a demonstration for about 15 pastel artists in Pollock Pines, California. My subject was how to effectively use an underpainting in the first stage of developing a pastel painting. I like underpaintings and use them frequently. They accomplish several things at once: covering a white surface, creating a simple value and color study, and giving me a "road map" to follow as the painting progresses.

Some subjects benefit more from underpaintings than others. This subject included several elements that really utilized the colors placed on the first layer. In the background, where the trees are in strong sunlight, I underpainted a bright yellow. In the deep greens of the water, I underpainted a rich green. And in the left foreground, I painted the underwater rocks with oranges and browns. Various shades of lavender were used where green foliage was intended to go, and the above-ground rocks were underpainted in purples and oranges.

The painting was just fun from there on, and I enjoyed creating it and explaining the process as I moved along. The final result, left, is River Rocks, 16x20 on white Richeson Gatorfoam surface, © Maggie Price (private collection).

The following day, I had an opportunity to be a student rather than a teacher. As followers of this blog know, I've been working in oils again after many years in pastel. While I've always painted in oils primarily with a brush, I wanted to learn more about painting only with a palette knife. My friend Urania Christy Tarbet teaches this technique, and gave a lesson and painting session to Bill and me.

It was challenging, frustrating, interesting and finally fun. The finished painting (right, Rose Garden, oil/palette knife on canvas, 16x20, ©Maggie Price) has several areas I'd handle differently if I did it again, but for a first effort with only the knife, I don't think it's too bad. It's certainly a technique I plan to explore further, and hope to improve with practice. And maybe the best part of all was that when I was done, I didn't have to wash any brushes.

Starting with Black

2009-10-18T09:22:00.000-06:00

(Posted by Bill)
This painting is done on a small, black Richeson Pastel Surface on Gatorfoam. I like using black, and consider John Singer Sargent an ally in that.

Usually, my favorite part of a painting is the finishing highlight touches, and when working on black I can start with the highlights. The tricky part is that you can't brush anything off the black surface and get back to a strong black; all you get is various grays. Of course you can use a black pastel to get back to black, but layering on the black pastel will get muddy.

You might wonder why that branch is green. It's covered with moss. Moss won't grow well on a vertical surface like the trunk but grows quite well on the more horizontal branch.

I tried to paint this tree on location when we were at Blair Castle in Perthshire, Scotland, this last summer. But I lost the battle with wind, rain and cold. However that plein air experience taught something about moss, from its colors to how it grows on the tree trunks. Without that experience, I probably would have looked at the photo and decided it was too weird.

Above: Mossy Tree, 5x7, pastel, ©Bill Canright, $75

After the Rain in Maine

2009-10-14T16:32:00.000-06:00

(Posted by Maggie)
One of the great things about teaching workshops, especially plein air workshops, is that we get to go to beautiful places.

For years, ever since I first saw pictures of its coastline, I'd wanted to go to Maine. This past summer, I finally got there, to teach a plein air workshop for Pastel Painters of Maine. Unfortunately it was one of the wettest summers on record. It was raining when we arrived, and raining off and on when we checked out the painting locations. It rained the first day of the workshop, so we painted indoors, which wasn't a bad thing as we had a chance to work on techniques.

Then the sun came out and we went out for the next few days. It was like a different world. The blues of sky and water were brilliant, the greens were vivid, the seaweed was ochres and oranges. We even got a little sunburned one day.

I painted this spot in pastel as a demonstration for the class, and I thought it would be interesting to return to it and try it in oils. I think rocks are easier in pastel, or maybe I'm just more used to painting them in that medium. But even though they were a bit of a struggle, it was fun painting these in oil, and the finished painting feels like the place.

Above: Tidepools, 6x8, oil/panel, ©Maggie Price, $95

Sharing Space and Art

2009-10-13T16:04:00.000-06:00

(Posted by Maggie)
Working together seems natural to both of us. We worked together for years in our graphics/advertising business. We worked together on The Pastel Journal (Maggie in editorial and art; Bill in advertising and art). In the pastel workshops around the country, while Maggie does most of the talking and demonstration, Bill handles a lot of other details, and it's still a partnership.

When we first began sharing the pastel studio, left, it seemed a natural extension of the way we've always worked. Just as we have our own desks and computers, in the studio we each have our own easel, our own supplies and our own set-ups. We recently remodeled the space and refined the organization of supplies, but the arrangement is much the same, with each of us having a separate area. (Of course, that doesn't prevent the "borrowing" of a particular color, stick of charcoal, etc.)

Now that we're both working in oils as well, we've set up a separate oil painting area in the adjoining room. This large room was once the office of The Pastel Journal. Now, it holds Maggie's desk, the framing area (with a long worktable and mat cutter), and at the other end, the oil painting easels. We're just finishing rearranging things to accommodate Bill's new Richeson easel, and it's becoming a comfortable workspace. Like the pastel studio, this room has lots of light (six windows and a sliding glass door), and a tile floor.

Working together gives us companionship, when we both happen to be in the same room at the same time. And at any time, it gives us the opportunity for a helpful critique when we need it. "Tell me if I'm done," or "what do you think of this?" or even "What is wrong with this?!" brings either of us an objective, usually gentle, but always honest response.

We enjoy the arrangement, and yes, we do know how lucky we are.

Green and Bear It

2009-10-12T15:05:00.000-06:00

(Posted by Bill)
This lazy river in Central Arkansas was overwhelmingly green. Green water, green tree reflections, and green algae. Although the warm, yellowish green dominated the scene, I was able to work in enough cool greens, dark greens and some blues to make it interesting. (I hope.) Of course, without the reds and browns in the foreground and on the shoreline it would have been, "Yuck, too green!"

Above, Forest Reflections, 6x8, pastel on sanded paper, ©Bill Canright, $95

Georgia on My Mind

2009-10-11T13:30:00.000-06:00

(Posted by Bill)
Having lived most of my life in areas where the forest is dominated by evergreen trees, I was fascinated by the forest floor in the mountains of Northern Georgia. This scene was just a few yards from the highway and presented a typical forest floor--dominated by fallen deciduous tree leaves.

While painting it, I chose a few pastels that seemed to represent the main colors of the landscape and limited myself to using only those sticks. The final touch, and the exception to the limited palette, was the blue in the water.

Above, Georgia Creek, 6x8, pastel on sanded paper, ©Bill Canright, $95

Fall Scrub Oak in the Sandias

2009-10-10T10:24:00.000-06:00

(Posted by Maggie)

This year, in addition to the wonderful colors of the fall aspens, the scrub oak has been unusually beautiful. Some years it goes quickly from green to a dull rusty brown, and then to a dry and unattractive brown. Perhaps because of the unusually heavy rain this summer, though, the scrub oak is simply gorgeous.

The hillsides about halfway up the mountain road (probably at an altitude of 7,000 feet or so) are spectacular. The colors ranged from a few leftover greens through a spectrum of rusty red, pinkish red, oranges and yellows, in an incredible tapestry blanketing the hillside. A few rock formations and an occasional deciduous tree, still green, broke up the mass of oak.

You wouldn’t want to try to work your way through this foliage. Waist-high, it is dense and unforgiving, ripping at your clothes and skin. But from a distance, especially in a fall like this one, it is a thing of beauty.

I decided to paint it in pastel, so I could take advantage of the rough surface (Richeson Premium Pastel Surface, on gatorfoam, terra cotta color) and layer many different colors. I am not sure I could have achieved anything near this effect with oils, though perhaps I’ll give it a try at some point.

Unbelievable Clouds

2009-10-09T15:36:00.000-06:00

(Posted by Bill)
Our views of the Sandia and Manzano mountains include an amazing variety of cloud and light effects. This is one of those hard-to-believe, "oh, he just made it up" sunset effects. The wind provides some dramatic cloud effects as the thunderstorm comes to an end and the sun reflects on them as it sets in a clear area to the west of the mountains.

Of course it was an effect that lasted just a couple of minutes, so I barely had time for a quick shot with my camera. The photo didn't do justice to the scene, but I went to work before my memory of it faded, and I think I captured the dramatic colors that caught my eye.

Above, Cloud Magic, 5x8, pastel on sanded paper, ©Bill Canright, $80.

Fall Colors in the Mountains

2009-10-09T09:46:00.000-06:00

(Posted by Maggie)
Here in New Mexico, fall comes in stages. We live on the west side of Albuquerque, and look across the valley where the cottonwoods are beginning to turn a lovely golden yellow. Up on the mountain, though, it's been fall for quite a while. Most of the trees on the mountain are evergreen, but the aspen turn yellow and the scrub oak turn red and then brown, making a wonderful mix.

We hiked a little ways on the 10-K Trail, so named because it stays generally around 10,000 ft. in altitude. In some areas, the aspen were already losing their leaves, but in more protected areas they were stunningly beautiful. Mostly yellow, there are occasional trees that turn dark orange or even acquire a red tinge. Mixed in with the evergreens, they are sometimes so brilliant they appear to be lit from within.

Painting this small study was a challenge. I could not get the bright tree as bright as I wanted it until I remembered a "rule" I often mention when I'm teaching: if you can't get a color bright enough, darken the colors around it, and if you can't get it warm enough, cool the surrounding colors. A few touches of a slightly darker ultramarine in the evergreens beside the aspen solved the problem.

Above left: Aspen Glow, 5x7, oil on panel, ©Maggie Price; $75.

Remembering Scotland

2009-10-08T08:57:00.000-06:00

(Posted by Maggie)
We've been home from Scotland for some weeks now, but it's still on my mind. This small painting is the view of Loch Tay from the other side of the bridge, opposite the hotel we stayed at (the Kenmore Hotel, built in 1572). The early evening light scattered across the hills and illuminated the heather while silhouetting the small island on the right.

It's always a challenge to teach a long plein-air workshop, as weather is the one thing we can never control. We had more rain during this workshop than the previous one in Scotland around the same time of year; the locals told us this year was very unusual and it should have been dry. The good part was the dramatic clouds, and the unusually vivid and plentiful heather which bloomed across the Highlands.

I love painting clouds with oils, even more than with pastel.

Above left: Loch Tay, 6x8, oil on panel, © Maggie Price. $95.

First Oils after 20 Years in Pastel

2009-10-07T16:21:00.000-06:00

(Posted by Maggie)
I started my art career as an oil painter, more years ago than I care to remember. Over many years, I worked in oils, and later in acrylics. But by 1990, I felt my work was no longer progressing. I was just repeating—-repeating what worked, and repeating my mistakes. I needed a fresh start, and I loved the look of pastels. Once I got over the hump of the learning curve with pastels, I was thrilled with their brilliance, luminosity and versatility.

I’m still in love with pastel, but now and then I’ve itched for a brush, and wondered what it would be like to go back to working with oils. I decided to give it another try, and have been having a lot of fun with them.

One interesting thing has been that, aside from the annoying necessity of mixing colors and waiting for paint to dry, I’ve worked pretty much as I do in pastel. I feel that everything I’ve learned about color, value and composition in the years of paintings landscapes in pastel translated fairly easily to oils.

I’ve always thought that understanding values was easier in pastel than any other medium, and working in oils has confirmed that. It’s a lot easier to select a correct value than to mix it. On the other hand, achieving aerial perspective seems a little easier—you just add some blue to make a color recede. And while I’ve enjoyed the ability to mix what seems to be an infinite range of colors, it’s frustrating when I get it wrong and have to throw it out instead of putting a “wrong” stick back in the box.

I’m determined to paint at least two or three oils a week through the winter while I’m not traveling to teach, and will post them here.