It has been pretty dismal and gray outside lately.  So it is a wonderful thing to have the opportunity to teach a floral painting class.  The intense colors of the flowers allow you to reach into piles of pigment that have otherwise been ignored while painting outdoors.  The truth is, trying to get the richness and the chromatic blast of the flowers is a welcome diversion from the veils of fog that have blanketed us outdoors.   And so I thought to present to you a bouquet of flowers I bought to do as a demo for the class. 

Lately my block ins have been getting broader and broader, massing in a general pattern of the overall values and ball parking their color with rich washes of paint.  This quick method allows me to get the placement of the entire bouquet within the perimeter of the canvas.  I believe the fact that I get out and paint nature en plein air, has taught me the necessity of covering the canvas with speed, for I know that flowers are not static and often change dramatically in a short space of time.  Nothing like plenty of brush mileage to give confidence to wield your brush with fervency and commit to the drawing and values briskly.

Covering the canvas in short order also allows me to judge the color values of entire arrangement.  While all the passages are wet, I can easily work out the edge relationships looking for the lost and soft edges.  The relative importance of flower masses to foliage is decided at this stage, trying to communicate the tactile feeling felt in these by knitting edges and by the purposeful handling of paint within these passages. 

With all the emphasis on the flowers above, it seems I am becoming less and less interested in the vase below.  I tell myself that I will get to that at another time, but canvases have been piling up around the studio in this unfinished manner with only a gray wash and a faint suggestion of a vase.  It seems I get so caught up in rendering the flowers that the rest of the painting,...well, it bores me!  Oh well, perhaps the fog is not only out my studio window but has rolled indoors.



It’s not often that I get to go outside here in Minnesota and paint in January, the coldest month, and actually feel overdressed.  But such was the case this past week while painting above the Minnesota horizon.  We have this thing about dressing in layers when it gets cold here.  This method traps the heat in between the successive layers and also allows you to peel away layer by layer until you feel, just right.  With the warmth we’ve been having this season, you almost want to just put on a T shirt.

I personally make it a habit to overdress when out painting.  I am speaking of course about the layers, not the notion of apparel refinement.  None that know me would make this mistake.  But dressing warmer than you think you should especially here on the tundra allows you to place your mind on things such as drawing, values, color and the like, instead of matters like-are my fingers still attached?

So when you get a day like this and you’re grabbing the gear to head out and paint, don’t get fooled, overdress!  Remember being ” hot” is not an estimation from a passing observer commenting on your wardrobe, no, it’s a fundamental understanding that by standing in one spot and painting at this time of the year you’re bound to be painting squiggly lines while shivering before the work is done.

Whoa!  Its 50 dddegrees colder today than yesterday.  Whats up with that?

Ok, I know things can change fast,..or not…I was rooting for the Vikings, but I’m just not ready for this atmospheric slap in the face.   Its 50 degrees colder today than yesterday,  but the truth is, what is today, may not be tomorrow. 

I was reminded of this just the other day.  I visited a lovely tea shop on Lyndale Ave here in Minneapolis, “La Societe du The”.    A market, which shall remain unnamed, is displacing this tea shop in the not too distant future.   I guess if I want to remember this image of the tea shop solidly in my mind I will need to paint it.   For some of us, painting an image tends to lock it in your mind.

“November Cedars”, the painting pictured above is yet another example of the ephemeral face of nature.  This sketch was done as a preliminary study for a planned larger work.  Actually, these cedars located on a ridge in Eden Prairie were a favorite of mine and have been depicted in several previous paintings.  Oh well, yet another Eden vanishes.  I went to check on my friends, these dear cedars, the other day and “they took paradise to put up a parking lot”….that’s part of a song from the last century by Joni Mitchell.   My plans were to paint a large, I mean really large painting of the Cedars as they would sit nestled in freshly fallen snow and lit by the soft moonlight.  I can see that in my mind’s eye and will now have to go the tea shop and extract the details necessary to commit the image to canvas instead of paint it right from nature.  I better hurry though!  What’s up with that?

Around the Bend

It’s a new year.  We are already five days deep into 2012 and I haven’t quite wrapped that fact around my head yet.  Although the calendar is drawing a line in the sand and the journal entry pages are clean and untouched, I haven’t felt a bump or change…something to say that I’ve stepped over into a fresh clean year.   Rather I feel the continuation of the past uninterrupted.  Mind you that’s not necessarily a bad thing.  Nature cycles.  The sun rises, and sets, and so it did today…again.  That’s a good thing.

Today’s forecast was for sunny skies and mild temperatures.  We got the mild temps.  The sunny skies, well nope, it was cloudy all day.  I headed down into the ravine to paint something before the forecasted colder temperatures arrive next week.   I wasn’t far into my pilgrimage before finding a possible candidate...  Talk about uninterrupted sameness, this scene I had walked by innumerable times.  For whatever reason it spoke to me today.  Pretty plain stuff…let’s see, a path in the woods and …a bend ahead…and…well, that’s about it.

I stood in the silence for a minute or two thinking.  Or was I listening, maybe that’s more like the way it is….or should have been.  “Speak to me…do you want me to paint you?”  “Speak now…I’m waiting….paint….P –A-I-N…”    "Alright, like it or not I am going to paint you, so there"!   The dialogue between me and nature went something like that.  I don’t know most of the time if it’s speaking to me or I am just moved to depict the thing before me, but the result you end up with usually speaks loud and clear as to whether you heard or saw anything there.

But now I wonder, is this more than a painting, Perhaps it’s a picture for me.  The path looks like an everyday path, sameness, familiarity, and slightly uphill.  Hmmh, uphill…arduous…I must work, harder.   But there lies a mystery ahead, a bend I cannot see what is around the bend.   Maybe this pictures my year ahead, the everydayness will change, and the sun will come out and…and…

Tomorrow’s forecast is sunny skies.  I’m going back to the path tomorrow…to peek...you know...around the bend.  Is that cheating?

The mighty Minnesota's pulse has slowed.  Just a few short months ago, she surged with a palpable flounce, leaving her customary perimeters and reaching into areas usually left high and dry.  For months in the spring we watched as she overstayed her regular flood cycle and remained at an unusual height.  That’s history now, for now the pendulum has swung far the other way.  Now I can not only walk down its steep carved banks and instead of moving laterally along its wet lip, I can walk out into its belly. 

I was out painting on a sand bar smack into the middle of the river this week.  One might well question my reasoning on this point however I was drawn to its center.   I do not own a boat, treading water while painting while perhaps scoring some points on the X factor just isn't me.  Yes, I have never been in the midst of the river to paint.  Here was my chance.  After surveying the situation, the exposed bed was frozen enough for me, out I went, easel in hand...heart in throat, carefully moving towards the center.  Viola!  I live to tell.

I actually painted 3 scenes.  Steely Waters shown here was painted at the perimeter.  The river was at different stages of freezing with ice chunks occasionally floating by me.  The process of leaving after painting did not go as well however.  Tired from my work, I decided to try and take a more direct route up the river bank by saving myself from a couple zig and zag's.  Bad mistake!   Ewwh!  We're talking mud, slip and slide, and crud everywhere. 

I did manage to save the paintings somehow.  God is goo    d!

Its been an absolutely gorgeous October here in the upper Midwest, albeit a bit too dry.  Day after day I have been going about closing down my garden, and the pond, finishing odd jobs around the house, waxing the cars, in between finishing some painting projects and preparations for my teaching classes.  At the same time I've been disciplining myself to stay at the appointed tasks, I've been acutely aware of the steady progression of the color changing of leaves.  Today as I had my members card swiped at the front desk to the gym, Mary behind the reception desk wondered aloud, "Why would you want to workout inside on a day like this?  If I painted as you do, I would be out there"...pointing out the window!

This is all I needed.  It made sense to me.  Afterall I am carrying all my gear and trudging across some field looking for the "spot" to do my stuff.  Why go to the gym?  So with a rapid about face, and a mile wide smile I headed out into the October delight.  The piece I painted is not far from home, in fact, it is in my fair city of Chaska and one of our beautiful lakes.  The sun was just coming over the ridge throwing the far side of the lake into full light while allowing the mid and foreground to be foiled in shadow.  Ahh, it was absolutely wonderful.  Thanks Mary.

This past Sunday we had a plein air paintout in downtown Minniespolis.  I just wanted to thank everyone who attended.  It turned out to be one of the most beautiful days of the summer.  Now how often does that happen?

A day like that gives one no opportunity to give excuses for a poor result with paint.  Usuallly the list of hardships and annoyances deal with the weather...inconsistent cloud cover, terrible winds, pesky flies or knats or other such winged inscests...something or another knocks you off your game.  However, this day was perfect!

We ended up painting at the southern tip of Nicollet Island looking south towards the 3rd avenue bridge.  This bridge is just one bridge north of the original location of the Stone Arch Bridge.  We lost a few people in the beginning of our painting session due to this last minute change.  If you are reading this now and happened to be at the Arch Bridge wondering what happened, let me apologize to you.  I've noticed that this is one of the perils of location painting with a group.  We had to make this adjustment due to parking problems.  I believe that everyone figured this one out or called the store, and I do so much enjoy the benefit of cell phone technology that helps out when this unfortunate situation occurs.

Anyway, my thanks again to all who attended.  It was my pleasure to meet you and enjoy putting paint to canvas together.

So I'm in St Cloud, Minnesota at the Munsinger Gardens looking for something to paint.  I've

always wanted to do the white garden and here they have a special section called just that, the

white garden.  You know, its where all the flowers' are white, or mostly white....kinda.  What's

interesting is that very thing.  The incredible variety of white's in all white.  Of course we

know this from painting the walls in our homes, primarily the kitchen.  My wife wanted nice crisp

white walls.  You of course know the end of that story.  I apparently purchased the wrong white,

eh...twice.  Yep! Now the passage of years are calling the kitchen for it's third coat of paint. 

Sue would like white.  A clean white this time.  Not the linen-ish white it now is, or the

purplish white of the time before that.

Mind you these descriptive tags of white now were not the white that I bought at the store.  At

the store I bought just that, the clean white.  Not the too white white but just the little off

white white.  From an entire rack of infinitesimal choices, each a scant different then the next.

Alas!

But here in the garden, those little variations are sought out and relished.  I love the

challenge of finding the subtle differences in each particular flower.  Then marvel at the

variety as they go back into space.  And the influence of the light on its orientation, the pitch

of the petal, the roll of the bouquet in space.

All those whites waiting to be painted here  in the white garden.    Unfortunately  it's in the

90's, dewpoints are in or near the 70's and I am hot.  Really hot!  Plein air challenges arise,

clouds, no clouds, thick thin haze, hot...and suddenly I saw just white...mainly white.  The heat

was overwhelming and the white blurred.

I had come to dissect the white.  Find and paint the minisule variations.  But, oh the heat, and

its really getting to me.  And now it is becoming  all white....and green...kinda.  Alas!

Spring is such a glorious season.  As God has designed it, things are just bursting out of the earth everywhere.  Up here in the colder regions of our country, it amazes me that anything can survive the lengthy frigid winter season.  Yet as we hit these spring time months, the flowers, plants, and trees are awakened to the warmth and are poking out of the soil.

This painting pictured here are of the waterfalls near downtown Jordan.  It's the fourth time I've painted them over the last couple of months.  I am just overwhelmed by the immense power I feel as I stand near its edge and listen to it thunder while being sprayed by the it's mist.  I think of the blessings of God.  A steady stream that is nonstop.  It just keeps coming, nonstop. 

Yes, I know that there are many other things that seem to be relentless and nonstop.  Waves of much agony and pain evident in parts of the world.   People, places, unions, countries, parties, politics...the list of waves of worry and despair-are everywhere.  But I see hope.  The buds are here - as angry as the winter was- they are here-again, and waterfall with its moving thunderous song fills me with the images- the sound  of the promises given by Him who is unseen.  These are just reminders, that all will one day be fulfilled, nonstop- eternal.  And that end, is glorious.

The ground is thawing slowly, the rivers are getting swollen as they drink in the runoff, and the backyards are mucky.  The seasonal turnover has officially begun.  I ventured out for an extended visit to my backyard this week.  I have not seen the ground itself for four straight months with all the snow we had this season.  Here and there remnants of the winter still lurked in the shadows.  The spongy ground felt and smelt good!  For as much as I love painting the winter season, this time of the year with birds singing, and already plants pushing their way to the surface  is an such an irresistible time to get out and paint, or to do almost anything in it's glory.

I had the pleasure this week to be out in a backyard, not mine, but a friend's downtown recently.  Having an hour to spend while he was busy, I decided to paint his delightful garage (a painting of it, more precisely).  It took a bit of engineering to rig my umbrella into his wash line so as to provide me with adequate shadows since somehow my umbrella's shaft had gotten bent and would not fit into the adapter on my easel.  But with the problem of glare solved, the joy of painting could begin in earnest.  The early April sun shone brilliantly on the white washed walls.  What struck me was the shingles on the roof of the building.  Their heavy texture and muted tonal color was repeated in the chromatic peeled teal color of the trim.  What might seem to many a laborious replacement project by the look of it, provided me with a rich visual textural smorgasbord, a feast of color and edge.

So there you have it!  The spring sun, the spongy matted backyard, the projects that stare at you and demand your attention, they’re all here.  Well, those rigorous spring projects will have to go on the To Do list, there's  things that need to be painted, but it ain't going to happen with my four inch nylon latex brush yet, till my #6 filbert has it's say first.