New Kentlands and Old Peirce Mill, revisited in the studio

I just started working on this painting of a house in Kentlands today. The facade of the house is in shade, so the main idea is the bright back light and intense shadow.  It's hard not to get caught up in the house details, which should really be barely seen.  I changed the color of the house to a cooler blue (below) to have it work better in the painting, still not quite there.

The small Peirce Mill painting was started this spring -- a decent composition that moves you past the Mill to the building beyond.  The color, though, seemed dull.   The larger version is the update of the same painting. I still have a way to go balancing the addition of more interesting color with the way it reads in the painting.

Jefferson Memorial, FInished

Back to an unfinished painting

I went into my studio today, where I've had the painting of the Jefferson Memorial I started in the spring sitting, just sitting, on an easel for months.  So many things about the start were ok, but they were completely overwhelmed by what I felt was the dullness of the painting.  My first thought was that it's time to get rid of it.  My second thought was to put the energy into it that it really needs.

Color was the first issue.  I don't remember why the palette was so limited when I was working on it outside, but it definitely needed to have a much broader range of color.  Focus was the next.  You'd think with an iconic image like that, it would be easy to think about the focus, but I thought the original painting drew you to the center bottom column for no good reason at all.  Perspective was a problem too --  the city seen beyond the memorial was too big, too blocky.

I'm partway into reworking this and liking it much better, enjoying the challenge of solving the problems.  I can still see that the line of shadow and light that I thought was so interesting on the right side of the memorial is too rigid and I will break that up as I continue on.

Exhibit Installed

It may still need some tweaking, but here's how I left the gallery today; the show opens Wednesday.

September Show!

More From Maine

 While I was in Maine, I had a rental car -- I didn't drive my own paint-spattered car up there -- so I was very worried about driving around to paint.  The rental car was expensive enough without having to contend with charges for paint damage.

I ended up painting only what I could see from the house.  You can see why I feel like it's endlessly wonderful to be there from these paintings -- the harbor is the view from the East side of the house; the back barn is on the West side; the rock beach is to the south; the ferry and lobster boats are past the harbor; the rose hips are from the front lawn and set up on the porch in the still life of rose hip tea.  Usually I also paint the house itself, a beautiful 1880s Victorian Maine classic, and I also like to paint the Adirondack chairs on the front lawn before the beach.  No time this year.

You can see how varied the weather is -- and the light in fog is a completely different and diffuse glow compared to the crisp light under a blue sky.  And how, without leaving the house, you can experience the rocky coast, the busy working harbor, and relax on rocking chairs on the porch or on the lawn.

Maine Lobsters

I love to paint in Maine and there's no subject for a painting that interests me more than lobsters.   The painting of a live lobster has to be a quick one -- both because the lobster needs to either be cooled off or cooked and because they like to move.   As models go, they are a steal at $3.50/pound and they hold that "cooked" pose until hunger strikes.  This year, I painted lobsters with painter friends who are used to taking a bit more time and exercising a bit more control in painting -- and their paintings were fantastic.  Here's mine.

Painting from a Study

In the background, there's a smaller, 16 x 20, view of early morning sun streaming through the trees at Great Falls that I painted a few years ago.  It's a painting that embodies a lot of what I love -- a combination of abstraction and a view of reality, a lot of color and a feeling of intense sunlight.  I've been meaning to use it as a study for a larger painting, but haven't had the time.  This morning, I found that time (let's just say that there's only one short downstroke of type between A and P. .. I missed that my intended 10 AM departure is actually at 10 PM, a 12 hour "find" of studio painting time).

I've spent time l looking at how other artists have used studies painted plein air to create larger studio works (and I did that for my Washington monument painting I did in late winter).  Already, I can see how the color is cleaner since I'm in the studio and have more time to mix paint, I have more clean brushes on hand and I have a much bigger range of paints than I usually bring on when I'm out.  The larger painting is 30 x 40.  I think it's going to end up in my September show.

One thing you might be wondering about -- what's the thing resting on the easel tray below the painting?  It's a level and I'm finding that I'm looking to it a lot to make sure that my paintings are being painted squarely.

Studio Cleaning

Today I took a large number (a painfully large number!) of canvases to the transfer station.  That is the local euphemism for dump.  I loaded them in the car along with some beat up furniture, a badly mangled snow shovel and other junk and they are now gone.  Some of the work was unfinished, others not successful and some, well, I just didn't feel like they represented the vision I see for myself now.  My hope is that a cleaner studio will lead the way to some great painting this fall.

I rescued the above painting, which was at the back of a closet.  This painting was done at Riley's lock where the canal meets the Potomac River, probably in 2010.    Here's what I like about it:  the depth of the space; the way that you can see both arches yet you are drawn to look through the arch on the right; the warm abstraction of the intercutting of stone, tree branches and light on the far right and the cool light on the far left.

Alla Seconda? Not Quite Alla Prima

Normally, I paint "alla prima" putting wet paint into wet paint and finishing a painting in one intense, sometimes exhausting session.  I've got paintings in my studio that weren't finished at that stage and need more work, which I rarely get to.  The super hot weather has given me the incentive to go back to two paintings I started in May.