 |
||||||
|
The Blog & Stuff
|
The Blog & Stuff
September 10, 2008 Well, Hurricane Ike has rearranged my schedule - a not uncommon event in Gulf Coast states. I had planned to be in Colorado painting the San Juan Mountains this week, but as I write this, Ike is headed our way and doesn't seem to know exactly where it will come ashore. Even though Lufkin, where I live, is over 100 miles inland this storm is big enough to still do some damage if it comes our way as Rita did in 2005 (I had three trees on my house then). So I stayed home to batten down the hatches and such and will have to make that trip to Colorado either late this year or early next year. Oh well, I wanted to do more snow paintings anyway.
August 3, 2008 Yesterday I painted with a couple of members of the Outdoor Painters Society at a vineyard south of Tyler, TX. The OPS had been invited to set up easels and paint during an annual event that features wine tasting, live music and other festivities. It sounded like fun and I had never painted in a vineyard, so I set out early to take advantage of the relatively cool temperatures. (It is summer in Texas and the forecast called for temps near 100 in the afternoon.) By mid-morning the place was bustling with people enjoying the music, the vendors' booths and the wine tasting. There was even a barrel with grapes so you could try your hand (make that 'feet') at grape stomping. After looking around for a while I found a shady spot with a nice view of a driveway under a canopy of crepe myrtles in bloom and started painting. I was joined by Herb Bryant first, then by Herb Reed and his wife SuAnn. I finished my painting first and left them to find another subject, but couldn't find anything that really turned me on. So I had a glass of sangria, listened to some music for a bit and left for home. Here's the 8x10 I did:
Later, I learned that the owner of the place had confronted the other painters, telling them they were trespassing and that he was going to confiscate their paintings. They explained that we had been officially invited to paint at the winery, but he insisted none the less that they were trespassing. Ultimately, he bought their paintings instead of confiscating them, but the conflict was unfortunate and unwarranted and we won't be going back there. You never know what you're going to encounter when plein air painting. Insects, animals, weather, art critics and even grumpy land owners all make for interesting experiences.
July 11, 2008 Since some paintings on this site are identified as "plein air" pieces, it may be in order to say something about that term for those who aren't sure what it means. In the days prior to the French Impressionist movement of the 19th century, artists rarely ventured out of their studios to paint. They either had to mix their own paints from dry pigments or buy paint in vessels that were impractical for out-of-doors work. Then in 1841 an American artist living in England named John G. Rand invented something that changed the nature of painting forever - a collapsible tin tube with a stopper in it. This simple development allowed artists to take their paint with them and to paint directly from nature in the open air (or en plein aire in French) instead of from pencil sketches, notes and memory. Today there are many plein air groups (I even started one myself- see here), many plein air events and exhibitions and even galleries devoted to plein air work. But the real reason for painting from life is often lost in all this seeming desire to create a new genre - that is to have at hand all of the information about the subject for the artist to use. The eye (and mind) can see infinitely more colors and values (the darks and lights) than can be captured in photos taken with even the best cameras. And even though it is not possible to reproduce with paint all that the eye sees, it is up to the artist to decide what part of that information contributes to a good painting and what does not. And paintings done from life will often have more honesty, truth and immediacy not always seen in studio woks. My objective in painting landscapes from life is to capture all of the most important characteristics of the scene as faithfully as I can. Then I can use those studies in the studio, manipulating those truths in order to create a statement of my own ("telling small lies to convey a larger truth" as someone has said). So if you are a painter, try always to paint from life. If you are a collector, remember that painting from life is a process, not an end in itself. A painting isn't a good painting just because it was done en plein aire. Lots of bad paintings are done en plein aire. It just means that the artist went to the very source of the the truth about the subject.
July 8, 2008 I have just recently moved my studio from one rental space to another that is smaller (and cheaper) and closer to home. My previous space was all the way across town in the next community - a whopping seven miles! - but the new one is only a mile from my house. When I put pencil to paper I realized that at today's (mid-2008) gasoline prices that would save me a minimum of $50-60 per month in gas alone. That will buy several tubes of paint! And given that the rent is also much less, it was a "no-brainer". I can even ride my bicycle to work on cool days! But it's quite a bit smaller than the previous studio, consisting of two identical rooms, one for a studio and one for a work/storage room. There's no space to waste and I'll have to think wisely about what to keep and what I can do without, but it looks like it will work out well. Time will tell. Here's what the studio portion looks like:
And here are a couple of shots of the work room where things are stored and paintings are framed and packed for shipping.
|
|||||
|
This is the website of
David Moreland Bates, an American artist
|
||||||
