mchesleyjohnson.blogspot.com
One of the country's top plein air painters, Michael works in oil and pastel in the American Southwest, coastal Maine and the Canadian Maritimes.
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One of the country's top plein air painters, Michael works in oil and pastel in the American Southwest, coastal Maine and the Canadian Maritimes.
The gallery manager explained that the artist will paint a typical William Hook landscape and, then, using the same palette, create an abstract version of it. ( You can see Hook's work here .)I like his new work. Below I will show you the original painting, my practice piece for the demonstration, the demonstration painting itself plus the two abstract versions. The second painting went more smoothly, as I tried to work more mindfully.
This past weekend, the Pastel Society of New Mexico invited me to the Albuquerque Museum to give a painting demonstration. My theme was "Understanding Value: Painting Light on Water" with a focus on the effect of what I call "glare." Although that's not a lot of time to do a full painting, I made sure to practice the demonstration in my own studio a few days before, and I also did a good deal of preparatory work, such as pre-drawing my design on the pastel paper I would use, to make sure things would go smoothly. In my next post, I will talk about the progression of getting from the plein air study, done in oil, to two studio versions done in pastel, plus the demonstration, and then an abstraction.)The demonstration was also recorded in video by Nicholas Tesluk and is available on the Pastel Society of New Mexico's web site at the "PSNM Resources" tab and on Vimeo.
But those same clouds, as they go farther into the distance, will develop cool, shadowed bottoms and warm, sunlit tops—a reversal of what you see when they are closer and more overhead. Their beauty called me to paint them, but I knew I'd never capture their shapes precisely in the slow medium of paint. So, I dragged out my sketchbook and a 6B pencil, set up a chair in a warm, sunny spot, and got to work. One trick in the field is to observe and sketch a variety of cloud shapes in your sketchbook before painting, and then transfer the most interesting shapes to your canvas lightly with pencil.
In case you've missed them, I've written several posts over the years that have to do with what I consider essential tools for the plein air painters. You can read the posts here Am I missing any? By the way, for most of us in the northern hemisphere, plein air painting season is upon us. If you've never painted en plein air before or feel that your skills need brushing up, please consider taking one of my online, self-study courses.