The Winter Gang

Every winter, for a number of years, a group of painter friends have gotten together here in Woodstock to paint throughout the cold and snowy months of January, February and March. 

It's a good time and it helps us to keep painting outside through the long winter. I love painting snow, but I admit that it is difficult sometimes to get out there when the forecast is talking about really cold temps. But when you get together with a group, you are all in it together for the day and it brings an element of fun to the challenge. 

We do things right. First we meet for a big breakfast and some good conversation before we paint. Sometimes on a particularly cold morning, when you are sitting there by a roaring wood stove eating eggs and gulping down a hot coffee, you look outside at the shriveled landscape and ask yourself what the heck you're doing there. Then you look around at all your friends, some of whom have driven almost two hours to paint with the group, and the idea of getting out there seems to feel a little better. The breakfast time helps prepare everybody and the conversation topics are always interesting and there are always a lot of laughs.

We usually start on the first Saturday after the new year and make it a point to get together every weekend until March 20th, which is the first day of spring. This year we decided to start early, before the snow flies as they say. We also changed the painting day to Sunday as it works out better for everybody. There is no snow in the forecast yet, but autumn is still giving us some hints of her beautiful color and the November skies are filled with fast moving, ever changing cloud formations. They are a real delight to the human spirit and at no other time of year in New England will the clouds push their way through the skies and call so much attention to themselves.

Today's weather was cold and then warm and then back to cold. It kept this up for most of the day until mid afternoon when the sky turned dark and a big breeze picked up indicating that some rain was imminent. We knew it was coming but some of us couldn't put the brushes down until it suddenly opened up and poured. Here are some images from the first couple of painting days. I promise to put down the brushes once and awhile and get more shots of actual paintings in the future. 

Here and There.

Life moves fast. Faster than I can keep up with it seems, but that's what I hear from everyone I talk to these days regardless of what they do for a living. I just feel blessed to be doing what I love and look forward to everyday as another chance to live life painting landscapes both indoors and out and teaching my classes and workshops.

Recently Pam and I were part of the Rye Art Center's ' Painters On Location' event. We've participated before and love the event. The idea is simple. We drive to Rye New York, get our canvases stamped and get out there to find our place to paint for the day. There is some great subject matter in the area and this time, Pam painted on one side of a marsh, while I painted on the opposite side. It was fun and both our paintings sold well at the auction that evening and I sold my silent auction piece at the very end of the night! It was a bit of last minute drama that made for a lot of fun.

From there we taught a three day workshop for the Maritime Gallery at the Mystic Seaport in Mystic CT. How can we not have fun painting the boats and harbor at the seaport?! Its an awesome place and we were impressed with how students took the lessons showed to them through my demo and tackled their paintings with new confidence. The rain held off during class too which is always appreciated!! We always look forward to teaching there.

This past weekend, we taught another workshop in Connecticut at a farm in Hampton. Gluck Farm is one of those bucolic farms that is the perfect example of a New England farm. Over the course of the three days, our students were immersed in several changes of New England weather and treated to numerous visits by sheep, horses and two large oxen.

We should be teaching in Wayne PA for the Wayne Art Center next but they cancelled the two day workshop because we only had 4 students signed up. It would have been a great workshop having to do with painting various lighting conditions. It's a workshop that we've taught at various art centers and associations  as full workshops and students have raved about it. Oh well. Pam and I will enjoy a bit of down time instead. In the meantime, here are some images to look at.

Monday Morning Blues (and Oranges)

Today is Monday and that means, my weekly painting class at 10. I blocked in this painting last week for my students and today I painted on the block in as my morning demo.

I am using a very simple orange red & blue green complimentary palette and showed them how to get a sense of a full range of color using this simple palette. I decided that the orange red would be dominant in this painting. That's an important decision to make.

I mixed a few rows of color, colorful greys and neutrals and showed them how to key the painting towards the orange red family. Before I painted, I was sure to oil out the block in since it had totally dried.

Here are some images of the palette and the painting including a few close ups. This was a 45 minute demo.