Summer Nights

Over the last couple of weeks I have painted two nocturnes from memory, evocations of summer nights both past and present. While both of these paintings purport to depict East Texas, they also reside in childhood memories of warm summer nights and cool moonlight. As Thoreau said "the night is oracular."

A Summer Night

12 x 12

Oil on ACM panel

Moonlit Pines (still on the easel)

12 x 12

Oil on ACM panel

Nocturnes are intensely romantic images. In the 18th century they were often called 'moonlights'. The term nocturne was first used to describe a series of musical composition by Frederick Chopin in the 1820s. Within the next few decades literary circles in Paris embraced the nocturne, especially the Symbolist poets Rimbaud, Verlaine and Gautier. By the 1860s the motif of the nocturne as a lyrical form of expression that conjured altered states of perception was widely embraced across all the arts. Perhaps one of its best known proponents was James Abbott McNeil Whistler (1834-1903), an expatriate American artist living in London. Whistler, more than any other nineteenth century artist, reinvigorated the depiction of moonlit nights into a modern idiom. He appropriated the musical term “nocturne’ to describe his spare, murky depictions of nighttime along the Thames and in Venice. Whistler employed memory as a major component of his artistic practice, often observing a nighttime motif repeatedly before retreating to his studio to paint it.

The Power of Selection Through Memory

As many of you know, I primarily work from memory and imagination. Many years ago, I started to explore this way of working, and now it has become second nature to me. It is also part of the method I teach my students. I wrote more about that here and here.

One of the strongest reasons to train your visual memory is the power it has to distill and intensify your experience of the landscape, and as a result of that, to assist you in creating a very personal response to it in your art.  As Carlson says, this helps us to locate the source of our originality. It is our personal response to the landscape we seek to express, rather than a copy of the scene in front of us. Because memory acts as a filter to select certain information while rejecting other information, it is a highly personal tool for art making.

I spent last week in Fredericksburg, Texas with Mallory Agerton, a friend and former student. Mallory completed the Atelier Program in 2015. In fact, she was part of the first group of students that I used as 'guinea pigs' for my memory training exercises. Today, as a professional artist, she works from the drawings she makes in the field and memory (no photography).

We also spent a week together last year at about the same time of the year. On successive evenings we went out just before sunset to observe the landscape. We were both taken with a little creek we found and spent about 20 minutes each night for three evenings looking at it.  We both did drawings of it from memory later.

Here is Mallory's drawing.

And here is mine.

Obviously they are very different. After we made our drawings we talked about what we saw and what we were interested in about the scene. For me, the large tree and its gesture against the sky, the intimate space around the creek and the sliver of water made a big impression. I also wanted to get my drawing dark enough to suggest the failing light. Mallory noticed a smaller tree in front of the big one and the filigree of its branches against the sky. She also wanted to simplify the whole scene into very simple shapes. She depicted it as more open.

When I got back home I painted this little study from memory. The idea that I captured in the drawing was further distilled and sifted again through memory (including remembering the color).

Hill Country Dusk

10 x 9

Of course, there isn't any right or wrong here.  Both Mallory and I responded to what was most interesting and our memories were strongest of the things that interested us most. Those things to a very large extent reflect our personal aesthetics. Memory, if properly trained and used, will help you identify the things you really want to paint--not things that are merely interesting, but the things you find truly compelling.

Moonrise

Spring Moonrise

24 x 24

Available at Hildt Galleries, Chicago

Hello All! Yes, it's been a long time. It's not that I haven't been writing (I have) but just elsewhere. But, I have wanted to get back here for a long while, and here I am. Hope some of you are still out there.

Moonrises have been on my mind this week. I am teaching an online class on Nocturnes right now, and since this week is the full moon, it is not only the best time to observe the moonlit landscape but also to observe moonrise and moonset. That's because when the moon is full, it rises at about the same time as sunset, and sets at about the same time as sunrise. The sun in the opposite sky from the moon makes for lots of evocative light and color and also for interesting compositional opportunities.

Moonrise, Flood Tide

24 x 30

Private Collection

The moon and moonlight are full of mystery and mood. At full moonrise, before it is dark, we can feel the day slipping away, giving way to the night. Unfortunately for me, the skies in northeast Texas are too cloudy to enjoy the show. But, if its clear where you are, be sure to watch for moonrise at sunset tonight and moonset at dawn tomorrow!

Moonrise over the Pines

36 x 30

Private Collection

Let's Try Again- New Paintings & Drawings

Several readers wrote to let me know they were having trouble viewing the images in my last post. So I am reposting them. Thanks to those of you who let me know!

You should be able to click on all images for a larger view.


This first image is a painting which is headed to the Small Works, Great Wonders show at the National Western Heritage Museum in OK City.

Woods Lake Interior

20 x 16

I am hard at work on some larger paintings, but here are several drawings and a few small paintings. 

Two Trees 

charcoal on Twinrocker handmade paper

12 x 10

 Woods

charcoal on Twinrocker handmade paper

12 x 20

 Morning Walk, Fence Line

11 x 14

Backyard, Evening

8 x 10

Gilcrease Museum- Collectors' Reserve

I am pleased to say that these three pieces are headed to the Collectors' Reserve Show & Sale at the Gilcrease Museum this fall. The Gilcrease has a fabulous collection of American art including some beautiful examples of Hudson River School paintings and holds what is considered among the world’s largest and most comprehensive collections of fine art, artifacts, and archives dealing with the American West. Located in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the museum grounds include 23 acres of thematic gardens showcasing the gardening styles of different time periods in the American West. It is an honor to be included in this exhibition.

 Aspen Brook Study

6 x 12

 Late Afternoon Light

12 x 16

Farm Pond Morning

16 x 20

New Work

Winter came back with a vengeance this week, giving us our first snowfall. My favorite haunts were covered in four inches of snow.  Here they are, back in November, shrouded in fog and rich with the color harmonies of late autumn.

 November Fog

20 x 20

 Foggy Morning

20 x 24

November Morning at the Pond

20 x 24

In a Fog

The last few weeks we have had some lovely foggy mornings which are very typical for this time of year here. The exquisite, delicate color harmonies mixed with the mystery of forms enveloped by mist always intrigues me. So, this year I resolved to do a few paintings of fog motifs. In pursuit of that I did these three color studies last week. All are vine charcoal and pastel on toned paper.

Autumn Harmony

Autumn Harmony

24 x 18

It's my favorite time of year- finally! When I was saving this image of a newly completed painting to my computer, I had to laugh at the number of painting titles that start with the word "Autumn". There's Autumn… Light, Moment, Interlude, Sunrise, Evening, Morning, Sunset, Dusk, Road, Crossing, Woods, Reflections …well, you get the idea. Yes, I  love to paint autumn. This year, I am actually painting it "in season" instead of months behind, so I hope to show a few more with titles that start "Autumn" soon.

PS. There is a new post up on the Field Notes blog about Speed of the Line & Stoppers. Want to know more? Check it out!

PPS  Our popular online class Composing the Landscape starts October 31.

It's Snowing!

Winter Woods

20 x 16

OK, not really. It is rare for me to be painting ahead of a season. usually I am several steps behind, still painting spring when summer is in full bloom or painting fall when it's Valentine's Day. In this case, I managed to get out ahead of the season. I was happy to conjure up the cold quiet of a winter's day inside my studio while heat and humidity still prevail outside.

This painting will be exhibited at the Collectors' Reserve Show & Sale at the Gilcrease Museum, TUlsa, OK, November 6, 2014.

Close to Home

Spring Morning

18 x 24

I have just returned from two different sketching trips to Colorado and also teaching a workshop there near Telluride. I love Colorado and I have a whole sketchbook full of ideas that I am looking forward to painting over the nest few months. But close to home is, as always, the real source of my inspiration. Right across from our property are acres of land owned by a neighbor who generously allows me to tromp around in all seasons. This painting was started this spring during the workshop at The Landscape Atelier and completed in early summer. 

Remarked Lennox Woods Catalogs

I have been having a great time this week filling orders for remarked catalogs, that is, Lennox Woods catalogs which include an original pen and ink drawing. Each one is different and includes a personal note. Click for larger view.

  If you would like one of your very own, click here.

Southwest Art Magazine Article

I am thrilled to say that the Southwest Art Magazine article is now out. It appears in the March issue. There is a link to the article below.

Link to Article

Less Is Not Always More

 Whose Woods These Are

54 x 72

(click for larger view- pardon the homemade photography)

Sometimes it's just less. One of the great challenges of this project is to find a way to convey the Woods in a way that is authentic but still suggestive and full of mystery. And to do that in sizes ranging from 12 x 16 to 72 x 96.  In a 12 x 16 you can use one brushstroke to describe what requires a complicated passage in a larger work. But more importantly, you have to find the right balance between what Asher B Durand called imitation and representation. There are some things which can be imitated and some things that can only be represented (I would use the word suggested perhaps). The right balance is essential to capture a sense of place and yet retain the mystery and mood you want to convey. I wanted the paintings to look like the Woods without being literal portraits- to convey a palpable sense of what it feels to be in this place. That requires something more than suggestive generalization and less than simply copying what you see.

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas!

Spreadsheets. Really?

Illumination

48 x 64

(click for larger view)

Spreadsheets. Not a word I would have ever included on a list of things I might learn about over the course of working on my solo show. But, here I am two years later finding myself creating spreadsheets to keep track of and organize over forty paintings for the show.

The exhibition will hang in two separate venues (Galerie Kornye West and The Botanical Research Institute of Texas) and is organized around the theme of the four seasons in Lennox Woods. Early on, I worked out the number of pieces I would paint for each season and the size ranges and how many in each range, and roughly how many of each would hang in each venue.

As the work begin to take shape, other things needed to be kept track of- what pieces had been photographed, what was finished and what was work in progress, how many of each group still needed to be started, and the frame status for each piece.

Then, some pieces were sold and others left the studio for the gallery. Some pieces were varnished and others had not been (making it easier to work on them again if I wanted to).

When we started working on the catalog I needed to keep track of what information had been given to the designer of the catalog and what was still needed. And, of course, the deadlines to get the work finished, photographed, framed and delivered.

It turns out, spreadsheets are a great way to organize all that information in an easily accessible and organized way. Spreadsheets. Who knew?

What Might Have Been

What Might Have Been

48 x 40

(click for larger view)

Lennox Woods is a 300+ acre oasis of old growth forest surrounded by fields, pastures, third or fourth cut woods and pine plantations. Driving down the dirt road to its unassuming entrance one can immediately see the change in the landscape. The fact that the Woods exist today is because from the mid 19th century, the Lennox family preserved them, protected them from logging and then gave them to the Nature Conservancy to be protected in perpetuity. It could have all turned out very differently.

I thought a lot about all this while I worked in the Woods over the last two years. But, I also came to understand the idea of "what might have been" in much more personal terms. When I first came to the Woods I had certain ideas about how I would paint them. Although I spent several months just looking and drawing, I did have some preconceived ideas of how I would approach the work. Over time, many of those ideas dissolved and reformed into new ones- influenced both by the Woods themselves and the rhythm of my own life. Those things combined to produce a very different body of work than I would have produced in a shorter span of time or if my own life had not been upended in various ways during the process. I don't know what that work would have been like, but I feel confident that the body of work that I will exhibit this coming March will be stronger, better, and deeper. That is something else I learned in the Woods. 

What I learned in the Woods

Summer Respite

42 x 24

(click for larger view)

Now that I am closing in on finishing the work for the Lennox Woods show, I thought I might do a series of posts about what I have learned during this two year process. There are all sorts of things. I have learned a lot about my materials that I did not know. I have learned about patience and frustration. I have learned about the challenges of working on a large scale and of working on a long term project. The list goes on and on. So, I am going to tackle this one little piece at a time, and in no particular order of importance.

I have learned to slow down. To those who know me, I can hear your snorts of laughter! Yes, I do have a reputation for "being in a hurry, multitasking, getting a lot done in a short period of time and generally living by the "to do" list. But, exactly because of that, learning to slow down has been an important lesson, both in how I create my work and in how I approach it. Over the last ten years, the techniques I have adopted have necessitated that I slow down. Gathering field reference, eschewing photography and working indirectly have all made it necessary for the actual making of art to be a much slower process than it was when I was an alla prima, direct painter.

But now, I have slowed down in other ways. Spending time in the Woods has led me to a much slower, contemplative way of approaching Nature. Simply sitting on one spot and listening can lead to all sorts of things. In the end, that experience ends up on the canvas.

Working on the "big boy"

One of the most exciting things about painting for my solo show next spring has been the opportunity to work in large formats. I have learned so much about how to go about this, mostly by trial and error. These days my studio is a jungle of easels and paintings, but I cleared away some of the clutter to show how I started this large painting, 72 x 96 , aka "big boy" which will be the centerpiece of the show.

I have described in another post how I use sketches, drawings, memory and imagination plus a study to start the process. A grid is made on tracing paper over the study and proportional squares placed on the larger canvas in charcoal. In this first image you can see the 18 x 24 study (which is at the underpainting stage) on the right, the grid in the middle, and big boy on the left with the charcoal grid laid in. All images can be clicked on for a larger view.

 Here is the grid. The main shapes and lines in the composition are traced in pencil after the grid format is drawn in in pen.

Here is the 18 x 24 study (unfinished).

Here is the underpainting more or less complete. This took about two days of work.

Up on my little stepladder working on the underpainting.

Upcoming show- Albuquerque Museum Miniatures & More

Evening Pond

10 x 12

Available at Albuquerque Museum Miniatures & More

I am happy to say that I will have three paintings in the Albuquerque Museum Miniatures & More exhibition and sale this year. The Gala will be held on October 26, 2013,  and the paintings will be sold by fixed price draw.

This is another painting based on a pond near my home and studio and painted from observation and memory.

Farm Pond Morning

Farm Pond Morning

16 x 20

I walk most every morning, starting out just before dawn. As my Facebook friends know, I regularly post images of the things I see on my morning walks, usually skies and effects of light, but occasionally wildlife (deer, snakes, turtles, rabbits) and cows. I have made a few paintings over the last couple of years of early morning subjects from my walks but the Lennox Woods project has kept me pretty occupied. I made this painting for the Small Works, Great Wonders show at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum opening this November. I am looking forward to painting more morning subjects once I am out of the Woods.

A Summer Idyll

I continue to work steadily on the Lennox Woods body of work for my solo show next spring. There will be five large scale paintings - 48 x 60 up to 72 x 96-  and a total of about 42 paintings in the show. I started with the smallest of the "BIGs" as I call them, and am working my way up in size. I am working on several of them at the same time, plus others as well- usually about 8 to 10 pieces at a time. 

In January of 2012 when I first started on this journey, I was out in the Woods one day with Steve and Allen Phillips (the filmmaker for the project). Allen and I managed to wander off the trail. I didn't know my way around the Woods very well back then and neither did Allen. But, he had a GPS on his phone and we knew if we kept heading north we would hit the dirt road that runs along one side of the Preserve. So, we kept going instead of doubling back to find the trail. It was winter so bushwhacking through the Woods wasn't too hard and we got back into some spots that would be hard to find in any other season.  Pretty soon we came upon a small pond. It was a big surprise because the only water I had seen in the Woods was Pecan Bayou and the small streams it spawned throughout the Preserve. This pond looked self contained, although Steve thinks it is fed by a spring on adjacent property. Anyway, having found it, I knew I wanted to come back.

Here is a study for the 60 x 72 painting I am now working on.

A Summer Idyll

20 x 24

I started with lots of sketches, working out my ideas. This is my preferred way to work- hunting for motifs, then using drawings to work out designs and to gather reference materials.

Once I had the design organized and the field reference I needed, I started the 20 x 24 study.

I made a grid of the study and traced the main shapes and lines. I gridded the large canvas with proportional squares with vine charcoal, then drew in the composition.

Here is the studio with the large canvas on the left, the grid in the center and the study to the right of that. Just to get an idea of the scale, the painting on the easel behind the grid is 36 x 48!