September 2010 Nocturne Painting Marathon!

Instead of the four paintings a day that I painted for the April Painting Marathon, I'm launching a Nocturne Painting Marathon during which I will be painting 2 nocturnes a night. I know... four paintings a day for 30 days... is a "real" marathon! I'm already feeling like a "lessor" version of myself! Still, two paintings a night, every night in addition to all of the other work I'll be doing ( a lot of September to November deadlines ahead of me), the beginning of the hunting season, a wedding to attend, a two day workshop to teach, and a few other assorted obligations (including the ones that you don't plan on that pop up)... all are sure to challenge my efforts.

"Why would I want to do this?" I have been asked? Because I like painting, a lot, and since the 2009 April Painting Marathon I have been asked a lot if I am going to do it again. I'm not one to want to repeat exactly something like that, a once in a lifetime experience. I don't even know if I could repeat that. But I did enjoy it immensely and have been thinking about what I might do next. I thought about one 30x40 a day for a month (just kidding).

I like painting nocturnes and find a certain expressive freedom in them that comes with the same sort of adrenaline rush that you can get from doing something like eating a wild mushroom for the first time... or putting an airplane into a spin or emergency maneuver for the first time. It's a rush!!!

The subjects are diverse, from natural moonlight to city/industrial to residential lit up scenes. Painting at least 60 of them in the next 30 days means I'll be looking for a lot of variety in the subjects I choose to paint. That is exciting all by itself.

I'LL POST EACH NIGHT'S PAINTINGS THE FOLLOWING MORNING IN MOST CASES. They'll probably also go onto my website, but this is where I'll write about them and what went on. People have asked if they're going to be for sale and the answer is 'YES'.

( I knew there would be things to add...) The paintings are all oil on canvas board and are 5"x7" or 7"x5". For the techies out there, These are Panelli Telati boards, canvas on hardboard, that I over prime with an oil/alkyd type primer. The one I used is no longer available so I would recommend trying an oil primer by Gamblin, Winsor and Newton, Utrecht, Studio Products, Williamsburg, etc.. I've used those too and would find them all good for what I'm doing with these panels.

Auction Info...

1) Below each painting will be a link that says "Click Here to Bid.". This will take you to the 'eBay' page where the paintings are listed for sale via the eBay auction system.

2) Each painting will be put up on a 1 (one) Day Auction for bids. Following the 1(one) Day Auction, they will come off of the market and will not be for sale.

3) The starting price of each painting is $150.00 and includes shipping and insurance to the USA, Canada and Europe. MN residents will be charged MN State Sales Tax. Payments accepted via PayPal.

4) If you purchase a painting it will need time to dry, be varnished and packaged. Following that and cleared payment, the paintings will be shipped promptly. I estimate that it will take approximately 3 weeks following the day the painting is painted for it to be ready to be packed and shipped.

5) I cannot "hold one for" you... "save a special day"... All of the paintings will be put up for a fair sale via the eBay Auction system and will be sold as per that.

Thank you... If I think of anything else I'll add to this post. Oh... This is going to be fun. :-)

April 7, 2009

Today wasn’t too bad, I was in Luck. Later in the day I got really lucky too. (Apologies to those who live around here for my bad taste in a heavily overused verbal twist! But I can’t help it...)
Okay, Luck, WI is about 20 miles from Taylors Falls. I went there to paint on the streets because it’s so quiet that I knew that no one would bother me. The “lucky” part was the last painting of the day. I had just finished #3 and was wondering where to go next, looked to the left and there it was. I wasn’t going anywhere. Somewhere in the distance, probably near Luck, just my luck to leave early (I’ll stop now), but there was what I assume was a spring burn happening. Perfect timing, or good luck? Either way I felt lucky to have this for my last painting of the day. Whew! Bad, bad, bad joke.


“Tower Of Luck” oil, 5x7 © Marc R. Hanson 2009
Luck has two water towers, that I’ve seen anyway. I like this one because of the red lettering. The other one is older, the ‘witches hat’ variety, but this one had a great highlight on it this morning, so I painted it.



“Just A Little Luck” oil, 5x7 © Marc R. Hanson 2009
The title refers to the little bit of town in view. I loved the hot white of the wall of the St.Croix Valley Hardwoods building. Every building seemed to belong to them in a quite large industrial section of town. That accented by the turquoise blue pipes made the choice easy for me.



“Distant House” oil, 5x7 © Marc R. Hanson 2009
I left Luck and headed back to my area with two paintings still to complete. The paintings in Luck took more time than usual due to the more complex drawing involved. I try to finish these by about 4:30 to 5:30pm just so that I can get this all put together for publishing at a reasonable hour. Still having two paintings to do at 3:45 today was making me nervous about reaching my time goal. This one caught my eye because of the white house way out in the distance, lit up like a light, surrounded by all of the bare growth of the previous season. Lot’s of grey/brown in other words. But the light was good, so I painted this one pretty quick compared to the time I’ve beens spending on these.


“Spring Burn” oil, 5x7 © Marc R. Hanson 2009
I finished the ‘Distant House’ in about 35 minutes and was feeling good about my time frame goal. As I mentioned above, I looked just to my left and saw the smoke of a spring burn, rising high into the atmosphere and said, “Boy... I’m a lucky painter!” Last of the day, and last of the Luck jokes!!! Promise.

April 3, 2009

April 3, 2009
At the start of today I was thinking that I’d have to drag out my tube of ‘grey sky’ color once again! I followed the weather report and it said that the sun would be out in Minnesota except north and east of the Twin Cities. That’s pretty much where I live. I wasn’t putting up with that. So I took the truck south towards Stillwater hoping that I’d get an extra hour of that warm friend. Until noon it was grey there too. But then the sky opened up and despite needing to wear the same amount of clothing as I have since this thing started on Wednesday... Man did that sun feel good! I’m not complaining, but the added little bit of warmth was Welcome!!!


‘High Water’ © Marc R. Hanson 2009
While waiting for the sun to come out I went down to the flooded waterfront in Stillwater to warm up. The entire walkway and park is under water. So that’s different than normal and the colors this morning were quite rich and attractive to me. This was a quick one, just under 40 minutes.


‘Dancing Reeds’ © Marc R. Hanson 2009
I love the rich color in the water along the edges of ponds at this time of year. The water reflects the color of the sky but is tempered by the color of the water and the depth of the water. Shallow water darkens the value because you can see into it, the bottom color modifies the sky reflection. The result is usually a very rich, dark color. Add in the light, warm color of the reeds from the previous season and there’s compliments and value contrast galore to have fun with. As I painted and observed this scene, I had the impression that the reeds were moving about, almost like thin legged dancers on a stage.


‘Duck Playground’ © Marc R. Hanson 2009
Beautiful cerulean sky with light violet clouds cutting into the horizon of the sky. Ducks, Eagles, Loons all sounding off in the marsh. Sounded like they were having a great time, and so was I.


‘Berg!’ © Marc R. Hanson 2009
I visited a large lake in the afternoon that was still icebound. But what a treat it was! This place was full of whooping swans, sandhill cranes, geese, shorebirds, and a bunch of eagles out fishing in the open pockets of water. The entire time I was painting, I was hearing the ‘wooop- whhoooop’ and the paddle like splashes of their enormous feet as they went through courtship activities. The painting subject caught my eye because it was the only snow of any amount along the shore and really stuck out like a sore thumb. I like that kind of contrast.

April 2, 2009

This morning started out promising, full sun and temps in the low 30’s. A little bit of wind, dang wind, but manageable. I was able to use an umbrella to block the sun without the easel taking off. By late morning, early afternoon we had a sky full of very chilly looking clouds, broken with little bits of sky showing, but the wind had picked up and it just felt and looked cold. I was going to explore the farmland all day but by the last painting I had had enough of the open landscape and headed to the park down along the river to get out of it. The afternoon light just never materialized into strong sunlight for the rest of the time that I was out. I’m eagerly anticipating more sun... and more heat! A good day none the less. Met some kids who are also artists and who thought that I was doing an OK job.


‘Prairie Shed’ © Marc R. Hanson 2009
To tell you the truth... I was so ecstatic at the sun being out and blazing onto the face of these grasses and the rest of the landscape that I let the color boil a little bit. Meaning that I wanted to paint the joy I had more than I wanted to paint the color as grey as it might have been in reality. I didn’t go that far out of my way to make it more saturated, but this is a painting that is more about how I felt about what I saw than an ‘exact’ duplicate of what nature presented. On the other hand, this is what nature presented and I was thrilled about it.


‘That White House’ © Marc R. Hanson 2009
I’ve painted this location in different seasons, winter, fall but never spring. It’s just such an attractive little homestead to me that I always enjoy giving it my attention. It sits along a busy road so this is really the only vantage point that can be safely painted. I haven’t captured it’s personality as I’d like to yet so I will most likely be going back again.



‘Cool April Skies’ © Marc R. Hanson 2009
To paint this painting I simply turned in the opposite direction from the previous one. By now I was chilled. But I decided to stay and get # 3 done so that I could head home to warm up before tackling #4. The farm and tree line in this one were silhouetted against the fast moving sky and I found that sort of eerie but interesting to paint.


‘Water Dropping’ © Marc R. Hanson 2009
This one is from along the St. Croix in the Interstate park again. Pretty simple composition, across the river. The challenge again, as in the 4th one from yesterday, was how to deal with a forest full of tree branches without a lot of definition.

April 1, 2009

I'm going to go ahead and post my daily paintings here too. The main reason is that on this blog they can be blown up and that's one of the things that I like most when I'm looking at paintings, the ability to feel like you can crawl into the surface of the painting and see all of the texture, brushwork and surface feel. It goes a long way to understanding how an artist uses the materials. In light of that I will try this. If you want to read about the day, still go to my website for that. Thanks.


'Ice Shelf' © Marc R. Hanson 2009


'Below St. Croix Falls' © Marc R. Hanson 2009


'That Farm' © Marc R. Hanson 2009


'The Only Snow Left' © Marc R. Hanson 2009

These are, as you know, 5"X7", painted on 100% 8-ply Rag Museum board with several different primers on them. As of today, my favorites are those that were primed with two coats of clear shellac. I tone it with some grey pastel dust to kill the white. This is a wonderful surface to paint on. The paint 'sits up' on the surface and doesn't sink in until it's dry. It's a smooth surface, not much tooth. This might be what seems good to me today and tomorrow something completely different might be what I use. 'That Farm' was painted on one that I mounted some very fine oil primed linen on. I suspect that I'll be using a lot of that too.

The first two paintings of the day were painted from underneath the Hwy 8 bridge that crosses the St. Croix river between Taylors Falls and St. Croix Falls, WI. It was snowing pretty good at that time so to stay dry and a little more comfortable, I was a troll. That also goes with my Scand-a-'hoovian' background as trolls are important in their mythology and folklore.

The light today was less than ideal, but the light snowfall made it a great day to paint. As you can see the wet surfaces of dead leaves, grasses and trees reflected an enormous amount of color. By the end of the day the snow was all but gone.

I was surprised to see the large piece of ice left in the painting 'Ice Shelf'. The ledge that I painted, only part of, is probably about 40 or 50 ft wide and pretty thick. It reminds me that this entire area was carved out by glaciers in the past. This little shelf reminded me of a miniature version of one. The color at this time was very, very rich and enjoyable to paint.

After the first painting it was snowing harder so I just turned from where I was standing and looked up river to paint 'Below St. Croix Falls'. What attracted me was the atmosphere, the distance almost a haze due to falling snow. That let up but the river being so high had wonderful subtle patterns of a mix of foam and suds from the dam up river. All of that made for a simple but calming color scheme to paint. There were large 'foam-bergs' floating down with the current. I added a few of them.

The third painting of the day, 'That Farm', was an attempt to back off of my view point and get some open sky and open land around me. Of course it was blowing pretty good out in the open country so I decided to pull the gear back in the car and finished this one from the front seat. I knew that I had another 3 hours or so to go and didn't want to become hypothermic while painting and not be able to get my '4' in for the day.

By the end of the day the snow was almost gone. I wanted to keep the snow as a common thread through all of the paintings for today. So in 'The Only Snow Left' I was painting in the Interstate Park near my house, and walked into the woods a ways to find this little smattering of wet snow still laying in the leaves. That was good enough so this became my final piece.

My Painting Marathon...in case you want to follow it.

I'm feeling the need to shake off the metaphoric cobwebs that form from being in the studio, for what has seemed like a very long winter, and to get out and enjoy the spring weather (if it shows up... winter isn't letting go yet!). In light of that, I’m embarking on a one month project that I'm calling “My Painting Marathon”.

Beginning Wednesday, April 1, 2009 and continuing until April 30, 2009, I will be painting four (4) small paintings every day and posting them on my website blog. I do have a three day workshop scheduled the middle of April and won't be able to paint the 4 per day during that time. In order to keep the total number of paintings at 120, I'll be sprinkling one in here and there on other days throughout the month.

Why do this? A few years back, about 2005, following artist Duane Keiser’s 2004 ‘A Painting A Day’ lead (which became a world wide phenomenon), I like many other painters started a similar project. Mine didn’t make it too far. I painted daily anyway, whether working on a larger painting in the studio or completing smaller pieces en plein air. I’m a full time artist, that’s what I do! The one painting a day for it’s own sake seemed redundant for me so I let it go.

Now I’m feeling the need for a serious challenge, like being an artist isn't enough of one already. None the less, I think that I’ve found one. 4 paintings a day for 30 days should do it! Admittedly, it's a spin off of the Daily Painting movement, that's obvious. Even while just sitting here typing out this post about the project, the word "DAUNTING" is flashing like a migraine induced - kaleidoscopic image in my head. Committing to 120 paintings in 30 days is A LOT of commitment!

Maybe I should be committed?

Seriously... at the same time I'm eagerly anticipating how much this is going to teach me about painting. Subject matter is in existence all around me that I probably walk or drive past daily without noticing. This will give me more than enough opportunity to pay a little closer attention to my world. In addition to learning to understand how to see otherwise neglected subject matter, I suspect that the experience will build a pretty good card catalogue in my mental library on the subject of atmospheric mood, and seasonal color and texture in the landscape. Then there are all of the discoveries to be made about the tools and techniques that I use from painting this many paintings in such a concentrated drop of time. Efficient use of time! That might become the biggest lesson of all. I don't really know what all of the benefits will be, but I look forward to discovering them all.

You can opt to check in here on your own to view the daily paintings, or you can subscribe to my EMAIL NEWSLETTER SUBSCRIPTION LIST.

In that case you will receive an email each day of the month of April previewing the images painted that day, or the previous day if I'm delayed in sending it out.

If you are already subscribed to my list but don't care to receive these daily mailings, you can unsubscribe at any time. If you decide to 'unsubscribe' I will be notified by FASO, the web host. At that time I will add your address to a folder that I can then add back to the email list when the project is over and you will be re-subscribed without having to do anything else. Or you can re-subscribe off an on as it suits you.