Some recent work for sale!

I'm sharing a selection some paintings that I have available through our studio, Salt Marsh Studio, on Whitemarsh Island, GA.  The honest truth for artists is that we paint so many paintings in a moth, year, over the years, that we inevitably have some paintings returned.  These are some of those pieces that have been sent to galleries on consignment, but for whatever reason, did not sell.  

We just recently held a Holiday Open House.  These pieces are a selection of what I have hanging for it.  If you're in the area of Savannah, GA be sure to drop us a note to make an appointment to stop in to view the work on hand, and to say 'Hi'.  You can email me at marc@marchansonart.com.

Thanks for taking a look...

SPRING ON THE MARSH - oil on board - 24x48 - $9500.00

This is a painting entirely painted on location with Dottie, near the Bull River, on the marsh between Wilmington Island and Tybee Island.  Gnats got us the second session, but we persisted and each painted a painting this size.  Something we want to do more often.  

ALONG THE FLAT RIVER - oil on canvas/board - 10x20 - $1900.00

I painted this while teaching a class in Michigan this past summer.  It was painted along a very shallow, narrow river called The Flat River. 

TOWARDS THE RIVER - oil on linen panel - 11x14 - $1450.00

This is a field painting, painted on a very warm but misty morning off of Battery Park, Tybee Island, GA.  Three studies were painted that morning. 

STRAWBERRY MOON DANCE - oil on canvas - 48x36 - $13,500.00

One of the many wonderful things I like about living on an island being on the beach at sunset or sunrise.  Watching full moons rising is always a unique experience.  This night that this one arose, the sky was clear except for a few pods of small clouds that seemed to be attracted to creating circle dances around the moonlight.  They were like little cloud faeries it seemed.  

CHANGE COMING - oil on canvas - 24x36 - $7,500.00

Dottie and I were doing some field painting at Battery Park, Tybee Island back in May of this year when this wall cloud came at us!  We very quickly threw everything into our paint bags and skedaddled back to the safety of my truck and then home.  We found out a short time later that this system produced a tornado that touched down on the next island west of us, Wilmington Island, and did some damage to businesses in the small commercial area there.  It's not good to mess with Mother Nature!!! 

BACK ROADS - oil on linen - 22x30 $5200.00

I have always loved the mood of the landscape when takes on other than a 'blue bird' day attitude.  Days like this, ones that are warm and hazy, might be some of my favorite to paint.  This one is painted on a piece of linen that you can't purchase anymore, a linen made by the company out of Russia called Yarka.  They made (make?) three styles, portrait smooth, rough and coarse.  It is sized with sturgeon skin glue and primed with a beautiful oil prime that takes paint beautifully.  It's always very sad when a product that you become used to, and LOVE to paint on, is no longer available.  The ensuing search for replacements begins and sometimes takes years to find, sometimes it never is.  This is one of those, another being that beautiful mouse gray Belgian Mist sanded pastel paper that was produced by Kitty Wallis... I'm still sobbing over that loss.

SOUTHERN LIGHT - oil on cradled panel - 30x40

When I began to come to the coast of Georgia to teach landscape painting I was immediately fascinated by the scrubby vegetation that lives along the coastal marshes and beaches.  Live oaks, palmettos and Spanish Moss, making up a large share of that growth.  One of those trips found us painting on Jekyll Island, near St. Simon's Island, GA, at the fishing pier on the north end of the island.  There is a bridge that crosses a tidal creek from there that carries you over to the east side of the island and the beaches there.  Since it faces the Atlantic, it takes a beating when the seas are up.  Consequently, the trees and other vegetation are always struggling to keep a foothold on solid ground.  I love that kind of landscape, both for viewing and for painting.  One morning I took walk all the way around the east beach when the light was low and warm and caught this scene on my phone. I didn't have time to paint it, so this is a result of realizing that image in the studio at a later time.  A side story, I sent it to a gallery I work with on St. Simon's, Anderson Fine Art Gallery, suing FedEx, and it was lost for weeks... not a clue as to where it went.  I has shipped it out of Tupelo, MS, where I lived at the time.  It was for a show at the gallery so I decided since it was a goner, I would paint another version of it.  At almost the same time this one arrived at the gallery, the other one showed up too!!!  Now I have two versions of this scene.  Would you like one?!?! 

SEA MOOD - acrylic on cradled panel - 23x48

This is the only Acrylic painting in this grouping.  I'd be happy to sell it, but I also love having it in my studio as a reminder of an idea realized in a way that I envisioned before starting, something that doesn't always happen.  Also, I painted it in a medium that I love, but have struggles with in every painting, every time that I use it, that keeps me from using it more often.  In this one however, those struggles dissolved, making it one that I look at frequently to remind me that it is possible to do that! 

March 20, 2014... Acrylic studio paintings.

Happy Spring!  It's greening up here, the gardeners showed up today to take inventory and begin the season.  The winds are up, something that I now know is a near constant this time of year, east of the Front Range in Colorado.  A person can almost tell the time of the day by the winds.  They nearly always kick in right at 12:00 noon.  Painter and friend, Dave Santillanes, a native of the area, told me that last week.  I've been paying attention and Dave is right, noon it is!

Why am I painting winter then?  I'm taking a little break from getting all of the paintings that I sold during February ready to ship.  I have all of these very fresh studies in the studio, and the memory of painting them, that I am still in the middle of churning through from last month.  The painting urge hasn't let up, I'm giving it it's needed fix.  There is nothing better than having fresh studies and the memory of the experience to paint from in the studio... except painting them outside!  This weekend is going to be devoted entirely to packing and shipping all of the art sold.  Thanks again to everyone who purchased a painting, or two, or three.  I'm grateful for that support.  

To further complicate my life, I've been painting with Golden Open acrylics in the studio.  I'm not  sure why, except that I like the solvent free aspect of them, the ability to stop and start at any time on a painting, not having to wait for it to dry or stay wet if need be.  I  think that I'm also overdosing a little bit on solvents and driers like Liquin.  

I'm not complaining, but I've noticed that when I'm using a lot of either of those type of ingredients in my oil painting, which I do often now so that I can better control the drying time, I have some issues with congestion, slight headaches and watery eyes.  My plan is to use the acrylics for awhile to see if that clears up.  So far, I'm already able to see an improvement.  If I don't go nuts trying to get a grip on the acrylic monster, I think it might be a good move.  

Working with them is more like what I like about working with pastels... I can lay down paint/pastel, and very quickly work over it.  Immediately with pastel, almost immediately with acrylics.  Glazes, scumbling, are all great  techniques that I like to use in oil painting too.  My patience is getting shorter though, it takes too long for the oils to be ready for me to do that like I want to.  If I had an area to 'rack up' paintings while they dry for these techniques with the oil paints, I could see working on a number of paintings in stages at a time.  I don't.  If I have 4 paintings done, it's crowded in here, and there's no where to add a rack.  

With the acrylics, the drying times of these newer 'Open' acrylics, work right along with me.  I paint pretty fast normally.  The acrylics are almost begging for the painter to do that with them.  So, they and I, seem to be working pretty well together.  Taming the monster that they are, is really getting used to a process of painting with them on their terms.  Once I do that, I love what they have to offer.  Stay tuned...

What I'm posting here are two paintings painted from the two studies I'm also posting.  That's not always a great idea, but for interest, that's what I'm doing.  Don't think that I am trying to exactly copy the studies, I'm not.  The studio paintings evolve from the studies, as you can see, and are usually more complex.  That's the case with both of these.  Field studies are the soul of the experience, the journal of your time, and are why I paint outside.  The studio painting is a further exploration of that memory and experience.  I like both.  Since the grass is greening up, and the snow is long gone, the only way to explore either of these ideas is to do it in the studio from the studies.  I didn't take any photographs in February of the locations I painted, with a couple of exceptions.  So if I'm going to paint up any of the February paintings, it will have to be done only using those paintings as reference, or the photos of them once they're out of my studio.  

Both of the larger paintings are painted on acrylic primed linen.  "Freeze in the Air" is painted on a Frederix linen called 'Antwerp'.  It's one that I've used a lot of over the years, but it's really pricey.   I mounted it on a cradled birch panel, after first putting down two coats of GAC 100 (A Golden Product) to seal the wood, preventing acid migration into the surface of the acrylic paint.  It's a problem with oils and acrylics, but more of a concern with acrylics.  The moisture in can leach out the impurities from the underlying wood as it dries, pulling them towards the wet paint.  That can cause discoloration in the paint film.  GAC 100 seals the wood, providing a barrier between it an the painting.  I glued down the Antwerp using Lamin-All glue.  

The other painting, "Frozen Hollow", was painted on a stretched Utrecht linen (Type 66J) that I've had for many years.  I used to make my own lead primed panels and stretched supports, with RSG and this linen.  For this painting, I stretched it on some heavy duty bars that I first sealed the edges of with the GAC 100, then sized it with one coat of GAC 400, followed by 2 coats of GAC 100.  The GAC 400 is for stiffening fabric, which is nice because without using rabbit skin glue (RSG), it's hard to get that drum tight stretch on linen.  The GAC 400 helps to replicate that somewhat.  Following a light sanding, I applied 4 coats of acrylic dispersion primer (mistakenly called acrylic gesso, it's not gesso), with light sanding in between coats.  

This was a test of sorts... I learned that I prefer the linen mounted on board, and will continue that way when painting with the acrylics.  It's nice to be able to 'lean into' the painting with p.knives and brushes when it's on the board. Can't do that with the stretched linen.  Plus, the whole process of stretching and prepping the linen from the raw state was time consuming and it didn't give me any particular advantage.  I didn't like painting on it as much as I did the glued down linen. I may continue to use the raw linen (hell of a lot less expensive than pre-primed even though it's acrylic priming) and prime it myself. I didn't notice much difference at all, painting on pre-primed vs my priming it.  I used Golden 'Gesso'.  That 's what they call it, it's acrylic primer. 

Thanks for looking in!

"Freezing Fog #2"

Oil - 8x10

"Frozen Hollow"

Acrylic - 20x24

©Marc R. Hanson 2014

"Freezing Fog #3"

Oil - 8x10

"Freeze in the Air"

Acrylic - 18x24

©Marc R. Hanson 2014