A hot one today!

My son Erik was up for the day and we went out to paint and learn. I did this first little demo for him, and then painted later in the day after he drove home. We have some possible weather developing and I love to be out trying to capture the skies when they're hot, unstable and active.


'Red Shed' oil, 6x8, © Marc R. Hanson '09



'Unstable Air' oil, 11x14, © Marc R. Hanson '09

Plein Air Boat progress

This is where my 'Plein Air Boat' is in it's life. Since I took these on Saturday, I've added another coat of resin, rounded off the bow gusset and have begun to sand. It is a drop away from being in the water. That drop contains hours and hours of sanding, priming and painting. People who do these sort of things will tell you that at this stage of a project like this, when you're 90% done, it's the last 10% that will take 90% of the total time. Finishing is always tougher than the initial construction. But it's the most satisfying part too.

My plan for this boat had it's genesis back in 2005. It's a 12' flat bottom rowing skiff with a reinforced stern for the use of either a small (1-2hp) outboard or a trolling motor. I purchased plans, epoxy, and assorted supplies including some very beautiful Meranti ( a mahogany ) marine grade plywood, and began work on it. Within a couple of days the basic boat was cut out and assembled. Then I moved and very little work has been done. Now I'm on course to launch this summer.

The idea was to use it to access shallow swampy areas in the backwaters of the Mississippi River near where I used to live. Canoes are too unstable to paint out of. Now I live in an area with hundreds of little lakes and ponds and the St. Croix River. With a small boat like this I'll be able to access views and locations that even a small fishing boat won't be able to go. Besides, it's fun to build. This would be good to paint out of, or to just get to small spits of land or sandbars to stand and paint on. I'm also looking forward to just taking it out for some exercise in the mornings on the river.

Back to a little "reality"?

Following my last post of the abstracts, I've been trying to bring myself back to some "reality". My reality is painting my surroundings. So that's what I did a few times this week. I'll confess that after a month of 5"x7" paintings, these 11x14's bring me a little apprehension. That's so weird because before my April project, 11x14 was a normal every day size for me to paint. Now I'm having to get used to all of those square inches of extra space. I will, just sharing.



'June On The Road' oil 11x14 © Marc R. Hanson '09
The late afternoon sky caught my interest in this one.


"Baba O'Riley" oil 11x14 © Marc R. Hanson '09
It was a beautiful night on the river Thursday, lot's of boaters on the water. Across the river on the sandbank were a couple of dozen teens playing at full blast (been there) the Whos' "Baba O'Riley", a huge hit with teens since it was released in 1971! Most of us probably know it as "Teenage Wasteland"!!! I found it a perfect song to be greeted by on arriving to paint. What a theme!

Letting go! Twice....

"Skynrd" 24x32 oil on linen © Marc R. Hanson 09
That title really was awful! This might not be much better but it's not so 'blaghhhhh!'


"Jazz" 20x30 oil on linen © Marc R. Hanson 09

Here's an exercise in doing something completely different than I normally do, just to give me perspective. In case you're wondering, I have a reason to do this besides that 'it's fun'. It's an incredible release for me. I am also trying to develop more of a heavier use of paint on my 'normal' work and this is an exercise in doing that. If I can apply 3/8" of paint on these and fill a canvas of this size in a half hour, I know that I can bring that quality to my other work that will only help. I'm always experimenting with technique, purpose, materials, pushing for something further. These are probably a step towards something else...?

#1
I walked into the studio today and said to myself "Marc, do something completely emotional, something that is not preconceived, something that lets your brain shut off and the intuitive side kick in." So I turned on some adrenaline pumping music from Lynrd Skynrd, one of my all time favorites, turned it up too, and let the sound of their music push my instinctive reactions to the music around on the linen. The song that I ended up repeating was 'Simple Man' one of my favorites of theirs. I was moving so fast that I lost track of what I was even doing. This was the most creatively exhilarating experience that I've had as a painter in a LONG time. I still have a huge smile on my face from the experience. IT was well worth using up a lot of odd paint that I don't normally use without any feeling that I'm doing something wrong or not good enough.

At the end of the half hour session I was sweating and basically took a deep breath and let out a 'WHEW!". The painting is a 24x32 inch stretched canvas painted in 30 minutes.

#2
Okay... now I'm having way too much fun! This one is a 20x30 inspired by Miles Davis's 'Kind of Blue' classic work. I like to listen to that era of jazz while working anyway so this was a great one to allow myself to become absorbed by. Seems that there is no end to those compositions, they move through aural space seemingly with no end in sight. Amorphous comes to mind. Again, painted in about a half an hour of pure energy.

Take a look at this...

I am posting a link to 'Black and White Painting Challenge 5-26-09' a blog created by my students from the workshop up here in TF two weeks ago. I almost...no... always have at least one exercise in my workshops that concentrates and explains the value of working with and understanding Value Relationships and their importance to understanding how they relate to color in a painting.

It's a closed group for now, but please go take a look at what they're up to. I'm impressed and think that you will be too.

This was only a three day workshop so we only spent one day on how to simplify a composition's masses, and how to then mass values into their 'correctly' related value families within the composition in order to create more unity.

I had them do three small value study compositions : #1- keyed to light value ( 2/3 light-1/3 middle), #2-keyed to middle value ( 2/3 middle-1/3 light), #3- keyed to dark value ( 2/3 dark - 1/3 middle). Similar to keying a colored painting to high, middle or low key. What this exercise shows them is that you 'can' control mood, effect...what you want to say about the subject, simply by composing it with a predominant value or color key.

During one lecture I also showed them an exercise that I do with longer five day workshops. It involves a similar idea, but taking one composition and beginning with two black and white steps, moving into two color steps that simply develop the composition from one three of four shape idea to a full color rendition. I showed them a bunch of these that I've done as demos for classes and workshops but did not have time to demo it for them. However, at least one of them has done the exercise on her own and as you can see, she did a great job.

Anyway, I'm very proud of these guys that they went back home and started the blog in order to continue to 'study' what we started in class. There's no sign better than that to show just how serious these people are. Painting black and white is not as exciting as painting in color. But the sign of a serious student, we are all students, is that you continue to want to learn and improve your knowledge of painting. These guys are a perfect example of that and I take my hat off to them all.

Brewster, NY Workshop!

I'm pleased to announce that I've been invited to teach in Brewster, NY, in the Hudson River Valley by the Putnam Arts Council.  

We will be painting on the Tilly Foster Farm and Conservation Area, a historic farm in Putnam County New York.  

From Jamie Grossman, my friend and painter who's lives in Brewster, NY and has been responsible for my being invited here to teach...
"...the farm is currently being transformed into a reserve of sorts for historic animals, to preserve their bloodlines. They have Lineback cattle, a giant donkey like George Washington rode, and other historic breeds of sheep, rabbits, etc. that are becoming endangered. Doing those larger plein air pieces in the studio could enable the artists to include more of these historic farm animals in finished pieces if they wish. It's just one of the many unique things about this location.
There is also a barn that is being filled with old farm equipment, trucks, cars, etc. as part of the farm museum being planned."



The class is open to oil and pastel painters of any level. 

I'm updating some information about a workshop that I'll be teaching in New York in August this year. The dates are August 24-28, 2009. The cost is $645.00. This includes everything that I know and can show and tell you about painting!!! And a lot of paperwork that I've generated over the years.

For anyone on the east coast, or the other coasts or non coastal areas, this is a beautiful part of New York just off of the Hudson River Valley and within reach of the historic locations painted by Frederic Church and Thomas Cole for example. Frederic Church's estate, Olana, is just up the river in what can only be described as "idyllic" country side.

The information about the workshop is below. Hope to see you there!

We have the opportunity for classroom space with this one so I'm going to take advantage of that and design this workshop as an opportunity for students to see how I would use the field studies to work up a larger painting in the studio and for students to then do the same. The class will be designed around a couple of days of field work gathering possible candidates to be used for the larger paintings, followed by a few days of studio work enlarging the study selected, including a demonstration showing my process for doing this.  

The break down I envision will look something like this (weather dependent)...
2 days of field work (including some black & white value studies and small color comps), 1 day where I demo my process, 2 days for students to work on the large studio paintings. Students should expect to get a good start on the final painting but may not finish it entirely.  There will be plenty of assistance, critique, materials discussion and group conversation regarding the process.

My goal is to get the student to see the value in creating accurate field work that can be then used as a reference in the studio, to work up a Concept from the field work that becomes a strong larger studio painting that has similarities to, but is not a copy of the field work.  We will also use photography if necessary and will discuss the benefits and disadvantages of using both combined.  

A materials and supply list will be supplied as the dates approach.
Please contact the Putnam Arts Council for more information.  

Memorial Weekend Workshop!

I've just finished three days with a group of wonderful people who love to paint. How much better can it be than that? Weather... perfect.
Green... Everywhere.
We shoved a lot into three days, Value, Technique and the Art Spirit. Wow it's good to be an artist!

I'm posting three of the demos I did for the class. The first day we worked in black and white, the second day was a day of full color and my demo to show them a standard method for beginning and painting a field painting, or any painting for that matter. The second demo is a pastel because we had a number of pastelists in the workshop. That was followed by an oil painting demonstrating a more 'direct' method of painting.


"Carriage House" oil 8x10 © Marc R. Hanson '09
I have to say that this is some of the first painting that I've done since my April adventures. I've been busy with many other things, but not painting. So this little 8x10 looked like a 30x40 to me. The demo was to show the students a 'standard' block in beginning with some line, some transparent full color washes and then a building up of the painting to the finish. Yes the house is too centered. A good technique when things are stable and there is ample time to work it out.


" Rock Hoppers" pastel 11x14 © Marc R. Hanson '09
On Sunday afternoon, following the 'memory' exercise painting session for the students, I painted two demos within about a 2 hour period. This one was first. The rocks under the bridge between St. Croix Falls and Taylors Falls. About the time I was done the people showed up (in both painting sessions) and were an eye opener to us all. The scale of the rocks suddenly became obvious to us, and surprised us. I'm going to leave these as they are, no studio work.


"Rocks And Bathers" oil 9x12 © Marc R. Hanson '09
This was the second demo, direct painting. That is starting with an obvious part of the painting, finishing it and moving on to another obvious area painting in a way that is finished as you go. This is a technique that is good when time is limited, the light is fleeting or when you don't have too much time to sit and ponder things at all. I had exactly one hour, they timed me... to finish this one because we needed to get back to my house for a closing discussion.