The coast of Maine is one of the most beautiful in the country. Needless to say it provides plenty of inspiration for painting. While this is not a plein air piece per se, I did a study sketch plein air and spent hours on Fishermans Point enjoying the cool sea breeze and beautiful views.
The inclusion of the home on the sea cliff is not only intentional in this composition, but it is the name my wife gave the house, “Winners”. We have no idea who they are, but we’ve strolled by 2 Bay Road often and we know what we would do if we won the lottery.
This piece is a study of sorts, in large part because it’s a very tricky subject matter for me, combining all the hard things into one painting – boats, complex architecture, and rocks. Man, the effing rocks! I can say, however, this turned out pretty well and the learning experience was very rewarding. I also had the good sense to setup the time lapse camera, both as entertainment for all of you dear readers, as well as a way to remind myself how I went about this painting when I decide to do something similar.
SPRING POINT BOATS | 10 x 8” | Oil on Canvas Board
This is a follow-up to a previous post while in Maine. SPRING POINT BOATS was started en plein air, the session just long enough to allow me to lay in a solid structure and composition that was interesting. There was some artistic license taken in terms of boat placement and colors, but the remainder of the setting is, believe it or not, an accurate depiction.
While the paint didn’t effortlessly jump off the brush, something did click regarding boat shapes and structure. I’m not happy with how some of the areas look a bit chalky, but that should be easy to improve in future efforts. I believe I relied too much on Titanium White to lighten values throughout the piece, as opposed to reserving it primarily for the boats. However, the sense of a strong mid-afternoon sun on a calm day came through pretty well.
The last self-critique, and it’s a big one, is the compositional structure. I didn’t notice until the work was done, but now I can’t “unsee” it, that the lighthouse jetty looks artificial because it comes into the painting in a parallel that’s very distracting. It needs to be more angular, or at the very least, I need the sight line to be above the jetty so you can see the side and top, not just the side. I have to laugh, though, because I was so proud of my artistic licensure of the boats, yet I ignored the massive rock jetty in the background. Oh well, there’s always next time.
In celebration of brunches everywhere, I present MIMOSA! This was one of those pieces that everything just came together almost effortlessly. I thought this would be one of those still life works that lingered in the studio for weeks or months, starting and stopping as new challenges popped up, taking time to experiment with technique to get things figured out. Nope, nothing like that with MIMOSA. I should have known it would flow easily from the moment I threw together the sketch, which was done in about 5 minutes, nary an erasure mark to be found. Yes, there are imperfections, but relative to initial expectations it was a delight.
The anticipated challenges with MIMOSA were:
1. No reference photos. Everything was going to come from my head. I didn’t have a bottle of champagne available, no champagne flute that fit the idea I had in my woefully lacking imagination, and no motivation to go sift through the rotten produce at my local HEB to find a picture-ready orange.
2. No experience painting foil, much less the symmetrical foil of a champagne bottle.
3. No experience mixing / creating gold hues, as seen in the aforementioned champagne foil.
Most of the challenges noted above were more about the unknown rather than issues from past works. As it turns out, I have a better imagination than I thought it did, and patching together a still life setup is something I should consider doing more often. As to the foil and gold color mixing, either I got very lucky or it’s not that difficult.
One thing that helped quite a bit was the use of broken color, specifically in the mimosa and the gold foil of the champagne bottle. I used the same brush size and stroke direction intentionally, so as to connect the mimosa with the champagne bottle. As it turned out, my persistence of using broken color in other compositions seemed to coalesce in this piece, at least the outcome is something I really enjoy.
Lastly, I tried to fold in some subtle pieces that bring the composition together. The crisply folded white linen represents the formal occasions typical of champagne, contrasted with the faded, dusty look of an old, very valuable bottle of champagne. The orange, more obviously, to provide insights into what’s being quaffed, namely mimosas. And finally, the use of a tall, very slender flute that invokes elegance and formality, contrasted with the more informal, pedestrian offering of a drink mixed with orange juice, the mighty MIMOSA!
In the spirit of fun and interesting still life subjects, please welcome this tasty kernel… POPPED PERFECTION! This is my second popcorn themed composition, but unlike the original, which featured 3 pieces of the corny goodness, the focus is a single, beautiful popped kernel.
Popcorn is a tricky subject to paint, in large part because there’s nothing standard about any of it’s shapes or surfaces. Had I tried to paint this as a novice I would have found a new hobby and never painted again. That said, when you get it right, it’s a thrill!
There are a number of ways to add artistic interest to this type of still life. I wanted to emphasize the transparent elements of a nice big juicy piece of popped corn, thus the focal points with orange and yellow where light can penetrate. To really make the piece pop (sorry, couldn’t help myself) I used a blue background, which is the complementary hue to orange and therefore provides a strong contrast without having to worry too much about the similar values. Furthermore, the piece is very simplistic in terms of having nothing else on the canvas, which is meant to help it jump off the canvas from across the room.
I ordered a new tripod for my New Wave u.go plein air pochade box from Amazon this week. More on the tripod in a minute, but first I had to share the shipping fail, which made me laugh. Do you see it in the image below? Note Amazon marketing hard at work touting their environmental credentials, extolling their green leadership with “This box is now made with less material”, all the while shipping a 3”x3”x18” product in a box that’s easily 4x larger than necessary. Seriously, Amazon? FAIL!
Despite the dim witted packaging, the Sirui tripod looks good and could prove to be a major update to my plein air setup. Sirui has a wide range of tripods, but I needed something that was sturdy, portable and lightweight, so I went with the Sirui Carbon Fiber Travel Tripod. I have yet to use it in the field, but the setup in the studio was surprisingly quick and easy. The horizontal and vertical swivel heads are liquid smooth and easy to lock, the legs invert to fold up around the neck of the tripod so it compacts to 13”, and there’s an actual clip for hanging a weight bag (or backpack) in the center for further stability. This isn’t advertised as a painter’s tripod, but it should be!
Stay tuned for an update on the Sirui field test later this week!
SPRING POINT BOATS is a work in progress from a gorgeous day on a pier overlooking a marina adjacent to Spring Point Ledge Lighthouse. This initial session was about 2.5 hours, half of which was spent establishing the composition structure and a practice sketch to verify the arrangement of the boats. Note that boats move, even when they’re tightly anchored in the marina, so photos of each boat in the desired position are essential to finishing a seascape like this in the studio.
The temperature was perfection in the shade, my wife was with me enjoying the outdoors and providing very helpful compositional tips, and there was a family of Ospreys on the other side of the marina (right behind us) that are the talk of the town… amongst bird people at least. I’ll admit they are interesting to watch, as the parent (not sure which one, I’m not up to speed on Osprey gender identification) was busy dropping off fresh caught fish for the two babies. At some point, one of the bird watchers rounded the corner of the pier where I was painting, said “hi”, and I was convinced she was about to ask to see what I was working on, only to then question “why aren’t you painting the Ospreys?” Of course I told her I hate birds, was dismayed at the tankards of shit they spray all over town, and that their screeching was something of nightmares.
Of course that was with my inside voice. My public self, using my actual voice, told her instead that the Ospreys were entertaining but difficult to paint, an answer she seemed to deem acceptable – perhaps she hadn’t considered the complexity of painting moving birds in a nest of twigs atop a 75’ pole in the middle of the bay. She giggled and shuffled away, apparently never having noticed I was painting. Perhaps some grumpy plein air painters – you know who you are – scared her off in the past and she’s afraid to ask. I digress…
As to this painting, I had already decided this was going to be a 50/50 job, namely half outside, half in studio. The goal was to lay down a solid structure and really balance the massive blue expanse of the sky and sea with the focal points of the boats. The lighthouse should give perspective and some added interest to the piece, but the intent to so give the sense of place sitting on the water watching the day go by. For me, this is still very difficult because virtually all sailboats are dominated by white, either the sails or the top deck, so the brush strokes have to be very intentional and the values need to shift much stronger than what I see “live”, at least that’s how I think it should be done.
Stay tuned for the completed work, which I’ll keep very loose and painterly in an attempt to put the viewer outside with the boats.
SPRING POINT LEDGE LIGHTHOUSE | 6×8”| Oil on Canvas Board
Finished! I’ve posted a couple of progress related updates regarding this composition and I’m happy to say the 3rd time is a charm… this one’s done! If you look at the previous progress post, you’ll notice the removal of the tiny island fortress of Fort Gorges, an extreme application of artistic license. It was giving me fits compositionally, in part because the intent to use it as a balance with the lighthouse on the right was more of a distraction than something complimentary. I was going to simply mute the greens of the trees and push it back in the scene, ensuring the lighthouse was the focus, but what I discovered was that it’s such an unusual structure that it took over the composition as the viewer is sucked into wondering “what the hell is that?” I mean seriously, how often do you see an old fort on an island with a miniature forest growing in the center? I tried to convince myself that I painted it so realistically and thus it was a distraction, but in reality it’s simply weird to see out of the full context of Casco Bay, so I wiped it out… in the interest of artistic integrity.
The fort was easy enough to wipe out, but the issue it was meant to address, namely a well balanced composition, was still a problem. Not a pro at just dropping shit into a painting out of thin air, this seemed like a good scenario for practice. I’m pretty happy with the result, but it took a conscious effort to ignore details and simply work in some loose brush strokes. I also incorporated some of the ubiquitous lobster buoys found in and around Casco Bay, and lastly some distant sailboats to give the sense of an active afternoon on the water.
As to the focal point, the final result of the lighthouse and the complex stones of the jetty came out pretty well given my relatively minimal subject matter experience. As any of you artists know, tackling new subjects can be a reminder of the impossibility of knowing how to paint anything and everything equally well. The process was very enjoyable and satisfying, so there will be more lighthouses in the near future. I might expand my new found rock painting knowledge to some coastal scenes, too.
SPRING POINT LIGHTHOUSE | 8×10”| Oil on Canvas Board
Presented with a sketchy weather forecast for the coming few days, my need to get out and tackle this lighthouse painting got the best of me and I made a rare late afternoon plein air session happen. Nothing about the timing or the weather made sense for an outdoor session, but when the temperature is in the lower 70s that’s all the motivation I really need.
The drawing session from last week proved very helpful with this composition. I knew exactly how I wanted to orient everything, which in this case was the jetty, NOT the lighthouse. I need to remember this for future works, namely to find the piece of the composition that’s going to serve as the anchor for all perspective and measurements and start there, noting that this isn’t always going to be the focal point. The vertical orientation of everything on the horizon and the width/centering of the lighthouse relative to the jetty was also key. This made things move very fast so I could get to the business of putting oil on canvas.
Starting with the sky and working forward was my approach this session. I’m ultimately ignoring the very gray, muted light because I know what this looks like on a sunny day and the plan is to polish things up in the studio or return to this location to finish it off with better contrasts. However, I’m very happy with what I finished today in just over an hour. A part of me says I should leave it as is and simply shore up the lighthouse details. Maybe I’ll put myself on an hour limit and refine whatever I can within that time constraint? Something to think about.
Side note, a family with a young girl come by to ask if they could check out the painting. Apparently she likes to paint and seeing someone doing it outside on a day like today was either very cool, or just weird. Either way they seemed to be entertained and were very appreciative of our brief chat. I’ve never understood plein air painters who get so bent out of shape when people ask to check out what they’re working on. Doesn’t bother me, especially if what I’m painting doesn’t look like garbage.
SPRING POINT LIGHTHOUSE | 8 x 6” | Graphite on Paper
This is a preliminary drawing for a plein air session I plan to do later this week. This particular lighthouse is accessible via a jetty made of granite, which I can say from personal experience is deceptively long. As is the case with many lighthouses, the setting is often more impressive than the structure, which makes sense given they’re designed to protect navigators from the very dangerous geographies upon which they sit. Ironically, in a world where technology has made many lighthouses functionally irrelevant, they’re wildly popular destinations for visitors to explore… on land.
The other attraction to lighthouses, as an artist, is they’re much like snowflakes whereby no two are alike, so there’s something new to tackle with every composition. Combined with their intriguing landscapes, lighthouses are a must do as an artist.
I like to do detailed drawings instead of quick sketches when the subject is complicated or something new. The jetty is very intimidating for me, so it was important to get a handle on how to simplify while not losing the feel of all those massive granite blocks. I’m not sure if the drawing approach will translate to the painting, but a few things become clear from this exercise. First, the layout of the blocks needs to have defined directional lines in the fore and mid ground planes to capture the overall shape of the jetty. Secondly, there are numerous tiny shadows and value variations that give the blocks their distinct shapes, which will require some trial and error once the paint hits the canvas.
This is a follow-up from the Gaggle of Geese post a few weeks ago. The finishing “touches” for the studio ended up being a little more like finish “construction”, but I finally got to a point that seemed good enough.
Let me admit, I don’t like this composition, but I really like parts. Others might see something more appealing, as art tends to work that way, but it seems artists trying to sell works tend to force themselves into liking everything they paint. To the uninitiated, know that they’re lying. There’s not an artist out there who likes even most of their final pieces. At the end of the day, our compositions tend to have really cool elements that we love, and various faults that distract us to no end.
MILL CREEK POND was a joy to paint. If you’ve read the previous post and seen the video of the geese, you understand why. In terms of the studio work, I was really focused on simplifying the trees. Apparently I ignored a few basic compositional tenets along the way and ended up with two trees perfectly aligned left and right, meeting in the middle of the canvas. So annoying, but that’s what happens if you don’t step back frequently at the beginning and take the time to ensure the layout works.
Regardless of the “amateur hour” compositional oversights, I had a lot of fun learning how to simplify the masses of the trees, especially the purple oak. Living in Texas, there are no purple oaks, and everything that’s green has a coating of yellow cedar pollen, so things skew very warm. Painting a very dark purple oak tree with huge leaves that gather in numerous masses is, well, an awkward endeavor and hard to create on the first go. Ultimately I gave up, said it’s good enough, and pivoted to the warmth of the setting sun on the trunks, grass, and lily pads.
Hope you enjoy the final product regardless of my self-critique. It worked out in the end… kinda. Thanks for reading!
Art Bern 