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This past May, I was invited to participate in a group show, Northern California Impressionism, featuring the works of a stellar group of 19 artists from the San Francisco Bay Area, to be held at the Peninsula Museum of Art in Burlingame, California. This was the project of terrific artists Kim Lordier, Paul Kratter, and Ellen Howard. The request was that we'd each exhibit three paintings: two small field studies, and a larger studio painting from one of these. A catalogue was to be printed. What an honor to be included.

 

Of course, at any one time I have scads of plein-air works to choose from. These are all pastel, as I only work in that medium outdoors. Why?  for several reasons: portability and ease of handling both before the painting is done and afterwards; the fact that there are myriad excellent oil painters outdoors, not so many pastelists; and to speed up the process of color choices with only visual mixing on the sanded paper, rather than the more (to me) laborious and chancy mixing of oils.

 

I wanted to put together three works that would show my talents as well as nicely depict the part of the state I live in, Sonoma County. I chose a plein-air study, only 6 x 11.5, that I'd done at a nearby regional park, Crane Canyon, while out with a group of artist friends. This was a very early spring scene that has vibrant green rolling hills and massive old oaks, some evergreens already heavy with foliage, and some deciduous trees with a light veil of warm copper-hued emerging leaves. On the worn path that led into the scene, bordered with California poppies and other wildflowers, were two figures to give a sense of scale. 

 

 

Crane Canyon Plein Air      pastel     6 x 11.5

 

From this I decided to do a larger studio painting, 13 x 26, with some intentional changes. I now had the luxury of working indoors at my own pace without the urgency lent by fast-moving sun and shadows. When expanding a sketch or quick finished work into something larger I ask the same questions I do when deciding on my initial scene. Sure, most of the major choices have already been made. However, what will make this even stronger?

 

Format. Do I like the format as it is? Would it be more powerful, more concise, if it were wider or more square? In fact, I felt the format was good and so close to the proportion of 1 x 2 that I stuck with this.

 

Composition. As is, or changes needed?  I enlarged the shadow shape on the left to be taller and stretch farther into the scene to increase the ratio of shadow to sunshine, darks to lights. I pulled the apex of the rounded mid-ground hill farther over to the right so it no longer fell middle of the composition. Initially I had the close oaks on the right below the top of the background hills and the shaded oaks on the left going above the ridge line. I knew I wanted one clump above and one below. (I'll get back to this decision later.) Also, I used shadows in the mid ground to help define contour across the path, below the stately oaks and down the grassy mid slope.

 

Colors. Changes were needed. I chose much paler, cooler greens; more atmospheric blues; more golden glow to the left sky and background hills bleeding to bluer on the right. I softened the focus of mid ground oaks to push them farther back. All this helped the lovely coppery colors of new spring oak leaves and the richer-colored foreground come forward.

 

 

Intermediate stage of Spring Is Busting Out All Over

 

At this point I was not happy. What the heck was the problem? Proportions were off and objects didn't recede into space the way I'd like. I had to leave the painting for a few days to see it with fresh eyes. Looking at it in a mirror also helped me spot things I could ignore looking head-on. The path flowing continuously from foreground to middle ground was throwing the placement of everything off. The figures looked too small for where they apparently sat in space. The left oaks were too big and the right oaks, main players in the story, were too small.       

 

Remedy? I fattened the path as it entered the picture plane. I created a small foreground hill for the large oaks to sit on, beefing up and darkening their trunks. This visually helped "explain" the jump in scale of the path and pushed everything else further back. I shrunk the top of the left shadow shape and expanded the sunshine oaks on the right. This created a bit more of a zigzag pattern to the composition that leads the eye back into the landscape. Ahhhh. Much better!

 

I could now comfortably add the final strokes to the scene: richer colors, deeper shadows, rougher grasses and more wildflowers up close, more intricate branch work, delicate sky hole patterns.      

 

 

Spring is Busting Out All Over     pastel     13 x 26

 

For my third entry in the show, I intended to go back to Crane Canyon Park and do the same scene, but with dry, golden autumn grasses contrasting with the deep greens of the oaks. What kept drawing my attention when I got there, however, were wonderful mounds of hot fall-colored shrubbery receding across the grassy meadows of the park. What on earth were they? I'd never seen anything like them in all the years I'd been visiting this park. Oh!  Poison Oak growing in mounds. The title says it all.

 

 

Deceptive Beauty    pastel       9.5 x 13.5