pros and cons of plein air and more Carlson

9x9 pastel and watercolor on Uart

What each painter sees and feels is vastly different than another painter. Why is it we tend to ignore this and search for accepted reality? I remember years ago when I was visiting galleries in NYC and one gallery owner explained to me why he did not like plein air work. At that point in my painting life I felt highly insulted. I loved plein air and felt it was an elevated art. After all it WAS my art. He talked about the fact that it simply had too much information, no real distillation  of what is important. Finally, 15 years later I see his point. I will always be a plein air painter, but I think with this winter's long recovery and  exploration into my memory all will be different in the spring. I will be reborn when I go out there.
Last night's contrast between  blue snow on the field  and hot gold sun provided amazing fodder for my imagination.

More quotes from the amazing John F Carlson:
Too much reality in a picture is always a disappointment to the imaginative soul. We love suggestion and not hard facts. (wow, eh! and so true)


The beginner in painting begins by copying nature in all literalness, leaving nothing out and putting nothing in; he makes it look like the place or person or thing.  By and by he will learn to omit the superfluous and to grasp the essentials and arrange them into a more powerful and significant whole.   And it is wonderful to know that these “essentials” will be essentials to him only (and herein lies the secret of originality).  Another man will choose another group of essentials out of the same fountain of inspiration.
(Does this ring a bell or what?)

memory, love of painting, John Carlson

9x9 pastel and watercolor on Uart

9x9 pastel and watercolor

Two paintings of my field at sunset, each trying to create that elusive feeling. I find that I love painting even more than I did before. I love it for its discovery, excitement and freedom. I love it because I feel I am now it and there is nothing in the way. I now know that the pain I feel each day in my body can be erased when I pick up a brush or a pastel. It is then I am free.

Here are more amazing quotes from John Carlson:

If you train yourself in memory work, you fearlessly attack and rearrange your material, for you can retain your original impression.

The more we advance, the more we realize with Whistler that nature is never right.

Thank you everyone for being there.... for your comments and emails. All your gestures are helping me through the hardest time of my life. This blogger world is amazing . It's like having hundreds of studio mates. hugs, Loriann

memory painting and John Carlson

9x9 pastel and watercolor on Uart

Wow, it is really amazing how freed I feel when I take it all from within, just my emotions and memories. This morning's sunrise, houses burdened with thick snow, was stunning. It's the view I see from my window each morning, yet different. Breathlessly beautiful. It painted it 9 hours later.

So I leave you with a quote from John Carlson,
Rest assured that if you work every day at your art, using the materials nearest at hand, you will gradually discover such beauty in them that they will fill you with happiness. 

So true, so true. Lucky am I, as I can work everyday.

search for the extraordinary in the ordinary

9x9 pastel and watercolor on Uart

Last night, since the heat and electricity had been down for more than a day, Paul and I went and sat in the car to get warm. He drove the car to a nearby parking lot so that I could watch the sunset. It was amazing how the curtain of dusk's cloud was lit by the setting sun. Orange delight.
Sixteen  hours later, with the image firm in my mind I tried to create the feeling here. The rules for the memory game still exist: memorize, no cameras, wait at least 12 hours has past before painting.

On another note dear blogger friends, I am afraid that when I am finally lucid and off these gigantic drugs, I will look at my posts and be shocked. My brain filters are not working but I can't stop working. So keep in mind Oxycontin and percocet may be doing the talking far more than I am. Egad.

So I leave you with the words of Balthus. When I read them I felt as thought I live in his brain.

I always feel the desire to look for the extraordinary in ordinary things; to suggest, not impose, to leave a slight touch of mystery in my paintings

excitement- new easel, air purifier

Best Halley easel (great for pastel and oil-forward and backward lean)

artist's air easel attachment air purifier

 Sometimes things just work out. I sold a huge painting the other day and rather than put that payment to the ever hungry (never satisfied) mortgage I decided to buy the big artist's air purifier/easel attachment and a new easel. You know the story of the air filter,  but you didn't know that my easel is 30 years old and missing  essential  pieces. The big wood panels I now paint on, actually fall on my head regularly.  With my right arm compromised due to  the recent cuts into my thoracic muscle it will be much harder to catch falling paintings.
Total decadence- I bought a new easel.
After talking with Paul, I did all of my purchasing in the matter of 30 minutes. I wanted to do it right away, have a clean, healthy studio to go back to. I knew exactly what I wanted as I had been planning this for a long time. Wednesday, when I was talking on the phone to Jack at Madison Art, the transformers were blowing outside. A very wet snow had been coming down at the rate of 2 inches an hour and the trees limbs had become too heavy. Minutes after we lost our power for  the last 30 hours. I have been hunkering in the bedroom, all 5 cats on the bed, trying to stay warm and well. The power just turned on again.  Life is good and the air purifier is on the way.

very limited palette, full moon rise

                                                    above 9x9 pastel and watercolor / below   9x9 only watercolor on Uart
After reading Russell Chatham's interview and seeing the youtube yesterday it got me to thinking about less, yes even less.
Typically, I use a warm and cool of each primary plus white.  Russell uses just three colors. So I chose my 3: quinacridone magenta, aureolin yellow and ultramarine blue, all  my color choices are transparent. Chatham's words had echoed the same things I had read from Whistler- "all the work takes place on the palette."
Neutral colors.
So this is from a memory last summer. Steeny and I were watching a moonrise in LaConner Wa. It was beautiful. The color appeared bright, but sunset/rise is a grayed tone. Brightness is by simultaneous contrast.
I ordered my tototobobo  mask two days ago.  Since it comes from Singapore I paid for federal express delivery. I can't wait .....I will be back to pastels probably today! Thanks Brenda and Barbara for your help.

Addition: I just received my mask and immediately added a tiny bit of pastel to my watercolor. (top painting) I like it better. Now I will go redeem myself with another painting.

 . 

looking at russell chatham

I was browsing the internet and I found this. Russell Chatham speaking about painting and fly fishing. I love it when he says, "It all happens on the palette, it's just as simple as that in the beginning. If you come to a place you don't know what to do stop. It will tell you what to do later."

Seeing the video made me research more and find an interview of his in Artworks magazine. Here is my favorite part:
Everything is a matter of gray. It’s the relationship of one color to another that matters.” You have to look no further than Chatham’s studio to know he takes that philosophy to heart. He starts with primary colors, mixes his own hybrid hues, and then meticulously applies the paint one horizontal line at a time. Each inch he brings in just a dab more color – orange or red -depending on placement. His touch with color is so delicate that the changes are almost imperceptible. “I like the 30 feet, three feet, three inch rule. A painting should be interesting at all three distances,” he says. No question, Chatham’s paintings are indeed compelling at all three, but it’s up close and far away that they pack the most punch. At three inches, you can see every deliberate brush stroke and its relationship to the next. At thirty feet you can appreciate the whole – invariably a soothing sublime and always emotional experience. 

Put those two nibbles together and you get pure bliss. Now push those watercolors across the bed and let me keep working. I think I will limit my colors to 3 primaries and Chinese white.

Thanks again for all your supportive words my bloggie friends.

night snow, quietude

9x6 watercolor

The night light outside by bedroom window puzzles and delights me. Today I decided I had to try a brand new palette. Try a combination that is rare, special, subtle: so unlike my usual palette. Stretch. I chose the snowy night. Do you know those nights when the snow is just beginning to come and the light is so subdued, yet with that tint of green. The usual luscious deep blues are gone and the values are reduced. Then there is the snow. How does one paint the action of "snowing" quietly? The quietude.
This one is just watercolor, layers and layers of thick and thin watercolor.

eternity ......... question about air purifier

9x6 pastel and watercolor

A new eternity, filled with hope, begins now. 

This is my first bedside painting since the surgery 10 days ago. When I was in the hospital I sat by the window and through tiny slits in my eyes (that wouldn't open because of the drugs) I saw the most beautiful thing. That night there had been an ice storm. In the morning the clouds lifted for a moment and everything was pure with hope. I feel full of that hope right now and I tried to create it here.

I am thankful every moment for my life, my loves and all my friends. Thanks for being there, friends. It really does matter.

I am thinking ahead and I need to think about making my studio as clean as possible from any lung irritant. For years I have existed with a small air purifier, but as you may know I need more now. I have made changes- This year I have limited my pastels to outdoors and oils for studio work. In addition I have changed from liquin to walnut oil alkyd and never keep anything open. Oil rags are always in an air tight can and turpentine is closed tightly only opened when used. I have had recommendations for air purifier called the "artist's air easel attachment air purifier." It is a pricey investment, but if everyone recommneds it I will just get it. At this point  cost seems unimportant  if it indeed will make my air clear. So friends, what is your experience? Recommendations?

THANK YOU once again your words, notes, emails, comments, flowers, gifts and most of all LOVE. I am a believer  that so much caring and light makes the healing possible. There have been days I actually cry touched by so much positive energy. I love all of you.

return from the abyss

9x6 pastel and watercolor on Uart

Phew! I am back home now! Home sweet home. Thank you so much for all your well wishes and prayers. I firmly believe it helped....I may not have known but with so many prayers, wishes, cards, emails and even flowers piling up, I am on the road back.
My hospital stay was long and troubled, but with a good ending..  My eyes are just starting to open because of the constant heavy narcotics and allergic reactions. The surgery was a complete success.
YAY!
The disease was limited to the right middle lobe, which no longer exists. The remaining part of my lung is still delicious and pink. Clarity of mind is not part of my repertoire but will return soon.
This is a painting I did before the surgery. We had snow two nights before and morning was gorgeous.  I funneled all my good energy into this one piece of Uart...self-healing before it began.
My return will be speckled. As long as my eyes will open, my memories are there and I will attempt to paint..
THANK YOU again! I love all of you!

memory and the awakening

7x 12 pastel and watercolor on Uart

 Another memory painting ...but this one "had its way with me," meaning it totally took over.  At this point I think I understand how skies work..the basics, now it is only about the painting. After walking the field the other night I returned to write the notes at home. No camera to stifle me.  Time to percolate and then to the studio. Keep in mind the field is a soccer field, flat chain link fence, no water, yet it faces west. Lucky me!I love WEST (and east).
On another note,  I will tell you now. I am scared. Tomorrow morning I go in for surgery. They are taking out part of my  right lung.  My stay in the hospital is 5 days.... so needless to say I will be off blog for a little while. I, off course, have planned for this and have bedside work to  do at the hospital (the hamster doesn't like to come off the wheel).  If I am lucid...or maybe it would be more interesting if I wasn't (heehee..think Dali) I will try to do some memory sketches.  I sure hope my room faces west. I think I will request it.
The best thing that has happened is that I have had an awakening. Since I have not been able to do my usual vitamin of plein air painting, I have opened my world to memory painting, a new love. I am sure that my new love will open new doors when I do return to the great outdoors.
Send your positive thoughts and prayers.

me and the kittens

Memory, John Carlson and skies

14 x14 pastel on paper (not sure which)

Ah...my memory quest continues.  I used no cameras, photos, or plein air...just my memory of this place out by Needwood Lake. This time I think I created the glow between land and sun..that air the makes me say 'ahhhhhhhh" The reasons I paint..           
The upper sky maybe needs work.

Now for a little more Carlson.
A great deal of knowledge must be acquired through direct observation before the memory can function unhampered.  There would be no sense in advising a beginner to work from memory, when he is still struggling to master his means.
"It is the difficulty with which sublime things are achieved, that accounts for the rarity of them," says Spinoza. A thing that anyone could do without trying is a horrible nightmare to those creatively gifted. Fun lies in the trying. In the trying we are learning all about the means. Without knowing it, we are even developing our own particular style- one that will forever stamp us as individuals, aside from any expressive idiosyncrasies or choices we may develop. 
As we progress, our work becomes more intensely absorbing. We almost live in a world apart. In memory work we relive our experiences and the effect they produced on us.  We enthusiastically endeavor to put on canvas what we saw and felt, and in this way also unconsciously employ an original handling. The mind is dealing more with expression of thought than with the clever application of paint and we now enter into the realm of true art.

Don't you LOVE reading Carlson??????

use of memory and John F Carlson

9x6 pastel and watercolor

There's a small water drainage site near my home. Yesterday I sat there at sunrise and just watched. The sky was an odd very light grey- a pinkish green, like a curtain, with a slice of yellow at the bottom. My favorite moment was when the sun broke through the trees like a big pinprick.
One of the rules for my memory game is absolutely no cameras can be with me.... too tempting. Only a small notebook or sketch book. I also am now making myself wait for at least 12 hours before I can begin painting. I keep tightening the rules. heh.
John Carlson has an excellent chapter on "Painting from Memory" in his Carlson's Guide to Landscape Painting. I think you will find this thought very interesting. Carlson says,
"I am inclined to believe that all creative work is founded upon our earliest impressions, the time when the eye looked with unclouded freshness and candor upon the world! These impressions (rejecting nothing, passing judgement on nothing, accepting all), after ripening or mellowing with time into a subconscious treasure trove, form the principal wells or founts of inspiration for the grown man (or grown woman). From these we select. We see something that stirs our soul with creative desire, because we recognize or remember subconsciously an old experience.
It is because of this that we may be said to paint or write, or act what we ourselves are in every movement and every thought. What we are is not the result of present experience alone, but the aggregate past. In other words, we see and feel certain things today because we have previously seen them in our most impressionable years. We add this to our present "facility" and organizing faculty, which can only be acquired in mature years. Our visions take form, gathering volume as they move, and they mould themselves, sometimes sublimely, into present expression. The artist himself is often surprised at he finished work of art. He can not tell "how it happened" nor could he repeat the feat at someone's bidding.
It is because the memory revives the dormant and stimulates action, that painting from memory is here so urgently advocated. In painting, the memory will be discovered to be very meagre at first. Difficulty will be found at retaining anything. But with practice the practice will be surprisingly strengthened, not as a mere camera lens, but as a power in discerning the significant factors behind common place experiences.
....As we progress, our work becomes more intensely absorbing. We almost live in a world apart. In memory work we relive our experiences and the effect they have produced on us.
So what do you think of that idea?

working with late afternoon winter skies

6x9 pastel and watercolor on Uart

sketch and notes from my book

 At about 4:30pm the show was marvelous at Lake Needwood. It's funny because I have found it's those moments you would have no idea  that absolute splendor is coming and then, it comes. The high clouds  broke open to reveal a dramatic sunset. I watched. Later, after I could visualize, it I wrote my notes and did a small sketch.  Many times during the evening I worked on it in the studio. It wasn't until late, when it was just me and the painting, that it came together. I love those moments where the painting takes over. It even surpasses  memory.
 After making this piece I realized that it really wasn't about the color, rather ......it was the value and the stroke movement. Hmmm.

twilight and see this show

7x7 pastel and watercolor on marble dust

I continue to work with my memory to achieve the glow of twilight. This time I chose a marble dust board since it alone allows me endless layering. I first created several coats of watercolor. After it dried I scratched and smoothed pastel into the lines of the marble dust. I am really loving this experimentation. It's really nice to free myself of caring about the results, just the constant mantra of,"what happens if I do______?"
For a big treat, check out this show at the Spanierman Gallery in NYC. Even if you can't get there, just look at  this link, as it includes a slide show of all the paintings. Amazing paintings by Lisa Breslow, Birge Harrison, Joesph Frank Currier, Charles Warren Eaton, Arthur Wesley Dow and at least 12 other Tonalist paintings-past and present.  The opening was on the 6th and there was a book signing for David A. Cleveland's magnificent book, The History of American Tonalism, 1880-1920.Wow!
It will be in NYC for a month, go if you are able!

maxfield parrish twilight

9x6 pastel and watercolor on Uart

I have always admired Maxwell Parrish's luscious green blue twilights. I read that one of the ways he made his colors so beautiful was by varnishing between each layer. Interesting idea that must make it very hard on the conservators working on the paintings now. 
So I have once again been flexing the memory muscles.  The only thing I know for sure is, the more you do it the easier it gets. I have begun playing a new game. When I am still and far removed from the stimuli, I close my eyes and try to recreate the previous night's sunset or twilight. That means while the sunset or twilight was actually happening I am verbalizing and visualizing every part of it. The painting above is an attempt to remember last night's twilight. I can't seem to get this blue green twilight. It only lasts for moment. I think you will see me trying this often.

The painting below is a memory studio piece (commissioned) I completed a couple of  years ago. I look at it now and think..ummmph.

18x24 oil and pastel on marble dust board

By the way Nika, the winner of "the big chew" painting give a way has made her selection. She will receive "the blinding light, torrey pines sunrise, Dec 24 post"  I will put it in the mail this weekend. In the meantime be sure to check out her blogs: Figuratively Speaking For Two and Nika Zakharov Drawing Daily.  You are in for a treat.

memory of snow and dusk

10x6 pastel on somerset

This is a memory of last night's sunset sky, set inside a second memory of snow. I couldn't sleep so I  slipped into the studio late last night.  Ahhhhhh. It felt so good.  I just sat down on the floor with my heilman box and dreamed this vision. 
Now more from A History of American Tonalism 1880-1920 about the differences between Impressionism and Tonalism (regarding memory, continued from yesterday)-
Both begin with the data of place and moment- the quasi-scientific recording of light in the outdoors-but the Tonalist tended to record his vision through memory, or memory notes, for later use in the indoors. In the studio, as the memory or afterimage held in the mind's eye was put down on the canvas, the art object itself began to make its own demands;thus an internal dynamic took over and the artist had to ultimately satisfy the dictates of the art object. The original inspiration, the impulse to capture form, color, and tone,took second place to the formal values required by the work of art.at least in the exacting determination of the artist............

It was, too, the kind of art that lives and breathes, that emerges from memory, imagination, and association: the felt life that decades later mark Rothko was essential to his disembodied art.

9x9  watercolor dusk

working from memory

I continue to work bedside which gives me the luxury of time. I watch.
Last night's dusk has sat in my mind and this is my first try at evoking its feel.
I continue to read The History of American Tonalism and would like to share more, this time Whistler is my focus.

Whistler's development of memory as an artistic tool, influenced many of the artist's followers, and fundamentally differentiated his method from that of the Impressionists. Whistler would work from a balcony overlooking the Thames, or have a friend or follower row him out into the middle of the river, where he would remain for hours trying to memorize the scene:a few roof lines, window light, a few lamps here and there, the quality and variety of tone that became visible in subdued light. He found color notes were difficult to record on the spot in the dark and so became expert at memorizing. He would be very disciplined and exacting in trying to put to memory his observations, sometimes repeating observations out loud to companions and asking for verification of their accuracy. Later in the studio, quickly working with thinned paints, Whistler would try to get the memory, the impression that remained in his mind, down on the canvas. This constituted a crucial difference between the Impressionist plein air painting and the Tonalist painting. -taken from  The History of American Tonalism 1880-1920

More tomorrow. In the meantime check out Deborah Paris' post about memory.

the landscape and air are full of promise

9x6 pastel and watercolor on Uart

Here is another memory painting.
In the words of Albert Pinkham Ryder, "I have never seen the beauty of spring before; which is something I have lived and suffered for. The landscape and air are full of promise." You can insert "the beauty of dusk"and you will see what I feel as I watch dusk from my window. I have been ill for a couple of days, but continue to do these small memory skyscapes from my bed.

In my extra time I continue to read my History of Tonalism and have been struck by the paintings and words of Albert Pinkham Ryder. He was a painter in the Tonalist tradition. A shy New Englander (from New Bedford- a place where I lived and loved for 3 years) he supposedly had faulty eyes due to a childhood vaccination. His biographer Frank Jewett Mather said that Ryder developed a visual memory haunted by a residual repertoire of iconic images, after images of a sort that recurred from his early life. "Naturally he drifted into an owlish sort of life, wandering off into the moonlight at all hours and avoiding the glare of the high sun. The physical and moral solace of these moonlight strolls is a chief emotional content of his pictures."

paint what you feel

9x6 pastel and watercolor on Uart

Sometimes I find that it's better to let my observation that sit inside me before I try to express it in pastel or paint.
Two nights ago I took a walk at dusk...it was a beautiful glowing pink, slightly neutralized, more at the top than the horizon where it was more pure light.
It makes me think of what William Morris Hunt said- "It's the artist's perception that counts, not simply a fact rendition of place. In poetry and painting facts do not amount to much. Fact did not make Hamlet! Painting is not intended for rules;  but to represent something which you see and feel!...... Paint what you see and what you feel....If you have forgotten the poetry and mystery you can't get it again. It's the way you look at a thing that makes a picture. It isn't paint or the way in which the  paint is put on."
 from The History of Tonalism 1880-1920

new method ????

9x9.5 pastel and watercolor on Uart

watercolor underpainting

Worked in a whole new way  due to the fact I didn't want to walk 10 minutes back to the car so that I could dry the watercolor first. Hmmmm. I was actually sitting inside the lake, well the drained lake that is. The bottom was very rocky and hard to negotiate. Excuses excuses. The bottom line is I didn't want to wait for my painting to dry and I grew seriously impatient. So I put the pastel on the pooled water and rubbed and rubbed. Patted with a paper towel and then laid more pastel down. I made neutrals with submerged complements. Interesting effect.

On another note...I keep telling myself I have to stay in the studio and just work. But I realize that without my plein air time I feel DEAD. So the beat will go on. And on. And on.

happy new year!

9x9 pastel and watercolor

watercolor underpainting

Happy New Year friends!!!!!  This morning I drove up to the mall to get my Starbucks Chai and decided to plop myself right there and see if I could make a painting. A kind of New Years Challenge.  I first did the watercolor underpainting and then found out I had left my pastels in the studio. OOOPS. So I only completed the watercolor and relied on my memory to finish with pastels back in the studio. Maybe I should do that more often.

PS Read the first post of the year (below) to see who has won the "Big Chew."

"the big chew"

The time was right. All the entries were in and stacked by the fire. But due to her distemper shot, Luchianna was under the weather and sleeping. Even after her own distemper shot, Baby was primed and ready to go. Good thing we have two paper eating kittens.  I hadn't realized till this point that Baby had the gift as well.
She began by playing with all the papers, then she reached down and grabbed one!

The winner is...drum roll please...Nika! (Note the bite marks.) Happy New Year! 2011, bring it on!

Thanks to all my blogger friends for making this a happening!  I love y'all. Take your pick from the California paintings Nika!
Bedtime now.... I have a painting (at least one) to do tomorrow. Need my brain sleep.