Juror's Choice Award

I was thrilled to go to the ArtSpan Exhibition tonight and see that my painting Wrapped Silver Goblet has won a Juror's Choice Award.

The ArtSpan Exhibition is the central show displaying one artwork for each of 400 Open Studios participating artists. It's a great way to see a preview of the studios and plan your visit.

ArtSpan has recently redesigned their website, please visit for more info about all the Open Studios events.

Also, I now have a profile posted there.

Wrapped Silver Goblet: FINAL

Wrapped Silver Goblet

11 x 14 inches

oil on panel
(see previous blog posts about this painting)

This painting will be showing at the Open Studios Exhibition at the SomArts gallery here in San Francisco October 3- 29. Come see the exhibit at one of these two events:

Private Preview Gala, Saturday, October 3, 2009 (ticketed event)
Exhibition Opening Reception, Sunday, October 4, 2009 (free event)

More info at ArtSpan.org

See a higher quality version here

I'll be teaching two workshops on still life painting in summer 2010, one here in the San Francisco Bay Area and one in Florida. Details to follow soon!

Wrapped Silver Goblet: Video 1

My new painting Wrapped Silver Goblet is almost done (see the first post about this painting here). I've been filming the process of creating this painting, so here is my first episode: A demonstration of how I developed the preparatory contour drawing in pencil:

(Click here to see a higher quality version)

In the video I mention transferring a drawing to a panel using trace paper. A lot of people ask how this is done so here is a how-to I wrote up for a student recently:

1. Draw a straight-line block-in of your composition with pencil on white drawing paper. Make your drawing the same size and shape as your painting panel.
2. When your block-in drawing is done, lay it down on a table (not an easel) and overlay a sheet of tracing paper. Tape down all 4 corners with removable artist's tape.
3. Trace your drawing onto the tracing paper with a hard pencil (H or HB). Be sure to trace the corners of the drawing too, so you can line it up correctly on your panel.
4. Remove the tape, flip over your trace paper drawing and scribble gently with a soft pencil (2B/3B) over all the lines you can see through the trace (OR you can use transfer paper, which you can buy in rolls at the art supply store).
5. Arrange the trace paper drawing-side up (scribble side down) over your panel. Line up corners with the drawing. Tape all the corners.
6. Using a hard pencil (2H) go over all lines of the drawing to press the contour lines onto the panel. Occasionally lift one corner to make sure the lines are transferring.
7. When you have traced all your lines, discard the trace paper. Your drawing should be transferred to the panel. Move the panel back to the easel
8. Refine your drawing on the panel with a 2B pencil, working from life. (Otherwise all your lines will have the dead, "traced" quality")
9. Varnish the panel to seal the surface. Optional technique is to trace over all your pencil lines with a sepia-ink fountain pen or brown ultra-fine sharpie. Either way, seal the surface of the panel with varnish. Allow to dry. (I use damar varnish thinned with Turpenoid and with a small amount of Titanium white mixed in. Shake it in a jar to mix.)

Artspan Open Studios 2009

My studio will be open to the public October 17 and 18, 11am to 6pm as part of Artspan's San Francisco Open Studios.

Come see several of my paintings from my Wax Paper series, plus plein air oil sketches from my month at the Hudson River Fellowship, as well as many paintings and drawings, all framed and ready to hang.

My studio is near the corner of Carl and Cole Streets, accessible by the N-Judah line. There will be large signs posted on the corner that weekend directing you to my studio door.

My studio is also listed in the official Open Studios guide.

Saturday, October 3, 6-10pm

Private Preview Gala, SOMArts Gallery (tickets)

My newest painting, Wrapped Silver Goblet, will be on display, along with a first glimpse of over 400 artworks by San Francisco artists.

Sunday, October 4, 4-7pm

Opening Reception, SOMArts Gallery (a free event)

More details at ArtSpan.org

Perez Fine Art

I've been invited to show my work at Perez Fine Art online galleries for painting and drawing, I'm honored to show alongside such a wonderful group of artists. Perez Gallery also posted a really nice welcome to me on their blog. Please click over and take a look at all the beautiful work!

Exhibit - Corot in California

My husband and I drove down to Santa Barbara for the weekend to see the current exhibit at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art on the French 19th century landscape painter, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot.

Park of M. Wallet at Voincinlieau 1866

The exhibit was two small rooms, only about a dozen works, but it showed a good variety from early and late periods in Corot's career, both sketches and highly finished works. It was exactly what I came to see, because I wanted to get a close look at how the paint is layered.

The styles of his early and late work are distinct - flat planes of brightly lit daytime scenes earlier on in his career, to his signature style of dark, silvery blurred forest scenes he came to be famous for. But the basic technique seems to be fairly consistent throughout.

"Large Sharecropping Farm" - 1865

(this painting was not in the exhibit, just similar to the one below I looked at)

The biggest disappointment of the exhibit was that photography was strictly prohibited and there was no catalogue or even a postcard published for the exhibit. The images here are ones I found online.

I took a lot of notes:

This is my thumbnail sketch of a painting called "The Water Trough at St. Omer" from the 1860's, but unfortunately I can't find a photo of it online. Most my notes were based on this painting because although it's a finished work done in the studio, it had patches where the underpainting was visible in some areas.

These are my notes for how I believe Corot built a painting:

Stage 1: Block in main light and dark of composition

1. Start with middle-value toned canvas in warm umber, not too light nor too dark

(may have mapped out composition with a contour drawing using a small round brush, but those lines are not visible.)

2. Shadow values: Mass in thin, colored underpainting ebauche of the large dark masses, mainly greens and browns (brightly lit mid-day scenes seem to have a lavender-grey underpainting).

• Underpainting darker value than middle-value canvas ground.
• Ground plane and foliage of trees laid in with careful drawing, using small bristle brush.
• NO tree trunks, branches, individual leaves, or details.
• Allow to dry (thin paint probably dried quickly, within the first session).

3. Light values - Mass in light areas, eg water and sky: Thin paint, soft at edges.

• Sky background: ultramarine at top, cobalt or cerulean next, down to white, painted in gradation down to horizon, pinks at horizon if a sunrise.
• Use light areas to refine shapes of dark areas. Careful painting around architecture and other firm lines. Still, no hard edges, very small value differences to create edges.

4. Cloud shadows painted in exact same value as sky underneath, slightly warmer neutral hue than sky. No light clouds yet.

5. Allow to dry

Stage 2: Middle values and color

6. Add color: thin paint, glazes maybe, slightly lighter values to mass in lighter values of greens in trees, areas where light hits foliage. Allow ebauche underpainting to show through in shadows, esp ground plane.

7. Tree trunks and branches: indicate with thin, transparent paint, harder edges.

8. Sky: paint clouds by building up lights to whitest whites, use thicker brushstrokes.

9. Allow to dry

Stage 3: Details and finishing glazes

10. Paint transparent umbers and blues over sky to unify color variations, but use individual brushstrokes, not completely smooth. Glaze very thin umber over thick whites strokes, wipe away, to give volume to brushstrokes.

11. Final pass of details in both dark and light

• Paint darkest accents, small areas of deep shadow in black
• Thin, transparent tree trunks, very thin branches and dabs of leaves in transparent paint
• Tree trunks are different values from each other, and different values from top to bottom. Some tree trunks have white added to bring forward, some are transparent and sky shows through, some are opaque.
• Small dabs of leaves and flowers in green, yellow, brown, white, both lighter and darker than background
• A couple tiny red dabs
• Final pass of glaze on sky, neutral grey-blue to unify

Notes:

• Sky is always lighter than reflecting water
• Tree trunks are darkest where most branches cluster

View of Rome, Bridge and Castle of St Angelo w/ Cupola of St. Peter's 1826-28

1. Middle value canvas, warm hue

2. Shadows: Main masses blocked in with a wash of cool neutral (lavender?) shadow hue, careful contours

3 Lights: Sky, water blocked in, careful contours

4 Middle values laid over dry underpainting (e.g. light half of cupola laid over shadow)

5 Darkest accents

6 Lightest lights, small touches

Note: Area of highest contrast is focal point of composition: more refined detail, lights and darks laid down next to one another

This is all my best guess... if you know of how Corot worked, please tell me!

Blocking In (new wax paper series)

Wrapped Silver Goblet (in progress)

11 x 14 inches

graphite pencil on trace paper

I have a couple teaching opportunities coming up which I am very excited about: I'll be teaching drawing this fall semester to first-year MFA grad students at San Francisco's Academy of Art University, and there are plans in the works to possibly do a couple workshops next year (I'll keep you posted).

All of these opportunities are really exciting, and as I have been thinking about them I find I am "teaching" myself as I work all the time. Observing myself as I work helps me avoid problems deeper in the drawing. It's a sort of narration: At first it was non-verbal narration, simply paying attention to what I see and and comparing that to my drawing. But since I have begun teaching, that internal narration is becoming more and more verbal, as I imagine how I would teach as I draw.

I've been working the last couple days to begin a few new paintings of still life, and my first step is using straight-line block-in to establish the composition and forms.

Wrapped Bottle (in progress)

graphite pencil on trace paper

6 x 8 inches

Block-in for me is always the most stressful stage of a painting or drawing. Positioning the correct placement and shape on that blank space feels like plotting a course across the Atlantic.

I put the first few lines down and for a short while I feel like everything is going great, and then as I move into the next level of detail the errors begin to show up. And since the initial block-in is defining the whole shape with only a few lines, the errors are usually quite drastic and devastating to the design. Panic!

Beach Stone and Wax Paper (in progress)

graphite pencil on trace paper

5 x 5 inches

I tell my students that drawing well is essentially learning to control a sense of constant panic (I say that because I think a lot of us are quietly panicking in drawing class, and it helps the students know everyone else is feeling the same way, including me.)

But I try to use that panic to my advantage. The "Oh, no, it's all wrong!" feeling can plummet any draughtsman into despair and temptation to abandon the drawing (or crumple, scribble, or burn it).... But it's also a useful feeling. If we can react to the feeling with calm and acceptance, and simply take it as a reminder to stop and look, it becomes a useful tool.

My confidence in the block-in process has grown with my experience and now I know if something is wrong, if I keep my head calm and just look, I'll probably figure out the problem.

Not that I always do a perfect block-in by any means. And I certainly do not do my best block-ins when I am demonstrating in front of a group. But like any mental/emotional discipline, the more you practice, the easier it is to tap into problem-solving mode and focus, even in stressful situations.

Lines and Colors Feature

I've been following Charley Parker's blog Lines and Colors for years now and as I pore over every post it's always been my secret fantasy that maybe someday my work would be featured on his blog... and today is my day!

If you don't already know Lines and Colors, be sure to click over and be ready to expose yourself to a wonderful lineup of artists and art movements. Each post profiles a different painter or illustrator, historic or contemporary, and Charley always shares a unique twist of interest into the artist's working methods or story. He seems fueled by an endless curiosity, and reading his blog you'll find yourself caught up in his energy and enthusiasm, too.

SHOW: Landscapes at STUDIO Gallery

A few of the landscape sketches I created this past month at the Hudson River Fellowship will be on display at STUDIO Gallery in San Francisco August 12 - September 6.

The opening is Sunday, August 16, 2pm-6pm.

STUDIO Gallery is on Polk St at Washington.

Outdoor Art Materials

I was just reading the comments in James Gourney's nice writeup for the Fellowship and realized I learned a lot about materials for outdoor painting during the trip and I thought I'd share.

Outdoor easel setup
Just about everyone was using a paint box palette mounted to a photographer's tripod for their plein air setup. (Some people preferred a light metal easel to mount their canvas and then held their palette in their hand, but there's so much to do with the non-painting hand outdoors - like swat mosquitoes - that I prefer a mounted palette).

Guerrilla Pochade Box
I started out with my 9"x12" Guerrilla box which has served me well on previous neighborhood plein air sketching but I quickly found it is too heavy and boxy for anything beyond a 10-minute hike. Considering I was climbing steep slippery rock steps most days to my waterfall site, I was really wishing for a lighter option. The plus side of the Guerrilla box is that it is extremely functional and sturdy and has tons of room for storing things. And its very cute boxy proportions draw lots of compliments. Emily Lee had the even cuter 6"x8" version and she was really happy with it, but you can see she sometimes had to use a handheld palette because the paint-mixing area is tiny.

Alla Prima Pochade
Everyone oohed and aahed over this nifty, well-designed box when it was shipped to Fellow Dorain Iten. The components are held together with magnets and the nice wood and beautiful design is eyecatching. He really liked using it, especially for the magnet that holds your palette knife while you work. The full version has awesome drawers and there is a "light" option that has separate storage compartments that attach with magnets, but even the light option still seemed a bit heavy for me.

Open Box M
Our instructors all used the "M" and after deliberating quite a while this is the option I decided to upgrade to. It's very expensive, but they offer a less expensive "kit" that includes a shoulder bag instead of the outer wooden box. However, I've personally found it very annoying to hike with a shoulder bag flopping over my arm. A backpack is the way to go.

After spending quite a bit of time on the site I finally figured out you can buy the palette/panel holder separately from everything else. I decided to order that alone, at 9"x10" and $195, and if I really feel the need I'll buy the wet panel carrier box separately later. Those two options even separately are less expensive than the kit that includes the shoulder bag - and much less expensive than the whole set which includes a wooden outer box. In the meantime, I'll use these lightweight "cocoon" wet panel carriers.

UPDATE: Lines and Colors posted a complete and detailed review of all the pochade box options available, be sure to check it out before you invest in one! It seems that Charley Parker went with the Alla Prima Pochade, it certainly looks like an amazing box. I'll come back and post and update later about how I like working with the Open Box M.

UPDATE 2: HRF Fellow Peter Sakievich posted a photo and description of his Open Box M setup on his blog.

Julian Umbrella
We all were jealous of Nick Hiltner's huge white umbrella that shielded him from rain, sun, and even more importantly... curious passersby! Several of us ended up ordering them and having them delivered directly to our location in the Catskills. Nick warned us that every part of the umbrella breaks often, but there really are no other options for white artist umbrellas we could find, and he said the manufacturer is willing to replace broken parts. Sure thing, the clamp contact has popped off, the umbrella has detached from the clamp (both luckily fixable on the spot) and after a week 3 spines had detached from the nylon. I reinforced every spine connection with duct tape so mine is not so pretty any more. All that said, it is a fantastic umbrella - it kept me dry even during one epic 3.5 hour downpour painting session. The white material casts perfect, diffused lighting on my canvas under all light conditions. And the most important feature... only the most brave passersby dare peek under the huge umbrella.

Camp Chair
I started out with the tiniest, lightest, overpriced at $20, 3-legged camp stool from REI, and in about 30 minutes realized it is miserable to sit on and has a bad habit of tipping. I "upgraded" to a folding, armless camp chair for $13 at the local hardware store. But I and everyone else who bought that one found that the seat and/or back canvas tore from the supports after a couple weeks of all-day painting sessions. The most hardcore of our group were lugging around full camp chairs with armrests which seemed like overkill to me, till I saw how nicely their umbrellas clamped to the arms, and how their turp jars nestled in the mesh cup-holders! So I might be upgrading to a fancy camp chair.

Painting Panels
I have been using wooden Art Boards in my studio and Gessoboard panels outside for a couple years now, but recently I'm finding I prefer a fine grade oil primed linen surface for outdoor painting (indoors I'll still use smooth wood for the most detail). I tried these:

Art Board oil primed linen 9"x12": $17.89
I liked the silky fine surface of these panels, but I found the damp conditions I was painting in made the panels warp forwards slightly. They will be fine once framed, but the warping was annoying on a multi-day painting.

Utrecht Master's oil primed linen 9"x12": $9.99
This panel is ok quality for a cheap price, and it's probably perfect for single-session plein air artists who like texture and thick paint. However, for multi-session painting with thin paint and more detail, this canvas has way too much texture.

New Traditions oil primed linen with gaterfoam 9"x 12": $10.17
Our instructors were using New Traditions and although I have not used them yet (just ordered my first batch) I was sold on their texture, lightweight archival gaterfoam core, and non-warping properties. And the price is right! You can choose different support materials and different finishes, but the portrait grade lead oil primed linen was my choice.

Tripod

I borrowed Dorians' tripod briefly but I loved it and hope to buy my own. The grip to move the ball head in any direction was easy and smooth and the tripod was really sturdy and even a tiny bit lighter than mine. It's the Manfrotto 190XPROB and Horizontal Grip Action Ball Head. It's expensive though, I might be waiting quite a while before I upgrade to this. There are much cheaper and lightweight tripods, and as with all things plein air the choice is between something durable/heavyweight versus something lightweight/flimsy.

Grand Central's Hudson Blog Post

Jacob Collins' Grand Central Academy, which sponsors the Hudson River Fellowship, has posted drawings and paintings by this year's Fellows on their blog:
grandcentralacademy.blogspot.com

Also, James Gourney, author of the blog "Gourney Journey", visited the Fellowship for our last evening meeting and then wrote up a nice post about us:
gurneyjourney.blogspot.com

Hudson Fellowship Final Post: SOLD

Sunset in the Catskills (SOLD)

9 x 12

oil on linen

Hudson Fellowship Day 26

Tree Color Study

9 x 12 inches

oil on linen panel

What a day - up and out in the field by 7:30am, quick run home for a 30 minute break at midday, then back to the field till 4:30. At 7:30 we'll go out again for a final attempt at a sunset study. We're trying to cram in one last good long workday before we leave tomorrow. Best part is it's been warm and sunny all day, and the puffy cumulus clouds rolling by all afternoon are indicating a killer sunset to come.

The painting above is my continuation of the painting I started a couple days ago. Later I moved into the shadow of the same tree to do a close-up drawing of it's awesome tangle of branches coming off the trunk (below).

Last, I did this little sketch of Emily under her white umbrella as she painted in a field of purple wildflowers under billowing cumulus clouds.

Emily en Plein Air

oil on linen

6 x 8 inches

Next up, dinner and then a final attempt at a sunset sketch. I'm really not looking forward to the sunset session as I have officially run out of bug repellent...

I probably won't have time to post again for a few days, as I plan to jump in the car early tomorrow to start my 4-hour drive to Pennsylvania where I'm meeting up with my husband before we fly together back to San Francisco in a few days. Thanks to everyone for following along, it's been a really intense month and I've appreciated all of your well-wishes.

Hudson Fellowship Day 25

Tree Branch Study

pencil on paper

approx 6 x 9 inches

We made a valiant effort to get up and out early to work by 8am while the weather was clear, but the rain came down hard by 10am and we had to scramble to the car before we floated away - all I got done was a block-in drawing of the tree I painted yesterday, not even worth posting here.

It continued to pour hard the rest of the afternoon, so a few of us set up to work on the porch of the house we are staying in. The above is my drawing of a particularly dramatic tree branch visible in the yard. It's such a great specimen of organic form, I don't know why I ever needed to venture off the porch at all!

Here are Fellows Ken Salaz and Emilie Lee working with me on the porch to avoid the rain:

Tomorrow is supposed to be sunny and warm, our last full work day, so many of us are hoping to get in a final session of working from our primary subjects.

Hudson Fellowship Day 24

Tree Color Study

9 x 12 inches

oil on linen panel

Yesterday was a washout - got all set up to work, only got a couple hours into it, and the rain came down so hard everything turned grey/white and we had to call it a day. Today Kaaterskill falls was swollen beyond recognition - majestic and exciting, but not at all like the peaceful terraced pools in the study I am working on, so a couple of us decided to head for high ground and do a tree studies instead. Had a great time with the above painting - and wow it's nice change to be out in the sunshine instead of hunkered down in the chilly mist of the falls!

Tomorrow it's a tossup: the plan is to check out the falls and if we decide the waters are still too rambunctious we'll head for the high warm plateau with the lovely trees again.

Only two more full workdays to go....

Hudson Fellowship Day 22

Kaaterskill Lower Falls Value Sketch

(work in progress)

9 x 12 inches

oil on linen

This is the same basic composition I did a couple days ago in color. I decided I need to do a detailed value sketch if I am going to flesh this out into a larger, finished painting. I started with an "open grisaille" yesterday using burnt umber and turpentine (called "open" because the white canvas shows through). Today I started to refine it as a "closed grisaille", using white paint, burnt umber, and ultramarine (called "closed" because when it's done the canvas will be covered with paint).

Pool Study (work in progress)

6 x 8 inches

oil on linen

I also started a color study close-up of the pool of water at the bottom of my composition. This is still really unrefined, I wanted to take it further today but I'm using a new type of canvas panel and the wet paint does not stick well when I try to add more layers. I'll be able to take it further another day once the paint has set up a bit.

We're starting to wind down to the end here, just a few more days of study here in the Catskills before we all go back to our respective studios. The last day of the Fellowship is this Sunday, August 2; I can't believe it's going by so fast!

Hudson Fellowship Day 21

Will post more art soon but for now here's a little video of me and Fellow painter Ken Salaz painting in a rainstorm today:

Also, here's a great image of another Fellow, Jennifer Worsley painting under her white umbrella at the top of Kaaterskill Falls:

Hudson Fellowship Day 19

Katerskill Lower Falls Color Sketch

9 x 12

oil on linen

We had a huge thunderstorm last night and as a result the falls were the highest and fastest I have seen them. Recently they'd slowed to almost a trickle in some places. I feel like this section of the falls has become my own studio. I've walked over every one of the rocks here many times now and I know several bends of the river pretty well. When hikers decide to wade in the pools and climb on the rocks, I feel like strangers have wandered into my studio and are touching my props.

Above: Block-in line drawing and first part of color wash.

Above: Thin color wash, consistency of watercolor.

Above: Refining blocks of color and shapes, adding details.

Above: Added details and adjusted colors and values.

Hudson Fellowship Day 18

Kaaterskill Boulder and Pool (work in progress)

9 x 12 inches

oil on panel

see previous stage of this painting

The background is still not done, but I made a lot of headway today working on this painting I started a couple days ago. I'm finding I've had to re-learn what I have already learned in my studio work:

1. Slooooow waaaaay doooooown.
2. Mix up puddles of the main colors and values with a palette knife before working with the brush.
3. Look, look, look... only put down one single stroke and then look back again at the subject.

I know all this so well from my studio work, but somehow outdoors I feel I should be able to get away with slap-dash dabbling. Anyway, it's starting to sink in: I have to be calm and slow and look, even outside. It seems simple, but between the mosquitoes buzzing in my ears, the cold breeze chilling me to the bone, and tourist hikers snapping my photo every few minutes, I have apparently been distracted from everything I thought I knew. Glad it's starting to come back, had a lot of fun today.

PS: For more about this year's Hudson River Fellowship, visit the official blog at:

http://grandcentralacademy.blogspot.com/

Hudson Fellowship Day 17

Kaaterskill Boulder with Falls

9 x 12 inches

oil on panel

See previous stages of this painting

Eight more hours spent on the boulder study today and I think it's done.

Hudson Fellowship Day 16

Kaaterskill Boulder with Falls (work in progress)

9 x 12 inches

oil on panel

See previous stages of this painting

I spent the day at the Kaaterskill lower falls again and worked more on the above painting that I started yesterday. It wasn't raining, so it was a much easier day! I also began another painting below:

Kaaterskill Boulder and Pool

(work in progress)

9 x 12 inches

oil on panel

Having fun, planning on working on both more tomorrow. Now, sleep....

Hudson Fellowship Day 15

It's raining pretty steadily today, but I decided to go to the lower falls (Kaaterskill Clove) and see what I could get done. It worked pretty well, I just set up my new huge plein air umbrella and worked under that for about 3 1/2 hours. With my ipod playing and my raincoat keeping me dry it was even cosy! Benefits of rain: no mosquitoes and no tourists. That and the wet rocks look so pretty and shiny!

I just did an underpainting today. This was all on the advice of a fellow painter here, who says he does a thin color underpainting using the oil paint thinned to the consistency of ink or watercolor.

Progression is below:

Above I started with a line drawing to block-in the layout using a small round synthetic brush, and a paper towel corner dipped in turp for an eraser.

Above I used the burnt umber thinned with turp to lay in the basic lights and darks.

For the underpainting I used turp-thinned paint and kept the values light and the colors reddish. Everything is just a tint.

This is the underpainting as it stands so far. My plan is to continue working on it for a couple more sessions and see how far I can develop the painting in on-site. You might recognise this as the same boulder I drew back on Day 2.

Yesterday evening we went out to do another sunset study. This one again suffers from being too light. Not sure I'm cut out for the lightening-speed approach this requires to capture the hues, values and chroma.

Here's a shot of several of my fellow painters finishing up their studies just after the sun has set. That's Hunter Mountain beyond us, you can see the cut trees from the winter ski trails.

Hudson Fellowship Day 13/14

"Hudson River from Olana"

9 x 12 inches

oil on panel

See previous stage of this painting here

Today I went back to Olana today to complete the painting I began last Thursday. Luckily the weather was similar to the previous session. I adjusted the composition and refined the colors and added more detail overall. I also adjusted the shape of the river quite a bit, I think in this version it sits on the plane of the earth more accurately.

Last night I arrived from my lovely weekend off refreshed and excited to paint so I ran out and did this sunset. We've grown to quite a crew of sunset sketchers, there were about 10 of us set up on a high flat driveway area perfect for sunset viewing. Jake said he'd been there all day and saw a black bear running - fast - not far away. I don't think I'll go up there alone!

"Sunset Color Study II"

6 x 8 inches

oil on panel

For my first sunset study I went too dark but on this one I over-compensated and went too light. The hue, value and chroma of each stroke would be hard enough to evaluate if the subject were not also constantly moving and changing! It's a frantic 90 minutes of painting, but also pretty exciting. Random excalamations of dismay erupt from one or another painter at regular intervals.

Hudson Fellowship Day 10

"Hudson River from Olana"

Color Study Stage I

(work in progress)

9 x 12 inches

oil on panel

Today was rainy in the morning so we drove to Olana, which is the home Frederick Church built for himself on a 250 acre property. He bought the land for the views of the Hudson River and he designed the landscaping to create ideal compositions. Everywhere you look is an amazing scene for a painting. His house in incredible too, a Moorish-inspired castle, full of artifacts from Church's extensive world travels and lots of his paintings.

We did a tour of the house and after that the sun was shining again so we decided to stay there and work on the grounds. I had my supplies along so I set up my easel and worked for 4 hours on the above study. I'm hoping to go back to Olana and work on it more, the above is just a start.

Also, last night a few of us decided to try sunset studies, below is the result of my first attempt - one hour of ever-changing sunset glory that just about drove me mad. A ravenous swarm of mosquitoes sure appreciated us standing still with hands encumbered by painting tools, and right at dinnertime!

"Sunset Color Study I"

5 x 7 inches

oil on panel

Afterwards I learned from my instructor Edward Minoff that my values (light/dark) are way too extreme and I need to significantly lighten the clouds and everything in the distance. He showed me his study and I could see what he meant.

I can't wait to try both again, but I'll be away from the fellowship this weekend to go visit my husband. So I won't be posting for a few days, back on Monday.

Hudson Fellowship Day 9

"Ship Boulder"

graphite pencil on toned paper

Hudson Fellowship Day 8

I'm trying to pick a composition and commit to one scene (or maybe 2) so I can focus my studies towards making a fully developed painting. Having a hard time choosing though, everywhere I look there's something to potentially paint.

This was my atempt today but I don't think I'm going to pursue it. It's too complicated to understand what's going on.

The fatigue is starting to get to me. Not getting enough sleep, plus hiking/scrambling around in the gorge, plus sitting and working for hours in the cold, are all starting to wear me out! Going to try for 9 hours of sleep tonight... my goal is try to sleep at least as many hours of the day as I paint!

Check out the Grand Central Academy Blog which is documenting more sketches from the Fellows, so you can get a closer look at what's on that long table.

Hudson Fellowship Day 7

Trees with view of Hudson Valley

ink and white guache on paper

cloud studies, pencil on paper