"Between Storms" First Session

"Between Storms", 18x24 oil on panel

    I got quite a lot done on this first day of painting "Between Storms".  More than once I thought how appropriate the title is particularly because today I was painting between and during the storms.  We had skies like this again.  When the monsoon rains stopped for awhile the sun would burst out and it was beautiful!

     There is quite a lot of glare on the painting because I was working under studio lights.  I really put those color correct bulbs to use at this time of year because the trees are so lush and dense that they cast a greenish glow to the light in the studio. That is not good for painting.  I had planned on sketching at the National Cathedral today but Mother Nature changed my mind. This time of year the best studio is outdoors!

"Between Storms" surrounded by the references I am using to paint it.



"Old Angler's Bridge" 18x24 oil on panel

        THE WASHINGTON SOCIETY OF LANDSCAPE PAINTERS: As the newest member of this one hundred year old society I have the honor of being the featured artist this month.  An announcement of this was sent out by the WSLP and it featured my painting "Old Angler's Bridge". This is also one of the two paintings I have on exhibit at the "Celebrating One Hundred Years" WSLP exhibit at the McBride Gallery in Annapolis Maryland.  The show opens this Sunday, July 7th and the artists reception is  from 1:00 to 4:00 PM. 
       Please click on this link to see my gallery and interview on the WSLP site. You can also click on Home on the menu and on that page you can click the link to a slide show of the exhibit at McBride.
http://wslp.org

Ready to Start "Between Storms"

Color Study for "Between Storms" oil on paper

      I am preparing to start a new studio painting which I plan to title "Between Storms".  I often have the title of a painting as soon as the desire to paint a particular scene strikes me.  This title tells the story.  We have been having daily, afternoon storms the past week or so and the skies have been beautiful to see!

       You may recognize this scene from my farmhouse series of mini 6x8 paintings.  In this painting I swing a little to the left of my usual view and I show the gazebo and storage shed intead of the famhouse and shed.  The sky is very similar to the last farmhouse painting but on this day the bright blue sky was peeking from between rather stormy clouds that were brightly outlined by the sun managing to break through.  The rains have been so torrential that as soon as there is a break we take advantage of it.  Here I am taking Gypsy for a hand walk and heading back in before the skies open up again!
       As usual I have prepared this small oil color study in my sketchbook.  Below is the graph paper layout sketch which will facilitate enlarging the scene on the 18x24 inch gessoboard panel.  Once again I have prepared the panel with an extra layer of gesso tinted with cadmium orange.  I like the effect that gives in my sunny day paintings and the last two studio paintings were started the same way.



Graph paper layout in scale for 18x24 inch panel

ON EXHIBIT: I have a lot of paintings on exhibit right now and the following links will let you preview most of the shows.
Oil Painters of America Summer Salon Show in Petoskey Michigan. Follow the links to the show on the home page www.oilpaintersofamerica.com
American Painting Gallery, "The Art of DC"
www.classicamericanpaintings.com
The McBride Gallery, Annapolis MD, "Celebrating 100 Years", the WSLP
www.mcbridegallery.com

UPCOMING:  
                  The Salmagundi Club, NYC annual summer show "Summer Potpourri" opens online on July 8th
www.salmagundi.org
                   "Celebrating 100 Years" another Washington Society of Landscape Painters show at River District Arts , Rappahannock Center, Sperryville, VA   Opens August 3rd.  A link will follow in another post.
                  and, as always......www.jeanschwartzpaintings.com

"Another Opening, Another Show"

"Different Paths" 18x24 oil on panel

     Yesterday I delivered my two paintings for the "Celebrating One Hundred Years" exhibit which is being held at the McBride Gallery in Annapolis MD.  This is a Washington Society of Landscape Painters show and it opens Sunday, July 7th and runs until July 28th. The opening reception is from 1:00PM to 4:00PM on the 7th. It is always nice to have a reason to drive to Annapolis which is only 45 minutes away.

     The painting above you might remember from my posts in January. I took lots of photos of it before I found one that was accurate.  This is an upgraded image from those earlier posts.  The painting I chose to submit with it is "Old Angler's Bridge" which is the same size and framed with a matching frame.  I selected two paintings that would show well together because I didn't know whether the Gallery would hang them together or separately. 

"Old Angler's Bridge" 18x24 oil on panel

The McBride Gallery is located right on Main Street which is a really bustling thoroughfare.  Lots of foot traffic, lots of restaurants, lots of potential gallery visitors:)  The facade of the elegant old building belies its labyrinthine interior where you will find room after room of truly wonderful paintings! I was able to see a number of the paintings which will be in this show and I can tell you they are impressive!  I gave you a link to view the paintings online and they do look good there, however, you can't fully appreciate the size, the texture the saturation of color.  Viewing paintings online can work both ways in comparison to the originals. In this case as good as the photos are the show is worth a drive to Annapolis and I am so pleased to be a part of it!
www.mcbridegallery.com  http://wslp.org (click on the link to the show on the opening page)
www.jeanschwartzpaintings.com

Just outside the McBride Gallery looking down Main St. towards the harbor

Summer Pasture



"Summer Pasture" 24x30 oil on linen

      In my last post I said I would show a before and after photo of the painting, the before being with just the two horses on the right (the third one was painted out) and the after when I added the new horse.  Sorry, but I just got involved in solving the problem and didn't stop to take photos.

      Here is what I am pondering now.....the two horses on the right were brought along from the beginning of the painting.  The brushwork is consistent with the rest of the painting and the edges of their contours are soft.  The new horse was being added after the paint was fairly dry.  I did paint up the area a bit where he was being added but his back hits a thickish impasto stroke of yellow paint making the line of his back look sharper than the other horses. So, since the eye seems to gravitate towards a sharper edge do I leave it alone and let him be a focal point?  Will the eye stop there?  I wanted the group of horses to lead  the eye to the tree and then from the tree to the back of the painting.  Do I perhaps want a fourth horse over on the left?  I can fix the new horse by loading a brush with a slightly lighter color than his back contour and matching the impasto of the field.  That would be fine if the one stroke succeeds.  If it doesn't I could be off the races overworking the horse.  No pun intended.  Seems to me this is an excellent time to stick the painting in the closet for a week and deal with it with fresh eyes.
www.jeanschwartzpaintings.com  http://wslp.org  The last link is for the Washington Society of Landscape Painters.  You can see a slide show of the images for the "Celebrating One Hundred Years" exhibit which is being held at the McBride Gallery in Annapolis.  Just click on the link at the top of the page. I will be delivering my paintings for this show tomorrow.

Morning at the Aquatic Gardens

"Aquatic Garden", 11x14 oil on panel

     Once again I have been on hiatis from my blog.  This is not intentional, just the result of a busy life.  Happily much of the time has been spent painting! 
      This morning I traveled to the Aquatic Gardens in Southeast Washington DC with some members of the Washington Society of Landscape Painters.  After all the years I have lived here I am surprised that I have never visited this place.  It is beautiful. It is varied.  It is bug free!  Well, not exactly but the ones that irritate humans, ie. mosquitoes were not feeding on us.  A park ranger explained that the frogs and dragonflies eat the mosquitoes and therefore they are not an issue here.  Given the heat and humidity of the day it was a welcome surprise.  This is a well balanced eco system!  There are some small changes I would like to make to this painting such as breaking up the strong curve of the reflected green in the water but I think I will ponder this for a day or two.

     The rest of the group painted the magnificent pink lotus flowers that were beginning to bloom.  A week from now there will be a vertitable sea of pink blossoms.  I was tempted.  After I saw the finished (or almost finished) paintings I wished I had.  Still, I am not much of a flower painter.  I don't know why.  Every morning I see my beautiful mass planting of hydrangeas and think I should paint them but I don't.  I am lured by water.  It sucks me in every time.  In the photo below you can see what I mean about the lotus paintings. Beautiful!

      I finished "Summer Pasture" and am sorry that I didn't take photographs of session three.  After looking at the painting a couple of days I decided the third horse I had painted in looked weird.  I painted it out.  I still need another horse in that spot but it had better be an improvement on the last one. I will have to rework that area so the figure goes in wet on wet.  I will post a before and after photo when I get back to work on it.  Aside from the pathetic horse I am pleased with the rest of it.
www.jeanschwartzpaintings.com  http://wslp.org

Second Session on Summer Pasture

"Summer Pasture", 24x30 oil on linen (in progress)

     Today was an all day rainy day and I spent the better part of it working on "Summer Pasture".  I prefer working in natural light but with all my studio lights on and the floods with color correct bulbs I was fine.  One good thing about working under studio lights is you don't worry about the light changing.

     I am having a great time painting these clouds!  Already I want to do another with a similar theme.  I am just into these colors right now which makes sense because it is what we have been experiencing. I am pleased with the painting so far.  With the exception of the horse in the foreground I will most likely move the others around.  Gypsy was my grazing horse model and I am making the foreground horse a portrait of her.  I hope to finish this quickly because I want it to remain a wet into wet painting.  Check back to see the finished painting by the end of the week!
www.jeanschwartzpaintings.com
My gallery page and interview is now up on the Washington Society of Landscape Painters site. Please visit
http://wslp.org
You might also want to visit the Oil Painters of America website and view all the paintings (mine included) that will be on exhibit this summer at the Summer Salon Show in Petoskey Michigan. www.oilpaintersofamerica.com

A New Start

"Summer Pasture", 24x30 oil on linen, roughed in

     I have just started a new studio painting that I have already titled "Summer Pasture".  I have been very inspired by the recent blue and white skies over the acres of green and gold pasture that I experience on an almost daily basis.  The colors have been so clear and intense, offering wonderful contrasts of light and shade.  I am always happy when working with blue!

     As you can see in the photo instead of making a small color study for the new painting I have propped up the recent "Farmhouse" mini (on my right) and behind it my recent "Blue Ridge" painting.  These two will guide me with my color choices.  On my work station there is a preliminary sketch for the painting executed on graph paper to make my placement of the composition in the larger format easier.  I also propped up the drawings I had done of my mare Ggypsy grazing.
       If you read my posts while painting "Blue Ridge" then you may remember that I mentioned I had intended to add horses but the painting had progressed to the stage that they would have looked tacked on and so I left them out.  This time I am placing them from the very beginning and letting them develop along with the rest of the painting.  I have also lowered the horizon line which is another thing I mentioned wanting to try next time. 
       I have used the same underpainting of cadmium orange mixed with gesso that I used in both the Farmhouse and Blue Ridge.  This is still my favorite for a sunny day painting. 

End of first painting session

     I needed to stop sooner than I wanted to because the light really disappeared.  A storm was threatening (never materialized) and I hate going from natural light to studio lights in the same session.
     I am happy with the layout of this but will probably play with the placement of the horses tomorrow.  I changed their locations from what I had in the drawing but now I think I prefer where they were in the drawing after all.

     A number of paintings are going on exhibit.  You can find 6 of my paintings at American Painting Gallery, 5118 MacArthur Blvd. NW, Washington DC from June 8 to September 1, 2013. The show is a WSLP show and is
"The Art of Washington DC" www.classicamericanpainting.com  Coming up in July is "Celebrating 100 Years", another WSLP show that will be held at the McBride Gallery, 215 Main Street, Annapolis, MD.  I will have two paintings in that show which will run from July 7 to 21, 2013.www.mcbridegallery.com
This Thursday the Oil Painters of America Summer Salon Exhibit opens at the Crooked Tree Art Center in Petoskey, Michigan.  This juried show will run from June 20 to August 31, 2013.  My painting "Morning, Washington Square Park" will be on exhibit.  I have received the catalogue and it is beautiful!  So many wonderful paintings! You can view the show on the OPA website by following the menu on the right hand side of the home page www.oilpaintersofamerica.com  Enjoy!

Cover of the OPA Summer Salon Show Catalogue