Night Shades

"Vermilion Sky, Georgetown Waterfront", 24x30 oil on linen

    I guess you could say I have become a creature of the night. The more I paint them the more I love nocturnes!  I gravitate towards the moments of last light when the landscape has darkened, lights have come on and there is some drama and deep color to the sky.  Cities sparkle at these moments.  This is the view of Georgetown from the Teddy Roosevelt Bridge spanning the Potomac between Virginia and DC.  When I began the painting I used a sky photographed by an artist friend in Scotland (with his blessing of course) as I didn't have another reference for the sky I had experienced.  Happily the sunset Thanksgiving evening was exactly like this so between Ken's photo and what I could see again for myself and photograph I finished the painting today. I darkened the clouds to be more like the Thanksgiving sunset and then made the blue of the sky darker and more intense.  I think I will protect this one from further tweaking and put it away for a week or so.  I am itching to work with these colors again but I am not sure what scene I will choose.

     The opening at American Paintings Fine Art in DC on Saturday night was a tremendous success.  It was a miserable, cold, night with heavy rain pouring down nonstop so I was concerned that many would not venture out but when I arrived the gallery was packed!  The French restaurant next door, Et Voila, catered the affair so everyone was treated to beautiful paintings, fine food and good wine. The painting I wanted to upload in my last post but was unable to is shown below.  This was one of the four I had on exhibit and I am happy to say it sold that night!

"Evening on the West River", 8x10 oil on panel

Small Treasures

"Heading to DC" 6x12 inches, oil on linen panel

     Tonight is the OPENING RECEPTION FOR SMALL TREASURES 2014, at American Paintings Fine Art at 5118 MacArthur Blvd. NW, Washington DC.  The reception is from 5:00-6:00 so if you are planning on being in town this evening you might want to stop by for some wine and hors d'oevres and view over 100 tiny paintings just waiting to become Christmas gifts or a treat for yourself.  Small paintings (none larger than 9x12) and small prices!
      I will have four paintings in this show and along with the ones pictured above and below there will also be a cityscape, "September Evening, Rosslyn" shown a few posts back as well as "Evening on the West River" from a much earlier post. I will try to get that up here too but I often have trouble uploading more than two paintings to a post.

      I have had a sad interruption to my painting and posting but I will slowly but surely be getting back on track. Tomorrow I will upload some of the paintings on view in NYC at the Salmagundi Club's Thumb Box show.  In the meantime you can view all the work in that HUGE show by going to www.salmagundi.org and clicking on the image for that show. It is being billed as the biggest little show in the Club's history. It has a long history!

"Silver and White" 8x8 inches, oil on linen panel

Above Cayuga's Waters

"Above Cayuga's Waters", 24x30 oil on line

     Here are two more paintings inspired by the same morning in Ithaca New York as "Leaving the Inlet" from yesterday's post. As I explained, I was in a launch heading from the inlet leading from the Cornell Boathouse out to lake Cayuga. The latter is one of the famed Finger Lakes , five glacial lakes spanning a number of states. The region is beautiful! There are gorges, waterfalls, meadows and vineyards. Ithaca is a charming college town where both Ithaca College and Cornell University are located. I have close family connections to both institutions and visit here at least once a year.

     So how do I create these paintings at home in the studio? I had taken LOTS of photos from the launch. I ended up deleting at least half of them and kept only ones that had an element of what I found so striking that morning. There were heavy clouds breaking apart with the glow of the rising sun showing through. There was mist, a lot of mist lending an air of mystery and softness. It was late September and the fall color in this northern region was well underway. It was cold! The painting above was created by taking elements from three separate photos. I wanted to have a few of the Cornell buildings poking through the mist at the top of the hill because I knew I wanted to title this "Above Cayuga's Waters" and that is from a line of the Cornell alma mater. I wanted a sense of the cold with the warm light of the sun promising warmth. I did several sketches before starting work on this as well as "Daybreak on the Inlet", 20x16 oil on panel pictured below. In the latter I chose to depict just one of the sailboats moored at this small marina. The single vessel seemed more significant in the moment depicted. I also experimented with a very heavy texturing of the panel in this one and I liked it!

     Both of these paintings are currently on exhibit in a Washington Society of Landscape Painters exhibit "A Passion for Landscape" which is at The National Institutes of Health ( NIH) in Bethesda MD until January 3rd. I have four paintings in this show and you can view the exhibit by going to the WSLP website and hit exhibits on the menu.www.wslp.org

"Daybreak on the Inlet", 20x16 oil on panel

The American Artist's Professional Leagues 86th Grand National

"Leaving the Inlet" 18x24 oil on panel

      The annual Grand National Exhibit sponsored by the American Artist's Professional League (AAPL) is a show I look forward to entering every year. I am happy to be participating for a fourth year in a row and my painting "Leaving the Inlet" is my contribution to this year's exhibit. The show opened on Monday and runs until November 21st in the Main Gallery of the Salmagundi Club at 47 5th Avenue NYC. You can view all the works in this show (and they are impressive!) at the AAPL website www.americanartistsprofessionalleague.org.
      The painting depicts dawn on the inlet leading from the Cornell University Boat House on lake Cayuga in Ithaca New York. The sail boats are heading from their inlet moorings out to the wide waters of the lake. I was on the crew coach's launch following these boats out the inlet to view crew races. The sky was magnificent!

       Yesterday I created a business page on Facebook and if you are a FB follower I hope you will visit the page and take a moment to like it, if you do :-) and leave comments on the posts. Feedback is always helpful.  I will be posting paintings, plein air experiences and exhibit announcements there.
Here is the link...www.facebook.com/jeanschwartzstudio I hope to see you there!
Website: www.jeanschwartzpaintings.com
 

Wisconsin and M, Georgetown

"Wisconsin and M, Georgetown" 10x10 oil on panel

       I painted this little painting over the weekend using the same process I detailed in my last post. You might find it easier to see what I meant by the spots of color coming together to create the vehicles. They are not drawn beforehand. It works better for me if I lay down the dark colors and then the light ones where I see them forming the correct image. They are really quite loose and it is the placement of the bright splashes of light reflecting on them that gives the sense of realism.
      In the road a good deal of my under painting shows through and that helps keep the expanse of road in front of the approaching car from being too flat and poster like. That is fine if that is the style you are going for but that is not what I am after in my own work.

       I think I am gaining enough confidence to attempt some much larger paintings than I have been doing.  I may discover that the smaller format works best for me but I want to find out. More to come!
          Here is the little on site sketch executed in ballpoint in my 4x6 sketchbook
        

 

The Devil is in the Details

"Cloudburst on Pennsylvania Avenue, 12x24 oil on panel

     This is the final version after I repaired the scratches suffered when the painting fell from the easel. Twice!  It is also a more accurate photo so far as the color is concerned. By the way, I now wad up some tape and attach it to the back of the panel, pressing it against the easel as clumsy artist protection.

      I have been asked by several people to describe my process for painting such a detailed cityscape.  There is the word I want to talk about. The painting is detailed but then it isn't really. I will come back to that and explain.
       Other questions; Do I do a detailed drawing on the panel first, do I use photos, is this plein air? No, yes and sort of. I do an on site drawing in a small 4x6 inch sketchbook which gives me a lot of freedom to walk around looking for images for paintings. Before I head out I scale rectangles on the sketchbook pages using an architects rule to accurately reduce the size and shape corresponding to the panels or canvas I plan to paint on. Then  when something inspires me I draw the image in the rectangle corresponding to the shape I think it would look best in. My favorite drawing tool for these sketches is a ballpoint pen because they are fluid and great for continuous line drawings. I generally carry both a fine and a medium point pen.
      I take digital photos for references that my quick sketch can't provide.  Also in the field the camera is handy in the following way....For the painting above I used a photo taken from further back down the avenue near the National Gallery. On site I zoomed in on the photo to find the best composition and then moved up the street closer to my chosen image, stood in the broad crossing median Pennsylvania Avenue provides and scrawled out my sketch very quickly. Besides this process I sometime do small plein air paintings and then use them as studies for the larger paintings. That is for days I plan to stay in one spot.
      Back in the studio I often do a color study in another, larger sketchbook using oil on paper. I did not do that for this painting.

        So back to DETAIL.  How much detail? I ask myself that at the start. For me, if I am doing a well known place such as Pennsylvania Avenue , I feel there should be enough detail so the important buildings are recognizable but not so much that they become architectural renderings. I do not use straight edges. I will rest a yard stick on the top of the painting to support my arm (like a mal stick) and paint my edges freehand. I prefer the edges to be soft rather than hard. I eliminate details that are not important. Windows should follow the perspective but you will notice they are not detailed. The busy traffic beyond the foreground vehicles are really splashes of paint dominated by bright headlights. Enlarge the image and you will see what I mean. This painting is about a moment on Pennsylvania Avenue and it is really the atmosphere, the light in the sky, the sparkling traffic lights and the reflections on the wet pavement all combining to create a special moment that can be related to emotionally.
        I should mention it was not raining that day but I knew that is how I wanted to paint it. I studied traffic on rainy days here in McLean to know how to paint lights reflecting on wet pavement in the evening.

        Lastly, I did not take progress photos of this painting but if you go to the menu on the right and go back to 2011 ( September and October) you can see the progress on another cityscape "5th and Waverly". The painting above was created the same way starting with the same color toned panel and major forms blocked in with a mid value, neutral color.
      I hope this helps! If Blogger doesn't mess me up I will now upload a photo of that little 4x6 sketch made on site.

   

Another Pennsylvania Ave. Painting

"After the Cloud Burst, Pennsylvania Ave." 12x24 oil on panel

      I am still hooked on cityscapes and particularly enamored with Pennsylvania Avenue.  Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of other great subjects in DC but I just love the buildings along this thoroughfare and also the gorgeous sunsets when facing in this direction or the beautiful morning light when facing the Capitol.  This one is not quite complete.  I have some little things to touch up and add (such as a forgotten lamppost) but mostly I have some repairing to do.  Yup, I did it again. This one took not one but two tumbles from the easel and I was so thankful that I painted on a panel and not canvas.  Mercifully I had just moved my palette to my other studio easel or this one would have been a mess. I'm a klutz, what can I say.  The damage is some scratching which might be problematic in the dark areas but I am not too worried.
     This one is busier than most of my city paintings but if you look closely you will see that most of the traffic is a lot of squiggles and splashes.  Oh, how I love lights on wet pavement! If I had my way the roads in my paintings would always be wet.  Well, I do have my way so expect a lot of wet pavement in the future:)
      As I was painting this one I found myself thinking of my days as an abstract artist and my transition to representational art.  I was thinking about composition and my feelings about details as in " the devil is in them". I would like to post about this when I get back in town as I am beginning to understand something about my paintings.
      Thanks for reading and I will be back soon!