Rockwater Art Center in Poulsbo, Washington

Across Puget Sound, west of Seattle, a beautiful 100 year old farmhouse has become an art center. The Rockwater Art Center will be offering more than a dozen classes this summer. Three are specifically about painting outdoors, and other classes, such as structural drawing, color mixing, etc. would also be relevant for plein air painters. This page lists all the classes & workshops.

Four of the prominent artists who will be teaching there this summer are Jim Lamb (plein air oils), Ron Stocke (plein air watercolor), Radena Walsh (pastels - plein air to studio) and Aleksandr Kargopoltsev (color mixing in oils).

George Coll - Llama Pack Trip Painter

Whew! It's been awhile. Combination of a trade show, a birthday party in Mississippi, one of us on vacation in Thailand and the sudden blossoming of sales has left this journal in the lurch. Until now.

Daily Painter George Coll stopped in this afternoon to pick up a few supplies. He not only belongs to the intrepid group known as Daily Painters (here is an online gallery) but also takes painting pack trips with his two llamas. There are places in the Rocky Mountains where horses & mules are prohibited because of the damage their hooves do to the trails, but llamas, with their soft feet, are allowed.

George started painting with watercolors in 1986 at the Denver Art Students League. In 1998, he focused on oil painting. When he asked his first oil painting instructor “how to get good quickly,” she said to paint from life whenever possible.

Painting Retreats

Nothing sounds like quite as much fun as a "painter's retreat." Not a workshop, not a vacation, it's rather a combination of focus and freedom. Here are several that are available this season:

The Omega Institute is offering an Autumn Painter's Retreat focusing on Hudson Valley watercolor landscapes with Fulbright scholar, professional artist and muralist Alan Leon. This is peak fall foliage season.

New Mexico expressionist/plein air painter Louisa McElwain is offering demos, critiques, information and encouragement to artists who visit her property near Santa Fe. Subject matter ranges from spectacular mountain and badlands terrain to churches, villages and her farm with its orchard, pastures, gardens, horses, cattle and poultry. Stay in an historic log house, complete with antique wood burning range, Satellite TV and internet.

In November, Open Air Italy invites you to Tuscany for the olive harvest. Take some new oil home with you. There are only four remaining spaces for this trip.

You've heard of heli-skiing, now you can go heli-hiking with your painting gear in southeastern British Columbia. Canadian Mountain Holidays is making this trip available from August 31 - September 5.

Or you can hike in Italy's Sibillini Mountains, participating in a combination of studio time, walking, sketching, excursions and a visit to the Fabriano Paper Museum. This trip takes place October 9-16.

Karl Eric Leitzel will host "Finding Your Voice - A Painter's Retreat" at the Inn On the Sky in Spring Mills, Pennsylvania this summer.

Decisions, decisions.

Marin Arts Open Studios & Festival

Throughout Marin County in Northern California, there will be a free, self-guided Open Studios Tour during the first two weekends in May.

More than three hundred artists will have their studios open (most for both weekends), and tens of thousands of people will make the tour. There are about sixty plein air painters involved.

The Marin Arts Council will display work from each artist at its new location, 906 4th Street, San Rafael. The exhibit runs from April 25 through May 23.

In addition to paintings, the event features sculpture, fiber, furniture, jewelry, weaving, metalwork, stained glass, photography, pottery and etchings. A related gallery exhibit will also be located at 888 4th Street, San Rafael.

The painting shown in the poster, above, is Mount Tamalpais from Lucas Valley by Kathleen Lipinski.

Hunter McKee - Artist

Most of New Jersey artist Hunter McKee's paintings are done plein air, combining expressive color, confident brushstrokes and dramatic perspective & cropping. They vary in size from 6"x8" up to 28"x49".

"I paint directly, on-site, using opaque colors in response to what I see, think, and feel about a subject. It’s a challenging, time consuming, and rewarding process."

He was a student of George Nick at the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston, who also combines ordinary subjects with fresh enthusiasm, and who paints exclusively from observation.

William Jameson - Artist & Teacher

William Jameson loves to travel and paint. His land- and seascapes feature the Bahamas, Italy, France, Mexico, Colorado and Montana as well as his beloved home state of South Carolina. Their sizes vary from 8"x10" up to 52"x72" (the one shown here, Apallachian Textures II, is 72"x48").

His workshops are open to all levels from beginner to advanced, and instruction is offered in oil, watercolor, acrylic or pen and ink sketching. His wife Anne is also a painter and participates in the workshops.

“The more I paint, the more I must paint. The need to…is never diminished by having completed a painting, but rather there’s an immediate need to begin another.”

Paint the Town in Marble Falls, Texas

The Fifth Annual Paint the Town plein-air art event will be April 16-18 in historic downtown Marble Falls, in the Texas Hill Country west of Austin. More than 50 juried artists will set up their easels, and the public is invited to watch the painters at work. There will also be live music all three days of the event.

This year’s finished paintings will be judged by plein air artist and teacher V....Vaughan (painting shown). She will also present a gallery talk on Sunday the 18th about her plein air project and book, Last Year on the Farm, a collection of 365 paintings of her family farm. Fifty of them will be on view.

"I have lived here 30 years . . . most of my life. My husband has lived here his entire life. Our three children are the fourth generation to live here. The farm has sold now and development is coming soon. We are moving to other pastures. The seasons are changing . .. forever."

Florida's Forgotten Coast Plein Air Paint Out

Time once again for the Florida's Forgotten Coast Plein Air Paint Out, a ten-day event taking place from May 7-17 on northern Florida's Gulf Coast.

More than twenty nationally-known painters have been scheduled to participate, and the Quick Draw event on May 8 at Saint George Island Lighthouse Park is open to anyone over the age of 14.

There are all kinds of events open to the public, many of them free, including 11 demonstrations, a roundtable discussion, children's art activities, artists' receptions, student art day, exhibits, entertainment, and 3 workshops. In addition, of course, everyone is invited to watch the pros as they paint in eight locations along the waterfront and the inland town of Wewahitchka.

You can also find out more about it on their facebook page.

Sergei Bongart: Notes on Painting

Graphic designer and fine artist Norm Nason has compiled and posted a page of Sergei Bongart's Notes on Painting. A student of Russian realism and American impressionism, Bongart was an influential painter and instructor until his death in 1985. Here is some of the guidance that he gave his many students (and note the encouraging disclaimer at the end):

It is vital at the start of a painting to cover the white of the canvas with chosen silhouettes of color. Do this as soon as possible. A white canvas masks the truth of the color relationships.

It is entirely possible, and often advisable, to spend 90% of your time merely adjusting the big, simple shapes before ever moving to the rendering.

Of all the properties of color, value is by far the most powerful. Value and design set the painting; all else builds from them.

When dealing with complimentary colors in a composition (warms against cools), a good rule of thumb is to shift both to the same side of the color wheel. This may help harmonize and otherwise sharp composition. Take, for example, yellow and violet. Move them both to, say, the red side. The yellow then becomes a yellow-orange, while the violet becomes a reddish violet.

A light object against a dark background (in intense light) will have its edges flare and soften into the darkness, taking on the intense color of the light. The human eye naturally focuses on one distinct area at a time, leaving everything else softly out of focus. When painting, pick out a few hard edges at points where you want the viewer to concentrate and soften the edges elsewhere.

Disclaimer. All of the above are basic observations of light on form. Things tend to play in reality the way I've stated. However, you can easily find wonderful exceptions in the art world to everything I've told you. Use the information as a tool to learn color, but don't feel inhibited by it. Remember that art, at its best, is the seeing of life in new and exciting ways, not as rote formula.

Stay in the paint!

Sergei Bongart

David Slonim - June Oil Painting Workshop

There are still a few spots open for David Slonim's June 16-18 workshop sponsored by Indiana Heritage Arts (there is an application form at their site). All levels of oil painters are welcome.

This workshop will focus on the universal principles of visual communication used by every great painter, regardless of style or time period. It will include plein air and studio time, demos and individual attenion. It will cover not only some of the key principles, but how to continue learning on your own after the workshop ends.

"The goal is not to get you to paint like I do, but to paint like yourself with more beauty and power of expression in your work. It’s not about technique or style, but a mindset."
- David Slonim

Quang Ho - Artist & Teacher

Painter and instructor Quang Ho had his first one-man show at the age of sixteen. He's been painting ever since, and, in addition to a successful career as an artist, he has been teaching for twenty years at the Art Students League of Denver.

He recently completed three instructional DVDs: Nuts and Bolts, Painting the Still-Life, and Painting the Figure in an Interior. His teaching focuses not only on the elements of a painting such as light, edges, abstract shapes and the way they fit together, etc. but also on "visual vocabulary," the artist's intention and the qualities that the painting expresses.

He will participate again this year in the Weekend With the Masters, which will be held in Dana Point, California September 23-26.

He is also completing a series of illustrations for a children's book and preparing for an exhibit in London.

He does take time out for dinner with friends sometimes, and he has done several paintings of the kitchen in his favorite restaurant, Mizuna in Denver.

Dominik Modlinski - Adventurous Artist

Canadian artist Dominik Modlinski has traveled (almost) from pole to pole in the Western Hemisphere. He is offering workshops this year on Gabriola Island, British Columbia, in Yukon Territory, Alaska and Todos Santos, Mexico. You can also hire him to lead an expedition/workshop for you and a few friends in the location of your choice.

Since most of his paintings feature wilderness, it's interesting to see his blog posts from Japan, where he is following the cherry blossoms, starting in Hiroshima and traveling north. A much tamer place than his usual domain...(although he did encounter some wild boars!)