Sackets Harbor Plein Air Festival

Sackets Harbor, NY hosted a great plein air festival in mid July this year and I was luck enough to attend. The town and harbor are very picturesque with loads of old historic buildings, boats in every shape and size, friendly people and a very artsy main street.

I decided to camp to save some money, and my son and his girlfriend joined me at Wescott Beach State Park. The weather started out very hot and humid, making me thrill every time I had to get into my air conditioned car to drive someplace.  However, the weather changed drastically when a cold front came through in the wee hours of Friday night, scaring the day-lights out of us as the storm slammed into the eastern end of Lake Ontario, bringing incredible thunder, lightning, wind and rain.  Thankfully, I'd had the foresight to bolster the poles on the tent earlier in the day or I would have been sleeping in the car because the tent never would have survived.  By the way, although Wescott Beach is a very nice park, the camping area is more like a parking lot than a camping area.  The sites are too close together, right on the park road and with no buffer of any kind between sites.  We were literally right on top of our drunk neighbors who were up too late, who spent the rest of their time shooting off fireworks (illegally, of course) and swearing at the throngs of kids they had brought along for the "fun".  But I digress...

Back to painting.

"Cascading Colors" 9x12

The town is very scenic and I managed to get 3 descent paintings done.  Although 3 isn't a lot, I was pretty happy with it considering never having been there before and the whole camping experience. I did spend a lot of time sight-seeing.  I also had a very nice time going out to dinner with a group of other Rochester artists who had come to paint in the festival, talking to the locals and taking in the scenery.  Here are the paintings and photos of the scenes that inspired them.

I would definitely do this festival again.  Not so sure about camping though, but then again, you never know.

"Haybales at Dusk" 9x12

"Parade Watchers" 9x12

Scam Again!

Well,it's been a while, but I got another scammer email.  This is how it went:

Hello,
These  particular artwork of yours that you have for sale, is it still available,if yes let me have the detailed price and more information about
it.
Regards,

Amy Bacon

And this was my reply:

Awesome Amy! 

So glad to hear from you.  The detailed price of the particular artwork of mine is $4,000,000,000.00.  Any questions?  Please feel free to contact the United States Attorney General's office.  I am sure they would LOVE to talk to you!

XOXO

LOL!  Effin idiots. 'Nuff said.

"Walking In July" and "Summer Splendor"

       
    

Walking In July - SOLD

 I am always on the look-out for little out of the way places that  pique my interest and which really grab my attention. I found this  little spot in a small local park and I really liked the way the path  just disappeared into the woods.  I didn't even bother grabbing  my easel.  Just sat on the ground to paint. Walking In July" was  done yesterday after I got out of work. That's one of the  benefits of working summer school - half days!

"Summer Splendor" was done this morning after I dropped my daughter off at work.  I hated to make that trip without making it productive by doing a painting.  Now I need a decent map to find out where else I can go that's near her job.  I really like this particular location - lots of nice scenery.  And everything is so lush from all of the rain we've had.  I plan to head back there soon.  Both paintings are 6"x 9", unframed.

Summer Splendor - AVAILABLE

                                      

Both paintings were on the same piece of paper.  I cut them apart after they were done.

            

Summer Marsh

Summer Marsh - 9"x 12"  SOLD

Been a very rainy summer.  I have a week and a half off between the end of the school year and when summer school begins. I try to paint and focus on art things, but getting out to paint was beginning to look doubtful due to the weather.  I finally got out on Friday and did this one between rain storms.  I hope I can do more over the rest of the summer, weather permitting, of course!    SOLD
9"x12"

Shady Grove

Shady Grove - 9x12   Available

I don't always finish the paintings I start.  There's lots of reasons why; other things have to get done first, I lose interest, I never really liked the subject, there are problems with it I can't resolve right then...  I never toss them out, though. I just set them aside in the hope that I will finish them someday.

This is a painting like that.  I started out going gang-busters on it, but became distracted.  I was working in a small town and had lots of people stopping by to talk.  I really like to talk about my work, but it's hard to paint and talk at the same time.  Eventually I just quit.  I had enough of it done to show people what plein air was all about and that was enough.  I set it aside and rediscovered it several years later (yesterday).  I realized it had a lot of potential and decided it was time to finish it up.

Can be seen at the Pat Rini Rohrer Gallery in Canandaigua.

Values in Painting

Finger Lakes Farm  - 12x18  pastel  SOLD

Yesterday I presented a workshop for the Genesee Valley Plein Air Painters, a very dedicated bunch of painters who have a love of painting outdoors like I do.  The theme of the workshop was how to use value to improve one's paintings.  Value is the range of dark (black) to light (white) and everything in between.

I am very in-tune to value in my own work and feel that once the correct values are established, the rest of the painting comes together more easily.

For this demonstration, I had to work inside from a photo due to the possibility of rain.  I worked over an old unsuccessful painting which had virtually no value range.  It's no wonder it was unsuccessful.

I drew in the basic shapes with a pencil.  Then using 5 values, blocked in the painting with pastel - black for the trees, dark gray for the grassy fields and barns, medium gray for the driveway, lighter gray for the sky and white for the roof of the barn and silos.  That's it.

Next was color.  I went right over the value sketch with color in the same values as in the value layer.  I used a variety of colors in each value.  This can be done only because each of those colors are of the same value as the grays, black and white which I initially used.  If I put down a color which was not in the correct value, it was was glaringly obvious, making it easy to correct at that point.

I gave everyone a value-finder which I made to help them to see value without the distraction of color.  Then they were given the chance to do value sketches and at least one finished painting before ending the workshop with a critique and ice-cold drinks provided by GVPAP.  I really enjoyed myself and was very pleased by the results of the workshop.  Everyone's paintings had a beautiful range of value that seemed to show a better understanding of how of value can make for a better painting.    SOLD