Cusp of Spring

Tree Paintings

Notes From My Tree Painting Journal

This painting was a nice challenge. The digital image has a glare on the right half, so it looks washed out. I love painting these groupings of trees with their intertwined branches and limbs. It is always my favorite theme for paintings in between seasons. Just that week or two between the seasons is fascinating to paint. It is a reoccurring theme in my work.

Serenity Oak 3

Tree Paintings

Notes From My Tree Painting Journal

It took me about a month to do this painting, working on it for a couple of hours at a time when I was at Fair Oaks on Sundays. I am here for a week, so I have been able to focus my time on painting upstairs in the studio for several hours a day. This is the third painting of this particular tree. It is a difficult tree to paint. There are many overlapping sections of the trunk and it has split into two sections as they are want to do in their great age. It is a mammoth tree.  I think this is the most successful of the three paintings, though I like the other two as well.

I used the following palette for the trunks and limbs:

UB

Raw Umber

Trans Red Iron Oxide

Ivory Black

Zinc White

Cad Orange

For the canopy and grasses:

Cad Lemon Yellow

Trans Red Iron Oxide

Cad Orange

Sap Green- I use Daniel Green Sap Green. it is unique and much cooler and deeper than other brands of Sap Green

Thalo Blue

Titanium White

The painting is 20x24 inches, oil on canvas.

Today I will start a new tree painting.

Trees at Fair Oaks

Tree Paintings

Sample painting for commission client

10x24

oil on canvas

Field One Palms

8x10 inches

oil on canvas

Notes From My Tree Painting Journal

This week I am in residence at my favorite place in the world, Fair Oaks. Being an artist in residence there means that I can come out to paint for a day most any time I like, but to live there for a week is a once a year privilege. I can't tell you how much I look forward to this week in February each year. The time flies by so fast!!

I am working on several painting projects this time, including a sample painting for a 40x60 commission that is looming ahead of me in March. The canvas should arrive from my canvas maker while I am away from the studio. I use French Canvas for all of my commission paintings. They make high quality and custom sizes for me. I brought 18x24 canvases with me for this residency and I have a tree painting in progress already that I've been plugging along on in the last few Sundays. The weather has been quite cold here, so I go out for a little ride around the fields and take reference photos of trees and then go upstairs to the studio to work on paintings, rather than be miserable in the cold.

I am trending back toward oils again after a couple of years learning to master acrylics. I will continue to use acrylics for my loft studio work, because it is a retail studio. I don't want anyone to be turned away by the oil paint smell. I love it, but there are many who have allergies to the paints. Acrylics are cleaner and easier to manage there. I have begun to do oils alla prima and on location again, but will probably continue with both mediums on location.

The trees at Fair Oaks this year are lovely and graceful in their bare winter grays and umbers. I so love the palette for winter in Florida. I like the combination of ultramarine blue, raw umber and lead white this time of year for trunks and limbs and distant atmospheric trees. I can bias it cooler or warmer as I need to. Good stuff!!

Oil Field Notes

Tree Art

Notes From My Tree Painting Journal

It's been about two years since I used oils on location. prior to 2011, I was mostly an oil painter. I dabbled with acrylics for about 8 years before 2011. In 2011 I decided to get serious about studying with acrylics. I put my oils away for about 18 months while I learned to paint well with acrylics. Recently, I decided to get back to oils in the painting studio. I began to miss them. After all, I have been an oil painter since the age of 12.

The re-learning curve for oils has been steep, much more difficult than I expected. I am just now beginning to get some technique back with them. Last Sunday, I packed my pochade box with oils for the first time in two years and headed out to my favorite place on earth, Fair Oaks.  The above painting was the result. it still needs some tweaking and when I have time, I'll work on it a bit more. I accomplished what I needed to. It is clean, not muddy, and has decent color mixing. it gives me some self confidence that I can once again get out there with oils and get the alla prima job done. I am thinking of taking them to my next Paint Out. I'll practice with them at Fair Oaks for a week this month during my residency. I'll show you the finished painting soon.

Field Notes

Tree Paintings

Notes From My Tree Painting Journal

I just returned from my residency at Merritt Island Wildlife Refuge. I saw thousands of trees out on the marshes and wetlands. One thing I do for myself is take field notes of trees that I am especially fond of, not always on location, but later on my computer. I find taking a lot of photos and writing notes on location to be pretty distracting, though it works for others. My habit is to just observe as carefully as possible with as few distractions as possible. I train myself to carefully consider the shapes, colors and textures of what I'm seeing and trying to store them away in my mind. When I get back to my office I can jot down these details while they are fresh in my memory. I will take a few photos of the most special trees I see to use later, but the field notes are very helpful.

One of the issues I most often observe are the changes over time to a region. I like to return to a location close to the same month or season each year to compare the extraordinary changes form year to year. This year all of the magnificent pines that were such a feature last year have been burned. They will leaf out again, but for now, look ghostly and sad. A completely different look to a year ago.  The water was much higher in the marshes and the color was different this year. There were many waterfowl but really about half as many as I saw last year. I learned years ago that each new season presents a completely different feel and vision to a landscape. It takes many seasons to understand a place and to fit into it's rhythm. 

Study the environment and you will ever be fascinated....

Trees as Subjects for Color Mixing

Orange/blue and red/green

yellow/purple and red/green

yellow/purple and orange/blue

Tree Paintings

Notes From My Tree Painting Journal

I mentor a group of 10 painters. I give them weekly assignments and we have a meeting once a month to talk shop. Their latest assignment was to study various tetradic palettes. The above tree paintings are my own paintings from the assignment.

The one on top was done alla prima with oils, and the other two were with acrylics. The second painting was started on location at Fair Oaks, where I am an artist in residence. 

The third painting was done on an aluminum panel. That is a bit more challenging with acrylics because the panel requires more paint layers to start before the paint begins to grip the surface well. I use a medium tinted with pigment for the first layer and the problem is that I am impatient in not leaving it alone to dry. Once I get further into the painting it is easier. I do enjoy the challenge of painting on metal now and then. It is great fun to see the little spots of sheen from the metal as you walk around the painting. Copper and tin work as well and it has become a fad with some painters to use copper, though  the technique has been around for ages.

I am starting to get my technique with oils back again. I noticed with the top painting that I felt quite comfortable with the medium again. I used to be an oil painter exclusively for about 40 years before I discovered the advantages of acrylic. I studied with acrylics for 18 months exclusively and just went back to oils last summer. Now I try to do both each week to keep the skill level up. 

The Loft Studio is full of tree paintings for 2013. I have moved my coastal paintings onto the stair well to give the trees their just due as the celebrities of my year. Come on up to the loft and enjoy them.

Winter Trees

Tree Art

Notes From My Tree Painting Journal

This one is 18x24 inches, oil on canvas. I had two goals for this painting. The first to study tree masses and second to use a variety of greens. When you paint in Florida you must practice greens constantly. Winter and summer, they are there. Sorting though masses of trees is always a challenge. I created a more interesting tree line between the masses by using subtle interval changes along the grass line. The real line of grasses were straight along in a row. I am always looking for opportunities to make the composition a little more interesting.

I was able to mix quite a few greens by using a base of Daniel Greene sap green oil, mixing into that the following in various proportions:

yellow ochre

ultramarine blue

naples yellow

cad lemon

cad yellow medium

titanium white

For the limbs I used the same magenta pink as the grasses, with sap green and ultramarine blue in various proportions. For the sky I used magenta with white and a bit of Ivory Black to make a pale warm gray. I used a palette knife for the sky.  The second day I came back over the lower part of the sky with trans red iron oxide and white for the subtle hint of clouds, again with palette knife.

 This is a painting of Field Three at Fair Oaks These rust and pink grasses are lovely in winter. Sometimes they are grayer, bluer or more purple but always beautiful. 

Good fun in the studio with my favorite subject.