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Thursday, 27 May 2010

Two landscape exhibitions in London and Christen Købke

Frederiksborg Slot ved Aftenbelysning
("Frederiksborg Palace in the Evening Light") 1835 by Christen Købke

Two exhibitions of paintings by renowned landscape painters are coming to an end of their run in London - and both exhibitions finish on the 13th June 2010. These are:

The latter moves next to the National Galleries of Scotland where it will be on display from 4 July - 3 October 2010.

I've not written about Købke (1810–1848) before but have been to see the exhibition

Købke is a painter of realism - adjusted to suit closely associated with what's called the Golden Age of Danish Painting. He's not well known and this is the first exhibition wholly devoted to his work outside Denmark.
Emphasising his exquisite originality and experimental outlook, the exhibition focuses on the most innovative  aspects of his work – including outdoor sketching, his fascination with painterly immediacy, and treatment of light and atmosphere.
This is a guide to the pictorial art associated with the Golden Age - which is worthy of a post in its own right at some point.< I'm going to limit comments here to the exhibition, because his work probably deserves more attention but within the context of the development of landscape painting in Denmark by artists influenced by C.W. Eckersberg. While Købke is obviously a very talented painter (particularly in relation to portraits and figures which demonstrated his very fine skills as a draughtsman) I found a number of the landscapes on the wall to be disappointing in terms of the billing given to him by the National Gallery. The theme of the exhibition is about him being a Master of Light. However a number of the paintings, when viewed in the exhibition, appeared to me to be rather less impressive than those seen in the video film which accompanies the exhibition.

The latter gives a very good impression of the paintings as they must have been when first painted but that's partly due to the backlighting which enhances the sense of light. In reality, to me, a number of the paintings were considerably more subdued when viewed with some being really rather dull - in a literal sense. There was no question in my mind that this was probably because of their age, because virtually all are on loan from other collections and because some probably haven't been properly cleaned of late.

It's difficult when somebody paints in the muted tones necessary to produce an effective sense of light. The lights in a painting then need to be kept clean and unsullied by time or the effect and impact can be much reduced. These are incredibly subtle paintings but for me some of that subtlety had been lost - and this was apparent when one saw some of the paintings in the exhibition where the overall effect appeared to be much closer to what the painter had intended.

As a result I suspect that these might be paintings which may well look rather better in a book or film than they do when hanging on a wall.

The painting which persuaded me that he was actually a fantastic painter of light was oddly enough his Portrait of the Landscape Painter Frederik Sødring (1832) from the Hirschsprung Collection where the luminous freshness of its colour scheme came across much more effectively. It's also a story of the influences on landscape painting in Denmark at the time - and serves to remind us how young Købke was when he painted most of his paintings (he died age 38). 

Another influential painting was his rather romantic painting of Frederiksborg Palace in the Evening Light (see top).  This is in good condition and is very impressive in terms of the portrayal of that very curious light one gets just before the sun sets. 

A third was the painting of boys on a bridge - an extract from which has been chosen for the catalogue of the exhibition - Christen Kobke: Danish Master of Light (see image on right).  This painting, again in good condition, is a fascinating depiction of the colour of warm stone - as well as a great composition and figurative painting.

Where the paintings are in good condition - and it's certainly the case that some are - it was very interesting to see and study
  • how very little white/light paint needs to be applied to get a highlight effect if the rest of the painting is using suitably muted (clean) colours
  • how extreme subtleties are possible in the colour of warm stone, evening shadows and reflected light
His landscape paintings are usually based on plein air studies.  He often drew and painted subjects close to the different places he lived in Copenhagen.  What I found fascinating was his impeccable portrayal of figures in a landscape - one of the best artists I've ever seen in this respect and some truly innovative and radical compositions for the age.

James Gurney did a post about him recently - see Christen Købke

In conclusion, I like the artist, I really appreciate his draughtsmanship and talent and I wish that those who looked after paintings would have some regard for how dirty and dull they can get over time.  


Here are some other reviews of the exhibition
Interestingly this last review uses the same image - "Frederiksborg Palace in the Evening Light" - which looks nothing like it does in the article in reality!

Links:
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Tuesday, 25 May 2010

Landscapes at Christchurch Art Gallery, New Zealand

John Gibb Clearing up after rain, foot of Otira Gorge 1887.
Oil on canvas.
Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu, purchased 1964.
About 4 kilometres south of Otira, in the Southern Alps, is the Otira Gorge, the original staging place for coach traffic in the earlier days of transport between Canterbury and Westland via Arthur's Pass. The hotel in Otira, seen in this work, was washed away when the Otira River flooded in 1886.

Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu in New Zealand has an exhibition of works in the pastoral tradition called An Idyllic Country: Pastoral Landscapes from the Collection. This is a collection of paintings, watercolours and prints portraying romanticised visions of the countryside will go on view at Christchurch Art Gallery this month.
The pastoral tradition in art is the idealised portrayal of country life, often idyllic views of a tamed countryside inhabited by shepherds and livestock. An Idyllic Country brings together a collection of paintings, watercolours and prints spanning several centuries, and includes works by seventeenth-century Dutch artist Danker Danckerts, British artists Joseph Mallord William Turner, John Arnesby Brown and Gwendolin Raverat and New Zealanders John Gibb, Evelyn Page and John Weeks.
Christchurch Art Gallery’s collection has traditionally been very strong on pastoral views of the rural landscape. Many of the works on display were created to offer a respite from the urban chaos of city life; they offer a place to escape, to relax and reflect. An Idyllic Country offers visitors to the Gallery the opportunity to enjoy both modern and contemporary takes on the traditional country landscapes.
Jenny Harper, Gallery Director
The Gallery has chosen to provide a striking contrast for these idealised portrayals of country life and tranquil landscapes by including work by Barry Cleavin and Bing Dawe that comment on modern intensive farming methods and the abattoir as the inevitable fate for livestock.

The exhibition opened on 15 May and continues until 8 August 2010.

The Christchurch Gallery Collection

For me, when I looked at the Gallery's website, what was more interesting was the online database of images in the permanent collection - a number of which relate to the landscapes of New Zealand and are by artists who were born or lived in New Zealand. You can see two of these by John Gibb at the top and bottom of this post.

One of the things that the gallery also does is provide excellent information sheets about various works. This link to New Zealand landscape art includes infosheets such as
When i interrogated the collection database I found that some of the landscapes came up with a map reference - which identified the location of the painting on the map which I found very impressive!

These are the locations for the two paintings in this post


John Gibb Shades Of Evening, The Estuary 1880.
Oil on canvas.
Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu, presented by the Canterbury Society of Arts, 1932.This view of Christchurch’s Avon / Heathcote Estuary, known to Mâori as the Opawaho / OtakaroEstuary, looks west towards the foothills of the Southern Alps. A much more settled landscape today, in 1880 John Gibb shows only a small limp red flag and a derelict rowboat as signs of human activity.


This is how the gallery describes John Gibb
When the painter John Gibb arrived in Christchurch from Scotland, in 1876, he had already more than quarter of a century's activity in Britain as an artist and exhibitor. Early in his life, Gibb had shown a natural aptitude for drawing and painting that was encouraged by his family. By 1849 he was receiving tuition in the studio of John Mackenzie of Greenock, and the Clyde River and the environs of the Firth of Clyde were the focus of Gibb's paintings during the 1850s, 60s and early 70s. A traditionalist, Gibb aligned himself with the picturesque style akin to such artists as Sam Bough, Joseph Farquarson, Alfred de Breanski Snr. and John Harvey Oswald. He followed the academic practice of sketching the landscape and gathering information which was later worked up in the studio with intense attention to detail. In later years, as a keen photographer, he regularly used his half-plate camera to good effect as an aide memoire. Within three months of his arrival in Christchurch, Gibb held the first showing of his work and began making painting excursions around the South Island. As there was no art society in Christchurch, he exhibited at the Otago Society of Art Exhibitions in Dunedin from 1878 on. When the Canterbury Society of Arts was formed in 1880, Gibb was a foundation member and exhibited hundreds of works with the Society until his death in 1909. He also showed in Auckland and Wellington from the early 1880s and sent works to all the international and inter-colonial exhibitions beyond New Zealand. In the 1880s Gibb was regarded as New Zealand's major professional marine painter, a specialisation that enabled him to exercise his fascination with detail and which led to many private commissions in New Zealand and Australia.

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Sunday, 16 May 2010

Small but Sublime Landscapes at the Frick Art Museum

I'm not going to be able to get to see this but I think it's definitely worth highlighting the Frick Art Museum's exhibition Small but Sublime - Intimate Nineteenth Century Landscapes in Pittsburgh.


This is the Museum's summary of the exhibition.
Nearly 20 American artists spanning the Hudson River School to American Impressionism are represented in these small-scale paintings from the superb collection of the Newark Museum.

Beginning with the Hudson River School in the 1820s, landscape served as a vehicle for expressing national identity and pride in the wonders of the land. Artists such as Albert Bierstadt (1830-1902), Asher B. Durand (1796-1886), and Jasper Cropsey (1823-1900) were intent on creating distinctly American scenes.

Later, during the Civil War and in the years following, this ardent nationalism waned as French landscape painting and the Barbizon school influenced a younger generation of painters including George Inness (1825-1894), John Pope (1820-1881), and Mary Moran (1842-1899).

By the 1890s, Impressionism, with its broken brushstrokes and brilliant hues, became the avant-garde style in America.

Together, these small but sublime canvases provide an overview of the approaches to landscape in the second half of the 19th century and illustrate shifts in broader social attitudes towards nature and American identity.

I've reproduced the press release below as it provides an insight into the development of small scale landscape painting in nineteenth century America.  I've highlighted the names of all the American artists in bold.

On May 14, 2010, Small but Sublime: Intimate 19th-Century American Landscapes opens at the Frick Art & Historical Center. The exhibition features 22 small-scale paintings and drawings by 18 American artists, which range from the realistic style of Hudson River School to the brilliantly colored canvases of the American Impressionists.

The works, selected from the superb collection of the Newark Museum, provide an overview of the varied approaches to landscape in the 19th century and illustrate shifts in broader social attitudes towards nature and American identity. Small but Sublime: Intimate 19th-Century American Landscapes will remain on view at The Frick Art Museum through September 5, 2010. Admission is free.

Beginning with the Hudson River School in the 1820s, landscape painting served as a vehicle for expressing national identity and pride in the wonders of the New World. Artists such as Albert Bierstadt (1830–1902), Asher B. Durand (1796–1886) and Jasper Cropsey (1823–1900) were intent on creating distinctly American scenes. The term “sublime”—when used to describe art and literature—has been freighted with many associations since the 18th century.

Its earliest associations (as found in works of Romantic painters like Caspar David Friedrich and Joseph Mallord William Turner) were often linked to works that emphasized the insignificance of man, mortality and the terrifying grandeur of nature. For 19th-century American landscape artists the sublime had somewhat different associations, the awe-inspiring grandeur of the natural world was seen as evidence of the presence of God, and landscapes that attempted to capture this grandeur conveyed sacred and religious sentiments. In relation to the natural world, this resulted in large-scale, operatic views of untamed nature—often of the American West or South America. Hudson River School artists, such as Albert Bierstadt, also painted smaller, more salable works that reflected a 19th-century philosophy of the sublime that was distinctly American. Many of the works in this exhibition portray quiet and tranquil views that were wild—yet familiar—to American viewers. Bierstadt’s Lake at Franconia Notch, White Mountains, c.1860s, depicts a popular tourist spot. Bierstadt’s painting is a closely observed rendering on paper, indicating that he probably painted a considerable portion of the work on the spot.

In their desire to create memorable and marketable works, painters frequently traveled to destinations renowned for their beauty and sublimity. The Catskills, Adirondacks, Niagara Falls, and Natural Bridge in Virginia all were popular sites. They camped in the wilderness and used portable materials such as small wood panels, paper sheets or sketchbooks to record their observations. Two small albums of sketches in the exhibition by Asher B. Durand and Frederic F. Durand (1837–1905) document excursions from 1854 to 1877.

Asher B. Durand was a leading artist of the Hudson River School whose essays titled “Letters on Landscape Painting” were published in 1855 in Crayon, a leading art journal of the time. Frederick, Durand’s second son, took his father’s advice to heart. Frederick’s sketches reveal his working process as recommended by his father, “to take pencil and paper, not palette and brushes, and draw with scrupulous fidelity the outline or contour of such objects as you shall select, and . . . choose the most beautiful or characteristic of its kind.”



In Jasper Cropsey’s Greenwood Lake, 1871, the artist’s fluid and free treatment of the foreground trees and foliage is similar in style to a spontaneous outdoor sketch, but the detailed handling of the distant shore, as well as the artist’s fully realized composition, reinforces a contradictory reading that it is, in fact, a finished, studio piece. Greenwood Lake was Cropsey’s favorite subject. In this fresh and brilliantly colored view, he combines two signature motifs: the topography of the lake’s shoreline and autumnal foliage of dazzling reds, oranges and yellows. Cropsey’s infatuation with fall colors made him the premier painter of this season, which is the time of year when intense colors brand the scenery as distinctly American.

In the years following the Civil War, this ardent nationalism waned as French landscape painting and the Barbizon school influenced a younger generation of painters, including George Inness (1825–1894), John Pope (1820–1881) and Mary Moran (1842–1899). George Inness resoundingly rejected what he viewed as the scientific realism of the Hudson River School in his search to create pictures that create a poetic mood. In his Delaware Valley before the Storm, ca. 1865, Inness uses compositional elements, such as contrast between light and dark, muted colors, and an active paint surface, to suggest a mood of mystery in the civilized New Jersey landscape. Inness was the most well known of a group of artists, also including Ralph Blakelock (1847–1919) and Alexander Wyant (1836–1892), whose work evoked the spirituality of nature.

As American artists became increasingly cosmopolitan after the Civil War and traveled to Europe, sometimes spending years abroad, French art continued to provide inspiration. The Barbizon style was replaced by a strong involvement with Impressionism. Artists such as Theodore Robinson (1852–1896) were among the earliest American practitioners of this new approach to the painting of light and color. His Moonrise of 1892 was produced in Giverny, the home of Claude Monet, a leading French Impressionist painter, who was Robinson’s friend and mentor. This small, intimate scene conveys the artist’s personal reaction to and interpretation of nature.

These small but sublime works were meant to be lived with, seen at close quarters, and enjoyed on a daily basis. For example, at Clayton, Henry Clay Frick’s taste encompassed and progressed from pictures by regional western Pennsylvania artists, to works of the Barbizon school; later he purchased paintings by American Impressionists. The painting collection on view at Clayton reflects a wonderful contrast, as well as synergy, between trends in American and European painting. Between 1882 when Frick purchased Pennsylvania artist George Hetzel’s Woodland Stream and 1908 when he purchased June Idyll by Chylde Hassam, Frick’s taste parallels larger trends in collecting.

The Frick Art Museum provides a warm and personal venue for these works, which were meant to be displayed in domestic spaces. This intimacy reflects the belief of Helen Clay Frick, the museum’s founder, that works of art are best displayed in surroundings that evoke a comfortable and well-appointed home. The viewer will be able to take their own journey through the development of American landscape painting from the Hudson River School artists to the American Impressionists and forerunners of modernism, such as George Inness. While the paintings and drawings in this exhibition are small, their detail and skill reward close inspection.

The exhibition opened yesterday and continues until 5th September 2010.   There are a number of talks and events in connection with the exhibition.  The website has details for visitors.

Small but Sublime: Intimate 19th-Century American Landscapes was organized by the Newark Museum and is drawn from its permanent collection. The American Art collection at the Newark Museum surveys four centuries and includes over 12,000 paintings, sculptures, works on paper and multimedia art. The exhibition has received funding for conservation support from the Henry Luce Foundation and from the Newark Museum Volunteer Organization and from Barbara and Bill Weldon.
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Saturday, 15 May 2010

Sketching Constable's Cornfield

After Constable's 'The Cornfield' (1826)
 9" x 6", pen and sepia ink in large Moleskine Sketchbook
copyright Katherine Tyrrell


I spent yesterday evening (see Museums at Night starts tonight!) in the National Gallery in London sketching John Constable's The Cornfield in pen and sepia ink.
The title seems first to have been used by the subscribers who presented the picture to the National Gallery. Constable referred to it familiarly as 'The Drinking Boy'. It probably shows a lane leading from East Bergholt towards Dedham; the distant church could be an invention.

The painting was exhibited several times during Constable's lifetime, first at the Royal Academy in 1826.
It's interesting that even though it's supposed to be of Fen Lane near his home, he's used artistic licence and introduced a church into the background.  fen Lane is now called Flatford Lane.

I like sketching large paintings in art galleries and museums in monochrome.  It means you look at it more closely while trying to detect the design of the tonal values.  I also don't try to be precise when I sketch.  Most of this is done with scribble hatching - although I start to work smaller and smaller areas as I progress.

It's also fascinating trying to sketch the paintings of artists who themselves frequently used a sketchbook as a start to creating their paintings of landscapes.  I've seen Constables sketchbooks and they're tiny but very effective!

It seems likely that the painting in the National gallery was painted from sketchbooks and an initial start on site.

I think this painting in the Tate is the same view the other way on.  Its caption is as follows
Constable and his wife Maria took a long holiday in Suffolk in 1817. This was to be the last time he painted directly in oils in the vicinity of East Bergholt. Constable began several canvases outdoors without finishing them, perhaps in order to secure as much fresh material as possible in the time. Some parts of this canvas are painted to a fair degree of finish, whilst others are left in a more sketchy state.

Fen Lane, East Bergholt
John Constable

I think I might try and locate the original site for both these paintings. There's a good guide to walks around Flatford and East Bergholt including one which identifies Fen lane on the AA website - see Constable Country at Flatford Mill.

The bend appears to be round about #3 on the map!
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Tuesday, 11 May 2010

What is plein-air painting?

Out of door study by John Singer Sargent

The Plein Air Blog run by American Artist is back and hopefully this time they've worked out how to keep it being a 'live' blog!
To mark the occasion I've devised a list of definitions of plein air from various sources. You'll notice that the emphasis varies slightly with each one.

I was rather amazed to find out just how many American Museums don't try to make fine art more more accessible through the use of a glossary of terms on their website.

Different definitions of Plein Air
You may well notice when reading through these definitions that they don't agree.

National Gallery of Art, London
Plein Air
Plein Air is the French for open air. The term is used to describe the practice of artists painting before a landscape or other chosen subject out of doors, rather than in a studio or workshop. Before the end of the 18th century outdoor work was usually restricted to drawings and watercolours, but in the 19th century the increasing popularity of sketching landscapes in oil developed gradually into the practice of painting finished pictures in front of the motif.

Artists such as Corot and Daubigny frequently painted out of doors, but it was the Impressionists who embraced plein-air painting with the greatest enthusiasm.
Tate Gallery - Glossary
Plein air
French term meaning out of doors. Refers to practice of painting entire finished picture out of doors as opposed to simply making preparatory studies or sketches. Pioneered by Constable in Britain c.1813-17, then from c.1860 became fundamental to Impressionism. Important technical approach in development of Naturalism. Subsequently became extremely widespread and part of practice of Rural Naturalists for example. Sometimes taken to extremes e.g. by Stanhope Forbes of whom there exists a photograph of him painting on a beach in high wind with canvas and easel secured by guy ropes.
Encyclopedia of Irish and World Art
Plein Air Painting (extract)
Typically, painting a picture in the open air requires rapid composition and brushwork, neither of which is feasible unless the artist is familiar with the fundamentals of drawing. Thus it is no surprise to learn that many, if not most, outdoor painters were academically trained in life-drawing and perspective.
Art Lex
en plein air - French for "in the open air," used chiefly to describe paintings that have been executed outdoors, rather than in the studio. Plein air painting was taken up by the English painters Richard Parks Bonington (1802-1828) and John Constable (1776-1837), and the French Barbizon School, and it became central to Impressionism. Its popularity was aided by the development of easily portable painting equipment and materials, including paints sold in tubes. The equivalent term in Italian is "alfresco," which is also used by English-speakers. (pr. ə pləh-nayr)
Wikipedia
En plein air (French pronunciation: [ɑ̃ plɛˈnɛʁ]) is a French expression which means "in the open air", and is particularly used to describe the act of painting outdoors.
Painting.About.com
Plein air is a term derived from the French phrase en plein air, which literally means 'in the open air'. It's a familiar concept today, but in the late 1800s when the Impressionists ventured out of their studios into nature to investigate and capture the effects of sunlight and different times of days on a subject, it was quite revolutionary.
Merriam Webster Dictionary
en plein air
Pronunciation: \äⁿ-ple-ner\Function: foreign term
Etymology: French: in the open air
The Free Dictionary
plein-air [ˌpleɪnˈɛə (French) plɛnɛr]
adj
(Fine Arts & Visual Arts / Art Terms) of or in the manner of various French 19th-century schools of painting, esp impressionism, concerned with the observation of light and atmosphere effects outdoors
[from French phrase en plein air in the open (literally: full) air]
plein-airist [ˌpleɪnˈɛərɪst] n
Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003
Humanities Web
Plein Air
(French term for 'open air')
A painting that gives the feeling of being outdoors. The Impressionists tried actively to convey the open air feeling in their work. The term is also used to describe landscapes that have been painted outdoors.

Gamblin Artists Colors - Glossary
Plein Air - A painting done outside rather than in a studio. The term comes from the French en plein air, meaning 'in the open air'.
Artist Tours Group
Definition: en plein air
Pronounced As: en-plan-âr, Fr. en-plen-er [Fr.,=in-open-air],term used for paintings or drawings made directly from nature and infused with a feeling of the open air. Painting outdoors is a relatively recent practice; the impressionists and the painters of the Barbizon school made plein-air painting an important dimension of their landscape work.
An alternative definition

Here's my definition
Plein air is French term meaning outdoors / in the open air. Painting plein air is essentially about observing and painting subjects from life outdoors. This practice increased in popularity in the nineteenth century after the invention of tubes for oil paint. Plein air painters can paint in any media and usually paint landscapes. They typically attempt to capture the impression of the atmospheric effects in terms of light and colour as these cannot be recorded by a camera. Some painters who paint plein air will always finish what they start outdoors; while others (such as Monet in later years) are content to start a painting plein air, make a record of the light and colour and bring it back to the studio for completion.
What's your definition? I'll publish the best ones in a linked post.
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Wednesday, 5 May 2010

How to draw a tree by Edition Handdruck

My friend and ace artist/draughtsman/printmaker Martin Stankewitz (Edition Handdruck) produces delightful plein air pen and ink drawings and then fabulous monotype and giclee prints from the drawings and sketches.

Martin is very fond of drawing trees and recently he's been sharing his enthusiasm for drawing trees in a number of different ways

He's been very busy creating a whole set of resources and different ways in which people can share what's learned.

How to draw a tree is a visual summary of my experiences in drawing and sketching trees from life.

Rather than teaching a drawing method the little booklet shall encourage the reader with example drawings, mainly in pen and ink, to own explorations and to use the own handwrite.

The text concentrates on important aspects of tree drawings as proportions, trunk and branches and how to depict foilage of trees.

How to Draw a Tree

These include:

How to Draw a Tree - the blog

the book cover of 'how to draw a tree'

PLUS a whole suite of 'how to draw a tree' sites aimed at helping people improve their skills in drawing trees.
To give you a taster, the first of these includes:
  • Learning by doing - tree drawing from LIFE
  • Three critical points in depictions of trees
  • Rythm and patterns in foliage
  • Some tricks that help to get a convincing tree drawing
  • How to draw the trunk of a tree
  • plus some examples of how he applies basic principles in his own drawings in different media
  • and some examples from well known artists from the past and the present
"How to Draw a tree" is a gold nugget of art education - and in my view is it's well worth investing some time in studying what he has to say. I need to improve my tree drawing and I'm going to be reading it from end to end more than once!


motifs from Martin Stankewitz's 'how to draw a tree' information websites
copyright the artist/printmaker

Martin is German and he lives in Maulbronn in southern Germany. However his English is excellent and his advice and information is very easy to understand. He also includes a 'translate into English' option on all his blogs.

Overall, I think his resources are a really refreshing change from all the normal 'how to draw a tree' books which seem to be produced these days. I highly recommend exploring all the resources Martin has to offer.

Other landscape blogs by Martin include:
Plus you can purchase his original monotype prints or buy reproductions of his fine art prints

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Sunday, 2 May 2010

The Czech Republic - Virtual Paintout in May


The Virtual Paintout for May is the Czech Republic - which I'm very excited about as I've actually been to Prague (Praha). 

The Charles Bridge is a popular landscape motif for painters in Prague.  On one memorable day I nearly froze in late September while painting the Charles Bridge plein air under some trees on the banks of the the Vltava River - that's that bank on the right of the river in the above image of the Charles Bridge in Prague! 

I do recall the slivovitz breaks for some internal central heating which were different to say the least!

This is a link to Bill's Virtual Paintout blog and the thread of the Czech Republic Virtual Paintout in May

Please be careful to note the following in Bill's post
With the popularity of this project growing monthly (143 submissions in April), it is necessary for me to stress a couple of rules. One is the image size issue. It has always stated in the rules in the right sidebar on this blog that the image has to be at a resolution of 72 and no larger than 1000 pixels on the widest side. Submissions not following the rules will not be posted.

A new rule that started in April 2010, is that each artist must now include the URL of the location that the artwork is based upon.......

If your submission doesn't show up on the blog, please check the list near the top in the sidebar entitled, "Don't see your submission? This could be the reason..." Thanks.
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