Landscapes of California and America - a catalogue

For those who enjoy the paintings of the Californian and American landscape art, you can review many landscapes of the 19th and early 20th century by various artists - including Edgar Payne (1883-1947) - in this auction catalogue by John Moran Auctioneers.  

The painting is by Percy Gray

"A Lane Of Eucalyptus Trees," 1924

20 x 14" Watercolor on paper board under plexiglass

The Digital Catalogue can be found on issuu. It can even be downloaded!

Highlights include works by Edgar Alwin Payne, Percy Gray, Jack Wilkinson Smith, Ben Abril, Millard Sheets, Jessie Arms Botke, William J. McCloskey, and many more

The auction was held on Tuesday - so you can even find out what sold and for how much.

It's a good guide to what people like - and what they're prepared to pay for a landscape (or other fine art) or an investment.

I liked in particular the paintings by LeConte Stewart (1891 - 1990) and Percy Gray (1869-1952) - who are names new to me. One of Gray's paintings is on the cover of the catalogue.

It was also wonderful to see paintings of some of the places I've seen in person on my travels in the USA in 2006.

The view from Richmond Hill

One of the most famous views in the history of landscape painting is "The View from Richmond Hill". In the last it was liked so much that it's now the only view in the UK which is specifically protected by an Act of Parliament.

I've created a small website about it - The View from Richmond Hill - for those who want to know exactly where it is and what the view looks like - and some more about the artists associated with painting the view from the hill e.g.

• Sir Joshua Reynolds whose home (Wick House on Richmond Hill) has this view, or 
• JMW Turner who painted it several time or 
• Jasper Francis Cropsey, the American landscape painter (Hudson River School) whose painting of the View of Richmond Hill recently sold at Bonhams in New York. Cropsey later produced a massive painting of the same view - some eight feet wide - based on this study (and presumably others he made at the same time).  This study is principally focused on the features of the landscape and doesn't have the figures seen in the later painting.

View of Richmond Hill - Jasper Francis Cropsey (1823-1900)
previously exhibited as Study for Richmond Hill in the Summer of 1862
oil on canvas 12 1/2 x 20 1/2in
sold 21st May 2014 for $50,000 at Bonhams

Back in 2010 I visited to see what all the fuss was about. Like many such views I've visited in the past - the trees have grown!

I found it very tricky to get a place where you got a decent view of the bend in the river without running into other problems - like trees obscuring the view.

This is my "failed" photographic view. It's a classic one - with the horizon bisecting the image! You can at least see the river and the fact it has a curve and an island and some boats on it - plus some water meadows next to it!

The view from Richmond Hill - in 2010

This local photographer has had a go at showing us what is the magic of this place in this video

I'm thinking maybe a visit in winter when there are no leaves might prove more fruitful - although it would appear this brings different challenges

American Paradise: The World of the Hudson River School

Cover of the exhibition catalogue re. American Paradise: The World of the Hudson River School

American Paradise: The World of the Hudson River School

You can download this catalogue of the exhibition American Paradise: The World of the Hudson River School at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The exhibition was held between 4th October 1987 and 3rd January 1999.

The reproduction qualities of the pdf copy available for download on the Metropolitan Museum of Art website is very good.

You won't find it by including the title in the websites' search facilty. Instead you need to know to go to their MetPublications website

The title is out of print hence why the Met is making it available online.  You can also:

• Read online
• Print on Demand (although you might want to think twice about this given that the book is 348 pages!)

About the exhibition

Prior to 1987, the Metropolitan Museum of Art has focused on individual artists when mounting major retrospectives and had highlighted prominent American artists in doing so.

This exhibition was the first time a major retrospective had been undertaken of an important school of art unique to the USA. The book and the exhibition represented a summary of the (then) current scholarship relating to the Hudson River School.

The exhibition - and the catalogue - brought together some of the finest and most historically important of the paintings associated with the School.  It also provided a survey of the work of the various artists involved with the School.

Prior to this exhibition, there had been three initiatives by museums in the USA to highlight the art, scope and role of the Hudson River School

• 1917 - the Museum had held a much smaller exhibition - Paintings of the Hudson River School;
• 1945 - the Art Institute of Chicago mounted the The Hudson River School and the Early American Landscape Tradition exhibition
• 1949 - The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston published a book about M. and M. Karolik Collection of American Paintings, 1815–1865 

The Hudson River School

The Hudson River School was America's first true artistic fraternity. Its name was coined to identify a group of New York City-based landscape painters that emerged about 1850 under the influence of the English émigré Thomas Cole (1801–1848) and flourished until about the time of the Centennial.

This is the webpage for the Hudson River School in the Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History on the Met's website

Landscape Pictures - Notes #1

"Landscape Pictures" is a new type of post for this blog. The aim is to have a periodic round-up about recommended blog posts and articles about landscape art - with an emphasis on those with decent images and places you can see landscape paintings. It will also allow me to highlight blog posts by artists just because I like the painting!

LANDSCAPE ART - ANNUAL REVIEWS

Prolific plein air painter Haidee-Jo Summers artist reviewed her plein air painting year and exhibitions in four posts which include lots and lots and LOTS of plein air landscape paintings

• My 2013 year review January to March 
• My 2013 year review - April to June
• My 2013 year review - July to September
• My 2013 review - October to December

Michael Chesley Johnson (A Plein Air Painter's Blog)has a post which lacks visual interest but reflects on which of his blogs posts in 2013 have been of most interest to Plein Air Painters - see Top 10 Posts for A Plein Air Painter's Blog

Galley Hill Allotments in the snow by Haidee-Jo Summers 
Winner of The Best Picture (Landscape) 2013

In my Making A Mark Art Blog Awards - on Making A Mark

• The Best Picture (Landscape) in 2013: readers voted was  Galley Hill Allotments in the Snow by Haidee-Jo Summers | Haidee-Jo Summers artist
• The 2013 winner of The Painting Plein Air Plus Prize was M.E. (Mike) Bailey (ME Bailey Art) 

He regularly includes lots of very useful tips relating to plein air painting and painting generally - and very obviously thoroughly enjoys his plein air painting. This particular post A Plein Air Set Up For Watercolor  (posted last month) almost deserves an award all to itself! 

• The 2013 winner of The Travels with a Sketchbook Trophy was Pete Scully (Pete Scully)

He draws the routine and the mundane in the area where he lives and the places he visits and makes most places look interesting. He opens my eyes and remind me again and again about how sketching starts with learning how to see.

LANDSCAPE ART COMPETITIONS

 

The 2013 Fleurieu Art Prize claims to be the world's richest landscape painting Prize (AU$60,000) and attracts both Australian and International Artists. Do you know different?  To see the list of 2013 finalists go to the Finalist Page.

Two competitions/exhibitions for landscape photographers:

• The exhibition for the Landscape Photographer of the Year 2013 is at the National Theatre on the South Bank until 8th February
• U.S.A. Landscape Photographer of the Year If you've taken any great landscape photographs of the USA you may well be interested in a new competition. Find out more at: http://www.usalandscapephotographeroftheyear.com/. I'll be covering this in more detail in a subsequent post.

LANDSCAPE ART HISTORY

America’s Forgotten Landscape Painter: Robert S. Duncanson is a blog post by the Smithsonianmag.com site.  Robert Seldon Duncanson is a 19th century African American artist I'd never heard of before who trained in painting in Glasgow, Scotland.  You can see more of his work on Wikimedia Commons.

Robert Duncanson - Land of the Lotus Eaters

Two paintings by Claude Monet of the cliffs at Etretat

One of the enduring motifs of landscape painting on the coast of Normandy are the famous chalk cliffs and stacks of Étretat. Charley Parker (Lines and Colors) has done a very interesting post which displays paintings by various different Painters of the cliffs of Étretat

The Standard Examiner has a fascinating piece - sadly with no images - about Top of Utah Voices: Landscape painting in the round.  However the word pictures are stunning!

Painters who utilized the art form and travelled with their depictions faced a daunting task of transporting these large works of sometimes dozens of paintings attached to each other and unrolled scene by scene. Some were advertised as being three miles long and taking over an hour to view. Usually 12 feet in height and rolled up on poles which, when unrolled by an assistant, gave the viewers a tour of the chosen scenes the painter portrayed while the artist (standing on a platform) described them.

LANDSCAPE PAINTING - EXHIBITIONS

Art In Liverpool's post 'Turner: Travels, Light and Landscape’ at the Lady Lever highlights an exhibition which runs from 14 February to 1 June 2014 at the Lady Lever Art Gallery in Port Sunlight Village, Lower Rd, Wirral CH62 5EQ.  Turner: Travels, Light and Landscape comprises some 30 watercolours, paintings and prints, drawn from the National Museums Liverpool’s own Turner collection.

Paintings such as 'Margate Harbour' (1837) and 'Linlithgow Palace' (about 1807), will be shown alongside prints and watercolours that are rarely displayed due to their light-sensitivity. This will include the watercolours 'Dudley' (about 1830-33), 'Off Dover' (between 1820-1827), 'Wells Cathedral' (1795-96) and 'View of the Mole' (about 1818).

New Turner exhibition at the Lady Lever Art Gallery in Port Sunlight - opens 14th February 2014

Recording Britain is a touring exhibition organised by the Victoria & Albert Museum, London. It can be seen in the Sir William Harpur Gallery at The Higgins in Bedford until March 20th 2014.

At the outbreak of the Second World War an ambitious scheme was set up to employ artists on the home front. The result was a collection of more than 1500 watercolours and drawings that make up a fascinating record of British lives and landscapes at a time of imminent change.

I've already bought the catalogue for the exhibition and it's absolutely fascinating.  I think this is one exhibition I'll definitely be going to see.  I'll be writing more about the project on this blog.

A National Art: Watercolour & the British Landscape Tradition can be viewed at the Wixamtree Gallery at The Higgins Bedford until Sunday 27th April 2014

The exhibition, drawn entirely from the Cecil Higgins Art Gallery collection of works on paper, explores the landscapes of the late 18th century and early 19th century watercolourists and how they influenced their 20th century counterparts. The work of Cotman, Girtin and Turner will be shown alongside that of Nash, Ravilious and Piper in a celebration of the British landscape and its ideal medium, watercolour. It is part of a season of exhibitions exploring the idea of landscape, which includes Recording Britain and Bawden's Britain.

This one takes some beating when it comes to exhibitions of landscape art. Culture 24 introduces The best art exhibitions to see in Wales in 2014 and starts with a new exhibition in Cardiff thus 

How about this for a new take on landscape painting? National Museum Cardiff’s Wales: A Visitation. Poetry, Romanticism and Myth in Art, (February 22 - September 7) takes the neo-Romantic work of David Jones, Graham Sutherland, Richard Long and contemporary abstract landscape painter Clare Woods and wraps it around an LSD-infused trip to Wales made by beat poet Allen Ginsberg in 1967.

PLEIN AIR PAINTING

Katherine van Schoonhoven (Art and Music) has an interesting review post of a trip to the coast of California when she painted the same place at different times of the day. The timescale panorama in learning from the plein air line up
is fascinating.

"View of Pescadero" Mexico, plein air, landscape painting by Robin Weiss on the In Plein Air blog is a great visual report of a landscape painting

Albert Bierstadt - Approaching Thunderstorm on the Hudson River

The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston triggered today's post.  They're closed today because of the imminent arrival of Hurricane Sandy on the northeastern seabord of the USA.

Instead they posted a painting from their collection - Albert Bierstadt's (1830-1902) Storm in the Mountains - to their Facebook page 

So I went hunting for more images appropriate to the current weather situation and came up with yet another Bierstadt painting of a storm - this time Approaching Thunderstorm on the Hudson River

Approaching Thunderstorm on the Hudson River by Albert Bierstadt
Oil on paper mounted on board
48.9 x 34.29 cm (19¼" x 13½")
Public collection

Bierstadt produced some absolutely epic paintings during his career as an American landscape painter - in terms of both size of subject matter and size of his paintings.  You can see a very long slideshow of some 200+ paintings by Albert Bierstadt on Wikipaintings.

Winslow Homer's Studio at Prout Neck

This is a slideshow of photos of Winslow Homer's Studio at Prout Neck in Maine - plus a Vanity fair article on the studio and his painting habits  It would seem Winslow Homer was pretty smart as to the timing of paintings to satisfy the seasonality of people's interests

West Point, Prout's Neck (1910) by Winslow Homer [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

It looks as if tours of the studio where he settled in 1883 are about to start.  This is an extract from the Portland Museum of Art's website relating to The Year of Winslow Homer

Walk in Winslow Homer's footsteps.
The Portland Museum of Art is pleased to offer tours to this National Historic Landmark beginning on September 25.
Reservation details »

In addition, the Museum is having an exhibition Homer's Prouts Neck Home (22 September - 30 December 2012)

To celebrate the opening of the newly renovated Winslow Homer Studio at Prouts Neck, the Portland Museum of Art presents Weatherbeaten: Winslow Homer and Maine. This extraordinary exhibition showcases 38 masterpieces that the great American artist Winslow Homer (1836-1910) created during the final decades of his life, when he lived and worked in Maine.

For more about Winslow Homer see my website - About Winslow Homer - American Artist

A review of Thomas Moran

An art blog - Poul Webb Art Blog - has recently posted a series of five posts about the great landscape painter Thomas Moran (1837-1926).  These highlight his watercolour sketches and oil paintings of the American West.

Born in Bolton in Lancashire, Moran became one of the renowned painters of the Hudson River School.  He's best known for his panoramic paintings of the American West and the Rocky Mountains.  He's also known as: "Father of the National Parks" and "the Dean of American Painters".

Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone (1904) by Thomas Moran
30 x 60 1/2 in. (76.2 x 153.7 cm), oil on canvas painting
Collection: Honolulu Museum of Art
Thomas Moran [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

He's been on my list of painters to find out more about for some time.

So here's an introduction for me as well as any of you who haven't studied his work before.  I'm not quite sure where the images come from - but there's an excellent selection of images of Moran's paintings in the following posts.  If you click them and open in a new tab you can see larger versions.

I'm particularly impressed with his plein air watercolour sketches done on the spot.

Here are the links to

• Thomas Moran - part 1 - an introduction and overview of Moran's life and important works
• Thomas Moran - part 2 - Watercolour and gouache paintings on paper made during the Yellowstone Expedition and subsequently (early 1870s)
• Thomas Moran - part 3 - Oil paintings on canvas, board and paper plus watercolours of Yellowstone and Yosemite - plus Nevada, Florida and other parts of Wyoming -- and Lower Manhattan
• Thomas Moran - part 4 - Watercolour and oil paintings of landscapes in : USA: New Jersey, Florida, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Denver, Yellowstone Plus Scotland and Venice
• Thomas Moran - part 5 - Oil paintings of New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, Tetons.  Plus waterfalls and geysers everywhere

If you want to get a mental fix on Moran, note that his dates are virtually identifical to those of Claude Monet (1840-1926) - although their painting styles were very different over time.

I've set up a "resources for art lovers" website on Squidoo - About Thomas Moran - American Landscape Painter.  It's got the basics in it - but I'll be continuing to develop it over time.  If you know of any excellent online references re Moran I'd be glad to hear about them

You can see more of my "resources for art lovers" websites about individual artists in About Artists

View of the Thames by Childe Hassam

View of the Thames (1889) by Childe Hassam
watercolour

I'm very fond of paintings by Childe Hassam but only came across his painting of the Thames very recently.  I wasn't even aware he'd ever paid a visit to London.

Behind the boats is a view of Charing Cross Railway Bridge with Embankment Gardens and Cleopatra's Needle on the right and the Houses of Parliament in the background.  The Thames Embankment would still be very new when this was painted.

The mixing of pigments on the paper is very attractive and lifts what are ostensibly grey buildings and grey water into some far more interesting.  Why shouldn't be water and sky be yellow?  It seems entirely appropriate.

I spotted it partly because I saw some boats very like this last Saturday moored in the River Thames outside Old Billingsgate Market

Boats participating in the Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant Flotilla

Paintings of water in March by Willard Metcalf

I've not come across Willard Metcalf (1858-1925) before.  He's an American artist who became renowned as a landscape painter.  Here are two landscapes by Metcalf for the Spring Landscape series.  They both include water and neatly demonstrate the contrasts in landscape scenes which occur in March in the USA.

The Frozen Pool, March (1909) by Willard Metcalf
66.04 x 73.66 cm

Brook in March (1923) by Willard Metcalf

Facts about Willard Metcalf

• Willard Metcalf studied art at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Académie Julian, Paris.
• Metcalf was the first American painter to visit and paint at Giverny
• He's regarded as a painter within the American Impressionism movement
• He was one of the Ten American Painters who in 1897 seceded from the Society of American Artists - known as "The Ten"
• In 1893 he became a member of the American Watercolor Society, New York.
• He taught at the Art Students League, New York.
• He was involved with the artists' colony at Old Lyme, Connecticut.

The Spring Landscape series will continue next week with paintings of April.  Do send your recommendations to me by leaving a comment on this blog.

The MAM Award for Best Picture (Place) on an Art Blog 2011

Pacific Passage
© Robin Purcell (Robin Purcell - Watercolours in the Plein Air Tradition)
14" x 14", watercolour

I'm pleased to announce that Robin Purcell (Robin Purcell - Watercolours in the Plein Air Tradition) won The Making A Mark Award for Best Picture of a Place - on an Art Blog in 2011.  This prize aims to celebrate and highlight excellence in creating pictures about places in our environment

I nominated her for the award as part of my Annual Making A Mark Awards - and was very pleased to see that she won.  I think her watercolour paintings are fantastic.   Do take a look at her blog post about her Point Lobos series

Also take a look at the other artists who made the short list in VOTE for the Best Artwork on an Art Blog in 2011

Links:

• Nominate the Best Artwork (Place/Landscape) on a blog in 2011
• MAM Awards 2011: Landscape Nominations for Best Artwork

Remnant Snow - Winter Landscapes #1

Remnant by Casey Klahn
small pastel

This is a pastel painting of a remnant of snow by Casey Klahn (The Colorist).

Casey does fabulous landscapes in pastels and has been juried into exhibitions by the Pastel Society of America.

He also produces some of the most epic photographs of snow I see each winter (he lives in the north of Washington State near the border with Canada!).  Here's one from last year round about this time - which includes the route to his studio. he has to break in when the door freezes shut!

This artwork first appeared in this post Remnant - and came complete with musical accompaniment.

How to get your paintings of Winter posted on this blog
If you are

1. active in blogging about your art 
2. you're interested in having your images displayed as part of the seasonal changes. 

then all you have to do is

• drop me a line (see side column for email) with a brief explanation about your painting (if this is not already in your blog post), 
• identify and reference the URL of the blog post in which I can see the painting 
• and (this is important) use Readers Winter Landscapes in the subject line of your email (This is so I can find it in the masses I get each day!) 

Places to Paint: This blog features and shares good places for painters to paint. Please note that I'm also interested in the place as well as what led you to paint it in Winter. Tell me if and why other painters might be interested in this place.

I can't promise to display all that I'm told about. Plus there is an absolute rule which is that this is for art bloggers only ie "no blog post, no feature on my blog".


[Note - the count in the title only applies to the winter landscapes submitted by art bloggers]

Jackson, New Hampshire - Blogger's Autumn Landscapes #5

Autumn near Jackson, New Hampshire (2006) by Stapleton Kearns
24 by 30 inches

I often read Stapleton Kearns's blog.  He's a professional landscape painter and he has a lot of very sensible things to say.  His blog is always an interesting read.

I spotted this Autumn Landscape on his blog and asked him if I could post it on this blog - and he kindly agreed.

Turning to Winter for a moment, Stapleton is running a first Snowcamp at Sugar Hill in New Hampshire is already full.  He's running two more weekends (28-30 January / 4-6 February) in 2012 - for those who want to have a workshop about painting snow.  It's "set in an old wooden inn on a high ridgetop in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, the views from the property are unbelievable". I hope we get to see what he paints at Snowcamp!

How to get your paintings of Autumn posted on this blog

This is the fifth in my series of Autumn Landscapes by art bloggers.  If you're interested in having your images displayed as part of the seasonal changes

• drop me a line (see side column for email), 
• reference the blog post in which I can see the painting 
• and (this is important) use Readers Autumn Landscapes in the subject line of your email (This is so I can find it in the masses I get each day!)

Places to Paint: Please note that I'm also interested in the place as well as what led you to paint it in Autumn.

I can't promise to display all that I'm told about. Plus there is an absolute rule which is that this is for art bloggers only ie "no blog post, no feature on my blog".

Dale Hollow State Park - Reader's Autumn Landscapes #2

Autumn Oak by Bill Guffey
18" x 24", oil, plein air

Bill Guffey was plein air painting in Dale Hollow State Park last Saturday - at the end of October - and captured a golden scene.

Places to Paint: Dale Hollow Lake State Resort Park is located in south-central Kentucky in the Cumberland River basin on the Obey River.

Bill lives in Burkesville Kentucky and you can see more of his paintings of American landscape on his website

How to get your paintings of Autumn posted on this blog

If you're interested in having your images displayed as part of the seasonal changes, just drop me a line (see side column for email) and reference the blog post in which I can see the painting.

Places to paint: Please note that I'm interested in the place as well as what led you to paint it in Autumn.

I can't promise to display all that I'm told about. Plus there is an absolute rule which is that this is for art bloggers only ie "no blog post, no feature on my blog".

Wolf Kahn - on painting and being a landscape painter

"A painting with content" (Video 2)

"I was trying even then to do something I'm still trying to do - to get away from description and at the same time still be a landscape painter"

Wolf Kahn

This a two part interview with Wolf Kahn - the renowned landscape painter who works in both oil and pastels.

The two videos from 2008 are from New Art TV

In the first he talks about the earlier part of his life and how his artwork developed and was influenced by the philosophies and contemporary art movements of the fifties.



This is the second part of the interview with Wolf Kahn in which he describes how he got launched and started to sell seriously

"I'm constantly trying to get away from the deliberate...and intentionality"

Wolf Kahn

Thanks to Debora L. Stewart (Contemporary Asbtract Pastels) for alerting me to the videos

Links:

• Wolf Kahn website - pastels and paintings 
• These are links to the original pages on New Art TV
• Wolf Kahn Part 1 of 2
• Wolf Kahn Part 2 of 2

Places to Paint - Maine

Slack Tide (oil on panel 16" x 12")- by Kevin Mizner

Recently I came across the work of Kevin Mizner and his blog Maine-ly Painting  

This Blog draws on my over thirty years of experience painting the beauty of Maine. I'll have some pointers, comments and even criticisms on art.

I was impressed with his work - his landscapes and seascapes of Maine - and the way he wrote about art and the places he painted.  I've been to Maine and sketched in Maine and I'd have loved to have had somebody provide me with a guide to the places to paint.  So I decided to ask him to write a guest post for this blog about his favourite places to paint in Maine - and this is it!

________________________

Maine has been a destination for artists for nearly one hundred-fifty years. Why? It's all about the light. 

Maine sits rather high in the Northern Hemisphere, at about the same latitude as Spain, and a little south of the UK, which gives it a raking, angular light. Any artist will tell you that an angled light gives a more vibrant glow to colors than a more direct, straight overhead light.

But in addition to the angle of the sun, Maine juts out into the Atlantic Ocean. Maine has salty, moist air, infusing the light with a radiant shimmering glow. Combine that quality of light with Maine's three thousand miles of rocky coastline, replete with quiet harbors, fishing villages and a few sandy beaches, and it's small wonder artists flock here to paint.

The artists who've painted here are a veritable Who's Who of the greatest ever: Frederick Church, Thomas Moran, Winslow Homer, Robert Henri, Andrew Wyeth, Rockwell Kent, and John Singer Sargent, to name but a few.

Monhegan

One of the more popular spots in Maine to paint is the small island of Monhegan.

Monhegan is a spit of rock about two miles long and half-mile wide, but it has breath-taking views at almost every turn. The only way to get there is by ferry. Once you're on the island, be prepared to walk, as no vehicles are allowed - other than the beat up trucks used by the year-round Lobstermen population.

Acadia National Park

Summer in Acadia (oil on panel 11" x 14") by Kevin Mizner

The next great spot is Acadia National Park.

Acadia may be one of America's smallest National Parks, but it is spectacular, none the less. Located on the ten-mile wide Mount Desert Island, it is the only spot on the east coast where the mountains meet the sea.

Kevin's favourite place to paint in Maine - Harpswell

What is my personal favorite Maine spot? Harpswell, Maine.

Located about thirty miles north-east of Portland, Harpswell is an accumulation of small villages and islands on Maine's mid-coast. Of all the spots along the coast, it is the most unspoiled.

Photograph of Mackerel Cove

Orr's and Bailey Island's offer gorgeous views of the coast that rival Monhegan's.  Mackeral Cove on Bailey Island is in my opinion, one of the most picturesque spots on the coast!

A part of Harpswell, and my home for four years, is Cundy's Harbor. "Cundy's", as we locals call her, is one of Maine's authentic working water fronts-- no condos in sight. It's harbor is chocked full of lobster boats and trawlers, the shore has quaint wooden-piling wharfs jutting out to service the boats.

Cundy's Harbor In Light Fog (oil on panel 11x14) by Kevin Mizner

Huddled on either side of the one road into (and out of) town are old New England Cape Cod style homes that have weathered the harsh seasons for one hundred or more years. I have travelled the state from stem to stern, and Cundy's Harbor is the quintessential Maine coastal fishing village.

Other places of note:

• Vinalhaven Island in Penobscot Bay. 
• Portland Head Light and Two Lights State Park in Cape Elizabeth.  One can stand on Crescent Beach in Cape Elizabeth and see Prout's Neck-- the home of Winslow Homer. He even painted at Crescent Beach. 

In the footsteps of the Artists

I've mentioned Monhegan, but Baxter State Park in northern Maine has Mount Katahdin, a favorite spot of the great Frederick Church.

Any fan of Andrew Wyeth knows he summered and painted in Maine. Travel along Route 1 to Thomaston, and head out to Cushing, Bristol and Friendship and you'll be trodding the same ground "Andy" walked as he made his masterpieces.

John Singer Sargent painted in Acadia (eg Sand Beach, Schooner Head)

Edward Hopper painted one of the lighthouses at Two Lights Park in Cape Elizabeth (now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art)

And Kevin Mizner painted in all those places...

The best time to visit

Finally, when is the best time to visit?

If you want to watch and paint the lobstermen and eat some good lobster, come in summer. If you want to see the spectacular foliage of the maples and birches, come in the fall. If snow scenes and some skiing are your cup of tea, come in winter.

Winter Light Cundy's Harbor by Kevin Mizner

Spring for us is called "mud season" and for a good reason! All that melting snow, and bare grey branches are not worthy of painting in the slightest. Unless you're Willard Metcalf. Oh, he painted in the western mountains of Maine near Bethel.

So there you have it. My ideas on what's good to paint and see in Maine! I hope this works for you, and if you would like anything more in way of information, paintings or photos, please don't hesitate to let me know.

This is the latest in a series of posts about Places to Paint.  If you're interested in contributing a guest post click this link to find out what you need to do.

Links:

• Kevin Mizner 
• website Kevin Mizner Fine Art: Landscapes and Seascapes
• blog - Maine-ly Painting
• Travels with a Sketchbook in....... Maine: blog posts relating to these sketches
• Thursday 21st September:  In the footsteps of Winslow Homer - nearly!
• Friday 22nd September: Pemaquid Lighthouse - from top to bottom
• Saturday 23rd September: The Farnsworth, the Wyeths and the rain
• Sunday 24th September: The interior of the Quaker Tavern B&B

The Faraway Nearby: Georgia O'Keeffe and the New Mexico Landscape

The Faraway Nearby: Georgia O'Keeffe and the New Mexico Landscape is the title of a a video piece created by composer and multimedia artist Nell Shaw Cohen.  

This piece features a chamber music score and footage of the New Mexico landscapes where painter O'Keeffe found inspiration.

Nell left a comment on Georgia O'Keeffe's landscapes of northern New Mexicoto tell me about it.

I took a look and was entranced.  Now I appreciate much better why it was that Georgia O'Keeffe made this part of northern New Mexico her home for so many years.  How could one fail to be stimulated by that landscape?

What was also surprising was to learn about O'Keeffe's relationship to music - and all the various places where Nell went to film the landscape for the video.  You can read and see all about this in the blog which she created as a record of the making of this film - Nell Shaw Cohen Composer.

Here are the links to the posts about specific places and landscape

• Day 1: Denver to Taos; the road to the D.H. Lawrence Ranch; San Francisco de Asis Church
• Day 2: “Abstraction” at the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum; arrival at Ghost Ranch
• Day 3: Ghost Ranch and vicinity; the White Place
• Day 4: Tour of O’Keeffe’s Abiquiu home; 1977 documentary
• Day 5 & 6: Return to the White Place; Pedernal with storm clouds; a break in Santa Fe; more at Ghost Ranch
• Day 7: Last day of filming; the Black Place

Here's Nell on the topic of her film.

"The Faraway Nearby: Georgia O'Keeffe and the New Mexico Landscape" was funded in part by an Entrepreneurial Grant from New England Conservatory's Entrepreneurial Musicianship Department. The score, which was inspired by the paintings of Georgia O'Keeffe, was composed prior to the conception of this video. I filmed on location in New Mexico in June 2010, and edited and animated the video over the summer. The video received its premiere screening, with a live ensemble performing the music, in November 2010. I am seeking additional screenings (with live performances or pre-recorded score) and gallery installations for this piece.

I believe that painter Georgia O'Keeffe (1887--1986) achieved an important artistic ideal: to create new meanings, previously unrealized connections, and heightened ways of perceiving the world and filtering experience. I seek to do the same with "The Faraway Nearby": to offer new insight, new ways of experiencing the paintings of Georgia O'Keeffe, and her source material -- to bring you into her world as I imagine it.

"The Faraway Nearby" is about seeing. When I look at O'Keeffe's paintings of New Mexico, I am reminded of that remarkable landscape in a way that feels almost more immediate and more meaningful than the reality. I see the abstract shapes, colors, and compositional ideas that informed her interpretation of the visual world around her. I see the relationship to place that was immensely important to her, which she forged while hiking for endless hours through desert badlands. This piece is my attempt to create an immersive visual and musical experience that captures these qualities.

Sherrie York draws and prints the landscape underfoot

Sherrie York (Brush and Baren) is a fine art printmaker who primarily produces original, hand-pulled relief prints in woodcut and linocut of the environment where she lives.

Most of the images reflect my ongoing curiosity about the natural world: wildlife, wildlands, and sometimes not-so-wild places, too.

Longing
Reduction linocut - 10 colors
Edition of 10 | Image size 12" x 16 "
Hand printed on Hosho paper.
copyright Sherrie York

I think her work is totally stunning and I'm impressed by it every time I review her website or blog. Sherrie has a huge talent in terms of draughtsmanship, the ability to see pictures where others wouldn't think to look and a wonderful sense of colour which enriches without being overwhelming.

Sherrie is currently featuring as the Artist of the Month at the Pikes Peak Library Distric.  As a result of which she gets to have an exhibition - and to be on TV!

This is a video which was made for the latter which explains:

• how she became to become interested in the landscape underfoot
• how she produces her linocuts of her enivironment using the reduction method and up to 12 colour printing (using a baren)

PPLD Off the Wall: February 2011 from PPLD TV on Vimeo.

Sherrie York: Art Underfoot

I recommend you go take a good look at her blog and website if you like what you see in the video.

You can also purchase small prints through her Etsy store, Rio Salida Art. 

Links:

• Sherrie York - website http://www.sherrieyork.com/index.html
• Sherrie York -Brush and Baren blog http://brushandbaren.blogspot.com/
• Sherrie York on Etsy - http://www.etsy.com/shop/riosalidaart

Bill Guffey paints a winter landscape plein air (video)

This is a two hour plein air painting session in January by Bill Guffey reduced to eight minutes.  He's painting a winter landscape of woods and water in the snow.

Quick two hour painting effort
at Salem Park in Cumberland County, Kentucky
on January 22, 2011. Oil on oil primed linen panel

If you have published a painting video of you painting plain air do let me know.

Winter Landscapes - Icy Winter by George Gardner Symons

For the next few posts, I'm going to take the opportunity to highlight, for our wider appreciation, some paintings of landscapes in winters by artists from different countries, different continents, different centuries and different painting styles.

 Icy Winter by George Gardner Symons
oil on canvas, 101.6 cm (40 in.), Width: 76.2 cm (30 in.)

This first one is by an artist who seems to have been completely besotted by snow.  George Gardner Symons (1861-1930) is an American impressionist artist who specialised in winter landscapes.  He died in January 1930 aged 64. 

You can appreciate a range of his winter landscapes here.  What I particularly like about them is

• the vantage points and compositions which suggest to me a man who liked to find the best spot rather than the one easiest to paint from. 
• the colours he finds in snow

Symons’ exposure to Impressionism in Europe has a lasting influence on his work. He painted “en plein air” and his is generally classified as an “American Impressionist”. Though he is noted in particular for his scenes of New England in the Winter, he is considered a member of the California School of American Impressionism.

Wherever he painted, Symons rendered his landscapes in clear, strong compositions, with a vibrant color sense, and the kind of crisp, deliberate brushwork that makes the work of so many American Impressionist painters wonderfully appealing.

Lines and Colors

Other references include:

• Artcyclopedia - George Gardner Symons Online
• Artnet - George Gardner Symons
• Lines and Colors - George Gardner Symons which provides an excellent resume of his painting career

Places to Paint: Linda Blondheim in Florida

Summer at Fair Oaks Farm (2010) by Linda Blondheim

acrylic 24x36 $2300

Fair Oaks Farm in Evinston Florida is Linda Blondheim's favourite place to paint

I've been asked many times where I love to paint the most? I've been painting in the tiny hamlet of Evinston Florida for about 15 years at various farms and on Orange Lake. Evinston is located between the two cities of Gainesville and Ocala. About three years ago I discovered Fair Oaks Farm in Evinston.

Fair Oaks is my very favorite place to paint and to be. It has all of the qualities that are appealing to a plein air painter.

Continue reading on Linda's blog to find out more about Fair Oaks Farm in Evinston Florida

Links about Linda Blodheim:

• Linda Blondheim Studio Linda's website
• Art Collector's blog Landscapes of the South 
• Linda Blondheim Art Journal provides notes on a painting journey
• Linda's book North Florida Muse