BBC4 Tales of Winter: The Art of Snow and Ice

Tonight, BBC4 is repeating an excellent programme Tales of Winter: The Art of Snow and Ice which explores how the onset of winter has been depicted by Western painters across the centuries. The programme will be available on BBC iPlayer shortly after it is broadcast at 7.30-9.00pm.

If  you don't live in the UK and would still like to see it, I suggest you take a peek at YouTube and view the same programme in six films of 10 minutes.

The programme comprises several commentators, many of whom are wrapped up warmly and clutching reproductions of the paintings as they revisit places the artist knew and review how similar the painting is to what's there today. I'm a complete sucker for programmes like this and I'll definitely be watching!

Tales of Winter - The Art of Snow and Ice

• Part 1 of 6 covering the very cold winters in the 16th century - including Brueghel's painting of Hunters in the Snow - the first ever painting of a landscape under snow - with comments by Grayson Perry and Jonathan Jones and a cartoon based on it by Peter Brookes

A Frost Fair on the Thames at Temple Stairs (c. 1684) by Abraham Danielsz Hondius (Abraham de Hondt)

• Part 2 of 6 - this features paintings of London and the Thames during the Little Ice Age
• Part 3 of 6 - covers Jacques-Louis David's paintings of Napoleon's campaign in the Alps and The Abbey in the Oakwood by Caspar David Friedrich and the impact of winter in the Alps on John Ruskin - and his paintings of the glaciers 

The Abbey in the Oakwood by Caspar David Friedrich

• Part 4 of 6 - continues with 
• Ruskin's painting of waterfalls including "Le Cascade de la Folie, Chamonix" 
• before moving on to the Impressionists' absorption with the colour of the snow effect "the illusive colour of the shadows in snow". The programme visits Vetheuil where Claude Monet lives when impoverished and where his wife became severely ill. It shows you the house he lived in when he had to choose between paint or medicine for his wife. 
• It also include paintings of winter by the American Impressionist  painter Childe Hassam.  
• Next it considers what is probably the first ever photograph of falling snow - "Winter, 5th Avenue" (1893) by Alfred Steiglitz and other photographs of "The Terminal", "The Flat Iron Building" and "The City of Ambitions"
• Part 5 of 6 - focuses the contrast between rural and urban winters. Giovanni Segantini painted the Swiss mountains in all seasons including winter.  George Bellows, one of the Ashcan painters, paints the raw, bitter, cruel New York winter in The Lone Tenement and John Nash, a  Royal Academician and serving solider fighting in the Artist Rifles Batallion, paints the bitter winters of the First World War

Death (1898-99) by Giovanni Segantini (1858 – 1899)

The Lone Tenement (1909) by George Bellows (1882 - 1925)

Over the Top - 1st Artists' Rifles at Marcoing, 30th December 1917 by John Nash

• Part 6 of 6 looks at the work of Nevinson and highlights the pla ing of a football game in winter and a wonderful photograph of Stonehenge under snow by Bill Brandt while Don McCullin comments on what's involved in photography in winter.

I guess my only criticism of it is it presents a curiously Western European/American view of landscape painting in winter - and misses out the very significant contributions made by the Scandinavians, Eastern Europeans, Russians and Canadians.

Pete "The Street" Brown paints plein air

This is a video of a very hard-working plein air artist - Peter Brown NEAC ROI RSPP PS aka "Pete the Street".  You can see his artwork in the Annual Exhibitions of various national art societies at the Mall Galleries including:

• New English Art Club
• Pastel Society
• Royal Institute of Oil Painters
• Royal Society of Portrait Painters

He's based in Bath and can often be seen painting on the streets of Bath.  To my mind he paints with what I'd call a "very English palette" - lots of muted coloured greys.

There's an article about him in the February 2014 edition of Artists & Illustrators Magazine - available in print and digital versions.

Click the link in his name to visit his website.

George Rowlett painting the River Thames and Uist

Today I saw a work by George Rowlett which had won a £1,500 Runner Up Prize in the art competition for the Lynn Painter Stainer Prize.

Advancing blue, yellow barges, Thames Barrier, early afternoon
by George Rowlett
Rinner Up, Lynn Painter Stainer Prize 2013

George's work is not so much impasto as huge slabs of paint which are trowelled onto and moved around the support - with a trowel. This is Mark Glazebrook writing about George Rowlett and the Art of Landscape
It was therefore fascinating to find out that there are a couple of videos on YouTube about how he paints plein air.  You will be amazed at the way he transports huge paintings covered in massive amounts of paint....

Here are two films:

George Rowlett painting the River Thames (and I know some of those locations!)



and

George Rowlett painting on Uist March 2011



and this is how he gets them back to his studio

Film of Claude Monet painting waterlilies at Giverny

Below you can see a short film of the Impressionist painter Claude Monet at work on one of the paintings in his series of paintings of the nympheas (waterlilies) in the water garden at his home in Giverny in Normandy.



All plein air painters will wish to note:

• the white suit he is wearing - which has no marks from paint!  Monet is always wearing a suit when photographed while working.  We can only assume this is summer!
• the very large palette he is using
• the fact that the canvas is absolutely rock steady despite what is obviously a very blustery day.

Claude Monet (on right) in his garden in Giverny 
with an unidentified visitor in 1922
Source: Wikipedia

It's preceded by a very short film of him talking with a man in the Clos Normand (the flower garden) at Giverny.  If you study the background we can see that Monet was a cat person!

The general consensus is that Monet was probably filmed in the early twentieth century.  The colour of his beard suggests he's older than he was in the famous photograph of Monet by Nadar in 1899.  He looks more like the figure photographed in the water garden in 1922 (see photo on right).

Monet was an inveterate painter of gardens and always painted the gardens of the houses he lived in (see Making A Mark - Gardens in Art by Claude Monet for previous posts I've written on this topic).

The garden at Giverny is an example of Monet creating his very own place to paint - with a separate flower garden and water garden.

I came across the film (which was uploaded to YouTube by nickwallacesmith) on the Painting Perceptions blog.  This has a post with some useful observations about Monet's habits as a plein air painter.

More of Van Gogh's Landscapes

Casey Klahn responded to my last post with a post on his blog The Colorist with a link to the video which follows.

It's an excellent video of stills of Van Gogh's Landscapes - many of which reflect the harvest and Autumn.  You'll note the contrast in his approach in later years to painting trees - when compared to those in the preceding post.

Plein air painting demo by Bill Guffey

Bill emailed me to say he's put a plein air painting demo up on YouTube - and here it is - enjoy the brush strokes in time to the music!

If you are also doing videos of yourself painting landscapes plein air - or even in the studio do let me know.

This plein air oil painting demonstration was filmed on October 23, 2011 at Dale Hollow Lake State Resort Park in Cumberland County, Kentucky.

The painting is 24" x 20" and was completed in about an hour and 20 minutes. I knew traveling to this location was going to be a race against the sun and time. The camera battery ran out about 10 minutes before the painting was completed. A shot of the finished painting ends this short film.

You can see more of Bill's work on http://billguffey.blogspot.com/

Videos of David Hockney painting landscapes

The third in my mini series of posts about David Hockney references his website and the page which has a number of videos of him painting landscapes

Click the link http://www.hockneypictures.com/tv_video.php and enjoy the videos!

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.

John Constable documentary - view online

For those who like John Constable's work there is an excellent documentary by Andrew Graham Dixon about the painter currently available to download from BBC Two iPlayer Secret Lives of the Artists - 1. Constable in Love

John Constable's painting The Haywain embodies pretty and cosy England, adorning many a tea towel and postcard. But behind the image of rural calm lies a passionate artist whose pictures hide an erotic undercurrent - a story of forbidden love to rival even Shakespeare's ill-fated lovers. Andrew Graham-Dixon reveals the true story of Constable and an untold love story sublimated on canvas.

I've watched it through once and can highly recommend it.  I'll be watching it again before it expires in six days time.

"Salisbury Cathedral from the Bishop's Garden," by John Constable.
oil on canvas, 13.63" X 17.32"

Ostensibly about the love story between Constable and his wife Maria Bricknell, it also tells us a lot about how Andrew Graham Dixon and other art historians see the role and impact of emotion and personal relationships on his landscape paintings and career.  It also tells us about his relationships with others in his Circle such as John Fisher, the Bishop of Salisbury, who commissioned the painting below and who is included with his wife behind the fence and under the shade of the trees.

You can also view clips via Andrew Graham Dixon's website where Andrew Graham-Dixon explores the life of Constable, his painting and love life.

• Constable in Love 1-7  (view clip)
• Constable in Love 2-7  (view clip)
• Constable in Love 3-7 (view clip)
• Constable in Love 4-7 (view clip)
• Constable in Love 5-7 (view clip)
• Constable in Love 6-7 (view clip)
• Constable in Love 7-7 (view clip)

Places to Paint: Adebanji Alade's Bath Painting Marathon

Extract from Gallery brochure for Adebanji's Painting Marathon

In 2009, Adebanji Alade won the inaugural Bath Prize Plein Air Award.  This was a new competition in 2009 for new work inspired by a location in the city of Bath.

Artists entering the competition are also invited to compete for a special plein-air prize of £2,000 to be awarded to the best picture completed largely at the chosen location. 

In participating in the competition, Adebanji visited Bath for the very first time and was enormously impressed by the city, its setting and architecture. 

He decided to try and paint ALL of Bath in one year.  His aim was to have an adventure in recording an entire city from different places at different times of the year - and to produce as many paintings as he could.

It hasn't been an easy task, but I decided to dream! And dreams do come true! This year I decided to do 500, 6" x 8" paintings of London, I discussed this with Mike Porter of the Bath Gallery. He thought I was crazy but then he said, "can you put that on hold and do 250 of Bath?". I instantly agreed! I said, why not, just get me somewhere to stay and I'll paint morning, noon and night!

Accommodation was duly found - how nice to find a gallery which is prepared to support and believe in a painter in this way. 

Then between July and October 2010, over a period of eight weeks spent in the city (with breaks), Adebanji produced 212 paintings of Bath with dimensions 6" x 8".  Some were diptychs and there is one which is comprises six paintings in one!

Adebaji Alade's Bath Marathon - extract from The Bath gallery catalogue

The paintings are currently in an exhibition at The Bath Gallery, 6 Bridge Street Bath, BA2 4AS.  It had a very successful opening on December 4th and continues until December 31st.  Most works are framed and the majority of painting are under £600.

This December, we will be hosting the Art Event of the year. We are exhibiting the first 212 paintings of the 500 images of Bath being produced by Adebanji. Single framed pieces will be priced at under £600. View the entire catalogue here.

This astonishing project, an attempt to paint all of Bath in a year, is truly a dedicated tour de force by a remarkably dedicated artist.

Adebani Alade presenting "The Circus" 15 x 120 cm oil on board. 
It is a complete panorama of one of Bath's uninique landmarks and archutectural highpoints.

Below is a video of Adebanji Alade painting a small townscape in Bath ( he sings too!).

Below that are links to his blog posts about his painting marathon.  They include a post about lessons learned from tackling an enterprise of this sort.

Links to Adebanji Alade's blog posts

• Everything about the Bath Marathon 
• Lessons from Bath Marathon 1 
• Lessons from Bath Marathon 2 
• Lesspns from Bath Marathon 3 & 4 
• The Bath Gallery

To view the entire exhibition you need to email the gallery and ask for a password to view the pdf catalogue online.  

How to draw a tree in a rainforest

One of my favourite nature blogs is Debbie Kotter Caspari's Drawing the Motmot.

This is how to draw a vine-covered tree in the Panama tropical rainforest - while sat in the rain forest. Love the sound track! :)

What's great is the three videos together provide an overview of how a drawing is developed. Those who enjoy drawing trees will enjoy this one.  Note especially that nice big pencil!

These are links to the three videos which follow on from one another.

• Drawing a Rainforest Tree - Part 1
• Drawing a Rainforest Tree - Part 2
• Drawing a Rainforest Tree - Part 3

The embedded video below is the second one.



Debbie's blogging is out of action at the moment.  Her home was blown away in the Oklahoma Tornados this summer and she's got other things to do.  Do let her know if you enjoyed the videos.

Painting snow - in snow

I came across this wonderful short video by artist Lori McNee today - Winter Outdoor Painting Tips for the Plein Air Painter.  She had me from the get go - striding knee deep across snow!

Peter Doig's landscapes and painting process

Peter Doig is a prominent British painter whose work includes landscapes - which are not always related to Britain - often they relate to Canada where he was raised or Trinidad where he lives.

He broke auction records for a living European artist in 2007 when his painting White Canoe sold for $11.7million at Sotheby's.

This is a video of Peter Doig introducing his paintings in his exhibition exhibition at Tate Modern in 2008 and talking about the process of creating art.    This video comes recommended by me.




I've been intrigued by his work for a while and have started to try and find out more him and his approach to painting and landscapes.  If you're interested check out Peter Doig - Resources for Art Lovers - which is very much a work in progress at present.

David Curtis demonstrates "A Light Touch: Landscapes in Oils"

In this video, David Curtis is back to painting in oils and this time the 'light' is all about a lightness of touch which he likes to use when painting in oils.



Notes I made while it was playing focus on:

• he likes to use scrubby strokes at the beginning of landscape paintings
• palette focus on main colours used for his landscape palette
• capitalise on the light and getting the patina of light right
• getting the highlights marked in at the beginning of the painting
• seeing the picture as a whole in terms of shapes of light and shade
• a constant focus on tones and getting the register of light and dark right
• the importance of developing your memory when painting plein air
• the importance of NOT honing in on one area - which you might like a lot - for too lomg

Books and DVDs by David Curtis

You can find a new section about David Curtis in my "resources for artists" website The Best Books about Landscape Painting  

These are my Amazon Associate links to David Curtis's books

United Kingdom

• The Landscape in Watercolour: A Personal View (Atelier)
• Capturing the Moment in Oils
  
• Light and Mood in Watercolour
  
• NEW BOOK published May 2010 Painting with Impact
  

United States of America

• A Personal View - David Curtis -The Landscape in Watercolor
• Artists living in the USA can also buy DVDs (Region1) of this artist.  Here's a link to A Personal View: Landscapes in Watercolour with David Curtis 
• A Light Touch: Successful Painting In Oils 
• Capturing the Moment in Oils
• his new book published September 2010 Painting with Impact

David Curtis - Light in the Landscape

This YouTube video Light in the Landscape by David Curtis is all about painting light in the landscape.  In 2 minutes and 44 seconds it gives some top tips for painting plein air in oils.



Books and DVDs by David Curtis

You can find a new section about David Curtis in my "resources for artists" website The Best Books about Landscape Painting  

These are my Amazon Associate links to David Curtis's books

United Kingdom

• The Landscape in Watercolour: A Personal View (Atelier)
• Capturing the Moment in Oils
  
• Light and Mood in Watercolour
  
• NEW BOOK published May 2010 Painting with Impact
  

United States of America

• A Personal View - David Curtis -The Landscape in Watercolor
• Artists living in the USA can also buy DVDs (Region1) of this artist.  Here's a link to A Personal View: Landscapes in Watercolour with David Curtis 
• A Light Touch: Successful Painting In Oils 
• Capturing the Moment in Oils
• his new book published September 2010 Painting with Impact

Landscape Painting Videos by David Curtis

This week I'm going to be posting some YouTube videos of David Curtis painting landscapes - which will be of interest to all those looking to improve their landscape painting techniques.

David Curtis is a well known UK landscape artist. In 1992, he won the first prize in the most well known watercolour competition in the UK Singer and Friedlander/Sunday Times Watercolour Competition and has also won many other prestigious awards for his art. Essentially a "plein air" and figurative painter, he works in both oil and watercolours and is a Member of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters and the Royal Society of Marine Artists.

He's also the author of a number of art instruction books and has been co-author of a number of instructional DVDs.

Rather than create one very 'top heavy' post I've set them up so that one will be posted each day and I'll provide a link in this post to them as they get posted each day so if you want just one bookmark post this is it!

The first one is "A Personal View: Landscapes in Watercolour" which I found really exciting as I watched.  I've got his books and really like his watercolours but watching how he puts paint on paper was a HUGELY stimulating experience!  A recommended view for all aspiring plein artists using watercolour.

Painting in Cornwall, David Curtis illustrates his approach to watercolour. Boats in an estuary and the village of Cadgwith viewed from the beach are painted on site. A further scene of a wooded bay with boats is painted in the studio, using an oil painting as source material. 

Update:  Links to Other Short Videos on YouTube:

• David Curtis - Light in the Landscape
• David Curtis - Light Effects in Watercolour

Books and DVDs by David Curtis

You can find a new section about David Curtis in my "resources for artists" website The Best Books about Landscape Painting  

These are my Amazon Associate links to David Curtis's books

United Kingdom

• The Landscape in Watercolour: A Personal View (Atelier)
• Capturing the Moment in Oils
  
• Light and Mood in Watercolour
  
• NEW BOOK published May 2010 Painting with Impact
  

United States of America

• A Personal View - David Curtis -The Landscape in Watercolor
• Artists living in the USA can also buy DVDs (Region1) of this artist.  Here's a link to A Personal View: Landscapes in Watercolour with David Curtis 
• A Light Touch: Successful Painting In Oils 
• Capturing the Moment in Oils
• his new book published September 2010 Painting with Impact