Your favourite place to paint plein air

Artists and Illustrators Magazine have issued an invite on their Facebook Page

We're working on a plein air painting special for our Summer issue, taking four leading artists out on location for the day to find out how they do it...

So we wanted to share the fun with you all. Tell us your favourite place to paint and why in particular you like it - the best responses will be published in the next issue!

As regular readers will be aware, "places to paint" is one of the perennial themes of this blog.

You can find recommendations on the Places to Paint Page at the top of this blog.

• This lists all the past blog posts about places to paint chosen by contemporary artists and past masters
• The intention is to try and an inventory or gazeteer of good places to paint and it currently includes "places to paint" in the UK, Europe, North America and Asia.

Feel free to write and let me know if you have a blog post recommending a place to paint.

HOW YOU CAN GET INVOLVED: You are invited to contribute to the project and write a blog post and tell us about where is your favourite place to paint - and why. If you'd like to share, feel free to say what's your favourite place to paint (and you don't have to stop at just one!) You need to:

• EITHER send me a link to a blog post in which you have written about your favourite place to paint. This should say why you find it stimulating.
• OR contact me (see column on right) about doing a guest post for this blog about the place which inspires you to paint. The post should be between 350 and 1,000 words and should include a couple of good quality web ready images.

I've not got one favourite place to paint.  I'd be cogitating for a long time if I had to make it just one! 

Here's one of my favourite places to draw - sat next to the Prime Meridian Line at the top of the hill in Greenwich Park (see Greenwich Park Panorama).  It's a fabulous view and it always looks different - plus it's just across the river from where I live!  This one was to record the Olympic Equestrian Arena in Greenwich Park last summer.  I'm thinking next time I need to take a big roll of paper!

The panoramic view from the top of the hill in Greenwich Park
- complete with Equestrian Arena for the Olympics 2012
pen and ink and coloured pencils,
11" x 48"
(3 double page spreads 11" x 16" in Large Moleskine Sketchboook)
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

(Apologies for the long gap in posting to this blog.  I've been having eye surgery. Proper normal blogging will resume in July when I get my new glasses for reading and computer work.)

Spring Landscape #2 - by Berthe Morisot

I had no idea that French impressionist painter Berthe Morisot drew landscapes in coloured pencils - I think of her as somebody painted people.

However a search for spring landscapes turned up this coloured pencil drawing by Berthe Morisot of a Spring Landscape.  Not only that but it turns out that, like me, she also preferred to hatch with her coloured pencils!

Drawing of a Spring Landscape (c. 1890/1891) by Berthe Morisot
colored pencils and graphite, 23.7 x 18.4 cm (9 5/16 x 7 1/4 in.)
Ailsa Mellon Bruce Collection,
Courtesy of the National Gallery of Art, Washington

The Musee Marmottan has the first and major retrospective exhibition of works by Berthe Morisot between 8 March to 1 July 2012 - Marmottan Monet – Berthe Morisot

I discovered a little bit about Morisot and her landscape drawings and paintings.

She was born on January 14, 1841, in Bourges, France and was the granddaughter of the influential Rococo painter Jean-Honoré Fragonard.  She studied painting with her sister Edma.  Edma was Berthe’s painting companion until 1869, and her favourite model from 1869 to 1873.

At the time women were not allowed to study at official art schools and this did not change until the latter years of the nineteenth century.  Instead the sisters copied masterpieces from the Louvre Museum in the late 1850s under Joseph Guichard.

They then studied with the well-known landscape painter Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, who was associated with the Barbizon school of painters, and began painting outdoor scenes and working plein air.  Corot subsequently became a friend of Morisot's and she worked with him between 1862 to 1868.  Through she was Corot introduced her to other artists.

In terms of exhibiting her art, Morisot was able to exhibit at the Salon de Paris for a decade with her first work being exhibited in Salon in 1864.  She was just 23 years old when two landscape paintings were accepted for the exhibition

In 1874, she subsequently joined the "rejected" Impressionists in the first of their own exhibitions held at the studio of the photographer Nadar. Fellow exhibitors included Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Alfred Sisley.

Morisot was also a close friend of Manet and in 1874 she married Eugene Manet, Edouard's younger brother.  Morisot was the link which led to Manet joining the painters who formed the group known as the Impressionists.

Below is a landscape that demonstrates that Morisot also brought a touch of the domestic and woman's world to her landscape paintings. Here's a painting from her years of married life.

Percher de Blanchisseuses (English: Hanging the Laundry out to Dry) (1875) by Berthe Morisot
33 × 40.6 cm (13 × 16 in)
National Gallery of Art, Washington

Graham Brace's Environmental Inspiration

Hook Quay by Graham Brace

One of the themes of this blog is favourite locations for places to paint.  

This is a guest post by Graham Brace who is a fellow coloured pencil artist and a founder member of the UK Coloured Pencil Society - about his favourite place for stimulating his art.  It was prompted by a recent post in the UKCPS Yahoo Forum.  I've inserted a few links to places Graham mentions.  

Being essentially a landscape and seascape artist, I’ve often wondered if my specialism would be different or if my creative enthusiasm would be diminished if I lived in an urban/city/industrial environment, much different from the one in which I currently reside.

Although I find many things visually (and mentally) stimulating, throughout my entire life I have always had a deep interest in natural history and been drawn to the natural environment. For this reason, early in my graphics career, I made the positive decision to move from central London back to Pembrokeshire, where my wife and I were born and brought up.

For 24 years I ran a graphic design and advertising business in Pembrokeshire before succumbing to the long held desire to turn my energies to drawing and painting for a living in 2000.

Since returning here in 1976 we have lived in an estuary-side village in the heart of the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park within spitting distance of the entire spectacular Pembrokeshire coast and the moors and crags of the Preseli Hills in the north of the county (Bluestone country). Indeed, for an artist like myself it is absolute heaven. And believe me, I count my lucky stars every single day!

From my desk in my small studio (which used to be my eldest daughter’s bedroom before she flew the nest) I can see over the rooftops of the terraced cottages below us to the river (which is tidal) and the oak wooded shore beyond and watch boats going by and water birds on the mudflats at low tide. The changing light on this scene is sometimes a wonder to behold.

Bright December Day by Graham Brace

My daily early morning walks take me over fields, through woodland and along long stretches of shore. I often don’t see a soul and the silence (bird calls apart) is sometimes almost ‘deafening’! These walks not only sort my head out but set me up for the day and provide for me endless inspiration and subject matter. I often think that I could spend virtually my entire life just drawing and painting the views and features of interest within a two mile radius of my house. In fact, there is so much to draw on that I occasionally have a real conflict as to what I should prioritise…and I wonder if I’ll find the time to do it all. ‘Is this a form of stress?’ I ask myself!

Having once lived in Cardiff and London for a combined period of 10 years I don’t recall my morning walks around Holland Park (as pleasant as it is) and Shepherd’s Bush stirring me quite so dramatically.

Consequently, I strongly believe that the quality of my environment is essential to what I do and the standard to which I do it.

Pembrokeshire, like Cornwall and East Anglia, attracts creative people and consequently has a large and diverse creative community. From the many conversations that I have had with fellow artists, it appears that we are all inspired by the same stimulus…Pembrokeshire and its natural (and spiritual) attributes.

I can’t be completely sure but if I was a conceptual or fantasy artist then, perhaps, I would not necessarily need to live in such a stunning location. Different people require and react to different stimuli. For my part, I need and feed on my surroundings and without that kind of continual nourishment I doubt if I’d start each day with such a big smile on my face!

Graham Brace is a full time professional artist and illustrator producing landscape and seascape paintings and marketing a range of limited edition prints.  He was born and brought up in Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire and currently lives and works in the heart of the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park.

Places to Paint:  You are invited to write about your special place.  Please click the link to find out how you can contribute to my "favourite places to paint" project.

Old Volcanoes in Gran Canaria

The Virtual Paintout in April - my contribution
coloured pencils on Saunders Waterford HP
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

This is my interpretation of the landscape which can be viewed from the street in front of 35 Lugar Diseminado la Degollada, Tejeda, on Gran Canaria in the Canary islands - it's quite something! I liked it because it's got that combination of the weird contours you can get with volcanic geomorphology and the acid greens often seen where cultivation occurs.

I think this is also the view of what is left of the central cone of the extinct volcano which is Gran Canaria. The location is close to the centre of the island and the view is towards the very centre.

The Canary Islands are located off the coast of Western Sahara and Morocco, Africa. The Islands are located on a volcanic hotspot, away from plate boundaries. The island chain is approximately linear with a rough decrease in age of the volcanism is recognized from east to west.

Volcano Live

What I like about the The Virtual Paintout and using Google Maps Streetview to find a view to draw is it is almost exactly like what I do in real life.

Being a geographer from way back I almost always study maps before trying to find new views. Given I can read contours I can often find good places to draw just from studying the map. Not always though. Many is the time I've got there only to find that trees completely obscure the view!

When I'm using Streetview I start by studying the map and then try various locations. I then spend ages going backwards and forwards trying to find the 'perfect' perspective. Just like I do in real life when I'm sketching plein air and hauling ` sketching stool and backpack backwards and forwards as I try to find where to put the stool down!

It all feels very familiar! :)

How is it for you?

From completed landscape drawing to Streetview

Monterchi from the Via Madonna del Parto
8" x 10", coloured pencil on Arches HP
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

This is the reverse version of the Virtual paintout process. First the drawing and then the Streetview perspective!

Above is a drawing of Monterchi in Tuscany - home of the Madonna del Parto by Piero della Francesco and below is the scene from Streetview of very nearly the place where I got this view. I was stood one row into the vines on the right hand side. The Streetview is from the Via Madonna del Parto.

The Streetview perspective seems to me to be mid afternoon whereas my view was on my regular drive from Citerna to a house near Lippiano - which involved going past this view at about 9am each morning - hence mine has a rather different light and the shadows are different.

I'm tickled pink to see that the very tall post for the vines is still there and is still leaning precariously!



Visualizzazione ingrandita della mappa

Has anybody else gone back to find the view they drew or painted on holiday via Streetview?

Between Bjørnøy and Roaldsøy - looking west

This is a quick sketch and my first ever effort for the Virtual Paintout which this month is painting Stavanger in Norway. See Stavanger, Norway - March 2010 which contains a number of contributions at this mid-point in the month. I find it intriguing that quite so many different styles can work well with an image from Google Maps!

Between Bjørnøy and Roaldsøy - looking west

coloured pencils on Saunders Waterford

I found the most difficult bit to be navigating my way to a spot which had 'a good view' (which translates as something I liked enough to want to draw).

In the end I went for one of the islands and found a narrow bridge which gave me a view in two directions and a choice of topics. I like the red barn-like buildings and the combination of the red barns and the water seemed to me to be typical of this part of the world.

This is the link to where I was - although not quite the place I got to first time round. I forgot where I'd been or to make a note of the link and had to find it all over again!

Streetview is also a neat way of checking out whether somewhere where you think should present a good prospect for plein air work will deliver the goods in reality. Obviously you can't get everywhere - but there's a fair few places you can go.

It is also absolutely fascinating being able to see different parts of the world. I suspect a fair few people may change painting holiday plans as a result of being able to review locations using Streetview!