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]

A Vermont Pond - Autumn Landscapes #10

The Pond on Rice Farm Road

The look of Autumn varies depending on place, the type of trees which grow there and how much rain or sun that place has had.  This pastel painting of The Pond on Rice Farm Road demonstrates that some places are still green rather than red/orange/yellow/brown.

This is what Roderica Tilley (Rodrica Tilley's Pastel Paintings) had to say about her work

It was an exquisite fall day in my neighborhood two weeks ago...and the days here have been mostly soggy for months. I spent the afternoon painting this Vermont scene amidst the birds (?) rustling in the cattails next to me and quite a few leaf peepers driving by on the dirt road.

That was two weeks ago and Black Mountain, where I live, has turned into winter rather suddenly. This is another of the Transitions series. 12 x 16 pastels.

Rodrica has recently moved from Montrose, PA where she lived for 35 years to a new home and studio in Brattleboro VT.  Her series Transitions are are seasonal landscape paintings of PA and VT and the long stretch of I-88 in NY that connects her old and new home.

You can see some of Rodrica's recent work in a group show called Fractured which opened last Friday at The Butternut Gallery and Second Story Books in Montrose, PA.  The exhibition continues until December 24.

Rodrica also has an interesting project in which she is trying to produce landscapes of all 50 states of the USA Fifty State Plein Air Painting Project.  As you can imagine with a project like this postings are periodic - I'm adding it into this blog's blogroll.

Seasonal Landscapes

This is the last in the series of autumn landscapes by art bloggers - which I have greatly enjoyed doing.  Apologies to those work was not listed.

However on Thursday watch out for the post in which I declare the new three month season of winter landscapes open!

Contemporary Pastel Landscape Artists

The works included in the the Seventeenth Juried Web Exhibition 2010 of the International Association of Pastel Societies (see International Association of Pastel Societies - 17th Juried Exhibition 2010) were all selected by an international panel of jurors who, as it happened, are all primarily landscape artists in pastel.  I can't imagine that was accidental so maybe there's a push to see more pastel landscapes?

The International Jurors who selected works for this 2010 Web Exhibition were Lorenzo Chavez, (Colorado, USA) Margaret Evans (Scotland)  and Bill Hosner (Michigan, USA).

If you click the hyperlinks below you can view a range of different ways in which renowned pastel artists tackle landscapes around the world.

Lorenzo Chavez - pastel landscapes - available paintings and paintings in private collections.  Lorenzo Chavez was born in New Mexizo and is now based in Colorado and most of the landscapes appear to be local to where he lives.

Lorenzo Chavez - landscape paintings in private collections

Margaret Evans PSA - pastel landscapes - available in galleries throughout Scotland.  Margaret tutors workshops all over the world but has her studio and home base are Perthshire in Scotland.

a selection of the pastel landscapes of Scotland by Margaret Evans PSA

Bill Hosner PSA PSWC - pastel landscapes - available work.  Bill is based in Michigan in the USA.  He's a signature member of both the Pastel Society of America and the Pastel Society of the West Coast and his focus is on working plein air in pastel.

Pastel Landscapes by Bill Hosner PSA PSWC

My personal view as somebody who enjoys working plein air in pastels (although not as much recently as I used to do - see Places) is that pastels are a greatly underrated medium for plein air landscapes.  From beginning to end your work is dry and not susceptible to the impact of variations in temperature or humidity as both oil and watercolour paints are!

However it is a jolly good idea to have a very big cover for your work if it begins to rain!

Plein Air Pastel Painting with Richard McKinley

Pastel artist Richard McKinley has a number of blog posts on Pastel Pointers with Richard McKinley about  creating landscapes and plein air painting with pastels.  He's particularly strong at looking at the place where he's painting and techniques for translating this into a pleasing work of art.

Richard McKinley - website

Richard recently created a series of posts with very useful tips.  These are especially helpful for pastel artists working plein air - but anybody working plein air will find value in a lot of what he has to say.

• Plein Air Tips, Part 1 in which he looks at options for creating a stable set up for your palette

Using pastel en plein air has its advantages. The instant gratification of choosing a pastel stick and applying it to a surface is unparalleled. We simply open the pastel palette, analyze the scene, and make a mark—no mixing, no solvents, and no bag full of wet rags to dispose. The disadvantage is that we need an assortment of pastel hues in a range of values to accomplish what the wet painter can do with four tubes of paint.

•  Plein Air Tips, Part 2: Sun Vs. Shade which discusses the issues of working in full sunlight or shade and provides some valuable recommendations for kit which helps with dealing with the sun

The painting surface and pastel palette need to be in the same light. Otherwise, pastel choices from the palette will appear completely different on the painting surface, confusing the mind and eye collaboration.

• Plein Air Tips, Part 3 - which is about how make plein pastel painting more pleasurable
  

Remind yourself while you are painting that the photo can provide detail information later and your task is to represent what the camera cannot: the human perspective. Spend your time analyzing the value relationships and subtle color sensations.

Here's a selection of a few more of his plein air related posts from his blog:

Places for plein air painters

• Places that Inspire: Cape Cod - and the opportunties it presents for plein air artists
  
• Beauty in the Mundane - about deciding what to paint in the landscape
• Painting in the Grand Canyon of Man - about how the choices made when painting urban landscapes are not that different from those made when painting rural areas

Kit for plein air painters

• The Perfect Pastel Plein Air Setup: The Search Continues in which he describes his newly downsized travel kit
• A Consistent Palette: The Plein Air Artist's Friend helps deal with the issues arising from the way colours change in bright light

Techniques and solutions for plein air painters

• The Shutter Speed of Our Eyes - which reflects on how our eyes see things differently to cameras
• The Problem With Green, Part 1 which tackles the nitty gritty issues associated with the use of green
  

A few years ago while I was on a painting trip with legendary pastel plein air artist Glenna Hartmann, the question of how to handle green was posed. After a perfectly timed pause, she quietly responded, “I avoid it at all cost.” The ensuing discussion was very interesting. It seemed that every painter there had an issue with green.

• Pastel Dry Underpainting - about how to tackle an underpainting when working plein air and all you have to hand are your pastels

While subject matter may be important to the concept, the process of painting is really nothing more than shapes, edges, values and colors, arranged in a pleasing design. 

JM Whistler's pastel landscapes of Venice

 The Guidecca - Winter: Grey and Blue (1879) by James Abbott McNeill Whistler
8"x 11.75", chalk drawing

I'm a huge fan of Whistler's pastel landscapes.  He made a number in his lifetime however he did a series in Venice while there making his suite of etchings of Venice following the court case against Ruskin which he lost.

Margaret F. MacDonald writes about his approach to using pastels in  Palaces in the Night: Whistler in Venice. She reckons he used pastels when it was too cold to etch plein air.

The Zattere: Harmony in Blue and Brown by James Abbott McNeill Whistler

11" x 7.5", chalk drawing

His technique for drawing landscapes using pastels is as follows:

• use the colour of the paper to set the tone of the work
• draw the outline of subject using black chalk; (his line shows the skill of an artist who can wield an engaving needle with dexterity)
• limited application of coloured pastels; note there is no attempt to fill the tooth of the paper
• delicate use of the side of the pastel (a breath on the paper) to scumble across the paper with the point being used to create emphasis

Note also that the size of the support for the above work is A4 although to my eye it 'seems' bigger.  When drawing or etching he always seems to work at a size which is easily portable.

You can find out more about Whistler in my information site which I compiled following a project about him - see James McNeill Whistler - Resources for Art Lovers 

A contemporary artist who uses much the same technique with pastels is Diana Armfield RA RWS. 

Art Instruction: Landscape Painting in Pastels

Pastel Landscapes by Deborah Christensen Secor

Deborah Secor is publishing a book online via a blog called Landscape Painting in Pastels.

Deborah is well known to many in the pastel world. Besides being a practising pastel artist, she's also a pastel art tutor, writes for the Pastel Journal and was for some time a very popular Moderator of the Pastels Forum on Wet Canvas.

Her art instruction book is not available in traditional print format and Deborah has, very generously, decided to make it available for free. Part of it is based on articles she has written for and published in the Pastel Journal.

I contemplated selling this book, but in the final analysis I decided that it was better to give. Jesus tells us, "Freely you have received, freely give." So I will. I hope you enjoy and benefit from it.

Note that information contained in the blog may be downloaded for personal use only. Readers are forbidden to reproduce, republish, redistribute, or resell any materials from this weblog in either machine-readable form or any other form without specific written permission of the author. For permissions and other copyright-related questions, please email your question to: deb@deborahsecor.com

So if you want to read her book you need to follow her blog - and I recommend a subscription. Needless to say this blog has been instantly added to my Google Reader and the tutor section of the blogroll in the ruight hand column of this blog! :)

Book content

Deborah's book will cover the following topics. One chapter per week will be posted. Those chapters shown in blue are already live.

Landscapes in Pastels

Section 1 Materials

Chapter 1 Pastels and Other Materials
Chapter 2 Surfaces and Effects
Chapter 3 Getting Started
Chapter 4 Letting Value Lead

Section 2 Landscape Subjects

Chapter 5 Aerial Perspective
Chapter 6 Mountains
Chapter 7 Sky
Chapter 8 Clouds
Chapter 9 Night
Chapter 10 Sunrise, Sunset
Chapter 11 Trees
Chapter 12 Foliage
Chapter 13 Foregrounds
Chapter 14 Rocks
Chapter 15 Shadows
Chapter 16 Water and Reflections
Chapter 17 Gardens
Chapter 18 Snow

Section 3 Color

Chapter 19 Color Theory
Chapter 20 Color Experiments
Chapter 21 The Green Problem
Chapter 22 White Done Right
Chapter 23 The Photograph Problem

Section 4 Experiments

Chapter 24 Free Yourself of the Photo
Chapter 25 Value and Color
Chapter 26 Make a Puzzle Painting
Chapter 27 Value/Color Chart
Chapter 28 Imagine a Painting
Chapter 29 Colored Grounds
Chapter 30 Limit your Palette
Chapter 31 Limit Time and Palette
Chapter 32 20-Stroke Painting
Chapter 33 Temperature

Section 5 Moving On

Chapter 34 From Studio to Plein Air
Chapter 35 Criticize Your Work

If you appreciate what Deborah is doing with this blog can I suggest you leave a comment on her blog and let her know.

Note: Deborah Secor's paintings have been selected for inclusion in several books devoted to the pastel medium: The Pastel Painter’s Solution Book; Pure Color: The Best of Pastel; Painting With Pastels, by Maggie Price. She aso has two video workshops available on DVD or streaming at Artists Network TV: Get Started in Pastels: Deborah Secor Paints the Landscape and Painting Outdoor Shadows in Pastel with Deborah Secor.