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.)

Mapping landscape paintings on Google Maps

I'm in two minds about a website I came across today.  MyReadingMapped maps places to historic events - or in the case of artists - landscape paintings to places on maps

The thing is that they're mapping the place in the picture - not the place from where the picture was seen and/or painted - and it's often the latter which artists are interested to see.  Not least because some of us are rather fond of trying to see what we make of the same view! (see my "Places to Paint" series)

The Google Map view of the world as seen in landscape paintings

Here's the link - The Works of Artists, Architects and Photographers in Google Map - and you can see for yourself.

Click on the map title below to go to the blog page with an embedded map, photos and background and source information about each subject.

• The Life and Art of Vincent van Gogh / Google Map / Google Earth

• The Life and Art of Paul Cézanne / Google Map / Google Earth

• The World as seen in Famous Landscape Paintings

• The Works of Michelangelo / Google Map / Google Earth

• Works of Frank Lloyd Wright / Google Map / Google Earth

• Works of I.M. Pei / Google Map / Google Earth

• Scenes Photographed by Ansel Adams

• Le Train: The Rescuing of the German-Looted French Art Train (1944) Fact vs. Fiction. / Google Map / Google Earth

• The World as seen in Landscape Paintings / Google Map 

I think the problem for me is that this has the potential for being a good idea - however it needs more content and the pins in the map need to be rather more accurate - preferably being placed "where the easel stood" literally or metaphorically!

Places to Paint: Agawa Canyon, (Algoma)

I'm very grateful to Jeff McColl for a comment he left on my post about Canada's Group of Seven at Algoma.  This alerted me to the fact that he's been putting an awful lot of effort into pulling together a portfolio of photographs on Google+ of the locations where the Group of Seven painted in the Agawa Canyon in Algoma.

Places to Paint: Agawa Canyon, Algoma, Canada
Some of Jeff McColl's portfolio of photographs matched to paintings by the Group of Seven
© Jeff McColl

Between 1918 and 1923 several members of the Canada's Group of Seven painted in the Algoma region including Lawren Harris, A. Y. Jackson, Frank Johnston, J. E. H. MacDonald, and Arthur Lismer. To gain access to this remote area they rented a boxcar from The Algoma Central Railway, which had been outfitted like a cabin and was shunted to sidings near choice painting locations. From these locations they set out on foot or canoe to capture this untamed area on canvas. Their paintings brought this vast, rugged, and beautiful part of the country to fellow Canadians and the world.Wikipedia - Agawa Canyon

Below are links to Jeff's photos and the paintings by G7 artists at various locations.  Do read his comments as to location as it's obvious that not all the original locations are now accessible due to changes in growth of vegetation or changes in the course of rivers made as a result of floods.  He also provides photographs of what the locations look like in winter.

The links in the name of the artist are to the biography of the artist on the National Gallery of Canada website.

• AY Jackson's "First Snow, Algoma County" - Photo | Painting
• AY Jackson's "Agawa Canyon" - Photo | Painting
• Lawren Harris's "On the Agawa River, Algoma"  - Photo | Painting (click painting to see larger version)
• Bridal Veil Falls (68.5 meters (225 ft) - painted by various of G7 from various angles) - Photo | Painting by Lawren Harris
• AY Jackson's view of Bridal Veil Falls from the south side  - Photo + Photo (winter) + Photo @ -25℃ | Painting
• J.E.H. MacDonald's "Little Falls" located on the Little Agawa river on the east side of the ACR bridge - Photo + Photo + Photo (winter) + Photo @ -35℃ | Painting
• Lawren Harris site of one of his sketches, Algoma Waterfall, Canyon 1, Sketch 111, downstream of the ACR and Little Falls site - Photo | Painting
• Lawren Harris Algoma Stream - Photo | Painting
• JEH MacDonald's Landscape sketch Northern Ontario - Photo | Painting + the rock where he probably painted from
• JEH MacDonald's site for "Agawa river, Algoma" (McMichael Collection) - Photo + Photo + Photo + Photo | Painting (click though to third image)

You can also read an article by Jeff - Paddling/Hiking/Photographing in the footsteps of Legends by Jeff McColl - in the Spring Newsletter of the Group of Twelve - Fine Arts Society of Milton 

Mention the Group of Seven to any artist or photographer and there are instantly visions of great Canadian Landscapes. I have known for years that the Group of Seven had visited the Agawa Canyon and when asked to describe the area I have said it was like paddling into one of their paintings. I have also known that fellow canoeists Sue and Jim Waddington of Burlington have a hobby that include working with the McMicheal Gallery in finding locations where they painted. They have been very successful in finding locations in Georgian Bay, Killarney and Algonquin Prov. Parks. They know that I frequent the Agawa area every year and they asked me if I could identify a few areas

All photos are copyright Jeff McColl. You can see more of Jeff's wonderful photographs of the Canadian countryside on Panoramio

Seems to me that the logical extension of all this work by these canoeists is a book - complete with maps and details of how to get to these places to paint!

Group of Seven fans may also like:

• my post about 'Painting Canada: Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven' at Dulwich Picture Gallery
• my website about Canadian Art Calendars 2013

'Dieppe from the East' by John Sell Cotman and JMW Turner

This post is about two paintings of Dieppe painted by JMW Turner and John Sell Cotman at more or less the same time - give or take a year!  It also covers the concept of staffage and how to access Turner's sketchbooks

You can see both paintings - hung next to one another in  Cotman in Normandy - the new exhibition of watercolour paintings, drawings and etchings by John Sell Cotman at Dulwich Picture Gallery.

The Cotman painting was definitely produced in his studio and the Turner was either painted on a loose leaf of watercolour paper while in Dieppe or was worked up as a colour study from his sketchbook.  They neatly contrast the different approaches and styles of the two artists when faced with the identical view.  (See my Review: Cotman in Normandy - at Dulwich Picture Gallery on Making A Mark for the explanation of why all Cotman landscapes were done in his studio.)

Dieppe from the heights to the East of the port (1823) by John Sell Cotman
Graphite and watercolour with pen and ink and scratching out of the paper
Victoria and Albert Museum

Dieppe from the East (?) (1826-7) by JMW Turner
Graphite and watercolour on paper
Turner Bequest

Turner's 1826 French tour began at Dieppe towards the end of August. His first sketchbook (no.5) includes only a general view of the town of the kind he had already noted two years earlier. But it seems that he also made some sketches on loose sheets of paper. On these he again recorded the quaysides, which had formed the subject of his large oil painting of 1825 (Frick Collection, New York)

Interestingly the description of the work in the exhibition indicates that this watercolour was probably developed from the 1821 sketchbook and produced as part of an unrealised sceheme to represent both sides of the Channel.

John Constable - Somerset House Terrace from Waterloo Bridge

I've been looking at views of the Thames by different artists this week and came across one which was attributed to John Constable but which just looked wrong to me.  I first found it on wikipaintings - and then noticed that they'd sourced it from one of those "we can paint you any painting you want" sites.

Finally, it dawned on me why it was wrong - the image had been reversed!  Maybe you have to have walked along this terrace to know these things?

So here is a small Constable oil sketch of Somerset House Terrace from Waterloo Bridge - the proper way round!  The real thing forms part of the Paul Mellon Collection in the Yale Center for British Art At Yale University in downtown New Haven.

Somerset House Terrace from Waterloo Bridge (c 1819) by John Constable (1776-1837)
Oil on panel, 6 1/8 x 7 3/8 inches (15.6 x 18.7 cm)
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection

What's also interesting about this painting is:

• it's definitely a sketch/study - given the size and the quality of the finish.  Constable simply did not paint like this for his studio paintings but he did when painting studies for studio paintings.  It would be interesting to know whether he did anything with it.
• the sketch dates from before the Embankment was built along the edge of the Thames.  In those days Somerset House was on the banks of the Thames and didn't have a couple of roads and pavements and a wall between the terrace and the river.

The other names for this painting are:

• Somerset House Terrace and the Thames: a View from the North end of Waterloo Bridge with St. Paul's and Blackfriar's Bridge
• Somerset House, A View from Waterloo Bridge looking towards St. Paul's and the City

Whatever it's called it suggests that a good place to paint the Thames and the City of London is the north end of Waterloo Bridge.

The end of the terrace at Somerset House is not such a good spot for painting - you can see how much trees now interfere with the view in my post Sunday Papers at Somerset House on my Travels with a Sketchbook blog

Richard Wilson - View of Syon House across the Thames

View of Syon House across the Thames near Kew Gardens (c. 1760) by Richard Wilson
Oil on canvas, 104 x 139 cm
Neue Pinakothek, Munich

Continuing the notion of a yellow sky and water (see View of the Thames by Childe Hassam), here's another view of the Thames - this time at Kew.

The painter of this scene is Richard Wilson - the man regarded as the father of British Landscape Painting and the finest painter Wales has ever produced.  He painted this scene shortly after his return from Italy where he developed his skills as a landscape painter.

The hazy warm yellow glow is very much redolent of the style of the artist who had profoundly influenced his landscape painting - Claude Lorrain.  It's almost as if the Roman campagna has arrived in southwest London!

That said the sun does set in the west behind Syon House and this indicates that this is an early evening painting in summer.

The important point about this painting is that has been painted the year after Kew Gardens became established as a botanical garden - in 1759.

In 1759, Princess Augusta and Lord Bute established the first botanic garden at Kew, employing William Aiton as the gardener. The Physic or Exotic Garden is the direct ancestor of today's establishment and this date is now accepted as the foundation of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.Kew, History and Heritage - Kew's first botanic garden

The place

The scene is one of my own personal "places to paint" (or rather sketch - see The Thames at Kew - in March sunshine).

Wilson's perspective is from a mound - which nowadays has a very convenient seat - at the end of the walk known as Syon Vista and next to the path at the far end of Kew Gardens.  This gives an excellent view of the River Thames and Syon House.

The Artist

Richard Wilson RA was a pioneer of landscape painting in the UK.  Both Turner and Constable admired his paintings.

He was born on 1 August 1713 in Penegoes, Montgomeryshire in Wales.  He died on 11 May 1782 age 68 at Colomendy Hall, near Llanferres, Denbighshire and is buried in St Mary's Churchyard in Mold.  He never married.

His family was well connected and a relative sent him to London to train to become a painter and he initially trained as a portrait painter.  It appears he was successful gaining commissions and setting up his own studio.

He begins to demonstrate an interest in landscape painting from the mid 40s onwards.  However it's unclear why he subsequently became more interested in landscape painting. However it is known that he went to study in Italy between 1750 - visiting Venice first and then Rome - and there became very much influenced by the paintings of Claude Lorrain. 

Wilson is sometimes called 'The English Claude'.

His approach to landscape painting

While in Italy, he earned a living and had modest success by selling picturesque paintings of Italian scenes to English aristocrats who were doing the "Grand Tour".  He devoted himself to painting idealised landscapes in the manner of Claud Lorrain.  The main contrast being that Richard Wilson was typically painting a real scene rather than an idealised picture.

As a landscape painter, Wilson was obsessed with light and the quality of light reflected from the sky - and he loved a good sunset!  His tendency to bathe a scene in golden light was well known.

However Richard Wilson was also very sensitive to colour and demonstrated in his paintings his appreciation of the very many hues found in nature.  John Ruskin wrote that Wilson "paints in a manly way, and occasionally reaches exquisite tones of colour".

Kew Gardens: The Pagoda and Bridge (1762) by Richard Wilson (1713-1782)
Oil on canvas,
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection

When painting figures in a landscape, they play a minor role and do not intrude upon the overall impact of the landscape.

The website of records the following as being the way he approached the painting of landscapes

His landscape paintings were produced by first applying an underdrawing of brown paint, followed by ‘dead-colouring', a task which was given to the studio apprentices. Thin washes of colour were applied at this stage; Prussian blue and grey-brown for the sky, and a mixture of red and blue pigments for the landscape. The colour was applied to a thickness depending on the depth of tone required, allowing the light tone of the ground to show through more towards the horizon. Once the dead-colouring was dry it was oiled out before the second painting.

For the foreground Joseph Farington records that Wilson 'went over it a second time, heightening every part with colour and deepening the shadows, but still, brown, loose and flat, and left in a state for finishing: the half-tints laid in, without highlights.' In the third and final painting of the foreground Wilson altered the tints, adding the necessary sharpness to the different objects, before glazing them with rich warm tints, and finally adding further solid tints over this.

The sky and distant landscape, on the other hand, were worked wet-in wet after the initial dead-colouring, rather than in two separate stages. This allowed Wilson to achieve easier blending of the clouds with the blue of the sky, apparently using ultramarine rather than Prussian blue for this stage of painting. Last of all the horizon was adjusted and the distance softened with grey-brown again as necessary.

This is a complete catalogue of Richard Wilson's paintings - which has obviously been a labour of love for its creator.

The Yale Centre of British Art in America has an excellent collection of paintings by Richard Wilson.

Richard Wilson - art communities and art societies

On his return to England, Wilson took on a grand studio and was initially successful and held many exhibitions, gained a reputation and sold his landscapes to a number of different clients.

He was active in founding first the Society of Artists and then in 1768, age 55, he became a founder member of the Royal Academy of Art.  He became the Director of what became ‎(in 1765)‎ the Royal Society of Artists of Great Britain.

The prices for his paintings went up and up - along with Wilson's arrogance - until on one famous occasion he offered to let the King have a painting on an instalment plan!  After that the commissions began to dry up and at the end of his life he lived in poverty and had to rely on his family.

Wilson subsequently became an alcoholic and stared the slide into poverty and ill-health. At the end he was taken back to the family home in Wales. He died there on 11 May 1782.

Links:

• Wikipedia - Richard Wilson (painter)
• Richard Wilson, R.A. North Wales artist 1713-1782
• Visual Arts Cork - A to z of Artists - Richard Wilson
• Encyclopædia Britannica - Richard Wilson

• New York Times:
• The Mystery of the British Landscape Master
• Richard Wilson and the British Arcadia
• ArtNet - The Dawn of the Romantic
• BBC - Richard Wilson - 

Talking about Hockney's Landscape Painting

Tomorrow is the last day of the Royal Academy exhibition David Hockney RA - A Bigger Picture.  I'm going to see it for the fourth time at 8pm tomorrow evening.  The exhibition closes at 10pm.

Here are the podcast recordings which the Royal Academy have made from the various events held during the course of the exhibition

The second room in the exhibition reviews his earlier landscapes - which includes his California landscapes.

• From Malibu to Montcalm: Hockney Finds a New Perspective - Listen to recording (57 minutes)

Constance Glenn delves into David Hockney’s California works, from his signature landscapes of the 1960s to his panoramas of the 1980s that introduce a new perspective and capture Mulholland Drive’s vertiginous curves, which swerve across LA’s hilltops toward his Montcalm studio and home. 

David Hockney - Nichols Canyon, 1980
Acrylic on canvas, 213.4 x 152.4 cm
Private collection
Copyright David Hockney

She describes this painting as his first mature painting of California.  It bears no relationship to the work he had been doing previously (swimming pools and palm trees).  Hockney had brought a house at the top of the Hollywood Hills on a street called Montcalm.

The image is to convey the sense of careening down the hill in a car to his studio very quickly - it has a visceral feeling of descent.  The houses are situated at their natural place, have perspective and are quite realistic.  But the painting also includes patterns of the landscape either side - mark-making and images that represent trees and grass.

Mulholland Drive runs across the hills - but "drive" in this painting is a verb - it's what he's doing.  The mark-making has almost become the subject of the picture.  It has a pattern of complementary colours red/orange and blue-green and yet it's not easy to look at a painting of complementary colours.

The Pearblossom Highway picture is a composite of photographs.  She (and Marco Livingstone below) describes how is was created.  The photo collage precedes his multiple canvas paintings.

David Hockney - Pearblossom Highway, 11-18 April 1986 #1
Photographic collage, 119.4 x 163.8 cm
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. Gift of David Hockney
Copyright David Hockney

I like listening to descriptions of the drives with Google Maps in front of me!

• On Location: Hockney in Yorkshire - Listen to recording Marco Livingstone, exhibition curator (59 minutes)

Marco Livingstone describes how the exhibition was put together and how Hockney tackled the way he painted for the exhibition.  Prior to this he comments on paintings in the exhibition from the Californian era.  He comments on the importance of looking at the images from different distances.

David Hockney - The Road Across the Wolds, 1997
Oil on canvas, 121 x 152 cm
Private Collection
Copyright David Hockney
Photo credit: Steve Oliver

This is the view of the drive he took on a regular basis to see his friend Jonathan Silver who was dying from pancreatic cancer.  Silver was a major collector of Hockney's work and established a museum at Saltaire of Hockney's art - owned by either the Silver family or the Hockney family.  The road is the one between the Yorkshire Wolds and Bradford.  It repeats the process of Nichols Canyon - he painted in the studio of accumulated memories.  He didn't work from direct observation and spent a lot of time on each painting.

By way of contrast the more recent Yorkshire landscapes are produced by a man who is more comfortable painting landscapes.  His landscapes are much spontaneous and immediate.

He liked painting in watercolours because of the disdain it was treated by the royal Academy.  He knew many of the great landscape painters were masters of watercolour painting - and he spent three years just painting in watercolours.  He was also aware that no major British artist had ever painted East Yorkshire.

Latterly he has been painting plein air by the side of very quiet roads.  He's not doing any preliminary drawings, not drawing on the canvas - just getting on and transferring his observations into paint.  He intensifies the colours which he sees in the landscape.

He's made more work in terms of the number of paintings in the last few years than ever before.  The numbers rival a whole lifetime of painting by other artists.

In Yorkshire he really revelled in the changing seasons - in the different look of the place - and the light from the early morning and the end of the day when you have the best light for painting a landscape

He also comments on what a fantastic tool the iPad has been for Hockney in creating drawings of the landscape and there are now hundreds.  They are visually very rich.

He also describes the process for producing the films of moving through the landscape in what has turned out to be a very popular room in the exhibition

David Hockney - Winter Tunnel with Snow, March, 2006
Oil on canvas, 91.4 x 121.9 cm
Courtesy of the artist | Copyright David Hockney
Photo credit: Richard Schmidt

David Hockney - Under the Trees, Bigger 2010-11
Oil on twenty canvases (each 91.4 x 121.9 cm) , 365.8 x 609.6 cm
Courtesy of the artist | Copyright David Hockney
Photo credit: Richard Schmidt

• David Hockney: A Bigger Picture – an Introduction - Listen to recording Edith Devaney, exhibition curator  (55 minutes)

She tells the story of the exhibition and explains the paintings room by room.  She has a tendency to gabble in long sentences which makes her talk a bit more difficult to follow.  However she does focus on Hockney's ways of working and how is work is all based on observation and the memories of looking.

Many of the stories in the recordings can be read in Hockney's biography David Hockney: The Biography by Christopher Simon Sykes and True to Life: Twenty-Five Years of Conversations with David Hockney by: Lawrence Weschler.

Note: Exhibition organised by the Royal Academy of Arts, London in collaboration with the Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao and the Museum Ludwig, Cologne

Links: About David Hockney - British artist

The Louvre, March Mist - Pissaro (Spring Landscape #1)

The Louvre, March Mist by Camille Pissarro
oil painting on canvas, 54 x 65cm
Location: Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen, Denmark

I'm starting a series of posts about Spring landscapes.  I wanted first of all to start with landscapes in March.

Having spent last week sketching in the sunshine and haze down by the Thames at Kew (see The Thames at Kew - in March sunshine), I was very taken with this misty painting of the Louvre Palace and the River Seine in Paris by Camille Pissarro.  It captures that effect you get in the sky when it's sunny but the ground is basically still cold.  The haze has both an absence of colour and yet tints at the same time.  It's very difficult to capture - and I think Pissarro has done it remarkably well.

Places to paint:  It looks to me as if he located himself

• either near the end of the Ile de la Cite, the island in the Seine which has a great view of the Louvre.  
• or maybe he was stood on the Pont Neuf (the 'New Bridge' which is now the oldest bridge in Paris)?

I've always been interested in Camille Pissarro's work - but never known a lot about him.  Maybe I should take some time out to learn about him?

Places to Paint: David Hockney and East Yorkshire

The Hockney Trail is a new website which provides an insight into all the places where David Hockney has been painting in East Yorkshire - and in particular those which can be seen in the David Hockney RA - The Bigger Picture exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts

This is a major contribution to the "places to paint" theme which I return to periodically on this blog.  If I can locate the place where John Singer Sargent painted a painting, then surely it's possible to do the same for a contemporary painter like Hockney?  This website would suggest that's the case.

The Hockney Trail website

It was also bound to happen - and, as it happens, this website has done the job rather well - BUT with a major caveat (see end).

The Hockney Trail provides:

• a Google Map of various locations where the paintings were painted.  
• details of which Ordnance Survey Maps cover the area
• details of where Hockney country is - and facilities in the area eg places to visit, eat and sleep
• details of various locations of Hockney paintings of East Yorkshire
• Kilham Road and the location of "Tracks into Wheatfields"
• the A166 - at the location for the painting "Garrowby Hill"
• the location for the painting of "Bugthorpe Valley"
• the location of the paintings of "Three Trees near Thixendale" - the paintings which you encounter - in all four seasons - as you enter the exhibition
• the location of "The Road to York Through Sledmere" (which is my version of the location of this Sledmere painting- done while sat with page 92 of the catalogue open in front of me!)

I made a few discoveries of my own.  First here are the locations I've found since reviewing the website

• this is the location of "The Tunnel" which is the subject of a number of the paintings in the exhibition - and also one of the films.  It's on the right of the Kilham Road to the west of Kilham, going towards Langtoft.  It's a long straight farmer's track between his fields

Hockney's Tunnel

David Hockney
A Closer Winter Tunnel, February - March, 2006
Oil on 6 canvases, 182 x 365 cm
Collection Art Gallery of New South Wales.
Purchased with funds provided by Geoff and Vicki Ainsworth, the Florence and William Crosby Bequest
and the Art Gallery of New South Wales Foundation 2007
Copyright David Hockney / Collection of Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
Photo credit: Richard Schmidt

This is Woldgate and the location of Winter to Spring in Woldgate the major installation in the main Gallery at the RA (see yesterday's post Hockney: 51 iPad drawings on paper - Winter to Spring in Woldgate).  I estimate it's about 10 minutes from Hockney's house in Bridlington and is a brilliant spot to be able to get to quickly when the light looks good.

• Woldgate is an old Roman Road which runs between Bessingby Hill on the outskirts of Bridlington and the village of Kilham.  
• This is the Hockney Trail page for Woldgate.  

Woldgate

and this is one of the digital paintings Hockney did on his iPad in this location.

David Hockney
The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate, East Yorkshire in 2011 (twenty eleven) - 2 January
iPad drawing printed on paper
144.1 x 108 cm; one of a 52-part work
Courtesy of the artist
Copyright David Hockney

I have to confess this location hunting is addictive.  I think that's it for today - but I'll be back.......

The second thing I discovered yesterday is that East Yorkshire has the Wold Wide Web - with links to pages about all the villages in the Wolds.  How about that for an example of Yorkshire humour?

But how long will it be around?

My only query about the The Hockney Trail website is whether or not it's authorised.

It doesn't seem to have any sort of formal association with either the artist or any of the sponsors of the current exhibition at the Royal Academy.  I don't think it falls within the normal copyright exemptions for the use of Hockney images given the adverts which are visible in my other browser which doesn't block adverts (you're seeing the advert-free version - and I'd written most of this before I realised it had them!).

My current thoughts are that maybe the originator is well intentioned but maybe not aware of just how jealously the Hockney empire protects the copyright.  I think he might find somebody giving him the virtual tap on the shoulder sometime soon.  It would also appear that maybe the images of some paintings have already been taken down......

PS  I am by the way posting a scheduled post.  I'm actually currently sat in the RA having lunch with my sister after having just seen the exhibition for the third time!  Join the Friends of the RA and go as many times as you want - and take an adult family guest for free!


Links to related posts about Hockney and the exhibition:

• David Hockney RA talks about landscape painting
• Hockney: sketchbooks, iPad sketching and the Yosemite Valley
• Hockney: 51 iPad drawings on paper - Winter to Spring in Woldgate
• MAKING A MARK: Review: David Hockney RA - A Bigger Picture 17 Jan 2012
• MAKING A MARK: Review: David Hockney - A Bigger Picture 02 Jul 2009

Hockney: 51 iPad drawings on paper - Winter to Spring in Woldgate

SkyNews have produced the first video film I've seen which provides a good view of the printed iPad landscapes of East Yorkshire as drawn by David Hockney - which can be seen in the David Hockney RA - The Bigger Picture exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts

The two rows of large "paintings" on three sides of the largest of the Academy’s Galleries (Gallery 3) are 51 iPad drawings printed on paper.  These together with an oil on thirty-two canvases comprise the installation titled ‘The Arrival of Spring on Woldgate, East Yorkshire in 2011 (Twenty-Eleven)’

It's a sequence of paintings from the beginning of January 2011 through to early June 2011 - and shows the movement from the winter landscape through to the spring landscape.



A lot of the iPad drawings are done along the same road which features in a lot of the paintings

Woldgate is a narrow lane that runs from Bessingby Hill on the outskirts of Bridlington to the village of Kilham which is 7 miles away. It was on this road that David Hockney observed many different seasons and recorded what he saw using his iPad and on canvas with paints.
Woldgate

I'm taking my sister to see the exhibition tomorrow - it will be my third visit!  See Making A Mark - Review: David Hockney RA - A Bigger Picture

MIDNIGHT OPENINGS: 'David Hockney RA: A Bigger Picture' is now open until midnight on Fridays and Saturdays

See also:

• Making A Mark: How to produce a large 300dpi TiFF print of an iPad sketch
• Making A Mark Reviews: Product review: A stylus for iPad sketching #1

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.

Washington tree - Autumn Landscapes #8

White Oak, National Arboretum
Oil on Panel, 10x8"
(c) Kelly Medford, 2011

Like the last post - this is also a painting of an oak tree in Autumn.

This plein air painting of a white oak tree with splendid red/coral colour leaved leaves is by Kelly Medford (Adventures in Painting).  She painted it at the beginning of November while visiting The National Arboretum in Washington DC - and this is her original post on her blog - which is worth reading to get her experience of the day.

I'm thinking that it's probably Quercus Alba as the leaves are red and that's one of the characteristics of this tree.  (Can you tell that I roam around botanical gardens searching for the plate which tells you what a tree is!  I'm always amazed at how many different types of oak there are).

The National Arboretum looks a really splendid place - and you can take a virtual visit.  It also has a splendid web page about The Science of Colour in Autumn Leaves.  Kelly comments on her blog post.

This day I was particularly lucky, as one of the few staff members and only arborist stopped to watch me paint. He was excited that someone had stopped to paint and was particularly proud because I happened to choose the area that he was responsible for and where he had spent the last year thinning out an exotic invasive Elm. As we talked he told me about the budget cuts at the arboretum allowing them to only maintain 8 full-time staff to keep the grounds, the grounds being approximately 450 acres! I thanked him for their work, they do an amazing job of keeping up the place, it is absolutely gorgeous with a huge variety of gardens, trails and spaces.

How to get your paintings of Autumn posted on this blog


This is the eigth 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".

October Marsh - Autumn Landscapes #6

Autumn Marsh by Randall David Tipton
oil on canvas, 24" x 24"

This is one of many paintings which Randall David Tipton (Painter's Process) has done of the Minto Brown Island Park and nature preserve.  This lies in the valley of the River Willamette, west of Salem in Oregon.  (see also the park on Wikiamapia)

The painting was originally posted in October Marsh on his blog.  Randall says of the park

it's a wildlife preserve, with some agriculture as well. It`s wetlands are the most colorful I`ve ever seen and they peak in November.

and

Though in the post I mention just the aesthetic challenge, in others I talk more about its wealth of color in Autumn. The park is unique in that it`s a multiple use property. It has a huge wonderful dog park, playgrounds, picnic areas, acreage is set aside for agriculture and the preserve is dense with sloughs and lagoons for water birds. It is particularly haunting in late fall when it is often foggy with just remnants of bright foliage left on the trees.

You can see more of his landscape paintings - which have a strong focus on water and trees - on his website - Randall David Tipton.  Whether he's painting in oil or watercolour he is a master of his medium and a master of colour - I suggest you have a good look at them.  I really like them and am most impressed with his portfolio.

Randall says of himself

The landscape has been my primary interest from an early age. I am mostly self taught and have been deeply influenced by the American abstract expressionists, particularly by their belief in improvisation as path to something unique and meaningful. I was fortunate to study with Richard Diebenkorn in the first master class at the new Santa Fe Institute of Fine Art.

Walking is an important part of my life and work. When I'm in the landscape, I often have a camera, notebook or sketchbook to help me remember my response. What I see and experience outdoors is the basis for most of my painting.

How to get your paintings of Autumn posted on this blog

This is the sixth 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".

Yukon, Canada - Reader's Autumn Landscapes #3

Title: Driving the Dempster

Medium: Mixed Media

Size: 6x8

Jackie Irvine (Jackie Irvine's Landscape Art) lives in the Yukon in Northern Canada which, for those who don't know it, is wilderness country.

Jackie paints purely for her own enjoyment - having dreamed of being a painter since she was a child.  Her painting is #6 of 100 painting in 100 days, all of which are in this same area of the Canol Road. I'm guessing that, given the location, getting out to paint gets a tad more difficult in the coming days!

Places to paint:  The area she is painting is called the South Canol Road (Canol is short for Canadian Oil - which is why the road was built). Click the link to read about it.  This blog also gives an idea of what the area is like

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".

Note:  If you like Canadian landscapes, you might like to take a peek at Canadian Art Calendars 2012 which provides some economical options for hanging a lot of landscape art by Canadian artists

Autumn Landscapes - Sheffield Park

This is my personal contribution to the posts on this blog about Autumn landscapes.  Last week we travelled to Sheffield Park which is the only National Trust place I know which increases its entrance charges for the Autumn Colour season!

Sheffield Park - 29th October 2011
pen and ink and coloured pencil, 11.5" x 16"
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

The garden was originally laid out around four lakes by Capability Brown and an arboretum of native and exotic trees was subsequently established.

It contains many fine specimens of trees (eg Black Tupelos) and a high proportion of these - particularly the acer/maples and beeches turn a very fine colour in Autumn.  Hence the high number of visitors who turn out to look at the colours of Autumn.

Certainly it's a very fine place to paint in Autumn - particularly given the reflections of the colours of the trees in the water of the lakes.  The photographers are also rather keen on it.  I think I saw more heavy duty expensive cameras with huge lenses on our visit than I've seen for a very long time.

Arboretums are certainly a great place to paint and draw landscapes in Autumn!

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".

David Hockney's Yorkshire

Royal Academy of Art: David Hockney - A Bigger Picture (21 January - 9 April 2012)

This post is about three major new initiatives relating to David Hockney and his paintings of the landscape of the Yorkshire Wolds

First - a new exhibition by David Hockney opens on Wednesday 14th September at the Salt Mills Gallery in Saltaire.  Called 25 Trees and Other Pictures it includes three 27-foot-long pictures of Bessingby Road, Bridlington and other Yorkshire landscapes. The show, which is on the third floor, is open Wednesday - Sunday, 10:30am - 4pm, admission free.  The Gallery also displays many paintings by David Hockney all year round.

This Guardian article The north gets a peep at David Hockney's new portfolio first and the Salt Mills website (extract below) explain how Jonathan Silver started the Salt Mills Centre and amassed the largest collection of Hockney's work.

These days, David spends much of his time in this part of the world and his paintings of the East Yorkshire landscape are admired world-wide.
Home, then, has always mattered, so it wasn’t surprising that when Jonathan Silver approached David about displaying his work in the Mill, David agreed. The two had first met in the 60’s and had kept in touch, sporadically since then. The Galleries at Salts Mill are very proud of the large collection of David's wonderful work on show and deeply grateful to him for his continued support and interest.Salt Mills website - David Hockney Profile

Silver's daughter explained a little bit more of the background to Hockney's paintings of the Yorkshire Wolds which I never knew before.

Dad said to David: 'Paint Yorkshire. It's where you're from. You know it and above all you know how to celebrate it. You've done California and the Grand Canyon and those swimming pools. Now bring all that colour back home.

Second, a major Hockney retrospective exhibition - David Hockney - A Bigger Picture - will be held at the Royal Academy of Art early next year.  It covers work from the last seven years - mainly paintings but also his sketchbooks and his work on iphones and ipads and film - 150 works in total.

This is the first major exhibition of Hockney's larger landscape paintings of Yorkshire.  The galleries at the RA are large enough to hold them!

'David Hockney: A Bigger Picture' will span a 50 year period to demonstrate Hockney’s long exploration and fascination with the depiction of landscape.  The exhibition will include a display of his iPad drawings and a series of new films produced using 18 cameras, which will be displayed on multiple screens and which will provide a spellbinding visual journey through the eyes of David Hockney.

This Guardian article explains how David Hockney moves into film with Royal Academy exhibition

I'll be writing more about this exhibition as we get closer to the opening date!

Third - David Hockney has a new book out called My Yorkshire.

David Hockney - My Yorkshire
Enitharmon Editions (Published in UK: 1 Sep 2011)

The publisher describes it as follows

David Hockney is considered one of the most influential British artists of the twentieth century. In 2003, in a series of dazzlingly fresh watercolours of the rolling landscape known as the Wolds, Hockney embarked on one of the most ambitious and extraordinary projects of his career. He set about memorializing this little-known, intimate and gently beautiful part of the world. His vibrant landscapes twist and turn with ever expanding scale, reminiscent of the American West. Despite this they are remain instantly recognizable to anyone familiar with Yorkshire. The many paintings he has made in the vicinity of Bridlington since 2005 are among the most captivating and impressive of his long and distinguished career.

It's now available in the UK but is only available through importers in the USA as yet.

So lots and lots for true Hockney fans to revel in - I'm very much looking forward to getting the book and seeing his paintings.

Below I've included links to two DVDs by Bruno Wolheim about David Hockney - The Bigger Picture  which is about Hockney painting in the Wolds.  I highly recommend this DVD (see my Review:  David Hockney A Bigger Picture on making A Mark in 2009)

(on the left is the UK version and on the right is the USA Region 1 version)


Plus for more information about David Hockney in general see:  David Hockney - Resources for Art Lovers