Plein Air from Devil's Lake, Wisconsin

Last week I traveled with an old friend from art school to Devil's Lake in Wisconsin.  We painted there for  three days.  This is the painting I did just one week ago at the north entrance to Devil's Lake park.  It looks better in person -- the color of this is a bit off.  This is oil, 6" X 8".  we managed to get there (luckily) just when the color of the trees was incredibly beautiful.

This is a long shot from high above the level of Devil's Lake.  This photo is just a shadow of the color that is there for the eye to see.

And finally, my painting "Farm at Fox River" was awarded the Award of Excellence at the annual show of the West Suburban Art League.  This is the second award that I've had for this painting.

Boathouse at Humboldt Park

Usually I am working on a Saturday when the Chicago plein air Painters are meeting and painting.  About two weeks ago I saw their plan to meet at Humboldt Park in Chicago and decided to go there.  Not having read the instructions carefully I completely missed the fact that they were about 600 yards away to the north on the other side of this building.  Since it was windy and cold, I just moved over to the passenger side of the car and began painting.   I spent about an hour on this (looks better in person than my photo does) little 6" X 8" canvas.  This is the east end of the boathouse.  I still never met any of the Chicago Plein Air Painters, but I did see a large group of people bringing their dogs past the parking lot where I was painting.

Plein air on Madeline Island

Two weeks ago I was at the weeklong workshop that Marc Hanson did at Madeline Island School of Art.  The painting is a 6" X 8" oil which I did (yes, that's me painting it) in the field behind the School.  We drove about 8+ hours through central Wisconsin to the town of Bayfield, caught the ferry to Madeline Island and arrived at the school in about 5 minutes.  The school has a great facility for painting -- plenty of light if you're painting indoors.  We did our painting at the beach at the town park.  While I liked the painting I did (I'll post those later), I did not like the larger painting I did from the study.  That was Marc's plan for the class: paint outdoors and then do a larger one from your studies.  We did a black and white value study, then a larger full color study.  I did what I was supposed to, worked on the larger one.  When I had had enough I stopped and went outside and did this one.  Marc's comment??? ---- he liked my clear and bright color and brushwork.  In case you are interested....Marc is a very nice person, an excellent artist and a good cook -- he makes an excellent mango salsa.  OK, so now that I have taken 3 workshops --- Frank Serrano, Ralph Oberg and Marc Hanson --- what have I learned??? --- I learned that I know what I'm doing while I'm painting.  I paid a lot for the classes, gas money and lodging...but I'm sure that's worth knowing.

Door County co-op

This is an oil painting I did a long time ago. It's a 12 X 24" oil on canvas. The interesting thing about the whole thing is that it is now a part of Door County (Wisconsin) history. These buildings are no longer there. When you go to this site now the trees and buildings have been replaced by moorings for boats and on land and up the hill are a lot of condominium buildings. Like any resort area there's a lot more money to be made in condos than in an old grocery store and fish warehouse. This was in the town of Sister Bay. It's still a nice place; the park here has concerts often in the summer for all the tourists, fishing boats still take people out onto the Bay to fish in open water.You can go to a fish boil almost any evening in one of the Door County towns in the summer. Even after 30 years of mowing down some of the past, Door County is still a charming place to visit. There's even a plein air painting festival in July. While these buildings are gone, there are still some remarkable old buildings still standing and I intend to paint them.

Portrait / Kotah Moon

I met Kotah during a residency I did called the Fields Project about five years ago. I lived for about six days with a farm family as did the other artists. It was a good time and I would do that again. One of the other artists lived at the house across the way. He's about as tall as I am but outweighs me by 30 pounds and presents an imposing figure. When I got to know him, I found him to be friendly, generous and a kind and sensetive person. He changed his name for personal reasons. Kotah drives a converted ambulance which has the space and carrying ability that would serve a metal sculptor --- carries a lot of weight. While I was out plein air painting, Kotah was using a torch to cut designs in metal. When the weeklong art experience is done there's an art show on the following Sunday in a park in Oregon, Illinois. His work is quite beautiful -- metal sculpture and jewelry. Kotah, from Poland, Indiana, does a lot of outdoor art shows during the year -- traveling here and there in a scheduled pattern week by week. Me, you ask?????....I just don't like to do outdoor shows and especially mall shows. I used to do a few shows in malls when I first started painting, but then I heard people walking into the mall saying "Look there's an art show going on." They are there to buy shoes, clothes and snacks, not art. Whoops! almost forgot --- the details on the painting --- this is a portrait I did from a photo -- about 11" X 14", oil on linen.

pencil drawing / Waterford, Wisconsin street scene

This is the final version of my pencil drawing, although not all of it is pictured. This final piece is 17" by 20" and is matted with a 3 1/2 inch mat. I am waiting for the frame pieces to arrive and I go to a local hardware store for the plexiglass. You will just have to come to the Shades of Gray show later this year to see it. I intend to enter the show with this. I have had a difficult time photographing this to my satisfaction, so even this one is not to my liking. I will try again when I send in my entry for the show. I did check on my use of perspective in the drawing, but it's one thing to get a drawing correct and another to do an architectural remdering. This is leaning on fine art, not architectural rendering. I did this without ever feeling that I was too stiff in my treatment. I used Stonehenge paper and several 6B and 8B pencils. It takes a delicate hand and iss quite a test of patience, but I love doing this and I never have a moment's frustration.

The Secret Life of the Artist, part 10

"Happiness is...." is the title of a cartoon, giving happy incidents in one's life. So I am adding two of mine as a microcosm of other artist's lives. The top picture I shot driving ---yes, never mind the danger of driving with a cell phone --- I defy danger with a camera in my hand. This was taken along the road, Route 12, in Wisconsin on the way to Cambridge, WI. The sky and clouds and sunshine on the land was so beautiful it would take an artist to appreciate it all --- and I did!!!! Happiness -- yes. Farmland along the highway, how I wish I could have grown up there. The second picture is just that subject -- growing up. Here is the secret life of the artist as a teacher with his second grade class, then in Winnetka, IL. All of the children you see were 6 or 7 then and are now 22 or 23 and have graduated college. I don't think many of them have ever seen my oil paintings unless they've hunted me down on the internet. Before this I worked as an artist and was the assistant librarian at a research library. After this I went back to art. I was a little bit too old to be dealing with the younger generation. I now have the good fortune to be able to paint and draw. That was happiness then -- believe me, we had a great time. I told then a story every morning and did a chalk drawing too -- set me up for pastels later. Happiness now is the beauty of the moment, like the picture at the top. Man, I love Wisconsin.