Happy Thanksgiving to DCPAPA & Friends

Happy Thanksgiving to DCPAPA. Above is a plein air pastel sketch I painted last month at the Clearing in Door Co.  For those of you who know the campus I was sitting on the bluff behind the Schoolhouse facing Green and Ellison Bays.  It is a beautiful place where they have week long classes mostly in arts & crafts and nature study from May thru October and where I took my first watercolor class in 2004.  Their website is www.theclearing.org. The other photo I took yesterday in the UW Arboretum where I had a close encounter with these guys while taking reference photos for snow paintings.  Too cold for me to paint outdoors.  Bill Hosner is a pastelist who paints only outdoors; he paints beautiful winter paintings and says he has gotten frostbite at least twice.  When it's cold enough to get frostbitten I opt for the comforts of the studio.  Happy Holidays to everyone and feel free to email me or Tom any winter paintings you would like posted on the blog.  Stay warm!  Pat

Winter Painting

Last Monday we had our last scheduled group outing at Olbrich Gardens and had some fairly decent weather.  Seems like were mostly lucky this past year with the weather.  I'll contact the group members again next spring to schedule more outings.

Although we won't have scheduled outings during the winter I encourage everyone to use our member distribution list if you're planning on an outing and wish to invite others for company.  It would also be nice to keep some new posts going during the winter and invite all of you to post your winter paintings.  If you're not sure how to post it yourself simply email your image and any associated comments to Pat Wafer, or to me, and we will post it.

I want to thank all of you who came out and painted and made 2014 a successful year for the group.  And things look even more promising for 2015 with a few of you talking about retirement and being able to paint more often.  I personally appreciate the friends I've made and how they've helped me better understand my painting and how to improve.  And I'm not just referring to the details of technique, but, more importantly, how to think constructively and positively about painting.

To get us thinking about winter painting I'm posting four paintings by some of my favorite artists.  The top painting is by George Sotter who is famous for his many snow scene paintings.  The second is by Richard Thompson, a Wisconsin resident and a painter who I consider to be rather under-rated.  Then two paintings by living painters.  The stream scene is by Peggy Root.  I just recently discovered her paintings and have been quite impressed with how she seems to use a very distinct color scheme for every painting.  In other words, her paintings don't all look alike.  The bottom painting is by Mark Boedgers.  Just an exceptional painter who reminds of Richard Schmidt.  Mark has been at the Door County Plein Air event the past couple years.

Happy Painting!

Tom Gilbert

Indian Lake

I painted this last Monday afternoon at Indian Lake.  Probably the last day with temps in the 70's for a long while.

Lodi Ice Age Trail October 23, 2014

Here's my painting from our ice age trail outing. (6x12", oil on board). I knew what I wanted to capture and didn't have a lot of time. I laid down the basic components while I was there and added paint in the studio. I remember my impression of the scene was of bright greens, oranges and reds so that's what I added. When I look at the photos I took that day they look very beige. Also, there wasn't much going on in the sky so I added the clouds. A lot of artistic license, I know, but then, that's why we paint, right?