Annual Plein Air Painting & Pot Luck July 19th

 Left to right - Joan Siebers, Louise Kubista, Jan Feyzi, Siraj Hull, Gretchen Tweitmeier.

Darya's painting

More paintings from the morning session and some of Jan's collection above

More

Left to right on bottom: Oil paintings by Jane Varda, Jan Norsetter (2) and pastel by Trisha Duren

Marla explaining it all to us 

Jan Norsetter on Marla's wonderful porch

Jan, Tom and John deep in discussion about color

Trisha Duren taking a well earned break after a morning of painting

Jane Varda

Marla Brenner's lovely paintings

Jan Feyzi with new lightweight easel

Many thanks again to Marla Brenner for hosting our annual summer potluck.  The food, company and setting was excellent!!  Marla graciously gave us a tour of her extensive and wonderful art collection and a peek in her studio.  Just a glance around at all the paintings and color charts show what an excellent and hard working artist Marla is.  Even her color charts are works of art in themselves.  Marla said she wants to know how her colors mix before she goes outdoors to paint so she can get precisely the color she wants.  She also talked about the importance of mixing only single pigment paints to help keep the colors clean.  Jan Norsetter discussed how to mix a variety of greens which is essential for summer landscape painting and both her paintings were great examples of doing just that.  Thanks to everyone for showing up and sharing your paintings and ideas and great food!!

Cherokee Park Outing

Another nice day painting at Cherokee Park followed by the pot-luck at Marla Brenner's.  We had a great turn-out (must be the food) with many fine paintings resulting.  Here's a framed view of the water I found in the park, near the playground equipment.

Tom

Allen Centennial Gardens

Ginkgo tree in pastel.
Wendy

Under the trellis at Allen Gardens

More Allen Gardens

My watercolor from last evening

Siraj's Watercolor

Siraj was unable to attend last night's session but painted this watercolor earlier in the week.  As Tom said it ended up being a nice evening after all and there were so many subjects to choose from it was a bit overwhelming.  The sky was beautiful so I decided to leave out the campus buildings that are behind the gardens in my view.  Many flowers were in bloom and I'd like to go back with pastels and try for some of those gorgeous flower colors.  It is a great place to paint in the evening.

Allen Centennial Gardens

After going back and forth on the weather forecast, we ended up with a nice enough evening for painting and a good group of painters showed up.  I'm posting a photo of what I thought about painting and also my painting in which I settled on a small portion of the garden pond to paint.  I call this pushing the paint around until the light is gone.  It needs more definition which I'll probably add in another layer once the initial painting dries.  -  Tom

Chilly morning, fun painting, and wonderful company at lunch in Belleville! I went back and took some photos when the sun came out after lunch and did a bit more work on the piece I started once I got home. It's good to get some plein air practice.

Another Belleville Painting

Almost quit on this one but decided to try to salvage something.  And after quite a bit of fixing up on my initial field effort, here it is.  It was nice to have a number of people walking along the path so I could gauge their size and paint a person into it.    

Tom

Painting in Belleville 6/28/16

Jan, Tom, Gretchen, Wendy and Trisha

Soft Pastel on Sanded Paper

Trisha Duren with her pastel painting - great job on the water!

We had a great time painting in the park at Belleville.  It was quite overcast and chilly in the morning and the sun didn't come out until we were ready for lunch which several of us ate at a local pub in Belleville.  A very nice gentleman bought my Belleville Park pastel and I forgot to snap a photo of it but I found a nice little spot on the Sugar River on my way out of Paoli so I painted this pastel there looking back towards town.  I had stopped at Paoli on the way home to see Jan Norsetter's latest show at Zazen Gallery.  It was great and there were some beautiful local landscapes in various seasons.   Well worth a trip to Paoli!

Belleville, WI; June 28, 2016

8x6", "Sugar River at Belleville", Jan Norsetter

We had a cold morning in the park. I finally resorted to my down coat:-p

However, plein air painting is still great fun. 

June 28th - Plein Air Painting at Belleville Community Park

We will meet at 8am at Belleville Community Park in Belleville Wi. on Tuesday June 28th.  Meet in the main parking lot just off Hwy. 69.  For a map click on this date on the events calendar.

Fredericks Hill

On June 14th, Tuesday, we'll be painting in the evening at the Pheasant Branch Conservancy near Fredericks Hill.  Here's a photo of one view in the area.

Mariners Cove Outing

Last Thursday we had a very nice morning painting along the Lake Mendota shoreline at Mariners Cove.  I did manage to find a sailboat, although it was raised out of the water.  That may not be obvious from the painting.  A few of us there agreed we might want to paint here another time later in the year.

Tom

Plein Air Painting at Pheasant Branch May 19th

Enjoyed a beautiful morning at Pheasant Branch Trail in Middleton on Thursday with the group.  My painting is a view of Pheasant Branch Creek (soft pastel on handmade textured support).
Wendy

Another Fine Day Painting

We had a nice sunny morning at Pheasant Branch Creek.  I tried painting the water reflections in the creek but didn't get a painting out of it.  Here's my painting from last week at Indian Lake after I took it home, wiped out the sky and re-painted it. On site I was chasing a cloud pattern and never quite got the sky I wanted.

Tom

Plein Air Painting at Pheasant Branch May 19th 8 AM - Noon

We will meet on Thursday May 19th at 8am for painting at Pheasant Branch Conservancy.  (See events calendar for details)  It is also a great spot for birdwatching so you may wish to bring binoculars.  A very busy paved path runs through this conservancy with many joggers and cyclists much of the day so do not set up for painting on the path.  Also please be mindful this is a nature conservancy so we do want to be careful of wild life and vegetation.  That said there are places out of the way of traffic and plants.  And there are benches to sit on throughout the conservancy.  It a beautiful place especially early in the morning.

Indian Lake May 12th

12x16 watercolor on hot press paper

It was a bit windy but Tom, Kung, Reisa and I painted yesterday at Indian Lake.  There were great clouds blowing around but hard to paint when they change every second.  I stuck to watercolor and painted near the picnic shelter.

Tom painting from alongside the entrance road.

Kung Exhibit of Paintings

Spring Paintings

I want to first thank Pat and Jan F. for taking photos of all the painters at our first outing.  It was sort of cool but spring is coming and it was nice to just get outside and start the new DCPAPA season.  I was also pleasantly surprised when I read the Sunday "Best" section of the State Journal and they had an article on Jan Norsetter's paintings.  About time they featured some good art instead of the usual modern or conceptual, or post-Da-Da whatever so-called art.  I'm letting my bias show but I get frustrated at times when paintings that take considerable knowledge, skill, and refined aesthetic judgments to create are dismissed as lessor art because of the subject matter or that realism is considered old-fashioned in some sense.

Pat, I appreciated your posting photos of some of my paintings from my Goodman Center show, but the lighting on those paintings was so poor it really bugs me ... so I'm posting a new painting to replace that previous post.  I did this on two separate days, first a careful and somewhat detailed underpainting and then adding the top layer and color the second day.  Quite often I seem to like my underpaintings better than the finished painting.  I may need to figure out why that is.

Tom

Highlights from Tom Gilbert's Show at Goodman Center

I got to Tom's show just in time before it came down this week and I wanted to share a few of my favorite paintings in the show.  Overall the show was very impressive despite lighting that was not exactly ideal and I am inspired to work harder on landscape painting this year.  Well done, Tom!!

First Outing of the 2016 Season at Token Creek

Jan with a view from the bridge

Tom painting a view of the creek and field

Reisa hunkered down out of the wind with her pastels

Tricia working on tree trunk

Token Creek Conservancy

We had a cold and somewhat windy day, but it was good to be outside painting!

Joan - thanks for the coffee!!

Wendy, working in pastels

My painting, finished up in my studio (where it was significantly warmer!)  Probably not a keeper, but it felt to good to be outdoors painting again :)

Viking Park Painting

I recently had an interesting experience painting at Viking Park near Stoughton.  As I was painting a person came up to me and told me he had also seen me painting at this park last fall, and had taken a photo as I was painting.  We had a nice conversation and I gave him my email address and he said he'd send me the photo.  In return I then sent him an image of the painting I did that day.  I'm attaching both.  I cropped his photo so it matched up with the scene I was painting.  He used a phone camera and you can see it's not high quality resolution but I like the hazy, almost posterized look of it.  I find it interesting how the mood and colors of the painting and the photo are so different.  I think it's partly because I started painting in the late afternoon while I presume his photo was taken later with evening light as I was finishing up.  I may return to this site again next fall and try another painting more in line with the colors of the photo.

Tom

1st Plein Air Painting Date April 29th @ Token Creek Conservancy - Changed from the 28th due to rain.

Jan Feyzi's Painting at Token Creek Conservancy from last spring.

Where to meet at 8am for painting in the morning.

We will meet at 8am for painting Friday morning.  Please note this is the Conservancy and NOT Token Creek Park.  There is some rain in the forecast so check the blog for update in case of cancellation or change of date.  We usually try not to cancel or reschedule but sometimes Wisconsin weather just doesn't cooperate but Thurs. looks pretty rainy and Friday looks much nicer.  This is a beautiful area with lots of options for interesting compositions.

Training visual memory

Several years ago I took an online landscape class with Texas artist Deborah Paris.  She is a tonalist in the tradition of George Innes.  I am not inclined to paint that way these days but I'm still on her mailing list.  I just wanted to pass along her link because she delivered a paper that is online on the subject of developing visual memory. http://deborahparis-apaintinglife.blogspot.com/ My first choice is plein air most of the time, but I haven't seen or read something as focused on memory for painters as her paper is.

If you are interested in portrait or figure practice, 3 to 5 hour sessions are offered every week at Winnebago Studios on the east side (one block east of Atwood ave.)  Phil Salamone opens his studio for drawing or painting Mondays 5-10 pm, Thurs. 9 am-12, and Sat. 9-12 and 1-4 pm.  $15. drop in or less per session w. 3 month commitment.   He has standing easels and sitting benches on hand but I usually bring my plein air set up.  Phil also teaches at UW continuing studies.  The twice a year city-wide Open Studios on first Friday evenings of May and Oct. always brings a crowd to this multi-studio building.  I'm chasing the dream of incorporating figures into my landscapes eventually.  :)

Landscape oil painting by Deborah Paris

Plein Air Workshops in Madison April 30 and May 21

Kyle Martin is doing a couple one day plein air workshops here in Madison.  Jan F. and I are signed up for the May 21st one.  Kyle always stresses values and accurate drawing using the sight-size method.  Jan and I both enjoyed his still life workshop last month at Pat Dillion's gallery on Williamson St.  It's a very nice small gallery with some great work by local artists.   kyle-martin.blogspot.com/