Fake Winter Painting

This is a painting I did at Indian Lake on February 22nd, so it must be a winter painting.  But it was 68 degrees with no snow.  So I'm calling it a fake winter painting (where have I heard that before?).  I may have got a bit sloppy with this one but I think it somewhat captures the atmosphere of the day.

Tom

Indian Lake County Park

This was the sunset tonight at Indian Lake County Park.  It looks like they are building a new shelter and more substantial restroom building.  I painted this 6x6 gouache on Ampersand Aquaboard while I sat and listened to cranes, geese and Red-winged blackbirds.  

Trisha Duren Art Show

Summer Painting Completed

On August 4th we had a group outing at Pheasant Branch that was cut short by a thunderstorm.  I had, however, managed to complete an underpainting. After having that underpainting on my shelf for months I just finished it (with an invented sky and light effects).  With this dreary, wet weather we've been having it's nice to recall some summer scenes by painting.

Tom

Madison WRAP show and workshop

The Madison WRAP show is fast approaching! Registration deadline is Friday Jan 20, 2017. Artwork will be exhibited at the UW Pyle Center Feb 25 - April 8. Workshop is at the Pyle Center on Saturday April 8 (9am-3:30pm). To register online, go to: http://continuingstudies.wisc.edu/…/wisco…/wrap-schedule.htm and send your $30 registration check (payable to Vina Yang) to Vina Yang, 3423 Ice Age Ln, Verona WI 53593. Registration and payment must be made by Jan 20.

This year's workshop guest Judge and Speaker is multifaceted artist Chuck Bauer. Chuck has a BFA in Fine Arts and MA in Painting and is also the retired president, co-owner and co-founder (1972) of Madison's popular retail store, The Soap Opera, on State Street. Chuck is well known for his plein air paintings which often focus on familiar Wisconsin rural scenes as well as on traditional urban neighborhood architectures. Wherever he goes, he likes to keep his painting supplies close by and works on small canvases whenever a worthy subject appears. Chuck says his early training as an abstract painter today fuels his approach to realistic topics. He likes to use color expressively and likes techniques that convey nostalgia and tranquility. Chuck strives for solid composition but also values playful and sometimes unexpected results. Besides working in oil and acrylics, he is successful in watercolor, India ink washes, and fired ceramic art tiles. Chuck has participated in 14 one-man shows and 14 juried exhibitions in the Dane County area since 1991 and his work has been shown in 12 Wisconsin galleries. He has been a past instructor at the Green Lake Studio Workshop.

Plein air indoors

 We've had only a couple of snowy days this winter so far. Before this wood made its way into the fireplace I simply had to paint it!

Firewood, oil on canvas panel, 16"x20"

Sugar River @ Monroe Arts Center February 3rd - March 24th

Here's a landscape painting show well worth the trip to Monroe.  Jan Norsetter will have work in it.  Any other DCPAPA painters showing work in this one?  It was an excellent show last year and I look forward to seeing this one.  

Goodbye to November

With fewer plein air outings in the last month I've been catching up on finishing paintings I've had sitting around for some time.  And here's one that I think has a nice November feel about it.  Thought I'd get this in before we switch to snow paintings.

Tom Gilbert

Urban Sketchers Madison

Here are links to the blogs for the regional chapter in Madison and the international sketching group, Urban Sketchers: drawmadison.blogspot.com., www.urbansketchers.org/  .  I'm one of the administrators for the Madison group and we sketch on the 2nd Sunday of the month (except December) and occasional Saturdays as well.  Our schedule can be found on the Events calendar on our blog.  Our group began in 2011 and was called Draw Madison until last spring when we were invited to join Urban Sketchers as a regional chapter.  The group is open to anyone who likes to draw from life and there are no dues.  In warm weather we like to sketch outdoors but in winter we sketch in places like coffee shops, museums and Olbrich Garden's conservatory.  Sketchers use a variety of mediums from graphite and ink to watercolor and soft pastel.  It is much like plein air painting in that we draw from life what is going on around us.   Check out the Urban Sketchers blog to see interesting sketches from all over the globe.  Next summer the annual symposium for Urban Sketchers will be held in Chicago July 25-29.  It has not been in the US since the first one was held in Portland in 2010 so we are pretty excited and looking forward to meeting some of our favorite artists and attending their workshops. We hope you will join us sometime this winter when it's too cold to be painting en plein air! 

Tenney Park 11-7-16

I just got my new easel in the mail on Monday and had to go out for a bit. I'm an oil painter now. It's official, lol. Anyway I managed to get out late and get a good start. I learned a lot that will speed me up next time at home. This has about six hours into it.

Warner Park 10-19-16

I may as well post this too. I did double duty this day. We went to Lodi this day I think. This was done at Warner Park last month. 11x14 acrylic on canvas

Indian Lake 11-3-16

Here is my painting from Indian Lake. I got there early and the sun was overhead and the water just wasn't colorful. I went down in the valley and found a really cool spot. I thought sure I'd see deer. This was my first try at oils in the field. They say when you can't get it keep adding paint? Anyway I did that and made it a knife painting mostly.

Indian Lake Paintings

Here's not only my painting from last Thursday but another Indian Lake view painted in September.  The latter is the view of the hillside above the lake from the smaller parking lot at the other end of the lake (by the dog park area).  Both of these started as plein air but also had substantial studio finishing.  Last Thursday I just ran out of time as the light disappeared quicker than I expected for an afternoon start.

I normally stop the group outings about now but if this weather continues we may be able to do one more.  Regardless, over the winter I expect many of you will still be getting out occasionally and please feel free to post your paintings.  I also want to thank all of you who came out and painted and made this a successful year for the group.  And I'll contact everyone again next spring to continue the group outings.

Tom Gilbert

Fall colors

Arboretum, oil, 12"x16".

Here's some fall colors from an outing to the Arboretum a couple of weeks ago. Unfortumetely, I won't be able to join the group today at the Indian lake.

Plein Air Painting Nov. 3rd

We will paint this Thursday Nov. 3rd at Indian Lake. (Changed from Wed. due to weather forecast).  Meet at 3pm in the main parking lot.

Wisconsin River October 29th

The Wisconsin River at Prairie du Sac


Tom said he wanted some fall color so here's a pastel painting I did on Saturday late in the afternoon in a tiny park on the main drag.  It was pleasant even with the traffic noise.  The oaks were all turning dark red and I noticed alot of gold in the leaves on the way home.  Hopefully it will pretty colorful at Indian Lake on Wednesday.

Darya Vassina Paintings

Darya currently has some of her paintings on display at the Ancora Coffee shop on University Avenue.  The show runs through November.  Here's two of the paintings being shown.  I really like the rich textures in Darya's paintings.

As promised, here's the painting I painted at the lookout on Skyline Rd. in Peninsula State Park...

Fall Colors

Here's a plein air painting from a Madison east side neighborhood that I did a few days ago when the sun was still out.  I think our blog needs a few fall color paintings.  Feel free to post them.

Tom

Door County October 22 - Rowley's Bay Nature Conservancy and Famous DCPAPA Painter!!

Last week I visited Door County and while I did some watercolor sketching, the sketches I enjoyed doing the most were with charcoal and charcoal pencil one afternoon on Rowley's Bay.   I used a kneaded eraser as a drawing tool which was very helpful for rendering highlights and texture.  It was sort of ironic that with all that gorgeous color everywhere my most successful sketches were with charcoal.

I got a big surprise on Friday when I picked up the newest Peninsula Pulse and thought I recognized a fellow painter on the cover!  Sure enough, her name was on the inside cover and I called her to congratulate her on the nice photo.  She had attended a class at Bjorklunden that week.  Yes, it's Jan Feyzi!!  She was painting the fabulous view from an overlook in Peninsula State Park when a local photographer came by.  Hopefully Jan will post some of her paintings from the week.