Re-thinking Studio Painting

Painted in the studio today. Weather is a bit foul so I stayed in and painted a 14x18 of cows. I bought a big pack of 14x18's and 16x20's to try and motivate myself to paint a tad larger but so far they have just sat in my storage closet mocking me.
This afternoon I took a break and had a massive bowl of ice cream and went through the John Singer Sargent book "Sargent Abroad." Ya'know, sometimes I get lazer focused on what's being done out there in the market, right now, by the artists who I admire and would someday love to emulate and I forget to "go back" and look. It was the first time I had picked up a Sargent book in a while and just looked. And yes, it floored me.
Most artists you can watch paint and figure out what they are doing, how they do it. Even if you can't yet, you can see the way they paint and work at it until you can do it. I think watching Sargent paint would have been like watching magic. Even after you had seen him do it, you would stand there scratching your head in amazement not having a clue as to how it started with blank canvas and now looks like that. There is a description in the book by a lady who describes how he painted a plate of flowers. She said the watercolor was just one big pool of pigment and when it dried it was this wonderful little painting of flowers on a plate. Sounds like magic to me.
I don't know if it was the Sargent book or the ice cream this afternoon but this studio painting thing is starting to grow on me.

"That Too Much"

Painted Saturday morning with Plein Air Nashville and we painted in Centennial Park. Centennial Park was designed and built for the Nashville Centennial celebration in 1897 and is a very unique park for Nashville to have in the heart of the west end of the city. It has gone through some good years and some years you stayed clear of it. Over the last couple of decades they have done a wonderful job of turning it in to a fantastic park with outdoor shows, festivals and every summer, "Shakespeare in the Park." But the main attraction is an exact replica of the Parthenon. Yes, the one in Greece, except ours is not all crumbly and broken! I think it is partly the reason we are referred to as the "Athens of the South".
I had never painted the Parthenon even though I have painted in the park in the past. It just has a lot of drawing and decoration and nice even spaces and measurements that if you miss them by a little it is very obvious, especially in the columns. But I tried it and thought it worked out. I like the view I did through the columns. It actually is a very striking building standing in the middle of the park.
As I was painting though I had tons of spectators. One was a little Asian lady, maybe Japanese(?) and maybe 60 years old or older. She came up in a very heavy accent and told me how good my painting was. She then asked how long it took and if I was going to sell it. I said,"yes" and she said,"how much?" I then told her 400 dollars. She actually grabbed her mouth like I had said the most disgusting and vulgar word you could think of. She then started repeating,"that too much." "That too much. That too much. That too much." I was not sure if she meant that was too much for her to afford or that was too much to ask for the painting. Never did figure that out. But as she was walking away I could hear her say ," it good , but that too much."

Springtime in Tennessee

It's springtime in Tennessee and the woods are starting to get that whispy light green look of spring. I am sure we will have a few more cold snaps but I think the winter look is over.
I painted on Art Lawson's farm in Bell Buckle yesterday. The first time I met him he drove me all over his farm and said for me to help myself. He also told me a story of how Confederates were camped on the hill to the right in this painting. The northern "aggressors" over ran the hill and chased our "god-fearing gentlemenly army of the south" from the hill. In their"calculated and fully co-ordinated" flight they threw quite a bit of their gear to help precipitate their manoeuvre from the hill. Art said people who have done their Civil War homework are asking to metal detect the area from time to time. His only request is for them to show him what they find and he said he has seen some incredible stuff.
To know Art you would think he had been a farmer all his life and had rarely left the county. As I was painting one day a neighbor stopped to watch and told me how Art was an Apache helicoter pilot in the Iraq War! It's like I said, everybody has got a story and I bet his is a doosie.

Another Backroad

Not sure what county I was in, I believe Bedford County, but I got this Friday before I picked up my "daughters" at Webb in an intermittent rain.
If anybody is interested, go to Trailside Galleries website and look up Bill Anton and then check out a painting he has on the site named Alaskan Fjord. Geeez what a painting. And I am looking at a 4x5 image on a computer terminal. I can't imagine what the original looks like.
I am constantly scanning the information superhighway for artists and paintings that I can glean a bit of information from that will help me in my artistic quest and every now and then I will come across a painting that will make me let out an audilble gasp or an "O myGod!" This one did it for me. I am afraid though if I could actually buy it and did I would wind up like Howard Hughes, just sitting in a chair and staring at my painting for months at a time until I died. If I had 15,000 dollars I would sure like to find out.

ROAD TRIP!

There's nothing like a road trip.
Left last Monday for Richmond Virginia to stop in at Brazier's. The reason I had to stop there was to pick up my art. They're closing! Son of a.... My goal recently was to get three galleries and I did and now I am back to two. So much for goals. Anyway, was a great gallery to be in and I hope I can find another like it.
After picking up my art, drove on to Lewes Delaware for the Saturday night opening for new artists at The Peninsula Gallery, my new one. Between Brazier's and Peninsula I had four days to paint.
There are always tons of new things to paint when you are in a new area. You run around like a kid in a candy store the first day just trying to get your bearings. I had followed the snow storm of last week up the east coast so everything was covered in snow. Even the beaches! I had never seen that before. The weather also changed dramatically over four days. The first day I painted it was about 10 degrees and the last day I got sunburned in around 78 degrees.
Spent a half a day over in Easton Maryland gallery hopping. If you ever get to Easton the South Street Gallery has some wonderful work that is in the genre I prefer, the representational landscapes and plein air work. There was a guy named Tim Bell that had some stuff in there that was just incredible.
I also got to paint with another painter named Lisa Phillips. She is trying to get started as a plein air painter after years of painting murals. She accompanied me a couple of days and I got to do a demo! My first. If she stays with it there is no reason in the world she won't be a very competent plein air painter.
The landscapes there are beach scenes on one side with agriculture for miles in the interior. It's big flat farms that were covered up with geese. I spent most of my time in the Henlopen State Park and the Primehook Wildlife Refuge. Lots of wetlands at Primehook and beaches in Henlopen. About the second day the temps that morning were around 20 degrees. I painted along the Broadkill River which is actually in the tidal marsh. (See painting above) As I walked in the temp was low enough that the mud was nice and frozen and it was like zipping along on a sidewalk. While I painted apparently the temp crossed the freezing mark and what was this wonderful sidewalk become gumbo. Slickest thickest mud I have ever walked in. I had to get about 150 yds. back to the truck and it took forever.
Saturday night had the opening party at the gallery and met some fantastic artists and the gallery owner, Tony Boyd-Heron, and his wife. Right as I was leaving I found out that he retired from the British military after 26 yrs. in the service of HRH the Queen. Everybody's got a story.
After the Saturday night party at the gallery got up Sunday and made it back to Tennessee. Great trip with great people and great landscapes. Where to next?

Mix, Apply, Repeat

This is one of those paintings you do when the clock is running and you have to be somewhere so you just jump out and paint very intuitively. Not a lot of over thinking everything.
I was in Bell Buckle last week and had about an hour and a half before I had to pick up my daughter. I knew of this farm because I had painted there before so I drove like a maniac to get there and jumped out and started slinging paint. The faster I painted the more I enjoyed it. I think sometimes I tend to get caught up in the details and can belabor some of the areas of my paintings when I should just mix the value and color, apply, and move on. I catch myself going back and screwing with areas I probably should have left alone.
Anyway, everytime I paint here the guy that owns the farm shows up and we catch up with each other. It's kind of funny because when he pulls up it's almost like seeing an old friend when in reality I have no idea who he is.

Big Stars

Went to the Cheatham Wildlife Management Area yesterday and painted an area that I used to duck hunt in. The season is over so there is never anybody in there this time of year. The only person I saw was a crappie fisherman who wanted to know if I did portraits, don't ask me why. He put his boat in right by me and putted around the trees you see in the painting and disappeared.
Painted again this morning with Plein Air Nashville in Leiper's Fork. I tried my hand at the barn you see covered with these giant metal stars. Due to time constraints I had to weed out quite a few stars. They are all over it. I didn't have the patience or the time. When I started there was a nice horse trailer parked in front of it that I drew in and started to paint when out steps the owner with his horse in tow. He loads the horse, hooks up the trailer and leaves. So I erased the trailer and drew in the stars and the side of the barn. As soon as I had blocked in the painting Mr. Greenjeans showed back up with the trailer and parks it where it had been before. I didn't have the energy to draw it again. Enjoy the stars.

Radnor Lake Show

This is one more piece I did last week for the Radnor Show the Chestnut Group is having to benefit the Friends of Radnor Lake. The show will be Thursday night the 16th of April at 6:00 and Friday, Saturday and Sunday the 17th, 18th and 19th from 9:00 in the morning until 6:00 in the evening. It's going to be a great show for a great cause. If you have never been to Radnor Lake come one of those days and make it a hike/artshow day. It's a great place to kill an afternoon.

Larger Paintings

Typically what I do to get a larger painting is pull a small painting I have here of mine and copy it, maybe changing a few things I didn't like about the original.This is my latest and you can compare it to the painting I used in the December 19, 2008 post. Painting larger has been a goal for me but I tend to be vasillating with my goals at times. It seems like life gets in and changes your circumstances which in turn may alter what you need to achieve at any given moment. I keep up with a painter named Stacey Peterson through her blog and she was a chemical engineer before becoming an artist and she appears to have a very analytical way of setting her goals, revisiting them from time to time, and staying on point. I never seem to have this real concrete target of where I want to be, say, at the end of the year. I just paint and work as hard as life will let me and hope to have made ground at the end of the year. When I do try to set goals, I realize I can't control what happens a week from now much less a year. There is so much that bombards our lives, outside circumstances that keep you re-adjusting so often you get off track. I think that is why it works for certain people, they stay on point. Stacey Peterson seems to stay on point.
Oh, and if anybody out there has tips on photographing work, share. It is a constant struggle for me. I am thinking about investing a little money to try and set up a small booth with lighting but then again, I am not sure what light will give me the closest color. The color above is atrocious and I even corrected it a bit in a software program.

New Personal Record

I have been painting at Radnor Lake quite a bit recently because I am chairing an art show that the Chestnut Group is having that is a fundraiser for Friends of Radnor Lake. Last week we had some incredibly cold weather and last Thursday evening I painted in about 10 degree weather. However, the following Friday morning I met Dawn Whitelaw and Erin Jones for a winter paint-out in about 5 degree temps.
The girls walk the walk.
Years ago when I started duck hunting I realized the only way to actually enjoy it was to spend the money and buy the winter wardrobe complete with every technological breakthrough in outdoor clothing you could afford. When I have it on I just can't get cold. I was much colder on my November 10 2008 post in about 45 degree weather. But these two looked like they had a few layers of cotton with coats and uninsulated boots and they stayed. Erin got there before me, finished one, and then did another while I was there. I was pretty sure Dawn would stay because she's like a painting Terminator, she won't stop. But I wasn't sure about Erin.
I have to say I was impressed. We all earned a plein air merit badge that morning and afterward Erin and I enjoyed the best hot coffee I have ever had at our local Starbucks. Now if I could teach these two to duck hunt they would be unstoppable.

"I'm Sorry, It Just Doesn't Match My Drapes...."

This is a piece I did back in November right after Thanksgiving. It's just a blown down tree but with the light just right I had to give it a shot. It's one of those things that when you paint it you wonder if it is marketable or will a gallery want it or will somebody want it in their home but ultimately you have to paint it regardless of it's marketability because if you just paint the things that you believe are marketable it will ultimately show up in the quality of your work. You have to paint those things that "move you" or "you connect with" or any one of those other flakey cliches that describes what you love to paint. I think that may be one more in about 10,000 reasons I like what Richard Schmid does. In a recent magazine article he said that his proudest accomplishment was that he always painted what he wanted and he wasn't driven by the market. And in his book Alla Prima, one of the nicest paintings in the book is a blown down tree.

I know this actually dosen't have anything to do with fine art but I wanted to share and the reason there is no title to this post is that I have no words to describe it.
I went duck hunting over the past two days in a little spot in the road called Holcomb, Mississippi. We were hunting a farm that consisted of about 90 acres of rice fields. I have been hunting ducks now since about '86-'87 and if I get to the field to hunt and count, say, a hundred ducks, I have had a great day. It is rare to see clouds of ducks that blot out the morning sun.
When we got to the fields Tuesday morning the sky filled with THOUSANDS of ducks and geese.THOUSANDS and THOUSANDS. The most impressive thing was the sound. From about a half a mile away when this many waterfowl take off it sounds like a train or distant thunder. It was one of those incredible moments that you were glad you had the privilege to experience.

Back in the Groove

I don't know about ya'll but the holidays throw me off. The schedule becomes terribly chaotic and it makes it hard to get out and get anything done. My painting was very sporadic and blogging ceased entirely. But school starts tommorrow and the groove is coming back.
Over the holidays the house was usually full of little girls. We had the two Vietnamese girls, Tram and Nikki, that stay with us on weekends and holidays. For those of you who don't know, the oldest is the roommate of my oldest daughter at Webb School and the younger one is her little sister and a freshman there. They are 5 day boarders, so they are with us on the weekends and holidays. Add to that 4 girls that my youngest had over the week of New Year's and the 4 my oldest had fly in that she goes to the Duke University T.I.P. program with each summer. They do a good job of staying in touch each year and this was the first chance they had to get together away from the T.I.P. program. They have a lot in common and from all appearance they had a great time together. Needless to say, with shopping and Christmas the week before, and then the house full of girls New Year's week, productivity at Kevin Menck Fine Art has reached an all time low. However, like I said before, school starts tommorrow and productivity should get back to pre-holiday levels.
Also over the holidays I picked up a third gallery. It is in Lewes, Delaware. I have been to Lewes and it is a very high end weekend get away place and it has tons of old east coast village charm. It is a beautiful area that I hope to get to paint in more often now that I have an excuse. The gallery is the Peninsula Gallery there in Lewes.
Alright, now let's go painting.

Tennessee Christmas

This to me is what a Tennessee Christmas should look like. Too bad we had it this past week instead of Christmas. Maybe we'll get another one on the 24th.
If I don't post again, Merry Christmas everybody.

OMG

Oh my God, indeed.
I feel like I am standing in a room full of people and I am in my underwear.
I typically would not show my first attempts at plein air painting because of the quality. They were a horrible mess and I feel exposed, but there is a reason.
When I see other people start to plein air paint and their first attempts are a bit short of what they expected and they feel that they "don't have what it takes" or "no talent" or any other reason they can't, I try to convince them to be patient. Trust me when I tell you this: everyone starts at zero in plein air painting.
I too thought I would just step out there and start cranking off gallery quality paintings left and right. It has been a long gradual process. Talk to any other artist and they will say the same thing. Their first attempts were horrible and they have painted thousands and thousands of paintings that the general public will never see to get to where they are.
The paintings I have posted here were done in the first summer I started painting which was five years ago. I had no idea what I was doing and for the first three years plein air painting would just whip my ass and send me home to think about what else I could do with my life. The first thing I learned was there are no magic brushes, panels, palette colors, workshops, schools, etc., etc., that are going to make you better or teach you how to paint. It is all just equipment and information that YOU have to learn to apply and the only way to do it is paint. Paint everyday. Over and over and over. Make thousands and thousands of mistakes. Each mistake is a lesson that no one else can give you. I found that for me it was a very organic process. I just crammed my head so full of it and painted so much that I was actually just along for the ride. Your work changes and you get better and you' re doing things you couldn't do before and it snowballs and gets bigger and you wonder where it will go in 5-10 years. I remember asking John Budicin what he thought he would do with his art next or where he wanted to be in, say 5 years, and he said,"I have no idea. I never planned any of it. I just go where it takes me."
So keep painting. You may be suprised where it takes you.

Painting in Gray Weather

Painted on Swan Creek a lot last week because we seemed to have had a lot of gray weather lately and the creek always has nice darks and lights when everything else gets kinda' flat and gray. Anyway, another creek painting.

Beavers

I haven't blogged in a while and I think it may be due to the weather this time of year. From Thanksgiving to the last of December is my favorite time of year to be outside. I deer hunted a little around Thanksgiving and have been trying to paint when not hunting.
The coolest thing I have found lately is this great big beaver lodge on Swan creek. In all my time wading streams and creeks and ponds and lakes, all the float hours I have spent on the river, I have never seen a beaver lodge. It looks like it might be about the size of a large Jacuzzi and I would love to be able to peek inside but am afraid I would be mauled by a family of 40lb. beavers and my bones would wind up as construction material in their lodge.

Fall

We finally got some good color in the trees and it has just about come and gone already. I think it may have peaked last week and now they are beginning to fall, rapidly. It seems like it goes so fast.

Confined

I know it's a bad attitude to have about studio painting but all I can think about is the weather clearing and getting back out.
We have had rain and it has given me time to work in the studio. Ya' know, I knock it quite a bit but it too is a tremendous learning experience. There are techniques and things I can take my time with in the studio that I couldn't do afield. Ways I handle paint, experimentation with tools and techniques, and nice careful thoughtful drawing. I guess ultimately anytime you are painting whether outside or in it is actually good for you as an artist. So here's to studio painting! Now if the sun would just come out...

Brrrrrr

Had a pretty stiff cold front blow through yesterday with a very constant north wind. I had gone out to paint in the morning but was not prepared for the drop in temps or the wind. I can paint in most conditions but the wind is just aggravating, especially a cold one. Anyway, I got this done yesterday afternoon in overcast, cold, windy conditions. I usually get some pretty funny looks from people when they pass but yesterday they were looking at me as if I had lost my mind.

Cheekwood

Painted with Plein Air Nashville this morning at Cheekwood and had quite a turn out. The most I have seen in a long time. This little painting would be much, much, better had SOMEbody not dropped a tripod on it.
I picked up the latest Art of the West magazine the other night and there is a layout in it titled,"Winter Wonderland."The first painting in the article is a Cyrus Afsary, followed by a Len Chmiel, a John DeMott and on to a Richard Schmid. By the time I got to the Richard Schmid I could feel my rods and cones shutting down from too much incredible art that they were trying to filter through to my brain. I am a sucker for a winter landscape and these are some doosies. I think Richard Schmid is the best at making trees "barky", rocks hard, snow soft, clouds airy, and on and on. Giving an object its inherent qualities that make it unique. You can tell what kind of tree, the softness of a flower, the age of a barn, the coarseness of a fabric through a suggestion of texture and those beautiful lost and found edges. Even though it's just paint applied to a 2-D surface you can "feel" everything in the painting, from temperature to moisture in the air. Awesome.

Autumn Colors

The fall colors I have been waiting on have arrived, I just don't remember them being this late. Maybe I'm wrong but I thought it was usually in October a little more.
Painted in Normandy again. Painted at the TWRA Fish Hatchery and again at the farm in the previous blog "On a Back Road". That farm is slowly becoming one of my favorite places to paint. The lay of the land with that farm at the other end makes some beautiful compositions.
Had a guy pull up though, and ask me if I "was a survey'n?" I said,"yep" and he said,"what fer?"I said,"a mall."
The depth and the length of the silence was stunning.
I finally snapped him back to reality by telling him there would be no mall and I was a painter.
Again, stunned silence.
I explained to him what I do for a living and I honestly believe it would have been easier to convince him a mall was coming.

Bells Bend

Bells Bend is a jewel. It is an area that is about 20 minutes from downtown Nashville that is still very rural. It has remained this way because the citizens that live there have worked hard to keep it that way and it's geographical location is in a deep bend of the Cumberland river that only allows one way in and one way out. It is truly a paradise of culture and landscape. I have painted there numerous times and have only begun to scratch the surface.
And then along came the developers.
I am not sure what in a person can make them look at this and see massive urban sprawl sold as "new green development" when it just boils down to the destruction of more and more of what makes Nashville unique. What it amounts to is the destruction of quality of life in the area. WE DO NOT NEED ANOTHER MALL, IDIOTS!
Anyhoo, a giant urban area with malls and office space and I am sure some condos and residential called "The Maytown Center", named after the family who proposes this, is being pitched to the city. The folks in Bells Bend have started a massive campaign to get it stopped. This Saturday they had a day of activities in the area to really showcase how special the area is. It started with a paint out followed by classes and workshops at the Bells Bend Park nature center, food and crafts and organic food vendors at the Scottsboro Community Center, and a canoe and kayak float on the Cumberland with all of this followed up that evening with a concert by Nanci Griffith with a s'mores cookout at the campground. I stayed for the Nanci Griffith concert and was impressed. She is very good and has written a ton of hits.
Having said all of that, we had a great day with perfect weather. Had a good group of painters out and picked up a few we don't normally see. I got three done and took in a concert.Yeah.
I wish the people that live in the bend the best of luck getting this stopped. For selfish reasons because it would be one less place I have to paint but more importantly it would be one more place for my grandkids to paint.

On a Back Road

Found this farm a while back but never made the effort to stop until this morning. It is somewhere between Normandy and Wartrace along the Duck River at 3 Forks Bridge. It was a beautiful fall morning and everything just clicked. I love it when that happens.

A Gaggle of Painters

Painted this morning with a group. Roger Brown and Beverly, Brett Weaver, Gary Young, Erin Jones, and myself painted at Radnor Lake. Weather was perfect. It is not often I paint with a group (except Plein Air Nashville) but I actually enjoy it. It's not that we learn a whole lot from each other or even talk that much. When the painting starts it gets incredibly quite. It is actually a very solitary pursuit. I painted with Anne Blair Brown once and when we were leaving she said,"I enjoyed watching you paint from afar." The interaction was "good morning"...paint...paint...paint..."good bye." I think I enjoy it because you are with like minded people, people who appreciate the work, dedication, and effort that we all put into this and they know what it means when you say the word "struggle".
The other painting of the cornfield is at Derryberry's and it is the first 10x12 I have ever painted. I ordered a bunch of 10x12 panels from Sourcetek to give it a try and give myself a new compositional challenge. Not sure how I like the format yet, will keep you posted.

October

This was done Saturday evening after the cemetary painting that morning. It was the same cornfield in my previous blogs and yes, by the time I left it was full of "critters". For whatever reason, we have had very little color in the trees so far this year. Typically by now the woods are ablaze. I am not sure if it's late or if it is going to happen at all but it has been a very brown fall so far. It's hard to believe it's already the end of October.

Boo!

Plein Air Nashville painted in the City Cemetary to get in the spirit of Halloween. If there was such a thing as ghosts I would be in the City Cemetary. The stories you could get there would be awesome. It is full of the first settlers in Davidson County. The most notable one I saw was the first settler James Robertson and his family. Apparently, Davy Crockett is in there somewhere but I didn't find it. There is just too many there to see them all and still get off a painting.
I have painted in cemetaries twice now and it is very difficult painting. There are no large masses. It seems like every direction you look it is tons of little shapes and pieces and values and lots of drawing. The painting I did has been simplified and you can see there is still a million little planes and value changes. I suppose you could do a very intimate, small area of maybe one tombstone or something but some of the other ghosts might feel slighted and the last thing I would want to do is piss Davy Crockett off.

Bovine

I don't get the chance to paint cattle much because they never hold still in the field long enough. If I do paint them they are usually just kind of a suggestion of a cow or I paint in the studio where I can spend a little time with the drawing.
Had some studio time this week so I painted cattle. Had trouble with the anatomy a bit because the cattle proportions have to be pretty accurate. If you miss them slightly it quickly becomes a goat and if you miss them far enough, a big dog.