Filed under: Art News
My exhibit of plein aire paintings of Hamilton County parks is over, although some of them are still on display in a case outside the gift shop of the Sharon Centre. Many were sold at the show, but some of my favorites are still available.
I had first experienced experienced the pleasures of painting en plein aire a few years ago, although over the course of my life I’ve done the odd watercolor during my travels. Six years ago I participated in a painting workshop in Wyoming with the Susan K. Black Foundation, and bought a French easel and found that I really enjoyed painting en plein aire. I haven’t taken it seriously until my project with the County Parks. That project got me outside with my easel at least once a week over the course of about 10 months. My term as Artist In Residence at Pictured Rocks in September sealed the deal. Spending an idyllic 3 weeks painting in beautiful places made me think a lot about doing it a lot more. Since my return, I turned out two more paintings for the Hamilton County exhibit, and a couple more at the large cemetery & arboretum, Spring Grove Cemetery, just a stone’s throw from my house.
Being able to sell my paintings done en plein aire definitely affects my desire to do them. I do, after all, make my living with my art, so it isn’t just about what I enjoy doing the most. At first I wondered if there could be a market for these paintings done in an afternoon. After all, my signature style has always been a very tight, highly detailed photo realism. These paintings could take several weeks to complete, and cost thousands. Especially in this economy, it is hard to sell big expensive paintings, so the 9×12 and 11×14 paintings selling for a few hundred have gone pretty well. The fact that they are fun to do, and are usually done in a beautiful spot (as opposed to my cramped studio) also fans my desire to do them.
Our local landscape just doesn’t excite me as much as the shore of Lake Superior. I suppose anything new is always more interesting, but it really is more scenic up there. Of course, if you really look, there are paintings almost anywhere you go, but the fact remains that some landscapes are just more interesting than others. So, I hope to travel more with my easel. My stint as Artist In Residence at Pictured Rocks has inspired me to look for more national parks with A.I.R. programs. I will look west and south of Ohio. Everglades National Park is another spot with which I have been familiar a long time. The parks of southern Utah’s canyon country are also high on my list.
Since I am not a winter-tolerant person, I’ll be spending more time in the studio as our weather deteriorates. My scratchboard drawings are calling me…
Filed under: Art News
My exhibit of plein aire paintings of Hamilton County parks opens this Sunday, October 18th. There will be a reception from 1-4 pm, where I will be doing a demonstration painting. The opening is at the Sharon Centre in Sharon Woods Park, on Rt. 42 south of I-275 East. (north of Cincinnati) The show will remain open until October 25, 10am-4pm.
I’ll be exhibiting some of my plein aire paintings from Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore along with my paintings of our own Hamilton County Parks.
I hope to see you there!
The Lake at Miami-Whitewater Forest, 10 x 20 acrylic on panel
West Entrance, Miami-Whitewater Forest, 11 x 14 acrylic on panel
"Buckeye Falls, March" 11 x 14 Acrylic on panel
Wetlands Trail Meadow, Glenwood Gardens 11 x 14 acrylic on panel
What a way to experience a national park. Doing “plein air” painting in wonderful natural settings is just an incredible way to really soak in the essence of a place. I just finished 3 weeks as Artist In Residence at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore (in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula), and it feels as if it has been burned into my memory. Staring intently at a scene for hours, deconstructing it in your mind and reconstructing it in paint is a good way to make a pretty firm visual memory of a place. I also experience and visualize places through photography, but it is just not as complete a way to incorporate a place into yourself as painting can be.
A day at the office. Working on Au Sable Creek
We were provided an old farm house as housing, and were quite comfortable. My normal way to experience a national park is by camping. That can be a lot of fun, but there is a lot to be said for a kitchen, a shower and a bed at the end of a long trail. Maybe it’s because I’m edging toward the far end of my fifth decade that the ground just isn’t as comfortable as it used to be. Maybe it’s the modern conveniences in the kitchen. Anyway, this trip might have spoiled me. I’ll be applying to more parks.
Home, sweet home during my stay at PRNL
My typical set-up, with a chair and my French easel. Nice view from my office, don't you think?
Being comfortable, well fed and well rested probably boosted my endurance. I’m usually ready to head for the barn after a week or two in a tent, but I gladly spent the entire 3 weeks painting happily on a trail somewhere in the park. It was just idyllic. The park staff kindly provided perfect weather, and everywhere we looked there were paintings waiting to be done. The commute to work every day began in the car, but quickly switched to trail or kayak. Traffic was generally light. Typically, I’d find a spot and sit down to paint while Pat took off on a trail. She covered over a hundred miles during my 3 weeks of painting. After Labor Day, we saw so few people out in the park on trails or beaches that it began to feel like our own private park. It’s true that I normally pick out of the way spots so as to avoid people while I work. It is not so much that I am annoyed by people talking to me, but it is an interruption of limited time. When people do talk to me, I often continue working, which might appear rude to some. Painting in spots that keep me isolated allows me to concentrate more fully, and remain “in the zone” if there is one for painters. The one disadvantage of working in isolated spots is the increased chance of surprise wildlife encounters. Having a bear look over my shoulder while I’m working would be a bit disconcerting, although my usual encounters are more benign and welcome (not that I don’t like bears). I’ve been visited by otters, eagles, deer and other fascinating creatures. Sitting quietly in one spot is a great way to see wildlife, as many hunters will tell you. After a long day in the wilds and after supper, we’d head back out for an evening on the beach watching the sunset, or listening to the coyotes and wolves singing at the rising moon. When the moon waned and disappeared from the evening sky, we could see the Milky Way in its full glory, and even our nearest galactic neighbor the Andromeda Galaxy, visible without a telescope (2.8 million light years away!). It was a hard job, but…
Sunset on Lake Superior
The Milky Way, a 30-sec exposure
The results of my artistic efforts were mixed. I was pretty happy with about half of the 12 paintings I produced in the 19 days of work. Paintings of stones, a successful studio series inspired by Pictured Rocks, were not so successful as plein air paintings. I did better with landscapes and water.
On September 23, I gave a program to the public and park volunteers. I displayed the paintings I had finished during my stay, and lost my best efforts to sales and a donation to the park. This is the eternal curse of the artist; having to repeatedly sell your favorite children to make a living.
My commute to work, traffic was light.
My "studio" at Legion Lake. What a way to make a living.
"The Coves" 14 x 11 acrylic on panel
"Au Sable Creek" 11 x 14, acrylic on panel
"Au Sable Point" 11 x 14 acrylic on panel. A misty gray morning on the point. That's the lighthouse poking above the trees in the distance.
I had one scratchboard drawing, “New Guinea Crocodile,” in this year’s “Art and the Animal,” the annual show of the Society of Animal Artists (scroll down to “Shows This Summer” for an image). I was honored with the “Patricia A. Bott Award for Creative Excellence.” Thank you, SAA judges!
I seem to be doing well with scratchboard drawings (this is my second award from SAA for a scratchboard). Perhaps the competition is thin in scratchboard because few people have the patience for extreme tedium, uh, I mean detail.
Filed under: Art News
I was honored to be chosen as this year’s Artist In Residence at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I’ll be there September 3-23. If you’re in the neighborhood, pay me a visit. I’ll be painting at various places around the park. At the end of my stay I’ll do a talk about my work and travels, and I’ll have a show of the paintings I do in the park (Sept. 23rd, 7PM, @ park visitor center). Of course, I’ll post some blog entries while I’m there… if I can find wi-fi!
Pictured Rocks is one of my favorite spots (See “Chillin’ On The North Shore,” February, 2009), and has inspired lots of paintings. The masthead of this blog is a painting of the lakeshore at PR. Here are a few more:
"Little Beaver Lake" 11 x 14 acrylic on panel (plein air)
"Superior Beach" 5 x 11 acrylic on panel
"Beach Pebbles" 10 x 10, acrylic on panel
Filed under: Art News
I was juried into the annual shows of two wildlife artist groups that I belong to, the Society of Animal Artists’ “Art and the Animal” opening at the Rolling Hills Wildlife Adventure in Salina, Kansas,Sept. 5-Nov. 1, 2009, and the Artists For Conservation show, “The Art of Conservation,” opening at the Hiram Blauvelt Art Museum in New Jersey, Sept. 16-Dec. 20, 2009. Both shows will tour, check the organizations websites for details.
www.societyofanimalartists.com/exhibits.html
http://www.natureartists.com/
"Greater One-Horned Rhino" 16 x 22 acrylic on canvas. This one will be in AFC's "Art of Conservation"
"New Guinea Crocodile" 8 x 10 scratchboard. Will be in the SAA's annual show
Filed under: Reptiles & Amphibians
We’re well into froggy season now, and we’ve seen our second batch of bullfrog eggs. For some reason, both the Bulls and the Greens seem to prefer to breed in the 2 x 4 x 2 koi tub instead of the big pond. There are fish in both the pond and the tub, so go figure. What really puzzles me is how the frogs find the tub. The water is not visible from ground level (the tub is 2 ft high) and there is no water noise of any kind. It doesn’t seem like instinct would lead one UP to water. They must either be able to sense the water, or they just explore a lot and found it by accident.
The frogs have been especially noisy this year, which hasn’t bothered the neighbors as far as I know. The bullfrogs can be quite loud at times. When the males are singing, they puff themselves up with air like a balloon so that they float high on the water. When they call, the air transfers from their inflated lungs into the ballooning throat as if an invisible hand was squeezing him like a balloon. While in this inflated condition they seem to be especially agitated, charging and barking at other frogs. Ahhrummm!
An inflated male Bullfrog. This is a stereo photo. Cross your eyes slowly and merge the images to see it in 3D!
The eggs develop very quickly, hatching tiny black tadpoles in about 3 days, but it takes two years to get from egg to frog. Right now, I have tadpoles morphing into frogs in the big pond, survivors of eggs laid in 2007. There are several dozen little frogs visible at any time, and big tadpoles frequently rise to the surface. The big bullfrogs are getting fat by eating little frogs, but every year I see a few that survive to sub-adulthood. Out of the thousands of eggs laid each year, only a couple will survive to produce the next generation. In a larger pond, the tadpoles would have slightly better odds, but the percentage of survivors in nature is always low. This selection for survival keeps the frogs healthy and the population at a sustainable level.
New Green Frog eggs
Developing into tadpoles...
Filed under: Insects
I was outside last night, staring intensely at M29 through the telescope eyepiece, when I became aware of a familiar rythm eminating from the woods…Katydids! This is the first time I’ve heard them this year. At their peak, they can become almost deafening in the night, the entire forest pulsing with their calls. I love it. Their name comes from their call, which some folks think sounds like, “Katy did, Katy didn’t.” Those who have grown up in the west or in a big city, may have never experienced this incredible sound event. The entire forest seems to pulse. When you have thousands of these really loud critters calling together, to me it sounds like a raspy “Shhh-Shhh.”
Katydids are members of the Tettigoniidae, or “Long-Horned Grasshoppers,” although they are more closely related to crickets. You can tell them apart from grasshoppers by the length of the antennae, which in Katydids are longer than the body.
The False Katydid of the eastern USA. A decent leaf mimic.
Despite making such a prominent sound on summer nights, they remain inconspicuous visually. There are some good reasons for this: they live high in the forest canopy, rarely come down to earth except to lay eggs, and they look just like leaves!
I love cryptic animals, and the katydids are real pros at being inconspicuous. Our own common katydid, abundant in Eastern forests, is a pretty good leaf mimic. It is green, and its wing covers even sport veins and other leafy features. However, it is completely outdone by the tropical katydids, which have had more time to evolve cryptic features. Not only do some have perfect “leaves” as wing covers, complete with veins, the leaves also have insect holes, fungus spots, and lichens.
This is a grasshopper pretending to be a cryptic katydid. Photographed in Borneo
Not all katydids are cryptic, some going the route of intimidation rather than concealment. Looking like psychedelic bikers with multi-colored spikes and armor, these tough guys are willing to literally fight for survival. Watch out, they bite!
It’s no surprise that katydids go to such lengths to avoid becoming dinner. They are the main course in their habitat, the forest canopy. They are like the cows of the canopy, grazing on the abundant greenery, and becoming the food for canopy dwellers like monkeys, birds, and lizards. Everybody wants to eat katydids (they ARE pretty tasty!), so they have some pretty extreme selective pressure to develop camouflage or defensive weapons.
A leaf mimic katydid from the Peruvian Amazon
This tough guy will kick your butt if you try to eat him. Ouch! A Katydid from Peru
Another tough-guy katydid from Peru. I like the pink horn and stripe. A Unicorn Katydid?
"Harvest Time" 10 x 8 acrylic on panel. A Carolina Wren is about to harvest a Katydid.
Coelophysis, detail from a mural for the Riverbanks Zoo
I’ve been a snake guy as long as I can remember. Well, that’s not really true, dinosaurs came first, then lizards, and THEN snakes. That’s the same track many reptile lovers have followed. Dinosaurs fired the imagination as a youngster, followed by the realization that living reptiles are just as cool, if not quite as big. My first pet was a Green Anole, a real dinosaur in my 7 year-old imagination. I still love dinosaurs, and have made several paintings of them.
Deinonychus, a detail from a mural for the Riverbanks Zoo
Snakes are really special animals, however. They have that reptile “coolness,” an aspect that says “danger!” the same way a gang-banger might try to say it by looking tough. Many snakes even have a supraocular scale that gives them a wicked look, as if they’re frowning. Combine that with the use of venom and swallowing their victims whole, and you have the perfect attractants for adolescent boys. As we mature, we begin to appreciate other snake qualities, such as their beauty (both subtle and outrageous)and amazing adaptions for life without legs.
The first snakes I kept were Northern Water snakes, readily available in Ohio. Then came Garter snakes, Black Rat snakes, and the holy grail for young snake catchers in my neighborhood, the Eastern Milksnake. By the time I was about 13, I got my first exotic snake, a Columbian Rainbow Boa.
"Brazilian Rainbow" 20 x 15, acrylic on illustration board. Collection of Paul Beaver
I paid $15 dollars for it at a local pet store. My dad helped me build a cage for it, a wooden box with a glass front and screened vents. I worried over it for about 2 months because it wouldn’t eat. One day after returning home from school, I went to my basement corner to check on the snake, and was astounded to see a squirming mass of baby boas and afterbirth! My Rainbow Boa had 17 babies, all live born. I was, of course, thrilled. They all had a spot and rosette pattern like the more exotic Brazilian Rainbow Boa. The mother was essentially plain brown (but very iridescent). At about 12 inches long, they needed baby mice (pinkies), which wasn’t always easy for me to get. I started trading the baby boas for other snakes. I did keep a few that I raised to adulthood and kept until I was in college.
The next several years saw an enlarging collection of snakes. I began working at the Dayton Museum of Natural History (Now the Boonshoft Museum) as a high school Junior Curator, and took care of the Museum’s live snake display. I had visions of becoming a herpetologist. As I became acquainted with sources for exotic snakes, I began to covet the venomous ones. They were extra-cool. Not only were some really extraordinary in appearance (like the Rhino Viper), they were dangerous.
A Speckled Rattler, photographed in Arizona. A cryptic beauty, but snappy.
Teenage boys love dangerous stuff. I bought by mail order some fairly dangerous snakes that I kept hidden under my bed or explained away as a harmless venomous snake look-alike. I was very lucky and was never bitten. I also had a little training by some of the older staff at the museum, watching them handle the museum’s live Copperheads and Timber Rattlers. I never tried to actually touch my “hot” snakes, using hooks or tongs to transfer the snakes to a secure box before cleaning the cages.
I eventually got on a track that took me into a career in museum exhibit design and then fine art, instead of becoming a herpetologist. I usually point to Algebra 3 as my turning point from a career in the sciences to one in art, but it probably had more to do with growing up with artists for parents.
"Buddha's Protector" 20 x 15 acrylic. This cobra is modeled on one that I kept for years. Collection of the Artist
It took many years to outgrow my desire to keep deadly snakes, but I never lost my fascination for them. Perhaps was the realization that I make my living with my hands (definitely at risk in a bite), and the arrival of a baby in the house. While living in Florida and Kentucky, I was able to observe venomous snakes in my own yard, without having to keep them. There were Diamondbacks in my Florida yard, and Copperheads in Kentucky. Other folks might be pretty upset about this, but I was thrilled.
A Western Diamondback in Arizona
A sidewinder, photographed in Arizona. My favorite rattlesnake.
I still love vipers, cobras, rattlesnakes and all the rest. Whenever I travel to places where these animals live, they are highest on my list of desired sightings. After growing up reading the adventures of famous herpetologists, it has been a thrill to see rattlers in the Arizona desert, Fer-de-Lance in the Amazon, cottonmouths in southern swamps, and cobras in Borneo.
The dangerous ones will remain my favorite snakes to paint. They offer a measure of drama just because of their dangerous potential, and many are quite beautiful. Some are beautiful in their cryptic camouflage, and others are outrageously colored, such as the coral snakes or the African vipers like the Rhino viper and Gaboon viper. All of them have that special something that appeals to my inner 15 year-old.
A Fer-de-Lance, photographed in the Peruvian Amazon. I searched the rainforest for this snake, finally finding one beneath our lodge.
A Cottonmouth in the Everglades that I rescued from certain death on the main park road
"Diamond In The Rough" 11 x 20, acrylic on illustration board. This snake lived behind my house in Florida. Collection of the Artist.
"The Feathered Serpent" 15 x 20, acrylic on canvas. There is a joke hidden in this painting, but you have to be able to read Mayan glyphs to get it. Collection of Mary Huels
I actually haven’t painted all that many snakes, despite having a reputation as a herp artist. Really, only a handful. Perhaps it’s because they are incredibly difficult to paint well, or maybe it is the limited market for snake art. If you know my art, you know I like to do detail. Detail on snakes means lots of scales, and in specific patterns and numbers. Not only that, but the scales change in perspective as they go around the snake’s curves, and they change in how they overlap each other depending on if they are on the inside or outside of a curve. This is very difficult and tedious to re-create. It is not so simple as drawing cris-crossed lines as we did when we were kids. Still, I’ve pushed my way through a few snake pieces, and will likely do more in the future.
Filed under: Art News
Painting outdoors is a relatively new thing for me. While I have painted a handful of watercolors on various trips, I had never attempted an acrylic or oil painting outdoors, on location, until recent years.
Cinnamon Bay, Virgin Islands 10x 12 watercolor 1994
Back in 2003, I was awarded a scholarship to the Susan K. Black Foundation’s art workshop in Dubois, Wyoming. I bought a French easel for the occasion, as we were supposed to do a lot of painting outdoors. It is a somewhat awkward contraption with a box and drawer on folding legs, with a tilt-up adjustable easel.
My French Easel in Sycamore Valley
As other French easel caretakers know, they are prone to coming apart, losing hardware and splitting seams, especially at inopportune moments. It is a bit awkward to carry for long distances, but I am going to fit mine to a backpack frame for use in the U.P. this summer, when I will be Artist In Residence at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. In Wyoming I once had to weigh the thing down with rocks so that it didn’t sail away in the stiff breeze.(Some suppliers actually sell rock slings that hang underneath and provide stability). Despite the difficulties with equipment, and more often the environment, there is something addictive about painting outdoors. Sitting by a beautiful wilderness lake for hours, a gentle breeze keeping you comfortable, wildlife passing by, and gazing intensely into nature’s beauty is a great way to spend an afternoon, and then you have that nice painting to carry home. When you actually sell the work that results, it is a fabulous way to make a living. Of course, reality isn’t always so wonderful. There are always the duds you can bring home… those paintings that seemed like a great idea when you started, and fizzled gradually as you worked. Then there’s the bugs that like to do their best to distract you. Mosquitos buzzing in your ear, gnats in your eyes, etc. I once tried painting under a mosquito veil in the Amazon, but the visibility through the netting is problematic. Bugs even get in your paint. Ants in your paints, and in your pants is a reality in the rain forest where ants seem to be the dominant life form. But like any outdoor pursuit, you put up with a few discomforts for the greater good.
Double Cabin Creek, Wyoming 8x10 acrylic on panel. Be sure to keep looking over your shoulder for Grizzlies!
Being a studio painter most of my life, I was used to using mostly photo references. Painting from life is an entirely different experience, especially outdoors. I am forced to work quickly, which is usually a good thing. I have a tendency to bog down in detail, and lose sight of the overall image. When working in a quickly changing scene (the sun moves all the time!), you don’t have time for extensive detail. So, I rough everything in, add detail in representative areas, and then back in the studio I finish it out. Sometimes. Occasionally, I find that I don’t need or want to add anything when I get back home. Many plein air painters adopt an impressionistic style, and some of my compatriots have chastised me for being too detailed. “Loosen up, John!” they say. I tell them they need more discipline.
Looking Into Mexico 9 x 12 acrylic on panel
Currently, I’m engaged in a project to paint en plein air, Hamilton County Parks. In the links to the left, you’ll see “Parks Plein Air, which is a chronicle of each of the paintings I’ve done so far for this project. I started last February and add new ones as I finish them, and will continue until October 18, when I’ll have a show of the results at Sharon Woods Center, in Sharonville, Ohio. I still have a lot of parks to visit. I should have a pretty comprehensive list by the time I’m done, although I’m skipping the golf courses and boat docks and sticking to natural vistas. Here are a few examples of what I’ve done so far:
Winton Woods Backwater, April 11 x 14, acrylic
West Entrance, Miami-Whitewater Forest, February 9x12 acrylic
"West Entrance, Miami-Whitewater Forest, June" 9 x 12 acrylic on panel
