Day Five - Avignon

Rhone River Walk
Oil on Linen Panel    6 x 8"

My first trip to France was in 2009. I took a workshop with two of my favorite people, artists and teachers, Brigitte Curt and Jim Smyth. Our group was to rendezvous in Avignon to rent cars and drive to our destination in the more remote villages of Provence.
My first night there I was alone, having spent a wonderful 5 days roaming around Paris before taking the train down to Avignon. I decided to take a walk through the city and just at dusk I came to the Rhone River. Just north of this area is the famous Avignon Bridge (Pont d'Avignon).
I took a bunch of photos of the bridge, cobblestone streets, steeples, and market area. Then I tasted the best gelato in my life!
I'll plan to continue my theme of all things French and share more about Avignon as I paint my way through my French travels.

A Week With Ovanes Berberian

I first met Ovanes Berberian in the summer of 2006. He is a good friend and mentor of Brigitte Curt whom I have known and studied with for several years. She and her husband Jim had spent many hours working with him through the years.
Before this I discovered his work and was in love with it so when they suggested to their classes that they should join them in Idaho for a couple of weeks I jumped on board. It was an amazing experience that changed me. It also was overwhelming and the weeks were intense. I hated my paintings, and felt like a baby learning to walk. Jim and Brigitte told me this going in, but they also told me that what I would hear and see at the workshop would continue to guide my painting for many years to come.
Last November I posted about my trip to Pacific Grove for a weekend of plein air painting with Ovanes. He was much more verbal in his teaching and my brain somehow was able to comprehend it better this time, so I decided to go back to Idaho.
Idaho is beautiful. The vast countryside and skies were begging for me to paint them. However we stayed in Ovanes's yard for a week of plein air painting of these amazing floral arrangements. If I could have I would have stayed another week or two. I was just getting started.
I returned last night from the twelve hour drive. My artist buddy Renee and I took two days and it wasn't all that bad. We decided it was better to drive so we could pack our supplies and it was the right thing to do. I'm ready to do it again!

Anyway, I wanted to post during the week but I couldn't get an Internet connection. The little motel we stayed in, the  South Fork Inn, did have it, but it was down for several days. I want to tell you about my week while it is still fresh in my mind.
The most important realization for me was what I learned about Ovanes. He was so passionate about sharing his love for making art with us it really touched me in a way I don't think I can describe. But somehow I felt that we share that passion. Only he has been able to disconnect from our crazy business that is such a part of our lives. I am right in the middle of it.
Just being in Idaho and away from the computer and the daily obligations of life gave me a taste of what it takes to really be in touch with creating art. It is something close to worshipping our God. I have never before been able to slow down long enough to understand this. I have read about it. I understand it and believe it, but today I get the connection. A wonderful book about this walk with God through creating art is written by a Pastor at my church, "Imagine That" by Manuel Luz.
http://manuelluz.wordpress.com/book/

I'll post more photos and my experience that last week very soon!

Hawthorne on Painting - More Good Stuff

New Painting - "Plein Air Garden, Paris"
Oil on Linen, 20 x 16 "
Available

If you read my blog regularly you know I am re-reading my "Hawthorne on Painting" book again. It is hitting me as though I had never read it before. Maybe I'm just ready to hear it this time.
Anyway, it if filled with so many tips about color and light that I feel I have to share.....

It is divided into sections and right now I am reading from the INTRODUCTION & LANDSCAPE sections:
INTRODUCTION:
pg 18 - Everyone knows what a man looks like, or a tree or a house, but it is our job to tell the world something about these things that it has not known before, some impression that we alone have received.
pg 19 - If you are not going to get a thrill, how can you give someone else one? You must feel the beauty of the thing before you start. Good painting is an excitement, an aesthetic emotion--reasonable painting destroys emotion. Painters don't reason, they do. The moment they reason they are lost--subconscious thought counts.
The only way to learn to paint is by painting. To really study, you must start out with large tubes of paint and a large palette and not stinit in any way as far as materials go. If you look into the past of a successful painter you will find square miles of canvas behind him. It is work that counts, experience in seeing color.
Don't try to be an artist all at once, be very much of a student.
pg 20 - Do studies not pictures. Know when you are licked--start another. Be alive, stop when your interest is lost.
LANDSCAPE:
pg 54 - It's the artist's business, the painter's job to point out to the public the beauties of nature.
Try to see them before you paint. Don't try to see a picture--go around and look at the subject until you see something, say in trees or houses, coming together, that inspires you. We do well the things we see already painted in our mind's eye--don't do it until you see it or you are defeated before you begin.
**Look at the view with your head sideways to get better relations, so that you get a sensation of the color spots rather than a perception of objects as objects.
pg 70 - Realize the value of putting down your first impression quickly.

**It seems like this works like squinting. Also Don Hatfield says to look at the value/color of what is next to the area you are painting in order to find the correct color/value. Very valuable information!

This is the way I want to paint. Some of the teachers I've worked with who talk like Hawthorne are Anita Wolff, Jim Smyth, Brigitte Curt, Ovanes Berberian and Don Hatfield. Wonderful painters all.

Palo Alto Baylands - wonderful painting spot!

Baylands Study 6x8"

Palo Alto is where my teacher Brigitte Curt teaches plein air classes. Allison and I went out yesterday and painted the Baylands, a wonderful marsh area by the little airport there off of Embarcadero Street. Brigitte and Jim have been teaching for 14 or so years in the area. They work as a team most times, and the knowlegde, compassion and passion for teaching shows and is very welcoming.

You must check out their websites:
http://www.classart.org/

http://www.provenceworkshop.com/

I was blessed to go to Provence last summer. I need to get out there and work on my skills with all the plein air opportunities coming up!

Baylands Study 2 5x5"