Venice Again

The opportunity to head for Venice happens every now and then, when life stops getting in the way and so it was that, earlier in the month, Sheila and I managed to get a week away.

Whilst not totally a painting trip, Mrs. C likes to do lots of other things besides watching me paint, I did manage to make oil sketches on every day that we were there. I call these sketches as they were done quickly as a means of gleaning information for studio work back home. A couple of early morning forays yielded the most interesting light conditions. one a really colourful sky and the other a soft light prior to some rain.

Surprises abound, not only in the discovery of new corners and meeting new people. One of the latter was a pleasant bit of fortune that had us meeting the wonderful watercolourist, Judi Whitton. Judi has just produced a book titled, "Painting Venice'. On discovering this I contacted her to order a copy, to find that she and her husband, Peter, were also in Venice. We arranged to meet and had a charming morning discussing the city and its joys for the painter. My friend Peter Ward has a review of the book on his blog, watercolourfanatic.blogspot.com

Pete and Judi Whitton

San Giorgio Maggiore - oil on gesso board 7" x 5"

Accademia View misty morning - oil on gesso board 7" x 5"

As ever, the city delighted and we headed home mentally preparing arrangements for our next visit.

Off on Holiday again

We are fortunate in that we have some friends who own a house on the shores of Lake Geneva and they offer us the opportunity to stay there. It is a stunning spot and I can usually sneak a few paints into the luggage. The two pictures are from our latest trip. Apologies for poor photographs and lack of cropping.

Oil sketches on gesso board 7" x 5"

More from Provence

A couple more from Provence. The garden of La Madelene had all sorts of interesting nooks and crannies as well as beautiful arrays of flowers. This little group of irises caught my attention and I had  to have a go at getting them onto board.

Irises at La Madelene - Oil on board 10" x 8"

We spent quite a bit of our week travelling out into the local countryside where all sorts of buildings and farm land made for arresting subject matter.

Old Farm Buildings - Oil on board 10" x 8"

Close to Home

After suffering the poor light and howling gale on Sunday, I arose this morning to look out of the window and see the sun. With nothing else to do today I decided that painting was the thing to do. The problem of today became apparent when I opened the door. Light there might be but the wind was even stronger than on Sunday.

The thought struck me that I had heard someone say that seeking subjects was not necessary and that painting whatever was in front of you could produce pleasant surprises. It just so happened that the front of our house provided some shelter from the wind and the light was producing shadows, so I set up just outside my front door and got down to it.

As reported last time I was making my first plein air expedition so I am still trying to get into shape. It's amazing how a bit of light makes you feel and today's effort was a positive step in the direction of making a decent plein air piece. Not there yet but heading in the right direction.   

Set Up - photograph

Hunter Terrace - Oil on canvas board 12" x 10"

First Plein Air of the Year

The weather in this part of the world has been so bad for so long that heading out to paint plein air has not held its usual attraction. Today I met a couple of painter friends and headed out to a local landmark, Penshaw Monument. For those of you with a little knowledge of North East folk lore, it is the place that the Lambton Worm wrapped its tail around, immortalised in the eponymous song. 

Speaking of the weather, the day was grey with flat light and a howling gale to cope with so the initial outing wasn't the comfortable day it might have been. Enough of the excuses, it was fun to be out again and though the result is disappointing I'm looking forward to the next day out.

Penshaw Monument - Oil on canvas board 12" x 10"

Maine Escape

I've just got the chance to write a few notes and post a few pictures in relation to this wonderful place, Maine.

First of all, I must introduce a fabulous guy and brilliant artist, Dan Corey. If you haven't seen his work, get him Googled. I met Dan in cyberspace some time ago in the land of Wet Canvas as I started posting early attempts in oil and early plein air work. Dan chipped in with helpful and encouraging comments and I was extremely flattered that an artist of his talent would take the time and care to help a novice like myself. We've been in touch ever since and it was with some excitement that, having planned a trip to his part of the world, I was able to arrange a meeting.

It wasn't just a meeting. Dan had offered to take receipt of some art materials that I ordered from a couple of suppliers in the State. He also offered to loan me some gear to use whilst on his patch. Our meeting took place at the weekly meet of the Plein Air Painters of Maine, a friendly bunch of keen artists who were working on a farm site near Boothbay. It turned out to be a great day, much conversation, plenty of seeing the techniques used in this part of the world and then a long chatty lunch after the rains came. We arranged to meet a couple of days later to paint together at Pemaquid lighthouse.

Mick and Dan

After all it is the Fall so instead of lots of panoramic shots, here is the essence of the season. In truth this year has been less than the best for colour but it is still spectacular and well worth the trip.

The Fall

Lighthouses are a fascinating feature of the Maine coastline and it's difficult to travel anywhere without being drawn to see them in their exposed positions. They also make good subjects for painting.

Owl's Head Lighthouse

More of this one later.

Pemaquid Lighthouse

This fellow was to be the venue for our little painting jaunt. Up early and out to catch the best of the morning light.

Dan with his morning's work

The rocks below the lighthouse.
Pemaquid Point

I also got out the brushes, a new bunch from Utrecht, and splashed the oil about.

Pemaquid Lighthouse - Oil on canvas board 12" x 10"

Another fine morning gave me the opportunity to use up a little more of that oil stuff.

Ocean Point - Oil on canvas board 12" x 10"

I'm afraid that's all I have time for this evening, Lobster Dinner is calling.

Mountain Stream

Sheila and I snatched a couple of days in the Lakes and I managed to pack some painting kit. A short walk from the road near Ullswater and I decided to sketch a stream as it cascaded towards the lake. The resultant piece is very unfinished but gives me a decent impression of the scene I was faced with. It would be possible to make some additions and bring out some more detail but that might reduce the immediacy of what was done on site. It could be worked up into a studio piece. Just delighted to get the brushes out.

Mountain Stream - oil on canvas board 12" x 10"

Short Walk

The wind died today so I was determined to get out for a short while and try something a little different. Last night I was browsing some of my art books and came across Judi Whitton's book "Loosen up your Watercolours". Regular readers will know that one of my hang ups is the fairly common response to tighten up as a painting progresses. So I decided that today would be a sketch book attempt to loosen up my work.

Durham is a favourite city of mine and I'm lucky enough to have the benefit of living just a few miles away. There are many stunning views in the city but none of the better ones have the Cathedral and Castle as absentees. So the river bank it was and the image below is today's effort to loosen my watercolours. I'll let you judge how successful I've been. I have my own views as to how it might be improved.

Durham - watercolour on Not paper 11" x 9"

Fresh Air

Yesterday provided the first bit of excitement for a while - a promising weather forecast. The gales were predicted to die and the sun was to emerge for those of us who like to get outside with our paints. True to their word the Met Office got it right, today dawned as foretold.

It took no time to pack the trusty pochade box, a few tubes of paint and head up the coast to one of my favourite stacks. Whilst a little bit rusty with the hog bristle and palette knife it was good to start working the oil paint for the first time in some months.

Now that the tubes have been squeezed I'm hoping that there are going to be a few more days like today so I can start to get my technique into shape.

Marsden - Oil on canvas board 12" x 10"

Back to Cullercoats

The weather is good and after returning from the Lake District I caught up with my old friend, Jed, and we set out for an afternoon painting. Jed lives on the coast north of the Tyne and there are lots of fine locations to inspire the painter. Cullercoats is such a spot and is well known amongst artists as it once had a thriving artistic community with luminaries like Winslow Homer working there.

Whilst Jed got out the watercolours and pastels, I decided to work in oil as there are a number of ideas I'm trying to drum into myself, not least depicting credible recession in my pictures. The biggest problem I have is producing the correct mix of paints to apply without lots of post hoc adjustment. As usual the viewers will be the judge of how successful this attempt has been.

Cullercoats Bay - Oil on canvas board 12" x 10"

Fish Quay

A welcome trip out with the other founder member of the Reformed Reprobates Painting Society to North Shields Fish Quay. After bacon buttie breakfast we headed onto the quay where I chose this view to paint. Actually there was a lot more in front of me than appears here, but I am trying to edit and simplify as I paint. One of my many faults is trying to get too much in a scene and destroying the immediacy of the piece by overworking. I haven't been too successful here but it's another lesson learned.

Otherwise a good day out and an evening listening to wonderful Irish music with another of our pals who we are determined to recruit to our little painting team.

Fish Quay - Oil on canvas board 12" x 10"

Another Irish Memory

A great holiday with some great people and also the opportunity to make a couple of pictures. This is the second, a view up the lane from the house where we stayed. In the far background, the Reek (Croagh Patrick), a constant in Mayo. Again, it could be improved but maybe a little progress again with better recession and a little more vibrant colour.

Along the Lane - Oil on canvas board 12" x 10"

Drumcliff

Just returned from a relaxing week in Ireland attending a music festival and sharing time with family but also managed to get in a bit of painting time. After my last post I felt the need to get outside and try to improve my plein air work, but as is often the case finding the time in a decent painting spot with consistent lighting is very difficult. The last PA work suffered from my lack of consistent decision making about what lighting I wanted to depict. Again I think this work suffers from similar inconsistency and unsure decision making. However, I think there is a bit of improvement in this piece, particularly in terms of establishing back, mid and foreground. So hopefully a bit of progress this week.

Drumcliff - Oil on canvas board 12" x 10"

First Plein Air of the year

Much as I love painting in the outdoors, since returning from our travels I've not been up to standing at the easel in the cold as the old back has been playing up so getting out in the last couple of days has been fun. Yesterday I headed up to the entrance to the Martindale Valley in the Lakes and stopped at a point with a view back along the lake.

As I remarked in an earlier post, getting a start again after a while away doesn't make it easy and this piece suffers from a lack of confidence and hurrying back for lunch before making the adjustments that it requires. So for better or worse here it is. It would be good if you feel able to point to ways to improve this.

Ullswater - Oil on canvas board 12" x 10"

Backhouse Park

After a few weeks without much opportunity to dip into the turps I managed a couple of hours in the local park hoping to produce my autumn masterpiece. Foolish me. What a struggle? Whilst not my usual subject matter I thought lessons learned elsewhere might aid the process but to no avail. Choosing such a complicated scene without simplifying and editing sufficiently well did not help the progress of the piece. However there are signs that some of the lessons along the way have not been totally forgotten. I am starting to achieve better feelings of depth in some of my work. Painting is like many other activities, the more often you are able to do it the more comfortable you are with the tools. Moral - get out more often and if not possible to get out then paint indoors.


Backhouse Park - Oil on canvas board 12" x 10"

Sea Stack

The coast round these parts has a lot of stacks that stand like sentinels facing the North Sea. They have all sorts of interesting shapes and this one has a hole right through it creating an arch. As regular followers will have noticed, it is to the coast that I go most often when I get time to paint and I am very fortunate that there is such good subject material close at hand. The challenge, of course, is doing the wonderful sights some sort of painterly justice. Once again the visit coincided with dull, flat light, for me a painter's nightmare as I try to develop my work on colour, values and knife technique.

I am discovering that the knife is a great tool for rendering rocks and am delighted that it is starting to fit with one of my favourite subjects. Don't know if I'll get out again this week, but I'm going to have to get my watercolour kit in shape as I've got a place on a course starting on September 6th, but more of that in a later post.

Sea Stack - Oil on canvas board 12" x 10"

Tan or Notan

After a couple of days scouting around the North Norfolk coast it was off to the Norfolk Painting School for two days of the most intense thinking and practice that I've ever had. The title of the course was 'On Location' and was to be a mixture of working both outside and in the studio.

As is usual with Martin's courses there was to be a healthy mix of theory, demonstration and practice. We began by looking at a variety of works by masters and asking ourselves how they worked as paintings. Then on to look at ways of recording for the purposes of preparation for studio painting, using sketches by people like Turner and Constable as exemplars. Here we were urged to see the difference between Mass and Line and asking ourselves where and when each technique is appropriate. The end of this session was to grasp the usefulness of the Notan as the basis of ensuring that we had an arrangement of elements that would produce a coherent composition. We all produced a series of notans in response to a picture of a cathedral depicting how we would select a method of presenting the basic elements in light and dark to make a pleasing picture. Below are a set produced by Martin, showing a range of options in terms of lighting and shadow.

Notans - Martin Kinnear

Our next task was to give some thought to rendering scenes by applying paint in a simplified way but using the same underlying principle - outline the way the final image will be presented.

The next two pictures show different approaches to another cathedral picture.

Durham - M. Kinnear

Durham - M. Carney

Martin then demonstrated how the most complex scenes could be reduced to simple working sketches, but more of this later. It was now time to head outdoors. The venue for our afternoon session was Burnham Overy Staithe, a fascinating small village on the coast with typical Norfolk creeks, rapidly changing water levels and lots of boats. A place that would test us in terms of simplifying the scene in front of us. Our object was to produce working studies for future use. The group was small, three students, and we all produced at least four oil sketches that could be used as the basis for further paintings. Interested passers-by stopped regularly to comment on the mounting body of work being produced and laid on the grass at our feet. An intense session with lots to think about and criticise.

The two panels below are indicative of the work that I did. They show a similar view but the second demonstrates a different degree of decision making in terms of how I saw potential in the scene before me. The second will be the source sketch for a studio painting, hopefully started soon. Hopefully there is a greater feeling of light in this interpretation.

Burnham Overy Staithe 1 - Oil on MDF panel 11"x 9"

Burnham Overy Staithe 2 - Oil on MDF panel 11" x 9"

Back to Norfolk - Part 1

Fortune strikes from time to time. Sheila was to head off to Lancashire for a reunion with friends from college days. The fortune lay in the fact that there was a course at Martin Kinnnear's Norfolk Painting School taking place the same weekend so I enrolled and had the benefit of a couple of extra days in the area. My first two days there were spent looking around the fascinating range of creeks, bays, beaches and little harbours scouting out venues for future painting expeditions. Of course the opportunity was not lost to unload the paints and have a go.

Readers will know that recent weeks have been a bit difficult and that I have been trying to assimilate some of the lessons from friends in the on line community as well as reading the works of some eminent paractioners and teachers. What a way to get confused. Never mind it's all churning around inside and hopefully will emerge fully formed in a 'Carney' style at some stage down the line, although reading some of the greats would seem to suggest that I may not live long enough to get there. Nevertheless the journey is fun and stretching and keeping me thinking.

The two paintings below were done whilst investigating the North Norfolk coast and were put down in fairly short order, more as a record than as completed works, although both will be used to inform other work. More of that later.

Scolt Head - Oil on canvas board 12" x 10"

Morston Creek - Oil on canvas board 12" x 10"

The next post will be based on the work done at the Norfolk Painting School.

Confusion Reigns

Haven't been able to get out this week, that is until today. I'm posting this largely as a way of venting my frustration with the day's effort. Went up the coast to my usual stretch of cliff and set up. The cloud cover was already in and I decided on an approach that would push the colour and attempt to make the foreground jump with colour as a means of creating recession. You can probably guess that the lack of painting time this week has meant an excess of thinking time and that I've built up a little checklist of the things I intended to achieve on this, my next outing. I'm afraid that it turned out formulaic but not just one formula in play. The lack of light had me struggling to give appropriate form to the cliffs and I got hung up on introducing each and every colour that I convinced myself I could see, then decided to tone some of them down. Just goes to show that the thinking and planning is best done with the subject in front of you and being able to make choices in light of the prevailing conditions.

Desperate to get a positive out of proceedings, I lighted on the fact that I was able to produce a real range of colour from my limited palette of Indanthrone Blue, Naples Yellow, Venetian Red and Titanium White. I'll keep plugging with it for a while longer.

Souter Cove - Oil sketch on canvas board 12" x 10"

Limited Palette

As promised last week I had decided that I needed to give some thought to a number of issues relating to my plein air practice. Preparing properly ensuring that I had enough paint mixed needed to be addressed as well as the sequence of applying paint. Having made up my mind to do it I selected a demonstration piece from a Kevin MacPherson book as the vehicle to pull some of these ideas together.

The approach adopted required a number of things: limited palette, definite sequence of activity and gradual refinement.

The palette advised consisted of Chromatic Black, Burnt Sienna, Yellow Ochre and Titanium White. Prior to starting I prepared my palette by creating a whole series of secondaries and adding varying amounts of white to them so that I produced the best greens, oranges and purples that were possible. Having laid these out it became easier to see where the painting might go. After toning the canvas and sketching the outline I blocked in the shadows and put in the darkest dark and lightest light. These were the values against which all other tones would be judged. After that it was a case of putting in the main colour notes. Then, working all over the canvas, the colours and shapes were refined and adjusted.

Whilst not totally successful in terms if the finished piece I found this to be a real learning experience that will inform my future practice. Following the whole sequence made it easier to make judgements during painting, in particular having created the palette of colours in sufficient quantities prior to starting. My next project will involve using the 'mud' left on the palette to underpin the creation of the palette that I use.

MacPherson Demonstration - Oil on canvas board 12" x 10"