June!

For information about the Plein-air Workshop in Holland, please visit  www.donaldjurneyworkshop.blogspot.com   
 

June Workshops

There will be two 2-day workshops in June 2014: June 7-8 and June 28-29.
They will be held in the vicinity of Newburyport, MA. The actual meeting place will be emailed to students on the Thursday before the weekend class.
Classes begin at 9 a.m. and run til noon. There is a one hour break, and class resumes at 1:00 p.m. and runs til 4:00 p.m.

Because the class is taking place in New England, you may want to bring a selection of layers with you in your car. If the weather is really deplorable, we'll meet at a studio in my studio building in Amesbury, MA. 

The cost for the class is $160.00. You may mail your fees to me at 9 Strong Street, Newburyport, MA 01950. The class will fill in the order that students register. Should a class fail to gain 6 students, the class will be cancelled and your fee will be returned.

Looking forward to painting with you!
Donald
 

Weekend Workshop

For information about the Plein-air Workshop in Holland, please visit  www.donaldjurneyworkshop.blogspot.com  

It's Plein Air Time!

Several of you have told me that you're having trouble getting going again. Well let's have some peer pressure to get us all back on track.

Donald Jurney, Evening in Spring, 1982, 20"x30"(?)

Okay, who's in?
May 17-18, 2014
Rough Meadows Sanctuary
Rowley, MA

Regular students have asked, so let's start with a weekend
workshop at Rough Meadows.
We'll meet at 9 a.m. on Saturday, May 17th, and paint until 4 p.m., with a break between 12 and 1 for lunch, a walk, etc.
This session will be mostly grisaille, and students are encouraged to make more than one.

Day two, Sunday, May 18th, we'll also started at 9 a.m. and paint until 4 p.m., with a lunchtime break. We will paint in full color today.

If you'd like to participate, please write to me at dbjurney@verizon.net 
The class will fill in the order in which I receive the registrations. The fee for this two-day class is $140.00. You may send a check to me at 9 Strong Street, Newburyport, MA 01950, but please make sure you notify me immediately of your interest, by email.

For those of you have not studied with me in the past, you will find my palette in this blog post. Since you are unlikely to have all these colors in your kit, bring what you normally use.
I suggest you bring a number of surfaces, preferably not smaller than 8" x 12". 

Depending on the weather, you may want to bring insect repellent and sunscreen.

Here is a link to the Rough Meadows site
Here's a link about paintings of Spring
 
Hope to see you there!
Cheers,
Donald

Walrus

For information about the Plein-air Workshop in Holland, please visit  www.donaldjurneyworkshop.blogspot.com 

The Time has Come the Walrus said...!

It's plein air time again, finally. And so it's time to work out some classes. I'd like to do a combination of two-day weekend workshops and single day classes. 

Additionally, I'm thinking about a five-day workshop in either the Hudson Valley or the Berkshires...or both.

What I need now is to hear from you about what YOU would like to do.

As you probably know, there will be a workshop based on Alkmaar, in the the Netherlands, 4-12 September. There are a couple of places remaining.

If my Norwegian correspondent has her way(!), there will be a workshop in Summer 2015, in Norway, based on Egersund.

So, for now, let me know what you'd like to do. Just send me an email, dbjurney@verizon.net

Cheers,
Donald

 

Headlands

For information about the Plein-air Workshop in Holland, please visit  www.donaldjurneyworkshop.blogspot.com


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 Headlands

I thought I'd send along a photo of the painting currently on the easel. It's taken with my phone, and is blurry, but I think you'll get the idea.

As you can see, although it's a made-up place, I was being influenced by some of my earliest heroes, John F. Kensett and Sanford Gifford.

Here's a detail of it, a couple of days in.

I'd also been thinking about an old painting of mine, from the '80s.

A friend bought this one, protesting, to no avail, that it should be less expensive since it has no horizon.

Hope all are well. For those of you on Instagram, you can find me there at @donaldjurney . There are now almost two-hundred paintings there.

Cheers.
 

Workshop in Holland!

 A Dutch Workshop !

 

4-12 September 2014...get ready!

This workshop will consist of nine days, including five days of painting, one day for a museum visit, and two free days. The two free days (on which you may sight-see, paint, or do whatever else may appeal), and the museum day (where I will accompany the class to talk about the work we'll see), will be scheduled once we are in Holland. This will enable us to have some flexibility with the weather.

Cornelis Vreedenbergh

 The specific locations within Holland have not yet been decided, but will be shortly. It is my hope that we will paint both in villages and in the countryside. We may also paint one day in town.

 Royal Talens, the maker of Rembrandt oil colors, has suggested that they would be interested in being of assistance to us in Holland. Their U.S. rep, Kyle Richardson, has mentioned some interesting things which we will discuss further.
As of now, we have a quorum for the trip, with a small number of additional places available. Please let me know immediately if you would like to join us.

Cornelis Vreedenbergh

My workshops are different from some in terms of arrangements. The tuition fee of $790.00 covers only tuition. In order to be registered, you must send a deposit of $395.00 at the time of registration. 

This deposit will be non-refundable after 1 June 2014. The balance of tuition ($395.00) is due not later than 15 June 2014. 

Checks should be made to Donald Jurney, and sent to Donald Jurney, 9 Strong Street, Newburyport, MA 01950. Your registration will be promptly acknowledged by email.

Note
28Jan2014---The workshop is filling. Please communicate immediately if you wish to join.

W. C. Keith (American)

Transportation to and from the Netherlands, car rental, accommodations, meals, travel insurance, and other incidentals are the responsibility of each student.

Anton Mauve

Many students combine workshop trips with other travel and we've found that allowing students to make their own reservations for transportation is best. Likewise, students seem to have different ideas about what they would prefer in terms of lodging, etc. Thus it's proven most satisfactory for students to suit their own needs. If you should wish to share a room with another student, let me know and I will put you in touch.

Claude Monet

I will be sending out some accommodation ideas and links to registrants in the near future.

Willem Tholen

Regarding car rentals: public transportation in the Netherlands is very good. Our inter-city travel will be done by train. But for local travel into the countryside, cars will, regrettably, be required. If you would like to share car rental expense with other students, please let me know and I will put you in touch.

Johannes Vermeer

At the moment, Icelandic Air is offering a fare of $925, roundtrip, Boston to Amsterdam, via Keflavik.

P. J. C. Gabriel

Lodging prices cover a large range. It's possible that Royal Talens will be able to get a special rate for us. I will notify registrants as soon as this is determined.

Materials lists, equipment lists, etc., will be sent to registrants as soon as their deposits have been received.

I look forward to painting with you in September! Please don't hesitate to write if you should have any questions (dbjurney@verizon.net)

Catching Up

What's Happened Since Then,
and a REMINDER...

Before Christmas, I left you with this image, the then-current state of the the painting that changed its orientation and its subject.

It's had its moment or two on the easel since then, mostly occupied with adding rocks, ledges and working on the water and sky. Here's where it is at the moment. I couldn't get the color right, and I'm in a hurry, But this will give you some idea.

(That's the sun). 

The detail, below, will give a sense of the color (tho' not so purple). You'll see that it was pre-sun.

On the subject of monkeying with old paintings, here's one I fiddled with today. It was, originally, as flat as a pancake. Today it seems to have gone out West. In fact, a follower on Instagram, who should know, says it reminds him of central Utah in August. Who knew?! It's a phone shot----sorry! (24x30").

December 20th found Todd, Nick, Tom Bailey, and me out painting at Maudslay.

I came away with this 20x16". A good time.

Most important, though, is a
REMINDER
about the new 3-Part Demonstration. It starts this Friday (10 January) and continues for the next two Fridays (17 & 24 January).
The class runs from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., and is held in the building where my studio is located: 14 Cedar Street, Amesbury, MA
It will be held in Studio # 101, on the first floor. The cost is $60.00 per session. If you need a scholarship, let me know.

For those of you not familiar with the class, I paint a painting in three sessions, from my imagination. This week's canvas is 50" x 60". As I go along, I tell you about why I'm making the choices I make, and show the various routes I take to find a painting on the blank canvas. It's a lot of fun. 
Non-artists, who have an interest in the creative process, are encouraged to come. Last session, we had six or eight "lay" people.

Time is fleeting! If you'd like to come for some or for all, let me know as soon as possible: dbjurney@verizon.net

See you then!
  

Trying to find an Answer

A Fresh Start

This is a quick post about what happened in the studio today.

I pulled out of the cupboard a 20x25" canvas that I began at the Vermont Workshop in June 2012. Since that time it's been languishing around the studio, but it was brought into service this autumn for a session of the Dead Paintings Society. I re-worked it some, changing it several times in the process, for whatever educational benefit it might have.

Today, casting about for a surface on which to paint, and not wanting to stretch a canvas, I decided that the Vermont painting needed to give its life for ART. 

Although I failed to take a photo before I started, there's enough here to bring back painful memories for any of my students who were there.

I flipped it into a vertical.

And added the yellow ochre, baryte yellow, and secret yellow sky and its reflection.

What I was most after was a mood. Most of you know I like to keep the painting entirely in play until my imagination is fired by something within the rectangle.

Above, you will see that I continued the reflection, and added a temporary "shoreline" so I would have a reference point.

At this stage, I've put in a bit more color, and made some streaks in the sky. I've wiped out the area in the lower left, thinking about putting in a near shoreline or bank.

Now there is some more activity in the sky and a reflection in the water. The distant hill is more filled in, as is its reflection.

Finally, I filled in the hillside and its reflection, and built a rocky foreground. 

This is where I stopped. I'm not sure what will ultimately be the "subject" of the picture in a conventional sense.   For me, the subject will be the mood.

Try this at home.