Imagination
Yesterday my friend and fellow artist, Todd Bonita, asked if I would do a demonstration for the Tuesday plein air class he teaches. The forecast was for rain and Todd secured the use of the Barn Gallery in Ogunquit.
I had a 16" x 20" (40x50cm) panel (my Claessens linen stuck to Gator board). On it was the aborted start of a demonstration from my Savannah workshop in 2013. It seemed like it was time to paint over it.
It's sometimes a bit disconcerting to make a grisaille over an entirely different painting. Which marks belong to the old painting and which to the new? After a bit, though, the old image recedes and the definiteness of the new image asserts itself.
Because I've been painting all the recent 8"x12" panels at Rawson's Neck and Rawson's Point, the sea was much on my mind. I had no reference but decided to paint a painting of the rockbound coast of Maine from imagination.
Here's what I did. The photo is a bit over-sharp and a bit contrasty. There is actually a sky in the painting, but here it's blown out by over-exposure. Still, it will give you the idea, and I told the students I would post it.
I still need to refine the rocks and to work on the water. But I think there is already a sense of the bright, glary light that I wanted.
There was a 'school' of painting called the 'glare aesthetic' at the end of the 19th century. An oft-cited example is by William Lamb Picknell (American, 1853-1897). His painting The Road to Concarneau was bought by the Corcoran Gallery in 1880 when Picknell was only 27. It may be of interest to Essex County readers to know that in his later years Picknell lived at Annisquam.
I've been unable to immediately find the dimensions for it. But I remember seeing it at an exhibition held at The National Academy of Design, in New York. It was very large---my guess being that it was six or seven feet wide.
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Classes:
Weekend Workshop 28-29 June 2014
Contact me about this dbjurney@verizon.netWeekend Workshop 28-29 June 2014
The Ogunquit Summer School of Art
Ogunquit, Maine
Two two-day workshops
14-15 August 2014
27-28 September 2014
Contact them at 603-819-9100
Holland
4-12 September, Alkmaar, NL Contact me about this dbjurney@verizon.net
Toronto
6-10 October 2014
Contact me about this. dbjurney@verizon.net
Norway
August 2015
Contact me to receive information as it
becomes available. dbjurney@verizon.net
A possible 2015 workshop for the
Welsh Academy of Art
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