New work, step by step paintings, and painting how to tips from my teaching experience

The first afternoon's painting session of the painting retreat in the Ghost Ranch area presented some challenges for a plein air painter. The sun was repeatedly in and out of the clouds. This was a big challenge, but there was a reward at the end. Keep reading to see what I mean.

 

We went to the Chama River not far from Ghost Ranch in Abiquiu to a pull out along the river called Big Eddy. It was a beautiful view with sand colored cliffs rising from the water. It gets its name from the eddy in the water that is around the bend behind the rocks. There were trees sprinkled along the cliff's rim, but one tree was larger and stood off by itself. This captured my attention.

 

I set to work on my painting and at first all seemed to be going well in spite of how complicated I thought the rock cliffs were. Then the clouds started moving and the sun was in and out. At times, the background hills were lit up. Other times they were in shadow with the rock cliff highlighted by the sun. Sometimes parts of the cliffs were in sunlight and parts were in shadow. I couldn't decide which light I wanted to incorporate into my painting. It was constantly changing and very different from the light when I started. It's not a good idea to be undecided about the light. Oh, this was challenging! After a while, I decided not to torture myself any longer. (that's what it felt like!)

 

Above left is the painting as it was when I gave up on it in the field. When I arrived home, I decided to try to resurrect it and I made some changes. I added more darks to the cliffs and changed the shape of the tree on the rim. I also added more reeds and grasses on the bank in the foreground to make it more like the foliage I saw. Below is the result after a little work in the studio. It's better now, but perhaps not terrific in comparison to some of my other Ghost Ranch/Abiquiu area paintings from the trip.

 

Big Eddy on the Chama 8 x 10 Plein Air Pastel

© Lee McVey

 

I moved my easel several feet to the right and faced a different direction looking at the rest of the cliffs. The coloring of the cliffs on this end were a darker brown. Immediately, I knew what I wanted to paint and what the focus of this new painting would be. I worked fast and furious because I knew the other artists were starting to pack up. The light on the vertical cliffs and on the bushes at its base with the dark brown of the rest of the cliffs were what I wanted to capture. I felt like I hit my stride with this painting that was lacking in the first one of the afternoon. I think this one deserves to be made into a larger painting.

 

Both paintings are done on 400 grit Uart paper mounted onto museum board. I used a direct pastel application with no wet or dry underpainting. My second painting is below.

 

Chama River Cliffs

8 x 6 Plein Air Pastel

© Lee McVey

Painting retreats are a wonderful time to do some plein air painting without the distractions of home. Going away and staying overnight for a few days, especially in an area where cell phone coverage is spotty, offers a great opportunity to become totally immersed in your art work.

 

There are few better places to have a painting retreat than Ghost Ranch in the area of New Mexico where Georgia O'Keeffe lived and painted. There are rock cliffs colored yellow, cream, and orange. Some of them have what look like muffin tops that are a grayish color. Some have rock formations that look like chimneys. Other rocks are more completely rust and orange colored. The Chama River runs through the area giving another fascinating aspect to the landscape. No matter what time of day, there is a view that offers great painting possibilities. I was very excited to have the luxury of time away for nothing but painting and the camaraderie of good artist friends.

 

On the first morning of the painting retreat, a couple of us took a ride to scout out possible painting areas. We drove on a dirt road that paralleled the Chama River. Off to the north of the road were the cliffs with muffin tops. It takes a while to drive on a dirt road with several stops for photographs. By the time we scouted the area, the sun was getting higher in the sky so we decided on the views behind Piedra Lumbre Education Center. Too much sun was hitting the rock cliffs on the dirt road we had driven. The cliffs behind the Education Center, being at a different angle to the sun, still looked good. The yellow chamisa in the foreground added more interest.

 

At the upper left is my painting from the first morning as it was when I stopped for lunch. A minor drawback of staying at Ghost Ranch is needing to be at the cafeteria for their mealtimes instead of being on my own schedule. I probably would have continued for another half hour if it wasn't lunch time. When I returned home, I felt the shapes created by the yellow chamisa and the green junipers behind them mirrored each other too much. I made some adjustments in the studio. The shapes are still similar, but not as evenly mirrored. Below is the painting after a few tweaks.

 

Piedra Lumbre Cliffs 8 x 10 Plein Air Pastel

© Lee McVey

I like to organize things. So, when some friends suggested a few years ago that there should be an informal painting retreat at Ghost Ranch, I took the bull by the horns and organized one last year at a private area of Ghost Ranch. I just came back from the second painting retreat I've organized at Ghost Ranch, but this time we were unable to get the private area. I may make this an annual event because we all enjoyed it so much. The photo to the left is at Piedra Lumbre Educational Center, which is owned by Ghost Ranch, and the view I painted the first morning. Piedra Lumbre Educational Center is a couple of miles up the road from Ghost Ranch but has many of the same cliff formations.

 

Unfortunately, I had a bad reaction to some food I ate in the cafeteria and became sick the first evening. Somehow, I managed to paint the second morning, but then I became sicker. I was miserable and depressed this happened during the painting retreat I had waited all year for. The next day was our last since it was a just a 4 night, 3 day retreat. I was determined to paint if I could manage it. I was feeling a bit weak, but I did two morning paintings that last day, which may have been among my best during the retreat.

 

That afternoon before going out to paint, we had a show and tell of what we had accomplished so far. In spite of being sick, I had quite a bit to show! The photo below is me with my paintings. Not a great back drop wall, but the choices in the room we had were limited. The other choice would have had a mattress leaning on the wall, so I thought the table with the "mural" wall was the better of the choices.

 

 

As time goes by, I will post more of my paintings after some of them have some finishing touches. Most of them are just about complete and only need a few highlights or refined contrast.

Lately, I've been working in oil paint as much as I have in the pastel medium. Recently, I participated in a workshop taught by Dave Ballew in Santa Fe. The theme for the workshop was finding our artistic voice and focused being clear on the concept for the painting.

 

This workshop reinforced my knowledge of the importance of the concept for a painting, but I also took away something else that had been nagging at me. What is my artistic voice as an oil painter? Does my voice include thick paint or thin paint? The oil painting workshops I have taken with instructors Bill Gallen, Mike Lynch and Dave Ballew all stressed loading the brush with color and not skimping on paint. I love their paintings and their brush strokes are masterful. As much as I admire their thick paint paintings, it doesn't seem to be part of my artistic voice to use thick paint. "Never say never," Bill Gallen told me. So, for the time being, thick paint is not how I want to express myself in oil. I feel much more comfortable using thin layers of paint. Perhaps this is because of the way I work in pastel, using layers of pastel built up to create my painting.

 

A Soft Light was a studio painting from a reference photo taken on Route 68 near Pilar, south of Taos, NM. New Mexico experienced a lot of fires this past spring and early summer, producing atmospheric effects we don't often see. The day I took the photograph used for this painting, the smoke and haze was so thick I couldn't see the mountains that would have been visible in the distance. It looked very eerily beautiful and created a very soft light. A Soft Light is a 8 x 6 oil on canvas panel.

I wish I could remember what teacher said this: (paraphrased) "If something isn't working in your painting, maybe you need to take something out instead of adding something." It might have been Michael Lynch or Ned Jacobs. I heard this in a workshop I took with Dave Ballew instructing. It's a good piece of advice.

 

Sometimes I can be too literal in my choosing my compositions to paint, especially if I am working from a photograph. To the left is the photo reference I was using to paint Ghost Ranch Cliffs. I thought the junipers in the foreground would help lead you into the painting so I included them. Unfortunately, I neglected to photograph my painting with the foreground junipers, but the reference photo will give you some idea of what it looked like. I did move the trees around a little so they didn't look like one on top of another.

 

In a critique, it became clear that the junipers were distracting from my main concept, which is the light on the cliffs. The eye kept jumping back and forth between the light on the cliffs and the junipers.

 

So, when something isn't working in the painting, I decided to follow the advice of taking something out. I removed the trees in the foreground and I think it became a stronger painting.

 

This painting is done in oils instead of my usual pastels. In the beginning of using oils after a 30 year hiatus, I hated the wetness and the gloss. I'm getting more accustomed to it now.

 

I'm toying with the idea of doing this image again in a square format. What do you think?

 

Ghost Ranch Cliffs 12 x 9 oil

© Lee McVey

Many people give back to their community by volunteering their time in soup kitchens or in animal shelters or in various other ways. For me, I volunteer my time and energy to curating and organizing Open Space: A View with Room, and Little Gems, both fund-raising art shows to support Albuquerque's Open Space lands. The City's Open Space Division and Open Space Alliance acquires, protects, and maintains nearly 30,000 acres of land in and around Albuquerque for present and future generations to enjoy and provides a wildlife habitat that will not be encroached upon.

Along with the hikers, bicylists, and dog walkers, artists use these lands as inspiration for plein air paintings. I am always thankful these accessible and varied lands exist for us. Albuquerque artists do not have to travel far to find beautiful landscapes to paint. On the east side of the city we have mountains, in the center we have a bosque and the Rio Grande, on the west side of the city we have mesas and volcanoes.

 

For 6 years, I've been curating and coordinating a fundraising art show for Open Space along with my artist friends Marilyn Drake and Joshua Willis. We invite artists to show in the gallery room of Open Space Visitor Center and do all the work associated with putting on the Open Space: A View with Room show. Three years ago, in an attempt to open the show to more artists and give the public an opportunity to purchase very affordable artwork, we added Little Gems, a juried exhibit of artwork 6 x 8 and smaller. The artwork in each show celebrates and depicts the various open space lands owned by the City of Albuquerque.

 

Planning, organizing and putting on these two shows requires many hours of work and effort, but it is all worth it in the end. Each year the show seems to get better and better. It's a rewarding way to give back to my community and still have it be related to my art career.

 

                

                                           October Pinks  16 x 12  Pastel                                 Sandia Light  12 x 16  Pastel                                               

  both paintings © Lee McVey

 

As a perk to doing all this work, it was agreed Marilyn and I would be able to include our paintings in the show each year. Above are the two paintings I have in Open Space: A View with Room 2011.

 

The show is held at Open Space Visitor Center, Bosque Meadows Road, off 6500 Coors Blvd NW, in Albuquerque, NM and is displayed throughout the months of September and October. OSVC is open Tuesday - Sunday, 9 am - 5 pm. If you are in the area, do go see the show!

I think there is just nothing like painting out of doors. I love plein air painting. I enjoy being out in the fresh air, smelling the fragrances of any flowers and plant life around, hearing the birds sing, and seeing the light that can not be captured in a photograph. Even though I might complain about any bugs, or wind, or in and out clouds, plein air painting feeds my soul and I think I do some of my best painting outdoors.

 

I like working from photographs in my studio, too. I like being in a controlled lighting situation with no time constaints. I can carefully plot out and take my time with the composition. I like the leisurely pace and not having the pressure of needing to get my image down within a certain time before the light changes. But photographs have their drawbacks too. Photos distort perspective and darken shadows while washing out light areas.

 

To be a better studio landscape painter, it's best to have sufficient experience en plein air. Plein air painting experiences help you understand and overcome the difficulties caused by the distortions of the photograph. Just as I like the lack of time pressure of the changing light in the studio, I like having to work quickly because of the changing light when painting outdoors. That time constraint puts me into the mode of painting intuitively instead of slowing deliberating and carefully thinking about each mark. Intuitive painting requires lots of practice and experience. It doesn't come with one of two experiences. You have to have had enough experience working with the principles of landscape painting so you don't have to consciously think abut it; you just paint and all that stored knowledge and experience is interpreted intuitively as you paint.

 

The painting below was my first plein air painting after coming home from the McKinley workshop in August. Orchestrating the scene and leading the viewer's eye was my goal. I wanted to lead the viewer up around the water towards the city buildings in the distance. I may decide to make a few adjustments to this to make it fully complete to my satisfaction.

 

This particular late afternoon felt very hot and humid for being in the desert. The humidity might have been lower than what would be a clear crisp day in the northeast, but here in New Mexico, any humidity higher than 25% feels humid and sticky.

 

San Antonio Oxbow Overlook is one of Albuquerque's protected open space lands. You can see a painting I did of the Oxbow a few months earlier on a spring morning here. For the late afternoon painting, I wasn't standing in the same spot but I was only several yards away from the morning painting.

 

Oxbow Overlook, Late Afternoon

10 x 8 plein air pastel

© Lee McVey

I often enter juried shows of art associations and magazines. For some of these, the competition is fierce. Magazine competitions have thousands of entries and are often prejuried by the magazine staff before a group of paintings go to the jurors. Art associations usually have 3 jurors to decide the entries, but some will have one artist to jury and judge the show. The entries can number into the hundreds for association shows, which is still a lot of competition.

 

My reasons for entering are exposure, possible sales, possible awards, and if accepted, my own self jury/criticism of my work against other artists' paintings--how do I think my work measures up compared to the others in the show? This last reason may not be the best reason, but I know I am a perfectionist and always striving for better. Comparing my work to others is one way I do that.

 

Sometimes entering shows can add up to a lot of money by the end of the year when you factor in all the entry fees, handling fees, and shipping costs. For this reason, I  pick and choose which ones I enter.

 

I am a signature member of Pastel Painters Society of Cape Cod and I entered their annual show, For Pastels Only 2011. I entered two paintings, but only one was accepted. I can't let my ego get in the way of this. Autumn Golds, the painting not accepted, may just not have appealed to the jurors for whatever reason, or the competition was high and maybe my painting was at the cut off point, but on the wrong side of it. There are lots of possibilities for why. And the why really doesn't matter.

 

I can critique my painting to see if there are things that could be improved, but not getting into the show does not necessarily mean it is not a good painting and I have to remember that.

 

Instead, I'll focus on the positive aspects of this:

• I am happy to have Red Rock Shadows accepted. This same painting was rejected from another juried show.
• I feel delighted when I have a painting accepted into a show and celebrate this.
  
• On the money end, it's less expensive to ship one painting than two.
• There are probably many good entries that did not get in the show, so to have one of mine accepted is terrific.
• Maybe there is a possibility of an award or a sale. Who knows? It's possible.
• This is just one jury's opinion. Red Rocks Shadows was rejected from a recent show before being accepted into this one.
  
• Not getting Autumn Golds accepted will spur me on to paint better and in future paintings, find ways to make similar subject matter more attention grabbing. (I've already come up with some ideas on how to paint autumn apens in a more dynamic way)
  
• Sure, I am disappointed to not have both paintings in the show, but I know this is a very minor disappointment compared to most disappointments in life.
  

I'm sure there are more positive aspects, but these suffice to allow me to feel fine about not having both paintings accepted. If any of you feel dejected about not having work accepted into a juried show, I hope this post will give you another way to look at the jury results.

 

Here are the two paintings I entered:

                         Red Rocks Shadows  12 x 12  Pastel

© Lee McVey  

      Autumn Golds  8 x 10  Plein Air Pastel

© Lee McVey

 

For Pastels Only on Cape Cod 2011, a national juried exhibition sponsored by the Pastel Painters Society of Cape Cod

September 28 - October 15, 2011 at the Cultural Center of Cape Cod, 307 Old Main Street, South Yarmouth, MA 02664