Pleinair Painting

Cold Wax and Hot Messes  I love trying new things. Typically I do it when I'm feeling stale and bored with my work. It's hard to be a full time artist. One would think it's nothing but play, but that's far from the truth of the matter. The truth is, I have to hit a home run about 99% of the time because I'm commissioned and the client expects nothing less. So being "creative" kind of goes out the window. I have to paint in the way I know will give me a winner. That's why I love plein air painting so much. If I'm not doing a competition, I can paint whatever I want to in any style I want. I can even mess it up so much that I feel like it needs to go in the trash bin. That's what we all need to do now and then not only as artists, but also as people. It's ok to really mess up. Or to play in the mud knowing you're going to come out at the end with mud on your face.  So I tried a new medium called "Cold Wax" for my oils. Wow, what...

   If you're a painter you've probably tried a clayboard at some time or another. I did it yesterday. They were on sale...so I decided to try them out. I've heard people rave about the amount of detail you can get with them. Since I was painting an organic farm with lots of interesting plantings...I decided now was the time to give it a try. It was the most frustrating material I've ever worked with! The paint slid around on the surface not finding anything to cling to. Lines were impossible and detail was even more impossible. Also the adjacent colors were picking up each other and blending into a terrible muddy mess. After two hours of struggling...I took a turpentine rag and wiped the whole thing out! The last time I wiped out a painting was about 15 years ago. I was so downcast. After sitting there for a few minutes in front of the beautiful little building I was trying to paint...a little voice inside my head said: "Other people use this board and come out wit...

Say Hello to Summer on the Treasure Coast where the sun feels like it's twenty feet away and you need a shower after ten minutes outside. Believe me when I say: "I'm not complaining...just explaining." It's amazing here with the right mindset. Who said the temperature had to be between 68 and 74 to be acceptable to humans? What was the weather like when we didn't have air conditioning? It was the same. When I was growing up we went to the lake cottage for the summer. There was no air conditioning there. In fact I don't think we had air conditioning in our house in town either and the furnace wasn't all that great either. But on the lake...it felt cooler. Why? Because you were on water that was cooler than the air and there was an abundance of trees shading the grounds and there was usually a cool breeze. When you are in a city...there's a lot of concrete and few trees and no breeze because the buildings block it. And no cooling water.  So it's ...

  Some things you do without knowing you are going to do them. That's how I ended up in Florida three months ago. It's a long story, so I won't bore you with it. But I will say that if anyone had told me four months ago that I would be moving here, I would have laughed at them. There are no regrets. Life here is unlike anyplace I have lived. There are no mountains, and I kind of miss that. But with no mountains, you have a clear view of the sunrises and the sunsets. Your horizon is always visible. And after 2020, I like the fact that I am able to see the horizon.  Nothing is hurried here. There is no reason to speed anyplace. When I see the odd car rushing past me or riding my bumper when I'm going the speed limit, I know they are not from here. If they stay here and let the heat sink into their bones, they won't be speeding for long. There's always enough time to get done what needs to be done. And people help each other out down here, so it's not a lazines...

THE COVID HOLDING PATTERN  I've logged several thousand air miles in my lifetime. And during those miles, there were many hours spent either on the ground waiting to fly or in the air waiting to land. The worst, in my opinion were the hours spent circling and circling in a holding pattern over the city that was your destination...waiting to land...waiting to land...waiting to land. Every half hour or so, the captain would get on to explain the situation, or sometimes not to explain it...but just to say something to the uncomfortable passengers. See, there were two problems. The first problem was not that we couldn't land, but that we had a destination to get to and we couldn't get there because something or someone was holding us up and we usually weren't told exactly what it was. The second problem was that we didn't know how long we were going to be up there circling and circling. The second problem was really the kicker. Because you could make contingency plans i...

MURALS FOR LLOYD BRIDGES TRAVELAND RV Back in 2002, I was asked to paint the largest mural of my painting career. The mural took 9 months to complete after I had toured several national parks in the Grand Circle out west. There were several challenges on the job. One was working with scaffolding that was 25ft in the air. When I was on the top level, the platform swayed with my brush movement, or when someone opened the bay doors. It was a little terrifying, so I worked with climbing gear and strapped myself to the ceiling. The second challenge was transferring the design to the wall. Often I use a projector to transfer since all I need is a simple outline to start getting the proportions right. But the site had huge windows in the front and there was no way to darken down the space with all the street lights. So I had to use an Old Master's Grid System transfer technique that took several days longer for each section. The other challenge was the blending of one scene into the next,...

"Red the Cow" the true story of a boy and his dairy cow is a book I've been illustrating the last few months. It's a beautiful story about a young boy who was given an older dairy cow to milk. Written as a rhyming Alphabet book, "Red the Cow" is an easy read for young children, but it also contains sidebars with lots of additional information about how farming was done in the 1950's. The illustrations were all done using models. I did the book this way because the characters ran all the way through the book and I wanted to maintain their likeness from illustration to illustration. The paintings are very realistic, but I took great license with the colors, pumping up the warms for a beautiful sunlit look. To be honest, this was done mostly to brighten my own mood during those long grey winter days in 2018. My favorite illustration is one of the saddest ones in the book. The main character discovers that his cow is no longer producing milk, and that...

I finally updated my website with a portfolio of my work. It's amazing to go through 20 years of work. It brought back so many memories. When I built my first website, it was important to keep the graphics small in order to not overload the web. Imagine that! So all the photos of my work were very small in order to allow users to load the information on their computers. It's taken many months to collect high resolution photos. Some of the murals were destroyed before I was able to get digital files of them. But there are some amazing images I can share. I've done over 150 murals over the years! I'll be adding more over the next few months, so be sure to visit often. I've also included several illustrations and commissioned works. Thanks for your interest in my work. Here's the link to the exciting new site: http://www.armscreekstudio.com

I just completed this portrait of three cousins. It's an oil on canvas, done with an indirect painting technique. I start with a transparent golden wash over the entire canvas and then work the lights and darks up from that base. I find it's a lovely base to start with for flesh tones and makes the whole canvas warm. These portraits were difficult for several reasons. First, I didn't have an opportunity to meet the children in person. Second, I had to work from lower res photos than I normally like to do. And third, I had to photoshop out several elements, replace heads and arms and try to make it not look like I did exactly that. Here is the photo shoppped photo that I worked from:   The finished painting is beautifully rich in color and texture compared to the photo. Another reason why paintings are so superior to photos if they are done with the intent to express an emotion or message and not just reproducing a photo.  Here is the full portrait with frame...

I had never painted an underwater landscape before this year. And my first one was 180 feet long by seven feet tall! This is a small section of a mural for Motts Children's Hospital in Ann Arbor. The mural utilizes a special paint that gives the water and fish a glowing quality. Much like regular landscape painting, the colors fade off in the distance, only with water, the fade off is much faster and is more blue in tint. I was struck by the variety and populations of fish in the reefs. Although for my painting I assembled the very best combinations of color and texture, I was still was only able to capture a very small section of the massive variety of reef creatures. My studio changed considerably during the painting of this mural. Every morning I looked forward to coming into the studio, which had transformed itself into a large aquarium. The colors were comforting and calming. I was delighted with the creatures as they emerged and developed. Some plant life I made up...jus...

What a blast this was! I was notified about a month ago that my artwork won the Blue Man Group's Art Competition. They asked that I not post anything in social media about it until after the unveiling on Wednesday of this week. There was a notable cash prize, as well as a 10 ft x 10 ft blow-up of my artwork on the side of the Blue Man Group's theater in Chicago. And the original hangs in their lobby (photo above). The winning artwork fits their quirky performances that utilize splattered paint and other performance arts. We were told that there were 776 entries in the competition. I'm honored that my painting was one of the six winners! I saw the Blue Man Group perform many years ago and was struck by their grasp of what makes us human. The large screen behind them, giving instruction, is very clever in pointing out attributes of human nature that we take for granted. It's amazing to me that we are looking at artificial intelligence coming into our lives today with...

About two years ago, a local children's hospital put out an RFP to several artists concerning their operating rooms. They were getting complaints that the environment was too sterile and frightening to the small patients. When I visited the site, I discovered blank walls devoid of any artwork, and procedure rooms filled with scary looking equipment hanging from the ceiling and surrounding where the patient would be laying. I couldn't imagine would I could do to bring life, distraction and joy into that environment. Some ideas were to hang mobiles from the ceiling. But I kept thinking that there was no way to hide the equipment, so I had to somehow make it ok that it was there. Eventually, an idea came that submarines had periscopes and lots of equipment in them. And if I painted portals around the room with concerned sea creatures looking in, that it would soon have the appearance of a submarine, and less of an appearance of a scary operating room. My idea was selec...

DESTRUCTION A long time has passed. Nearly two years have gone by since my last entry into this blog. A short list of events tells you why: • House sold for a loss, gave 1/2 of everything I had away.. • Had no home for several months, lived in a rented art studio and a friend's pool house. • Father died. • Established new friendships in a new city. • Bought a much smaller house (1/3rd the size) on some land far from the city. • Built an art studio • Painted 15 murals • Learned WordPress for building websites and designed 4 sites • Changed the way I did business • Published another book (the illustration above is from this book entitled: Life is Wonderful, It could be Verse! , By Art Holst) You can see it on my website at www.katherinelarson.com • Found God again. Sometimes you have to tear down everything you think you wanted and start over again. Sometimes it's life that does it to you, and sometimes you have to do it yourself. As a writer, painter and singer,...

Sometimes ideas come and I have to paint them. This painting started a new series I'm calling "Vessels." I'm not really sure what they are, nor do I think it really matters. Some people think this is coral, others ice crystals, others energy or space creatures. I saw it in my mind's eye and had to paint it. The creative process has always been a mystery to me and I try not to examine it too closely. Often I have found that experimentation can open me up to other avenues..and the paintings that I do along the way may not be the destination...but rather the path to it. I am on a path at the moment. Abstraction is not one of my strengths, or even one of my passions...but I am captivated by the patterns that are emerging. Patterns that I recognize are in nature on many levels. On this bitterly cold and dark January night, I'm emerging from the depths. Slowly.

As artists, we always seem to be recording things. Sometimes it's difficult to separate real life from the process of recording. As I'm painting a scene, I'm recording what's happening, or what has happened, or what I wish was there. So am I really "in the moment" or chasing a moment that has already passed. While painting "En Plein Air", we call this loop "chasing the light." As light continues to change on the scene, the question always arises: "Do I change the painting to match the current light, or do I try to remember what the light looked like a few moments ago?" If one chooses to change the painting, there is a risk that the painting will never be completed because you will always be "chasing the light." It's a dangerous loop. Recently, my life has been an exercise in "chasing the light." As each day dawns, I have a list of projects that need completion, but as the sun arches across the sky, the...

DETROIT WHOLE FOODS MURAL! Earlier this week I was notified that my design won the Whole Foods Detroit Mural competition. There were close to 100 designs submitted, so this was quite an honor to be selected as one of the four finalists. The murals will appear on the exterior of the building on the north side of Mac just east of Woodward in downtown Detroit. My design is based on health, vitality and community--a true reflection of what is currently happening in Detroit. The city is in the middle of a revitalization and it's exciting to see. I was there during Noel Night this December and was amazed at the crowds, the activity and excitement. It felt young and fresh and I wanted to be a part of it. I am truly honored to have been chosen and look forward to starting this project. Completion will be in early spring. I'll post photos of the dedication ceremony when it occurs. 

2013--Happy New Year! 2012 was a challenging and innovative year for me. I explored new avenues and venues. Some of them were lucrative, others not so much. I did my first art fair in Scottsdale, Arizona-- that was a bust. Then I did Ann Arbor-- good show for me. Learned a lot. I'll do it again, but differently. I published my first book in July. I've sold 900 so far! That pretty much saved my year. But the most fun I had this year was making and selling my "Ann Arbor Tiny Townie" Ornaments.  They were little hand-painted versions of Ann Arbor's iconic structures. I sold close to 300 of them! On my last evening Christmas Market of the year, a man walked into my booth and announced that he was Jewish. "I don't know what I'm doing at a Christmas Market" he said, "But I have cash money. What can I buy?" I thought for a moment and then directed him towards my ornaments. "A jew buys a Christmas ornament!" He said in jest. ...

At Last! My first published book is available from Cottage & Farm Press. It's 22 years of Observer cover art including scenes of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor parks and neighborhoods, daily life and events. The book is only $29.95 and includes 48 pages of Ann Arbor Observer covers including anecdotes about my life and the techniques I used to create the illustrations. Hard cover, 12 x 12 inches. It makes a great gift or coffee table book. I'll be introducing it officially at the State Street Ann Arbor Art Fair starting July 18th through the 21st. Come visit me there and I'll sign the book, or order the book from www.cottageandfarm.com It will also be available through Amazon and Barnes and Noble in a few months and Nicola's Books in Ann Arbor starting July 20th. Hope you like it!

After last year's record snowstorm the end of February and record cold temps in March, I was certainly surprised with this year's 80 degree average temperature in March. It's supposed to be the first day of Spring today and most of my flowering trees are already fully decked out in their lovely spring garments. But, I'm not complaining. I'm working really hard to find time to be outdoors before the bugs come and the temps are unbearably hot. These are precious days to a pleinair painter. I hope you are all planning a trip into the wondrous outdoors this weekend. I'm heading out today. The sun is magical, the temperature is perfect and we get very few gifts like this in Michigan. Blessings to you all!

If you make your living as an artist, as I do, you've probably seen a major change in the purchasing habits of Americans since the end of 2008. The last three years have been a challenge, to say the least. I've paid the bills OK, but pulled the belt tighter on dog treats, trips to the country and dinners out. And, the salvation army is getting fewer of my clothes, as I'm hanging onto the fashions a bit longer than usual...overlooking a frayed sleeve or balled sweater in favor of a thicker wallet. In the past, I've been 99% commissioned as a painter. All of my work is paid for before I paint it. But, I'm getting fewer calls as our sluggish economy drags on with little recovery. So, the other day I decided that I needed to change my strategy. And I asked myself, "Where are the buyers of art going to buy art these days?" And that's when I decided to find out where the best art fairs in the nation were located. It turns out that Scottsdale, Arizona is a re...