Pleinair Painting

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...

This morning I stretched my social net--and took a chance. I find it's always difficult trying something new, particularly when it's public. I posted a video on Kickstart.com of a project that I'm hoping can be funded with donations from my friends, family and as yet unknown patrons of the arts. The link is: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/116318509/sunland-school-hands-on-mural-project I'd love your feedback on it and any support you can offer. At the moment, we only have $1...so I'm feeling a little dejected. The mural project is for a wonderful school in south Phoenix that is in a Title 1 district. Title 1 is a federal grant program for improving the academic achievement of the disadvantaged. If we get to our goal for funding, the mural will grace the walls of a new art corridor outside the school. These murals make an incredible impression on the kids as you can kind of see on the faces of the students from my past murals. I've done 25 of these in Michig...

The photo this painting is based on was taken during a semi-cloudy day in Bryce Canyon. Any day there is an extraordinary day. The rock colors are particularly difficult to capture. They change moment by moment as the light moves around them. In this painting I used a series of reds from warm to cool to show the subtle light play. The rocks with the most sun on them are the warmest, including the shadows. That is the most difficult concept to understand. The shadows are actually much warmer than normal. I believe this is due to the bounced light from the red rocks themselves. It's not apparent in the photo, as the camera tends to interpret shadow as a cool tone, but since I was there, I remember the colors vividly. Using watercolors to depict reds can be challenging. The color rarely dries with the intensity that you intended, and placing a second coat on the painting often takes away the freshness. I found myself using colors directly out of the tubes for this painting. Colors li...

On days like today, it's challenging to be a pleinair painter unless you like to work in charcoal. That's why I'm staying indoors for the 10th day in a row and working on paintings in my studio. Although some artists would tell you that you should be able to find beauty in anything, including a grey landscape, I disagree. It's the reason I don't put parking meters or power lines into my city scapes or landscapes. An artist is not a camera, and we can choose to edit. I choose to ignore the ugliness that city engineers and thoughtless planners construct to blight our landscapes…and I paint around them. I also choose to ignore the grey days and choose instead to focus on making my day brighter. Many years ago I lived in Arizona where the sun shines 340 days out of the year. I never understood what a gift it is to see a sunrise or sunset until I move back here to the midwest. Thankfully, I've taken about 2000 photographs of the southwest and it's at times like...

The painting above is by Bierstadt, an artist from the Hudson Valley School. Each Saturday that it doesn't rain, I meet a bunch of artists to paint in the outdoors near my home. It's not an incredible landscape we look upon, but sometimes, I get incredible paintings from going there. This past saturday, my painting was just ok, nothing spectacular, just ok. I didn't follow my usual pattern of facing the sun...which may have made the difference. I've written in here before that I am usually the only one facing the sun. Everyone else paints what the sun is illuminating. But on Saturday, there was one artist facing the sun and his painting was pretty spectacular. It was dark except for one slice of sunlight on a patch of grass illuminating the island. I asked him why he had chosen that particular subject when there was all the fall color to paint. He mentioned the Hudson Valley School and that they had one thing in common: they all painted light from a mysterious source. T...