Innholdsfortegnelse for June/July 2023 i PleinAir Magazine

The Door County Plein Air Festival presented by Peninsula School of Art is the Midwest's premier outdoor painting event, featuring 34 plein air masters from across the country. Events take place July 23–29, 2023 in Fish Creek, Wisconsin. Visit www.peninsulaschoolofart.org/doorcountypleinair for details. Beth Bathe Lancaster, PA Les Pommes, 6x8 in., oil on panel beth@bethbathe.com 703.628.5044 www.bethbathe.com Visit website for gallery representation. Marc Anderson Sturgeon Bay, WI Cave Point Morning, 24 x 48 in., oil on panel marc@mandersongallery.com | 920.765.1332 Represented by Edgewood Orchard Gallery, Fish Creek, Wl; LePrince Fine Art, Charleston, SC; Lily Pad West Gallery, Milwaukee, WI. Hector Acuna Grafton, WI Eddie and the Twins, 18 x 18 in., oil on canvas-wrapped birch panel h.acuna45@gmail.com www.acunaarts.com Represented by Pink Llama Gallery, Cedarburg, WI; Levee Contemporary, Princeton, WI. John B.…

EXPANDED DIGITAL EDITION CONTENT Vehicles winged, wheeled, buoyant, or bound to tracks put familiar haunts and faraway places within reach. As we embark on summer, the season for travel, we celebrate 18 paintings that invite us to see these powerful symbols of freedom, adventure, and industry through a new lens. + ADDITIONAL CONTENT FOR DIGITAL SUBSCRIBERS…

In 1857, French landscape painter Charles Francois Daubigny (1817-1878) purchased a 27-foot ferryboat nicknamed the Botin (“little box”) and converted it into a floating studio from which he could observe and paint at all times of day. With his 12-yearold son, Chariot, on board as “cabin boy,” the artist created a visual diary of 47 ink drawings as he traveled the river Seine north of Paris. From his output, he selected 15 as the basis for the etching series Voyage en Bateau (The Boat Trip). The innovative, water-level perspectives influenced generations of younger artists, including the Impressionist Claude Monet (1840-1926), who at the encouragement of Daubigny built a studio boat of his own soon after moving to Argenteuil. “A fair wind had brought me just enough money in one go…

Understanding your materials can take you a long way toward avoiding many of the problems that plague watercolor artists working en plein air. Here, four seasoned pros share their best advice for sidestepping sticky Situations by choosing the right surface for the effects you're after, knowing how much water to use — and when — and being prepared for adverse weather conditions. But if you still find yourself a victim of one of these painting pitfalls, don't panic. Our pros tell you how to make the most of the results. GLASS-FREE FRAMING Products you need to know about: • Krylon Fixative Spray • Cold Wax • Acrylic Matte or Gloss Gels • Watercolor Ground • Multimedia Artboards PROBLEM: Choosing the wrong paper. SOLUTION: “While there are inexpensive papers available, most…

FEBRUARY FEBRUARY “BEST OF” CATEGORY AWARDS The 12th annual PleinAir Salon consists of 12 monthly contests from April 2022 to March 2023. The awards will be presented in May at the Plein Air Convention & Expo in Colorado. First, Second, and Third Place, along with the category winners of each monthly contest, are automatically entered into the annual competition. First prize in the annual Salon is $15,000 cash and the publication of the winning image on the cover of PleinAir Magazine, along with a feature story. Second Place earns an artist $3,000 and an article in the digital edition of PleinAir Magazine. Third Place yields $1,500 in cash, with three Honorable Mentions and a People's Choice Award taking home $500 each. Artists also earn cash for the top prizes in…

STEPHANIE HARTSHORN Stephanie Hartshorn's paintings offer the viewer a number of interesting entry points, but her recent treatment of the sky is notable. Few viewers would miss the vertical shapes and ridges in the sky in Milk House, suggesting curtains hanging from the top of the sky, sun rays, or falling rain. Those marks were made with a Catalyst wedge from Princeton Brush Company. The artist uses the palm-size silicone scraper to lay in large areas of color, leaving ridges and other effects she appreciates on the painting surface. “I started out using a putty knife, and that felt like a step in the right direction, but one day I saw this cool new gizmo at the art store,” Hartshorn says. “It helps me block in things quickly — and…

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EXPANDED DIGITAL EDITION CONTENT Albert Bierstadt's A Storm in the Rocky Mountains, Mt. Rosalie, represents the heroic approach to painting mountains. Bierstadt paints the scene, nearly 12 feet across, almost to scale, as if you're there. He's got us standing on a rise of ground in the lower right-hand corner of the canvas, where we can plainly see the individual ferns, weeds, and pebbles at our feet. From there, the panorama stretches far and away, where sky and earth dissolve into each other as a massive storm engulfs the range. (Note the high, Alps-like peak sunlit in the clouds rising above the roiling storm clouds.) When Bierstadt telescopes and magnifies the vast scale of the landscape like this, he ensures we feel something of the same awe he felt as…

Without a doubt, today's collectors of fine art can be assured that a watercolor painting will be a wonderful addition to an already sophisticated collection. Watercolor has long been considered a serious art medium, and the watercolor tradition continues to thrive, as evidenced by the existence of such revered organizations as the American Watercolor Society, the Transparent Watercolor Society of America, Watercolor USA Honor Society and the National Watercolor Society, as well as numerous other regional, state and local associations. Following in the footsteps of such master watercolorists as James McNeill Whistler, J.M.W. Turner, John Singer Sargent, and Winslow Homer, contemporary painters concentrating in watercolor have chosen a unique medium that offers transparency as well as the opacity of other mediums. Using high-caliber fine art materials such as quality watercolor…

STEP 1 Joshua Cunningham painted this demo from a balcony overlooking the shore of Lake Superior. “I was somewhat protected from the cold on the condo balcony, and I could hop into the room to thaw out occasionally,” recalls the artist. “The wind on the lake was so big that the waves were very dramatic.” He quickly placed the horizon line and vertical lines to mark the dominant tree on the left of the composition. “I used that primary tree as a marker,” he says. “It created an intersection, off center. From there, I drew left and right, and up and down. Joe Paquet talked about marking an epicenter, like a pebble tossed into a pond, with waves moving out from that spot. It doesn't have to be the major…

VIEW OF SCENE On the lookout for subject matter at a ranch, Stephanie Hartshorn struggled to find anything compelling until she considered the specimen of a tree that shaded part of the dirt road leading onto the property. “I loved that tree — the shape and the way its shadow's gradation came forward and faded as it got closer to me,” she says. “I paint a lot of barns. There aren't many of my plein air pieces that don't have a structure of some kind in them. I'm still in conversation with barns, but now I'm much more interested in what is going on around them, like this incredible tree and all those grasses. The foreground looks hot, and the cool shade back there looks inviting and yummy.” STUDY STEP…

Necessity and curiosity brought me outside to paint about 15 years ago, and, try as I might, I have not been able to shake this particular habit. My go-to setup is for sketching, which I liken to a broad offensive, allowing me to tackle more subjects in any given day and move on. Still, the easel calls, and when it does, I listen. I'm not a fan of labels. In the purest sense, I'm an artist, and I try to capture the essence of a place or the way a certain location makes me feel. In the last few months, as weather permits, I've been repeating a practice I've enjoyed for at least a decade, typically during the false spring of the South. I pack up my gear and drive…

In February, a dear friend treated six of us to a ‘girls’ trip’ to the south central coast of California to sample the chardonnay and pinot noir that are produced in the area,” says Nancie King Mertz. “Not being as familiar with wines as the rest of the group, I tagged along to learn and squeeze in a little plein air painting. (Typically, I'm confined to my studio that time of year in Northern Illinois.) “We stayed in a terrific house that overlooked vineyards and the gorgeous hills of the region, which were cloaked in their winter color — bright green. The deck provided the perfect place for me to set up my Sienna pastel box and get to work. I completed this piece in about 90 minutes, then we…