Landscape artists complain a lot about the overwhelming greenness of the summertime landscape, and I am no exception. There are many strategies for avoiding the Green. Paint seascapes. Paint buildings. Paint flower gardens. When all else fails, “step on” the green of your palette with some red paint. That last is hard to do when the landscape virtually pulses with bright greens,and you’ll never notice a bright green in an the old master’s landscape.
Vermont is not for nothing known as the Green Mountain State. Vermont is where I was last weekend. St. Johnsbury, Newbury, Bradford. Even across the River into Haverhilll and Piedmont, New Hampshire. the greens dominated. I found I lacked the discipline needed to “step on” my greens. So if you are going to enjoy the paintings I came home with, you gotta love Green.
First was Friday’s take on farm road behind the Four Corners Farmstead, where we loaded up with salad makings for the weekend. Just to set the mood, here is a shot of one display in the Farmstand.
What’s for sale
Instead of painting that bounty, however, we three all chose a version of the hill and road behind the farmstand. (Three is myself plus Sharon Allen and Betty Brown–we met up at the St. Johnsbury Athenaeum and caravanned in two cars down Route 5 to Newbury, then Bradford.) While we were painting our bucolic road up the hill, it became time for the cows to come home. They moved from the left, down the hill, across the road, into the meadow on the right and in a line, to a barn way off our picture planes. Sharon snapped photos to serve as references. I smeared some cow color and shapes onto my path and hoped they would translate “Cow” to the viewer.
4 Corners Farmstand
But what you see is a later version. The next day, with a little time left at our Saturday venue, I tried to improve on the cows. From my memory of cows. Squarish bodies, small triangular heads. How much leg? Do they have ears? After messing with it, I put the panel away in a RayMar carrier, unaware that somehow I had a) dropped a glob of white paint in the middle and b) inserted it wet side to another painting, instead of wet side to the air. What you see now is the result of rescue attempts made last night. I had by then a better idea of w hat a cow looks like, thanks to the last painting below.
We were staying with artist Nancy Griswold, at her home in Bradford, Vermont. Saturday all of us spent the day at the home of another Vt. painter– Robert Chapla. We were there last year too, see this blog, in which I talk about Robert’s place. Here is a picture of my easel with two paintings going at the same time. The background shows what I was looking at.
2 at a time
Although both paintings had significant focal points that were decidedly not green, I felt like the green was out of control.
Robert’s Barn
Robert’s Rock Garden
Neither of these photos do justice to the intensity of the greens.
Finally, on Sunday, we went exploring the other side of the Connecticut River, where Nancy had scoped out a spot where we could get cows against the backdrop of the White Mountains of New Hampshire. It turned out that, at the farm she had staked out, the corn had grown too high to see over! So we reverted to a farm Sharon and I had seen the night before when we were searching up and down Route 10 for a gas station at NH prices. The Winsome Farm in Piermont had cows and a view of the Connecticut River. Nancy and Betty, certifiable vista painters, painted in the fields with the river view, while Sharon and I went down the road to get up close and personal with a few cows.
Winsome Cows
Sharon says these are Guernsey cows. I could not verify that. In fact, I could not find cows like these on the internet. They have a cute topknot, reminiscent of a Mohawk cut. Cows don’t move a lot, but they do change positions. Standing one minute, then lying down for an hour. So I wasted no time getting the cow shapes onto my panel. After having studied these two, I was better equipped to fudge the cows in the first painting.
Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:
with the East Colony artists for the rest of July at 163 (167) Water Street, Exeter, NH; at the Bartlett Inn in Bartlett; at the Bernerhof Inn in Glen; at the Red Jacket Inn in North Conway; at the Firefly American Bistro on 22 Concord Street, Manchester (reception August 3–5:30 to 7:30–all are welcome); and at the law offices of Mesmer and Deleault at 41 Brook St in Manchester.
As usual, you may view paintings with prices and order prints, iPhone cases and the like at my Fine Art America page. If the painting you are interested in is not there, or if you prefer to bypass that experience, you may contact me by email to alotter@mac.com.
If you want to add a public comment to this blog, go to the bottom of this page where it says “Leave a Reply”, and enter your comment in that box. I love to get public comments, so don’t be shy!
Paintings by Aline 
It’s the mauves that make the greens work so well
Currently I don’t carry a green in my watercolour palette but mix from cobalt blue and various yellows. But I’ve just bought a lovely variety of green conte crayons I’m keen to use.
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I don’t use a bright green pigment but I do have sap green (very dark) and olive green and sometimes chromium oxide. Nothing much gets used right out of the tube. Life isn’t straight out of a tube, so everything has to be a mix up. Makes it hard to recreate a hue!
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In case it wasn’t clear from my comment, I really like the green themed paintings in this post.
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Thanks for the clarification. I was a little worried. >
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Oh sorry, glad I came back to you on this.
But your paintings are good and should stand for themselves, whatever anyone else thinks. And anyway, although I myself like likes and compliments on WordPress, I value critical comments (though as it happens I wasn’t being negative about your paintings at all).
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Me too (value critical comments) because they prove interest and caring. Too easy to just click “like” (or not). I thank you so much for being interested and caring about my progress as a painter.
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That sorted, I have to ask you a technical question. Have you rigged an umbrella over your easel and if so, is it stable and how have you done it?
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Ah, funny you should ask! Just today I figured out how to do that with a clamp-on umbrella. It worked ok because there was no wind. I use a Soltek easel, and clamped the umbrella to the mast under the panel I was painting on, then added some tape above for added stability. Was good for 2 hours before the sun got to me.
But a better solution, when the soil is clayey, is the ShadeBuddy, which you drive into the ground with the help of a foot ledge.
Sent from my iPad, Aline Lotter http://www.PaintingsbyAline.com http://www.EastColony.com
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Same as kestrel – I mix up my own greens from ultramarine blue, lemon yellow and yellow ocher. Here in SoCal, though, green isn’t all that much of a problem! Wish it would be though, we could use some more rain. Anyway, loving the rock garden painting, the texture of the foliage is lovely. 🙂
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I know some artists who make green from black and yellow. I’m going to have to try that if I can’t discipline myself better!
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Ugh, see, I was taught to mix up your own black so now I just cannot use black straight from the tube! Now I’m gonna go play with my one lone tube of black somewhere around here and see what happens. 😀
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I did not learn how to use black either. Started by mixing burnt umber and ultramarine, then learned about combining any dark hues. But actual black comes in handy now and then.
Another green mixture to try is purple and yellow. For yellow with black, substitute yellow ochre.
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Your greens are well stepped down … nowhere close to the blinding emerald green and chartreuse that was assaulting our eyes!
I said Guernsey because that’s what the woman at the other farm said they were. To me, that white muzzle says “Brown Swiss”, but they don’t look quite right for them either … I often confuse Swiss with Jerseys… but these were NOT Jerseys!
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I suggest a trip to the library and search for some good color plates of all three breeds plus a few other breeds for comparison. Or go to the Hopkinton Fair. It has a good dairy show.
Jerseys are small and delicate. Gurnseys are bigger. Brown Swiss are the largest of the 3 and quite blocky. Guernseys and Jerseys originated on the Channel Islands in the English Channel. Also from there but rarely seen in the US are the Alderneys. These are mentioned in the AA Milne poem where The King has a tantrum because there is no butter for his bread and the Alderney has gone to bed.
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Can you identify the black face, or is it just a family characteristic?
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Aline! Very nice paintings this time round. You are handling your greens very nicely, no problems at all with your colours. I will send you a landscape I came across in the Budapest national Gallery a couple weeks ago with beautiful greens, so you can see that a predominantly green painting has never been a problem for a masterful painter.
4 Corners Farmstand is very strong, with careful recording of the down perspective, suggested also very nicely with the slope overlapping the bottoms of the cattle feet, really giving a feel for the higher viewpoint: very good! Great feel for the light, and the shadows of the foliage running from left to right is especially well seen and recorded.
Also, I think Robt’s Barn is very nicely captured, with the architectural elements carefully and sensitively painted. Well done!
I don’t think those ‘Winsome’ cows are your best work, however. One thing you can do, which may be cheating, is to buy little cow figurines, and add them to your paintings in the studio later. Just something to try. Or, do what everyone else does and work from photos for the hard, moving bits. Or your own drawings?
Keep up the great work.
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Thanks for giving my favorite painting a boost in the ratings. Funny thing about the cow painting—people seem to like it despite its flaws. Go figure! I’m better with cats since I know and love and live with them. Dogs too. But if I have to live with a cow in order to produce a sensitive painting of one, I guess the world will have to go without.
I have been noticing how the Hudson River and White Mt. painters used cows or even a human to establish scale in their landscapes. That scale issue does not come up so much for me since I shy away from vistas. Or maybe I shy away from vistas because I can’t paint good cows?
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