Still trying to find . . . ?

Posted by Aline on May 30, 2018

I have taken the equivalent of a sabbatical, I guess. The beauty of being one’s own boss, one can do that sort of thing on a whim, with only your friends and followers to answer to. I went on that wild weekend to Acadia last fall, wherein I diligently painted at least two paintings every single day, and then I just lost interest. Except for a few pet portrait commissions, I did not pick up a paintbrush all winter. I did draw diligently, every Saturday at our life group sessions. And last weekend I made the annual pilgrimage to Bartlett so as to make the end of winter, forcing myself out in the open to paint en plein air.

Today, therefore, I am here to report on a few of the drawings and all four of the Bartlett paintings. Which first? I just now photographed the four paintings so I’ll start with them. Only the last one was actually painted in the Town of Bartlett, near the Inn where we have always stayed. The first one is from our way up. I went up with Sharon Allen, and she needed to make a few stops in Tamworth, where she had doped out some good views during a week-long event just finished. I decided on a close-up view of a small waterfall, thinking to explore shapes and colors–something out of the box since I should have grown less prone to habits. I tried, I really did, but if there’s anything outside the box here, I don’t see it manifested.

Tamworth Waterfall

I worked and reworked the colors found in and under the water until I just about drove myself crazy. Why, if I apply the matching color in the correct spot, doesn’t the water resemble nature? I concluded that it has to be done in layers–simply not possible with oils en plein air. So when I got home after the weekend, I tried again to duplicate what I remembered. No, a layering technique can’t be superimposed. Pause for reflection: Do I really want to be a super realistic painter? My forte, if I have one, had been speed and spontaneity.

Onward and northward: The next day after our hearty breakfast at the Bartlett Inn, we debated where to go to paint. There were seven of us, and although we never all of us agree on location, we like to keep tabs on where we are all heading–except for Byron Carr, who still goes for obscure, hard to navigate spots that none of the rest of us can access. First stop for four of us was the alpaca farm in North Conway. The owner suggested that we set up behind the house and barn, which was downhill and away from the livestock. That was OK with me as I had no idea what kind of subject would snap me out of my lethargy. It turned out that a building was a good choice. We had good light when we started and I tried to keep it in mind as I filled in the shadows. The part that pleases me the most, however, is the accumulation of stuff piled in front of the barn. I decided I would depict the piles as piles, with just enough articulation to suggest the nature of the stuff comprising the piles. I hope you get that.

Farm in North Conway

In the afternoon, we headed West to the Franconia Notch–I don’t remember what the reasoning was. It is a far way to go since Bartlett is South of the Crawford Notch, and you can’t get to Franconia Notch from there without first driving North. In between is national forest timber and trees and maybe a few logging roads, and somehow when you get to Franconia Notch, there are mountains all around, extending back to Crawford Notch. Hmm. That does seem to compute. Anyway, we finally settled on a spot on Profile Lake, near the area where our iconic mountain man profile once lived. (It crumbled quite a few years ago but we still pay homage.) Like I did in Tamworth, I decided to focus in on a small patch of stream and shadows and reflections and, most importantly, sunlight glinting off the water and trees. Water layers again, but I was more worried this time about the drama of shadow and light. A passerby complimented me on the expressiveness of the painting, and I thought, yes! I’m getting it. When I got it home, however, I decided to simplify the composition by bringing the water down to the bottom of the painting, wiping out the sandy shore. I did a great job on the sand, but it was “de trop”, as a Frenchman might say.

In Franconia Notch

Rain was forecast for the next two days of our weekend. When the sun was nevertheless visible in the morning, we hurried to the most local of possibilities, a road that runs along Saco River in the Town. But there is no river in my painting. A rivulet feeder into the Saco is implied by the presence of rails on a road, which takes a sharp curve to avoid running into a white house. Not exactly a view that dreams are made of. But I thought I had a good composition and hoped I could present the elements–road, trees, railing and house–in such a way as to draw the eye. It was a good exercise but did not result in a painting that anyone is going to want to put on their wall. (If I’m wrong about that, it’s yours!)

House at the Curve in the Road

I promised some kind of narration about the drawings. I wouldn’t have thought to mention them at all but for a Call for Art coming from Exeter for representations of nudity. I spread a bunch before me and selected five to photograph and three to submit to the Call. All three were accepted, so then I had to get them framed. Shot myself in the foot there. The exhibit was very nice, very short and open only on Saturdays for the duration. Now I have three framed nudes (beautifully framed, thank you Grace of Creative Framing Solutions) looking for homes. The price for each is $150, or best offer. Each is roughly 11×17 not including mat and frame.

View from the Top

Demure

Study in Foreshortening

. . . Myself. Still trying to find Myself, meaning what kind of art is in me? I have been struggling with this polyglot art for many years now. What are the common strands? Representational in subject matter. Impressionistic in style. I feel urges, to break free of representational, to jump into a bath of expressionistic paint. Yet when I am confronted with the specific task, I revert to representational impressionistic images. Stay tuned. Something might change.

Thanks for staying with me.

Fresh Air painting

Posted by Aline on September 17, 2015

We hit two locations last week: Wednesday at St. Gaudens National Park in Cornish, NH; and Sunday near Mt. Washington and Crawford Notch. Both times I was with Sharon Allen and Betty Brown, and on Sunday, Mary Crump and Jim O’Donnell joined us. Sunday was Day Three of the annual International Plein Air Painters (IPAP) paintout. I had to skip Days One and Two because of schedule conflicts. I think that was a good thing–I was fresh and rarin’ to go on Sunday.

Augustus St. Gaudens was a sculptor. His two most famous sculptures are the Shaw Memorial, which sits outside the State House in Boston; and Diana, the largest of which lives at the top of Madison Square Garden. A small Diane graces the Currier Museum in Manchester, NH, and another large one is on display in St. Gaudens’ studio. This is the view of her that I could get from the doorway; I was not allowed inside because of my canine companion, Justice.

St. Gaudens’ Diana

Justice was with me as a treat for him. When I leave him at home, I have to lock him in the bathroom because nothing else seems to contain him when he gets the urge to defecate in the living room. To the list of outdoor painting problems, therefore, I have to add the possibility that your dog will scare off strangers who might want to see (maybe buy?) what I am painting. He was pretty good on Wednesday; only chose to bark at two people. Nobody was interested in what I was doing anyway–they were there to see St. Gaudens.

The statuary found in the gardens outside his home were not his pieces. However, he chose the statues to decorate his garden, so they must have enough artistic merit to justify a painting of them. For my first painting at St. Gaudens, I followed Betty’s lead and painted a statue of Pan standing over a fountain of sorts and surrounded by plants with huge arrow-shaped leaves, similar to a house plant that I used to cultivate but whose name has slid out of reach in my memory. Here is my photo of the statue, followed by my painting.

Pan’s Garden

Statue of Pan

Mind you, the light had changed between the time I took the photo and when I got to the point of lighting my composition.

For my second painting (usually I paint two in a day when we are out for the whole day), I wanted to include St. Gaudens’ house. I also fell in love with the light hitting an ornamental grass that graced flower pots that line up to lead down from the house into a semi-secluded outdoor room. Here is my first taste:

Line of sun-struck grasses

Just as I got set up to paint, a rain cloud arrived and slowly passed over. I checked my iPhone, and as far as it was concerned, the sun was still shining. So I sat tight, using two sun umbrellas to shelter in place. Justice was not pleased. I suggested to him that he could get under the chair I was sitting on for pretty good protection, but no, he had to rely on my easel/palette tray.

Here is what my subject looked like for about 20 minutes.

St. Gaudens home in the rain

As a result of the rain shower, and perhaps also the complexity of my subject, I could not finish the painting of the house and garden. I may use photo references of the grasses later to complete the floral grouping in the foreground.

St. Gaudens house and garden (WIP)

Justice did not accompany me on Sunday to Crawford Notch. On Saturday, a friend took him away to Massachusetts for sleepovers, but that left the Great Dane, Honey, all alone. I lined up a few people to let her out periodically.

On our way up to Franconia Notch, the weather was concerning–cloudy, drizzly. Then it perked right up as we continued north of the Notch, on past the Mt. Washington Hotel, which coincidentally was hosting a major art fundraiser for the northern forest. We had to get to the Willey House because Betty and perhaps others would be meeting us there for IPAP. The weather deteriorated. Clouds were very low, and it felt as if it might drizzle at any moment. But it didn’t! We stuck it out. My painting seems to have darkened as it dried, which is odd. If I had had sun lighting my canvas, I would have painted too dark, but I certainly had no sun that time.

Webster Mountain under cover

The ducks were bobbing around back and forth all day, and whenever a new person approached the duck food (actually fish food but apparently good for ducks too) feeding station (25 cents a pop), they would swarm toward that person. I had to have a few ducks in the painting. Those white blobs represent the white feathers. The rest of them–grays, browns– kind of get lost in the water. Here is a different photo of the painting, a little too red but without that bleached out spot and better for discerning ducks:

Webster Mountain under cover

After having lunch at the Willey House, we headed up to the Mt. Washington Hotel. The sun was still shining on the Hotel, but the mountains were still obscured with clouds. In addition to sun, this spot had wind. Most of the artists who were there painting not for IPAP but for the fundraiser were set up on the leeward side of the wide veranda that encircles the hotel. Betty and Mary joined them, while Sharon, Jim and I went in search of an angle from which to paint the horse that we had spotted as we drove into the hotel. It wasn’t easy because of the distance the horses were from the road, and the impossibility of getting any closer. That last line of defense for the horses were cattails, ergo wetlands. The closer vegetation was probably infested with ticks. Wimps we were. And when I sat to paint (which is how I have to now), my line of sight on the horses did not include any legs. Perhaps just as well. I have not painted many horses, and all I had to worry about was the body, neck and head. Legs and feet can come later.

Horses under gray sky

I painted the horses on a panel toned with cadmium red. You can see hints of that red here and there. The sky was the last piece I put in. I liked it with the bright red sky. I hated the whitish gray sky. So before it dried completely, I tried wiping out the whitish gray.

Horses with Pink Sky

Red appealed to me I think because it is dark, and I wanted a dark value in the sky so as to increase the attention paid to the field. It is hard to determine the value of red as juxtaposed to other colors. I supposed I could make a dark blue sky.

So that is what came from two days of painting outdoors in the fresh air, sunny and cloudy and sometimes wet. Before I close, I know that Bad Cat acquired some fans, so here is another shot of him in my bed. His real name, by the way, is Blue. Bad Cat Blue.

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

At the Bartlett Inn in Bartlett; at the Bernerhof Inn in Glen; at the Red Jacket Inn in North Conway; 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!

Lupine Worship

Posted by Aline on June 20, 2015

Every year in June, our NH Plein Air group organizes an outing to Lupine country. “Lupine country” in NH means primarily Sugar Hill, because Sugar Hill encourages the propagation of lupines in support of its annual Lupine Festival. Sugar Hill is a drive of about two hours from Manchester, where I am. But great lupine patches do exist elsewhere. You might therefore think we are a little mad to drive for two hours to find paintable lupines when we could find a closer patch, or even create our own patch at home, given proper conditions. But we plein air painters are a travelin’ sort, and we would hike into the wilderness for miles when younger and just as mad. For an example of such a mad artist/hiker/camper, see this blog.

(“Lupine”, also spelled “lupin”, is pronounced with a short “i”, although one online authority allowed as how the long “i” is OK when the word is used as an adjective. For example, we went to lupIne country to find lupins. I only bring it up because there seems to be a difference of pronunciation in these here parts.)

My companion on this year’s lupine hunt was Flo Parlangeli. As if a two-hour drive wasn’t long enough, the adventurous spirit in which we set out Wednesday morning motivated us to take a detour around the Pemigewasset Wilderness, through Crawford Notch, where we had heard of a glorious lupine patch in years gone past. Alas, tales of its demise had not been exaggerated, but enough remained to justify a quick painting from each of us.

Lupines in Crawford Notch

Flo’s Crawford Notch lupines (a quick iPhone snapshot)

Lupines are predominantly blue or purple up here, but pink and white exist in small numbers. As you can see, I prefer blue lupines to purple lupines, so I exaggerate in that direction. The blue of lupines has been something that has frustrated me from the beginning. Back in 2009 on my first foray (just before I started blogging, so there’s no entry recording that experience), I thought it was the Ultramarine Blue that was preventing me from getting just the right shade of violet. Today, looking back, I realize that my red must have been the culprit–it must have leaned toward orange, so when mixed with blue, the hues were neutralized toward brown. My next stab at lupines occurred in 2011, with better results, I just revisited my blog entry and found this tidbit of wisdom, which I had forgotten between then and now:

I have never been satisfied with the color of my lupines in paint, but got a clue from Michael Chesley Johnson in his recent blog on painting lupines in New Brunswick: when the blue of the flowers is applied to a surface of wet paint, the blue sinks into the paint underneath, muddying the blue; so the painter must go back after the oil paint has set up a little bit, with fresh blues to represent the glorious blue of the real life flowers. This I did, and I also blended in a tiny portion of a rose color that I don’t take outdoors with me, to achieve the purply blue lupines.

Unfortunately, the image that I used to illustrate the above statement does not now seem to me to be effective in that regard.

Field of Lupines in Jaffrey

Then in 2013, Stab No. 3 but I was still not entirely satisfied that I had captured the essence of Lupinness (Lupinity?):

Lupines in 2013

Wednesday, I took with me Magenta and three blues (Cerulean, Ultramarine and Cobalt). After squeezing them all out on my palette, I kind of swirled them together in an effort to get the impression of purply blues in various proportions. (Taking a leaf from the Impressionists playbook.)

After that hour in Crawford Notch, we headed back west to Sugar Hill country and proceeded to get totally and inexcusably lost when we were within only a few miles of our goal. Another hour wasted! We remained cheerful because it was a perfect day in June and we were surrounded by wild loveliness, some of it the color of lupines. After returning to Sugar Hill, we explored its usual offerings, but settled in a unexpectedly cozy spot across from the Sunset Hill Inn, next to the golf course parking lot. (Sunset Hill House was the scene of two Snow Camps that I blogged about in years past. Then it failed, and we ended up for Snow Camp last January at the Bartlett Inn. But Sunset Hill Inn has opened in the same location, with renovations ongoing, solar panels installed on the roof, and a very welcoming Brit in charge.)

Lupines with Irises

Flo’s Sugar Hill lupines (another hasty snapshot)

I must say that the photographs that I took of my own two paintings in my studio do not truly convey the lightness, the sunlightness, that exists in the originals. But what else is new! The only times I have seen photos that looked as good as the paintings is after they have been converted into giclee prints of the painting.

So what have I learned as a result of the lupine hunt and the writing of this blog? Impressions of lupines work better than portraits of lupines. Flo’s color sense is so amazing–notice how it led her to emphasize the deep purple of the flowers and the yellow tint in the gnarly tree. I must work harder on not being literal.

Flo would say that hers are not finished paintings. She intends to work them up in her studio, I think. I considered making improvements to my two but decided against it. Not that they are perfect, but they are what they are–an impression of a string of moments in a delightful spot on a delightful day in June.

However, I will be taking a second look, with Michael Chesley Johnson’s rediscovered advice in mind. It is true that you can’t avoid getting some yellow from the surrounding greenness mixed into the blue–which grays back the purplyness (purplity?)

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

with the East Colony artists for the rest of June at 163 (167) Water Street, Exeter, NH; at the Bedford Public Library; at the Bartlett Inn in Bartlett; at the Bernerhof Inn in Glen; at the Red Jacket Inn in North Conway; at the NH Institute of Art, 77 Amherst St., Manchester; and at the law offices of Mesmer and Deleault at 41 Brook St in Manchester.

Paintings by Aline

A Painter's Progress

Tag Archives: Crawford Notch

Still trying to find . . . ?

Fresh Air painting

Lupine Worship

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