July in New England–outdoors in the heat of the sun

Posted by Aline on July 21, 2015

I feel a little as if I have been running around without purpose, just answering one call after another to paint outdoors. But now, looking over my output, I see there must have been other things absorbing my time and attention. Nevertheless, you are not likely to want to see the entire three weeks’ of artworks, and I am in the happy position of picking my favorites to talk about. I have painted in Manchester, Goffstown, Newport, Portsmouth, Rye, and Newington, all of New Hampshire, plus Gloucester, Massachusetts. Here are the best of the lot:

Uncanoonuc Garden

This location is on the side of a hill called Uncanoonuc. Actually, there are two hills by that name, next to each other, and even Wikipedia avers that they are “mountains” with impressive views of Manchester to the east, the Wapack range to the west, and on a good day, Boston to the south. From Manchester, the Uncanoonucs resemble the mounds of a woman’s breasts, and Uncanoonuc is a native American word meaning just that. One Uncanoonuc boasts a road upwards. Along the way is a retail plant nursery that has installed groupings of shrubs and flowers to show its customers how lovely is a good landscaping plan. The blue spruce caught my eye, in part because much earlier in my painting career, I had recreated another Little Blue Spruce.

Little Blue Spruce–Putney VT 2008

Well, I don’t think I can say my blue spruce technique has improved at all since 2008! The earlier blue spruce was growing at the studio of the “Putney Painters”, where I was taking a workshop with Albert Handell. Albert liked my spruce but thought I had crowded it too much with the other trees. I usually take the advice of masters to heart, but maybe 20 percent of the time, I stay true to my own original intent. I see his point, but I also admire the pluckiness of the baby spruce staking its own territorial claim under less than ideal circumstances. I’ll bet today it is crowding that building in the background.

In Newport, in the course of delivering and picking up a painting for the regional show at the Library Arts Center, I got myself invited to participate in the Garden Tour, as a painter. They had about ten different gardens open for tour, each with different attributes. I told them I cared only about the flowers, not interested in mountain vistas or water features, so they sent me to the site of an abandoned gravel pit. The homeowners have been reclaiming the land patch by patch. As each load of topsoil was dumped into a pile, stuff got planted . I chose to paint the pile devoted to the memory of a beloved dog who had passed the year before.

A Boy and His Dog . . .

The message set forth on the rustic sign reads “A boy and his dog are joined at the hip and heart forever.” So instead of flowers, I found myself focusing on hardscape elements of rocks and sculpture, so easily is the artist’s intention waylaid. When I had finished A Boy, I made another stab at featuring flowers. I went in search of a floral closeup.

Flower Box

I knew I was doomed to fail at the task of matching the glowing fuchsia reds of the petunias, but set out to try anyway. The next day, after the paint had set up a little, I was able to add cleaner, brighter color here and there so as to convey the sense of color, even if the exact color remained elusive. The straw strands in the basket came mostly out of my head, or rather, out of my memory of my favorite painting by Jamie Wyeth–Hay Bale.

Isn’t that the most lovingly portrayed hay bale ever? A living, almost breathing, hay bale. Don’t you feel like you could stab it with a pitchfork right on your computer screen? Just imagine how it looks in person, as I saw it on the wall of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts last year.

I have one more Exeter painting to show–it was painted “live” just before a lawn party at the Exeter Inn. I painted another during the lawn party, but I don’t love it so much.

Exeter Inn

I was pleased with the flowers in this painting, and I hoped my handling of flowers in the landscape might be improving.

Portsmouth and its environs saw a lot of me the past few weeks. And I saw just the tiniest fraction of paintable spots, so rich is Portsmouth in architecture and marine attractions. I accumulated three favorites:

Inlet, Boat ramp

Entering Prescott Park

The Zinnias are perhaps too carefully depicted. Reality is my downfall.

Wentworth by the Sea

The biggest challenge here was the shoreline–how to show the transparency of the water’s edge lapping on the rocky beach.

Again this year, David Curtis is giving his workshops on painting the figure in the landscape, in his garden. Our model was dressed as a bride:

Bridal Portrait

I’m growing weary of green! Note that the landscape portion of this figure in the landscape is not much more than fuzzy suggestions of landscape. I felt it had to be thus.

But not all work was done outdoors. Our Monday life group met twice:

Natalie 2

Sheridan

All in all, the lesson I have taken away from these three weeks of fairly intense painting is renewed awareness that I still suffer from a deficiency that has plagued me all along. I’m not “loose” (messy) enough. Is it that I’m so fast a painter that I end up wasting my time on “cleaning” and straightening and perfecting? For example, the windows behind the window box were never “finished” because, thank the lord, I realized I could not improve on their rough state. But examples of overpainting are too abundant. When will I ever learn?

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); and at the law offices of Mesmer and Deleault at 41 Brook St in Manchester. Also, on July 23, from 5 to 8 p.m., the doors to all art galleries in Manchester are open and served by a old-time trolley. I am participating as a member of the Manchester Artists Association in a one-day exhibit at the Rines Center, on the Trolley route. It’s all free! See the Open Doors Trolley Night website for more information and a list of venues that have a show going on that night.

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!

Urban New Hampshire

Posted by Aline on June 29, 2015

I have saved up a number of challenge paintings for this post. The challenges came from the subject matter. Although landscapes in general are less demanding than other genres because nature is so variable in its beauty, the same cannot be said when architecture, vehicles or people become prominent in the scene. Perhaps I have been setting myself up for a higher failure rate. But I can’t learn if I stick to easy subjects. I’m not sure which of these are failures and which are the successful embodiment of a new direction in my artistry. I’m feeling my way, so to speak, across the landscape of my creativity.

Newport

First, a large (20×16) rendition from a photograph taken when I realized I had forgotten my chair. I simply cannot stand to paint for two hours at an easel. Old bones, or something like that. So I photographed my inspiration and tried not to become a servant of the photo. This is a vacant mill (it is for sale) in the Town of Newport, New Hampshire.

The Ruger Mill, Newport, NH

The lead in to this view of these sunken buildings intrigued me the most: that curvy downward driveway must have been a nightmare when shifts changed. The river that powered the mill flows out of sight in the back of the buildings. I believe that same river is the waterway that led to my next Newport painting. A one-lane covered bridge next to a rolling park is a kind of hybrid between straight landscape and architecture, but no one can deny a bridge is a construct subject to the laws of perspective. It was threatening rain the day I was in Newport for this painting, and after I scouted the various aspects of the bridge, it did rain, furiously. I waited. After all, I was several hours away from home and there wasn’t any reason to hurry home. After about 20 minutes I got lucky. The rain stopped and the sun even came out intermittently. For an hour. Suddenly–that means without warning–it started raining hard again so I packed up quickly and headed home.

Newport Covered Bridge

I studied the quick block-in long and hard. I knew the perspective was probably wrong. The bridge was level, but looks as if it is slanted upward in my painting. The reflection reinforces that notion. I consulted the photograph taken when I was scouting, and it shows a bridge going straight and level. But I really, really wanted to trust what I blocked in at the site. After all, I was seated while painting, and I had been standing to take photographs. If I changed the bridge and the reflections, I would have all those stripey shapes that I hate so much. Ergo, slant stays. For the good of the art.

Exeter

Again this year I participated in the paint-out fundraiser for the American Independence Museum in Exeter. I had scouted locations the day before, when I was delivering paintings to our pop-up gallery on Water Street, and spied a good riverfront vantage point on private property that had a sign warning “No Trespassing Fishing . . . [other forbidden activities]”. There was nevertheless a guy fishing . I asked him about the sign, whether it was vigorously enforced. “What sign?” he asked. He had never noticed, but it didn’t matter: he lived in the condo complex and gave me permission to paint there the next day. First, I painted the buildings across the river, but I included a vigorous evergreen that partially blocked my view, instead of moving to the right where the shrub would not block my view. That meant painting a close up of a potted plant, in addition to the architecture in the background, not to mention the river itself and a boat tied up to a landing. I felt it might be possible because I had chosen a large panel, 16×12, for the project. But the evergreen defeated me.

Exeter Riverfront

Almost from the same spot, I found a charming bridge that I wanted to paint. The evergreen was in the way again. For this one, I did stand up, because I really had to in order to see over the shrubbery. But I knew I only had a hour to paint because the wet paintings were due back at the Museum for the wet paint sale, so I figured, for an hour I can stand. Note the different treatment I tried out for the same shrub in the second painting.

String Bridge, Exeter

Neither painting found a buyer, but in my haste to set up, I mispriced them as if they had been framed. Just as well, because when I got them home, I improved on the shrubbery. Not so much but I was happier.

Last week, I was back in Exeter to see if the pop-up needed any help. It didn’t, so I went up Water Street and painted the scene looking down and back to where our gallery is. Shrubbery was replaced by automobiles. They moved in and out of the parking spots in front of me. What can you do? I never got a good enough handle on what existed behind the cars, so I had to include the cars. Maybe I can develop that into a specialty!

Water Street, Exeter

Portsmouth

Market Square in Portsmouth was the site of an organized paintout last Wednesday. Only four painters that I was aware of, which including me and Flo, actually participated. Flo and I settled on the shady corner kitty-corner from the dominant building, North Church, whence I included North Church and the street running to the right and down. Blocking my view on the right was a tree and Flo, who painted the picturesque row of storefronts behind me. It would not have been realistic to paint Market Square without vehicles or people. So I grabbed a few impressions–one trolley and one van for vehicular traffic, and two couples for the human sort. Traffic is so annoying; it moves. The parked cars in Exeter were a piece of cake by comparison.

Market Square in Portsmouth

New Boston

Last is the painting I did at the Farmers’ Market last Saturday in New Boston. A call had gone out on the NH Plein Air list inviting plein air artists, and I answered the call. I was the only one to do so. I’m not sure, in retrospect, whether the idea was for the artist to be selling artwork or to be creating artwork. I had assumed creating, because in years past I had done the same at the Bedford Farmers Market. So I created.

Under Dogwood, New Boston

For a little while, I had a group of musicians in the gazebo, but alas, they had to leave after an hour, and without warning! Well, challenges, right? Another difficulty was the Dogwood tree. Since it was in the foreground, like the nasty evergreen shrub in Exeter, I felt I had to do more than suggest a generic tree with white blossoms. It should convey the idea of a dogwood tree. Conveying the idea of musicians was much easier! Go figure! (Pun not intended.)

So there’s an assortment. Is anything happening here in terms of this Painter’s Progress?

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

with the East Colony artists for the rest of June and all of July 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.

Afterglow; Exhaustion

Posted by Aline on June 10, 2014

My show was Sunday. Many of you remembered that, and succeeded in getting there, for which I am most grateful. Others of you may have tried to come, but gave up when you couldn’t find a parking spot. If so, I apologize. I never thought to check my reception date against the schedule for the Fisher Cats games. I won’t ever overlook that detail again! [Fisher Cats is the name of a AA minor league baseball team, farm team for the Toronto Blue Jays; its stadium is pretty close to the building where East Colony Gallery lives, and its parking lot becomes a Fisher Cats parking lot on game days. The building owners tried to save us prime spots in the front of the Gallery; unfortunately, the normal signs there declare “Do Not Park”, so, in the absence of guidance, people were probably afraid to park there!]

Nevertheless, we had a decent turnout for our party, and I got to reconnect with some people I had not seen in a long time. Alas, I did forget to take pictures, but this was because I was too busy talking, so that was a good thing. Usually, at these shindigs, I am too shy to engage people in talking about my paintings. Having people there whom I already knew was such a blessing!

Meanwhile, I had an extremely busy week of painting: five-day workshop with Sean Beavers on figure painting; one night class with Deirdre Riley on the same subject; two paint outs, one in Exeter, New Hampshire, and the other in Goffstown. And the Monday life group met as usual yesterday morning. I’m sure it was good, in the abstract, to be painting so much, but it may not have been beneficial for the output. I was spreading myself too thin, especially as exhaustion began to take its toll. I must accept the fact that, at my age, I can’t keep performing day after day at the same high energy level.

The workshop paintings fared better than the landscapes. For Sean’s class, we had one model in the morning, doing one pose all week; and another in the afternoon, doing his same pose all week. Two completed paintings emerged, plus one half-done portrait:

Figure and Detail

After spending three days on the figure, I developed an urge to paint the model’s portrait. Since I had space on the same piece of canvas, and needed to fill that space with something, my decision to lay it down next to the figure was a no-brainer. Only problem was, I was really too far from the model to paint a decent portrait. I couldn’t see any nuances in the facial features with my uncorrected eyes from a distance of 15 feet. Moving my easel was not an option because (a) I would have obstructed views of the artists on either side of me, (b) my spot was my spot for the afternoon painting, and that would have meant two moves, and (c) let’s not kid ourselves–this is only for practice. The fact that I ended up doing close to the same thing for the afternoon painting just means I’m consistent.

Competing Lights

For this pose, Sean set up a spotlight with red cel in front of the model, and one behind the model with a blue cel, emulating sunlight. The effect was quite dramatic. Fun! I spent four days on this painting, and so had only one day to fill with a practice portrait:

Portrait version

Again, my inability to see detail that far away, and the shortness of time remaining to me, meant I could not produce a finished portrait, but I got the big pieces right. Sean was actually impressed! But bottom line, the face in my figure painting is more interesting that this “forced” portrait. (To me.)

The paintout on Saturday in Exeter ended with a wet paint sale to benefit the American Independence Museum, which had organized the event. We had a gorgeous day. Every other day last week it rained at least a little bit. My goal for this event was to paint something pedestrian but so well that someone would want to own it. I failed. Not in the pedestrian part but in the wanting part.

Exeter River with Japanese Maple

I’m not sure the name of the river is Exeter. I got many complements on the beauty of this painting, but no one wanted to own it. For the second one, I went even further Out There–Ashcan School?:

Municipal Parking

This painting quite simply failed to be beautiful for some reason that I can’t quite put my finger on. (If I could have identified the failing, I would have fixed it.)

Winding up the week, yesterday I did a figure in the morning and a landscape in the afternoon. Both will be getting more attention–we will repeat the Monday pose next week. Same is true of Deirdre’s class from last Tuesday. And the landscape, well, you’ll just have to wait for that report because, with luck, I shall have time during the week to bring it to a new level of Van Gogh-ness.

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

at the Hatfield Gallery and the East Colony Fine Art Gallery in Manchester (both are in Langer Place, 55 S. Commercial St., Manchester, NH); at the Bartlett Inn in Bartlett and the Bernerhof Inn in Glen; at the Red Jacket Inn in North Conway; at the law offices of Mesmer and Deleault at 41 Brook St in Manchester; at the Manchester office of Congresswoman Carol Shea Porter; and at her studio by appointment (email: alotter@mac.com).

You may also view paintings with prices and order prints 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 using the private feedback form below. 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

A Painter's Progress

Tag Archives: Exeter

July in New England–outdoors in the heat of the sun

Urban New Hampshire

Afterglow; Exhaustion

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