Catching up–Bartlett Style

Posted by Aline on September 8, 2016

I have been not performing, blog-wise, up to the standards I set for myself this summer. If I had met those standards, two topics would have been set before you already and the third would have been pulled together for today. The problem, as often happens, is just when I gather my thoughts and my photo illustrations, I notice something in one of the paintings that I must, MUST fix. Then after the fix, a new photo must be taken. It has been a summer of revisions and regrets.

One topic was to have been: best and worst plein air (marine) painting of the summer, covering why I thought one was good and the other not–but wondering how I could have rescued the one that was awful. A second topic was to have been the rest of the works resulting from the Stuart Ober course–you’ve seen the portrait of Sparkle, but I did a bunch of other stuff that never would have got started but for the impetus of taking a course called “Explorations in Oil Painting.” One of them could have been a topic in itself, as I worked on a 12 by 36 of “Impressions of Manhattan from the Whitney Museum”, a complex skyline with streetscapes that can always be improved or added to. I’m still adding.

This week, I hoped to be posting all the Figure in the Garden paintings from David Curtis’ garden, 2016 edition. Those paintings are finished, but the last one still needs to be photographed. I scaled up to 16×20, making the photographing more challenging.

And now, as topics pile up, I just got back from a workshop up North with Michael Chesley Johnson, for which blog I made promises. I feel a little like Mickey Mouse must have felt in the “Sorcerer’s Apprentice”. (Disney movie “Fantasia”)

I am going to take the advice I always gave my tax delinquent clients: do current returns first, then the past-due ones. Therefore, today without further ado, without messing about, I am posting photos of the three plein air paintings from the last two days, showing what I can accomplish in the approximately two hours available for each, before stopped by lunch and/or rain. Raw footage, as it were.

Excuse me while I go snap photos of each one with my iPhone.

. . . .

Eight students gathered at the Bartlett Inn in Bartlett NH to learn plein air painting from Michael Chesley Johnson, of Campobello and Sedona, for perhaps the shortest workshop ever–two days. We were lucky with the weather, in that the rain held off Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning until I was able to get one painting each time close to completion. I produced a third painting during the Wednesday rain. . .storm is too strong a word. Rain Event. More of that later.

Tuesday morning MCJ opened with a demo of how to paint rocks. We piled into a gazebo near the Jackson Historical Museum– it was shaded, just the right size for 8 students and a teacher, next to a rock-filled Wildcat River, and near our next stop: a preview of the museum’s upcoming show. Then lunch at a local deli, then back to the Wildcat, a river responsible for the phenomenon known as Jackson Falls. We got some sun, but mostly clouds, so we got experience with painting en plein air on overcast days. How to find a “hook” when there are no lights and shadows to create drama? Well, falling water is always interesting. Unfortunately, New Hampshire has been suffering a record drought, so instead of impressive, thundering cataracts of water, we got meandering trickles.

(MCJ photographed me working at the Falls and posted it to Facebook, if you are interested. I was wearing my usual distinctive hat, so everyone who knows me recognized me. I could probably link to it, but I don’t have time to learn how to do that! Got to get this post done.)

Jackson Falls, v. 5 or 6

Day Two, or Wednesday as most people know it, we headed down into the Valley to experience the location of Albert Bierstadt’s “Moat Mountain, Intervale, New Hampshire”. That is why I have titled this painting Bierstadt Meadow. Most of us chose to paint the ledges that are to the right of my scene, but I’ve a bee in my bonnet all summer about the pinky-purplish grass that shows up at this time of summer. It is most prevalent along highways. It was not present in this meadow, but there were other plants sporting colors in the same family, so I thought I would try to fake it.

Bierstadt Meadow with Bluebird House

We were treated to very little sunlight, but the weather forecast did not include rain. Nevertheless, Sharon (Sharon Allen, who organized this workshop and spends half her life painting around Mt. Washington Valley) “felt” it would rain and urged us to move to a sheltered location–under a bridge in Conway from which we could paint a red covered bridge from below and to the side. When we got there, most of the river (Swift and Saco merge near here) was, well, absent. We were going to get more practice painting rocks. However, a puddle under the bridge reflected the red covered bridge, and I chose to make that the subject of my painting.

Under the Bridge, of Another Bridge

All of my paintings were painted on the carton paper sold by Judson’s plein air supplier. The paper slows me down a little because it absorbs paint, making it harder for me to cover the surface. But once my surface is juicy with paint, I can go to town. The geometric shape on the right is the stanchion [is that correct term?] of the overhead bridge. When the rain blew in [is Sharon a witch?], it disturbed the puddle and handicapped me. Oh, well. Had to fake it.

Since I probably will not get to the topic, best and worst marine painting, and I cannot NOT show you the best, I will now show the best. Two “tall ships” came to the Portsmouth area. August 12 was the day I chose to visit them. One docked in Portsmouth for people to tour. The other docked in New Castle for people to ride. I would have bought a ticket to ride if my timing were better, but as it was, I had to wait for the “Harvey Gamache” to return to port before I could grab a photo of it. Meanwhile, I painted its expected path from New Castle’s Grand Island Park. In my studio at home, I added the sailing ship using my photo as reference.

The Harvey Gamache Passing into New Castle

I have some happy news: two of my pet paintings will be part of a nationally juried exhibit in a museum! The museum is the Annmarie Sculpture Garden and Arts Center in a place called Solomons, Maryland. The Sculpture Garden is affiliated with the Smithsonian! The two honored paintings are “Sparkle”, which had been sold but the owners have agreed to lend the painting for this exhibit; and “Partners in Crime”–the two tuxedo cats on a cat tree.

Partners in Crime

The exhibit’s theme is “Fur, Feathers, and Fins–Our Faithful Pets”. It will run from October 7 through January 29.

Other places where you can catch a few of my paintings are:

NH Antiques Coop in Milford NH
Ellis River Art Gallery in Jackson NH
Bartlett Inn in Bartlett NH
Red Jacket Resort in North Conway NH
Bernerhof Inn in Glen NH
Mesmer & Deleaut Law Firm in Manchester NH

As usual, you may view paintings with prices and order prints, phone cases, pillows 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!

Abstracting the Landscape, Part 2

Posted by Aline on May 18, 2016

Having recently come off a weekend devoted to abstracting the landscape (see previous post), during which we painted from photograph, imagination, memory, music and purely abstract concepts, I resolved to apply my newly acquired abstracting skills to actual landscapes. No, more correctly expressed: I resolved to TRY to apply those abstracting skills to actual landscapes. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy. The spread of nature’s delights is so seductive that it is almost impossible to reduce a painting to a few good non abstract ideas.

Upper Ammonoosuk Falls, wip

Upper Ammonoosuk Falls, final

The photo on the left is the result of my painting for two hours at Upper Ammonoosuk Falls, getting sucked into the whole nature thing, trying to capture all the rocks and water rivulets. Fighting with myself. Until finally I heard myself remarking to another artist, by the way of encouragement, that depicting falls, boulders, etc. was hard because of the clutter. Clutter. Such an important non abstract concept. I went back to my painting and swept the water down over all my clutter. And it worked. So what if the scene never looked quite like that!

This morning I went over all four of my weekend paintings to see if any adjustments were needed. In the photo on the right you can maybe detect minor but important touches: the large rock slab in the virtual center was grayed back so as not to compete with the white of the falling water; the indeterminate brown area in bottom right was darkened and sharpened so as to clarify that it sits higher and in front of the falling water. I also added a few strokes of white water to the cascade, just to gild the lily. (By the way, while spell-checking Ammonoosuk I discovered YouTube videos of this spot, featuring reckless youths diving into the pools. Here is one of them.)

But did I really abstract my landscape? I did a better job than usual in reducing details. It’s a start. Maybe I’ll do better on the next one?

The next one turned out to be a panorama of intensely green fields dotted with intensely yellow dandelions, backed by periwinkle mountains, covered by gray clouds threatening rain. Because of the high chance of rain, we had driven south to Conway, where there is a bridge overpass that could provide us shelter from the rain while giving us a river’s edge view of an old-fashioned covered bridge. But we each of us got sucked in by the dandelions, and set about creating rain shelters within which to paint. I was riding with Sharon, so we had to find two ways to create painting studios out of one SUV. She had the tailgate. She also had the bright idea of creating a shelter for me out of my big yellow poncho and the two doors of her vehicle. Here’s a photo of me getting set up under my yellow tent. 20160513_152644

The tent cast such a strong yellow light over my painting (but not my palette), that I thought I was losing my mind when every time I scooped up a big blob of white paint to use in the sky, it turned yellow as soon as it hit the sky. The yellow tent had to have affected the rest of my painting as well, but it was only obvious in the sky. As a result, I had not much of a good idea of how my painting was coming along. This is not a good situation to be in, for a painter. However, I was trying to be abstract, so maybe, I thought, hue doesn’t matter. I blocked in the elements I wanted: the intense green pasture, the intense yellow dandelions, the intense blue mountains. Added a few tree and shrub features. Still a result not so abstract, but the important thing was, I was thinking abstractly.

Dandelion Field, wip

Dandelion Field, final

The one on the left is the painting as it was on Friday afternoon; the one on the right received some help today. It needed more yellow in the dandelions since it no longer had the benefit of a yellow poncho glowing all over it. I cleaned up the sky a bit. The photos do not do justice to the yellows and greens. Oh, well. Just keep in mind ALWAYS–the original looks so much better than the photo.

For my third painting, I was fortunate to be able to pick the group’s subject of the morning, and paintings always go better when one is inspired by the subject. There is a railroad that goes from North Conway north through Crawford Notch to a station near the base of the Cog Railway that climbs Mt. Washington. To get through the Notch, the train must travel on rails cut into the granite sides of the pass, and in this particular place, also bridge a gap in the rock face. Especially with the morning light casting a shadow of the rails onto the granite, the tracks create a pattern both arresting and intriguing.

No. Conway RR trestle, wip

RR Trestle in Crawford Notch

On the left side is what I got done on site. We were painting from a parking lot surrounded by growing things in various stages of greening (the trees budded out almost before our eyes–not just overnight but over lunch), so my view of the area below the trestle was obscured. I had installed rough representations of that obscuring growth, but I was bothered by the fact that you could not tell how far away the trestle was, nor how high it sat on the side of the granite face. So I scrubbed the growing things and tried to transform them into rock face. At home, today, I tried to improve on that aspect, as well as the rock formations above the trestle. I’m not convinced that my changes improved the perspective.

For our last outing, we chose a spot not far from our home base (the Bartlett Inn). As before, I resolved to think abstractly, just capture the shapes and colors that represented the site. The color for this one was blue. Intensely blue sky, intensely blue water reflecting the sky. A nice snaky curve in the waterway, good aerial effects for the more distant mountains. Simple elements that I should be able to use for an abstract landscape. Alas, the landscape had other ideas.

Saco River, wipe

Saco River, Bartlett, final

As an abstracted landscape, a pretty miserable failure. But more than passable as a normal plein air landscape, so I forgive myself. The changes I made this morning to the earlier version on the left were mostly in the light greens and the sandy shores. I don’t understand why the blue of the water looks so different now. I think there might have been too much contrast in the first photo. You can tell I have played around with the photo’s color cast, trying to match up with the original painting. The truth of the water lies somewhere between the two versions.

My companions for the weekend were my roommate, Betty Brown; chauffeur, Sharon Allen; colleague from Snow Camp, Suzanne Lewis of Rhode Island; young artist Stephen S from Hooksett; new members Leslie and Paul, from Massachusetts, and of course, the esteemed organizer of this semi-annual Getaway Weekend, Byron Carr of Contoocook. Some if not all of these people have websites where their paintings of the same scenes may or may not be posted.

If you are a regular reader, you have noticed I am employing a different format for the paired photos. WordPress has added new options, and I am learning how to use them. You can click on the above photos to enlarge them and to read their captions. Do you like this format?

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; at the New Hampshire Antique Co-op in Milford; at the Norris Cotton Cancer Center in Manchester, part of the Healing with Art program; and at the law offices of Mesmer and Deleault at 41 Brook St in Manchester.

Please save the date of Wednesday, June 22 for a reception at Labelle Winery in Bedford of the Petals 2 Paint show whereat floral designers create live flower arrangements inspired by a painting by participating East Colony artists. This has been an annual event of the East Colony Fine Art artists for many years, but this 2016 show seems likely to be our last as a group. Since the flowers don’t last more than a couple of days, you might as well plan to come for the reception.

New Hampshire’s Fall Foliage

Posted by Aline on October 21, 2014

Last weekend was the annual Fall Artists’ Getaway Weekend to the White Mountains, based at the Bartlett Inn in Bartlett, New Hampshire. We had some rain, but we also had some glorious, warm sunshine. If only the wind hadn’t accompanied the sun, we would have had little to complain about. As it was, Byron Carr flourished, creating one of his most spectacular paintings (and that’s saying a lot) under threat of rain. Unfortunately, and as usual, taking a photo of it never occurred to me when it counted. So you’ll just have to take my word for it.

I have my own version of a cloud painting. This was my first painting of the weekend, Friday morning’s painting.

Pumpkin Patch under Cathedral Ledge

It was actually raining when we set up. Umbrellas intended for use against the sun turn out to serve also against the rain. Who knew? Gradually the clouds rolled away leaving the Ledge exposed, but I stayed with my initial impression, with the Ledge almost totally obscured. The green patch is surrounded by pumpkins but appears itself to have been freshly sowed in something growing bright green–a cover crop perhaps. The intense green is unusual at this time of year, but trust me, I even downplayed it a little.

Although I had driven up to Bartlett the day before, Thursday had been a solid, hard rain day. I left Manchester kind of late (around two o’clock) and arrived at Bear Notch Road about four o’clock, in no hurry, enjoying the views without any urgency to paint them. Bear Notch Road connects the Kancamangus Highway (a famed scenic highway) to Route 302 at the center of Bartlett–a great shortcut through the hills and woods. Bear Notch is a two-lane road with overhanging trees. The trees were still in full leaf, orange, red, and yellow. The rain was unrelenting. I felt as if I were floating through an orange cocoon, what with the rain slick on the road reflecting back at me all the oranges, red, and yellows of the trees. I studied the effect as best I could, trying to memorize the elements. But I didn’t stop to photograph it. Story of my life, right? (Well, it was raining pretty hard.) So, to get to the point of Bear Notch Road description, when I finished the Pumpkin Patch before my companions were ready to move on, I started a painting of my memory of the orange cocoon. I continued to refine and improve on it over the weekend, and again today. I added the white line, although Bear Notch has none, in order to facilitate identification of the ribbon as a road, not a river. My problem then was getting across the idea that what you are seeing on the road is water reflecting trees, not just fallen leaves. Only you can tell me if I succeeded.

The Orange Cocoon

Friday afternoon we relocated to Jackson, all the way around to the other side of what I think of as the Mount Washington wilderness. There are the two routes leading northward out of North Conway: 302 runs to the west of Mt. Washington, and 16 to the right. Eventually, each route gives access to Mt. Washington. The western route offers the Cog Railway. The eastern route has the Auto Road. All weekend we got no farther North than Bartlett on the West and Jackson on the East. This was kind of strange, but the weather did limit our painting time somewhat, so we tended to stick closer to home base.

In Jackson, the Jackson Falls are always a big draw for artists. But we had another motive: reception at five in the Jackson Historical Museum, for exhibit opening and sale of White Mountain paintings, both old and contemporary. Yes, there were many Champneys for sale. Here is proof. Upstairs in the Museum are paintings from its permanent collection, grouped by the area of the Whites being depicted. In the center of this room is a topographical map with the locations identified. A treasure. Downstairs I discovered that I really like the works of Edward Hill, but could not afford to buy any. Upstairs, I discovered I really like William Henry Hilliard, especially this work of his called Eagle Cliff.

Eagle Cliff, by W.H. Hilliard

I have my own version of Eagle Cliff from Profile Lake, which I call “Profile Lake”, the cliff being not a prominent feature in my painting. See it here.

The food at the reception was outstanding, by the way.

Ah yes, my Jackson painting. Sharon and I set up in the parking lot of the Museum, in part because there were good views of the town center and of the river that flows down from the Falls, and in part because we’d be on the spot, parked and ready for the reception at five o’clock. I chose to paint a small section of the river where artfully arranged boulders create happy little rapids.

This is actually a cropped photo. I will be cutting the painting down as cropped, which I can do because it was painted on paper. Guerrilla Painter “carton” paper. The top part of the painting is distracting and irrelevant, and I shouldn’t have wasted my time or paint on it.

Saturday we revisited May Kelly’s. My idea. Last Spring we painted in the back of May Kelly’s, an Irish pub-type restaurant. My painting was of the back of May Kelly’s. See it here. Around me, other artists had been painting a terrific view of the valley with the Saco River with White Horse Ledge looming over all. Shortly after I got home in May and photographed my painting, the May Kelly painting went missing, never to turn up again. Perhaps one disadvantage to painting on paper. Anyway, having lost the earlier version, I was eager to paint another version of the back of May Kelly’s. As before, other artists’ attention was focused on the valley view. We got rained out, and headed indoors for lunch and reconnoitering. Terrific lunch! By the time we finished eating, the rain had let up a little, but instead of finding a new location, we went back to the Inn and worked on our unfinished paintings. I had taken a reference photo of the back of May Kelly’s just before the rain hit (finally, I remembered to take a picture), so I was able to finish that painting using the photo. In fact, the photo was enormously helpful because it revealed to me how wrong one of my angles was.

May Kelly’s, v. 2

After finishing May Kelly, I worked on Orange Cocoon some more, getting advice from anybody who was willing to give it, about how best to convey the rain reflections. Saturday night, per our tradition, we got pizza in for supper and reviewed all the paintings that we had created over the weekend. Byron as usual and as appropriate (he organizes the weekend) had the most, and one of the best. Byron Carr. Link here to his website. Other great artists participating: Elaine Farmer from Amherst, Sharon Allen from Derry, Bruce Jones from Exeter, Diane Dubreuil from Connecticut, Penny (sorry, can’t remember her last name) from Maine, and Phil Bean from Milford.

Sunday I meandered my way home, looking for a spot that needed painting. I didn’t find it where I expected to, along Route 153 through Eaton and Purity Springs. But on a whim I left the main road (I think I was on Route 28 at this point) to explore up a hill to a place called Moultonville, and happened on just the right spot: an eye-catching scene accompanied by place to park and another place to paint, all without risk to life, limb or property. According to one of the interested residents who stopped to engage me in conversation, the subject of my painting is owned by an artist, last name unknown.

Moultonville Home

So another productive weekend in the company of some of my favorite people comes to a close. You can’t ask for better.

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; at the Norris Cotton Cancer Center in Manchester (but access is limited to patients and health care workers). One painting is hanging this last week in the Boston Arboretum visitor center. My two cemetery paintings (seen here) are on view at the Arts League of Lowell, 307 Market Street, Lowell, Massachusetts. And in Portsmouth’s Levy Gallery, you can find 8 of my newest 6×6’s as part of the annual Women’s Caucus for Art 6×6 show.

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 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!

Artists’ Getaway Spring 2014

Posted by Aline on May 20, 2014

As promised, I have returned from our semiannual getaway to Mount Washington Valley with landscapes of the North Country. Despite still feeling out of sorts, I pulled myself together enough to produce five small paintings. I felt inadequate, so I took only 8×10 panels and a packet of 9×12 carton papers. This morning I took the photographs, and I guess they aren’t so bad. All were dry, already! I use a lot of Michael Harding paints, which are slower drying than some for some artists, but for me, they dry fast.

Starting from the beginning, Friday morning, we gathered at “Fourth Iron”, a railroad bridge over the Saco River, near the highway (Route 302), with a parking lot made to order for painters and fishermen. We had four new painters with us: Bea Bearden, Kitty Clark, Jeri Bothamley, and Michele Fennel. The “seasoned” painters were Byron Carr (the organizer of the weekend), Sharon Allen (the keeper of NHPleinAir artists), and Jim O’Donnell. We were later joined by Morgan, a regular whose last name has not made it into my memory bank, and newbie Ruth Sears and her guy friend Joe. Add to that mix the innkeepers Miriam and Nick Jacques, and you’ve got quite a lively group, ready to paint and party.

Back to the Fourth Iron. Some of us, including me, painted the bridge; others painted the mountains; still others split off to paint nearby at the Notchland Inn, which, I learned for the first time, has a parlor designed by Gustav Stickley. I have a painting of the Notchland Inn somewhere in my piles of landscapes, and an earlier one of Fourth Iron. Before Hurricane Irene washed out the original road and trees, we had to hike in a little bit to get a good view of the bridge, or scramble down the riverbank to get this view we now get from the parking lot, which was created from the remains of the original road:

Fourth Iron

After lunch, we headed south to North Conway, to an area called Flat Rocks Conservation area, and found a spot on the shoulder of the road where we had nice, unobstructed views of the rocky stream flowing by. We were interrupted by a serious rainstorm, so I never “finished” the painting.

Discovered Bridge

After coming in for the evening, it is our custom to take in what we have been working on and lean them against whatever we can find back at the Inn, mantels, window sills, floors. Luckily, the dog Noodles pays no attention to the wet paintings (mostly oils, a few watercolors) on the floor, and he is not a shedder (“cockapoo”–I painted his portrait as a puppy years ago). A few artists told me they liked my “stone bridge”. They were not, I later learned, referring to the iron bridge built on the stony embankment. So a lousy rendition of a big rock is now officially transformed into the shadowed tunnel under an imaginary but charming stone bridge.

Saturday, Sharon and I went exploring for potential new painting spots in the valley. We stopped at two farmhouses to interview the farmers (of alpacas and strawberries, respectively) about a mysterious road that showed up on Sharon’s GPS. When that investigation bore no fruit, we returned to North Conway to paint behind the restaurant where we ate Thursday night. Mary, the proprietress had told us we were welcome to paint there anytime, and it was a fantastic view across the valley with the Saco River cutting through. I, however, turned my back on that view and took on the fantastical restaurant itself. Ambitious.

In Back of May Kelly’s

Mary brought us coffee and two huge slices of gluten-free chocolate cake, so that was lunch and so much for sticking to my diet. We finished up about two thirty and went back to the Inn (Bartlett Inn). A very tall, very old white birch was still standing on the grounds in front of the cabins, and it was slated for removal, so Sharon and I each painted a portrait of it, dead but still beautiful.

Last Hurrah

That evening, as is our custom, all of the artworks were produced for comment. This is when I learned of the Stone Bridge. When asked which of my paintings was my favorite, I said the birch. Either the company disagreed with me, or they were anxious to help me make it better–whatever, it elicited several points of criticism: the foreground rock was too prominent and should probably be removed totally; the background green was . . . too strong?; the tree on the left was too distracting–it should be de-emphasized by bringing in branches crossing in front, or perhaps (my own suggestion) soften its edges (that is magenta on its right edge!). What do you think?

Sundays we usually pack up, check out of the Inn, and look for one last painting location before wending our ways home. Thanks to Sharon the explorer, this year we collected near a marshy area south of Conway, at Dollof Pond, with a view of Mount Washington. I looked it up on Google maps and found another pond nearby that I wish we could paint just for its name: Pea Porridge Pond. Oh, well, cheating not allowed.

Blue View (off Dollof Hill Road)

Thus ended the tenth annual Spring Getaway. I felt strangely unfulfilled. The next morning, Monday Life Group got me out of bed and into the studio. I brought a used panel, not even sanded down, not even toned over. To reduce distractions from the old painting, I applied a layer of burnt sienna, then added Gamblin’s Fast Matte ultramarine blue. Of course, these underlayers would not dry in time for me to paint over them, so I was asking for trouble, double trouble. The photo below isn’t good either, because light catches the wet paint on all those little protrusions. I dialed the exposure down to minimize the light bumps for you.

Nude with Texture

Something about this painting really appeals to me. The flesh may be a little “muddy” but color is all relative anyway, so I’m not bothered by that. What thrills me is that her right leg looks so real, so fleshy! Her face isn’t bad either. If only I had just a little more time to bring all of it up to that level of accomplishment.

Now I am moving into Panic Mode over the imminence of my Featured Artist stint at East Colony. I have to “hang” this coming Saturday!! OMG. But then it will be done and all I have to do is enjoy. I am paired with Larry Donovan, an artist whose works I noticed long ago at East Colony, so I feel quite honored to be in this position. Who’d a thunk a few years ago, when I hardly knew what was up? We are looking forward to seeing all our friends and collectors at the reception on Sunday, June 8th, from two to four. He wanted two to five, but I am just not up to three hours on my feet, making nice.

I am looking forward to seeing YOU if you are at all able to come, if not to the reception, then at some point between May 24 and June 28. Let me know when you are in town and I will try to be at the Gallery.

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 and Bernerhof Inn in Bartlett; 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; in the lower level of the Bedford Public Library, Bedford, NH; 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!

Changing it Up

Posted by Aline on March 31, 2014

I’ve been dragging my butt lately and seven days ago I caught a cold, which gave me a terrific excuse to stay in bed for a few days. But at the end of the week, I heroically dragged said butt up to Bartlett, equipped with plentiful supply of tissues and cold meds, for a two-day workshop on . . . wait for it. . . Watercolor Painting with Byron Carr! Or as he ‘splains it, he’ll “show you how to slop, splash, splatter, scrub and spray your way to a finished painting.”

If anything can shake me out of my slump, will it be messing around in a medium that I cannot get the hang of anyway? What’s to lose?

Byron at work on his demo

The class was full at six students, all experienced painters, some actually quite proficient in watercolor but with something to learn about the Byron Carr approach to watercolor. And Byron entertains as well as teaches; he keeps us from taking ourselves too seriously.

Students Melissa, Marion, Jim, Nick

Sharon at work

Me at work

Nevertheless, all the photos of me seem to catch the serious side, or maybe that is just the struggle of adapting to the watery medium. Come to think of it, we all look very intense and serious.

The Byron Carr process starts out simply enough: pick a photo; crop and apply paint to the photo to create a thumbnail sketch of your planned painting; tape dental floss in an “X” across said photo to create quadrants that help in the transfer of the image; pencil in the big shapes on your 23×30 sheet of heavy-duty watercolor paper (140# Arches for those of you in the know). So far, so good. Then: apply paint. That’s when it gets interesting and frustrating. Byron applies paint, loosely mixed (No homogeneous puddles), then toys with it using sprays and scrubbers. The trick seems to be using just the right amount of water with the paint, either on the paper or thinning the paint on the brush.

Byron’s Demo

Byron paints fast, like a demon possessed, and splashes liberally. Note the plastic sheets covering the walls in the photos above. (The workshop took place in one of the large, handicapped accessible guest rooms of the Bartlett Inn. The innkeepers moved all the bedroom furniture out to make room for our tables, and draped the walls with plastic because they know Byron very well from years of past demonstrations.)

I don’t know enough about WC to distinguish one approach from another, but I knew what we were learning was different from what, for example, Dustan Knight does (she is the only other WC instructor I have been exposed to). Byron told me one of my paintings employed a technique that he does not use, to wit, layering. This one:

My No. 2 in progress

I think I was just trying to deploy techniques that work for me as an oil painter. Oil as a medium fits with my talents and intuition, and perhaps WC never will.

At the end, Byron had each painting up to display in his black mat so we could all appreciate what we had accomplished. Here are a few:

Melissa’s No. 1

Jim’s No. 1

Nick’s no. 2

Byron with Melissa’s No. 2

Here are photos of both of Sharon’s paintings. She took the pictures as they lay on the floor so I can’t square them up, but you get the idea:

You may have noticed that many of my fellow students obediently followed the master’s footsteps by painting rocks and waterfall, Byron’s specialty.

Proud Nick

I took better photos of mine when I got home:

My No. 1

My No. 2

I get to show mine off bigger and in higher resolution because after all, it is my blog! I’m really sorry that I did not have any photos of Marion’s two paintings to display, but here is a photo of Marion herself and I must say, she looks the happiest of the group:

Marion

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 Gallery at 100 Market Street in Portsmouth; at the Bartlett Inn and Bernerhof Inn in Bartlett; 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).

Smorgasbord of Art

Posted by Aline on October 22, 2013

My artistic output last week hit all the bases: nudes, portraiture, experimental landscapes, and plein air landscapes.

Skipping over Tuesday primarily because I don’t remember what I did and I do remember being unhappy with it, let’s start with Wednesday. Wednesday is usually a plein air day, but not last week. Adrienne held another one of her all-day figure study marathons, from ten a.m. until seven p.m. I had no pep, but was determined not to let my health issue stop me. But I could not keep it from slowing me down. Larry Christian and I were the only ones to stick it out to the finish, but I had to stop painting when I ran out of surfaces to paint on. For the last 45 minutes or so, I watched Larry working his charcoal magic on 10-minutes poses of the two models together.

I had two interesting compositions from a side angle:

Foot First

Girl Talk

Foot First was a pose of about two hours, I think. We were late getting up and running, and I had to cut out early to take my daughter to an appointment. The Girl Talk pose was maybe only 20 minutes. No, that can’t be right–it must have been at least an hour.

When the Girls next changed positions, they presented me with profiles of each. After 20 minutes, we found a compromise to keep me happy with long views of the profiles and Larry happy with frequent pose changes. Even as the models changed their poses frequently , they kept their profiles toward me. My view or angle would change slightly each time, but I managed to extrapolate from a current profile to the original profile.

Two Profiles

Thursday was the EEE class, wherein I am trying to discover abstract paintings in my plein air studies. The studies were 11×14. The class projects are 16×20. For both, I used a lot of paint applied with a palette knife. I love thick, juicily painted paintings, a la Van Gogh.

EEE No. 1

EEE No. 2

I was in the Mount Washington Valley and environs all weekend. The semiannual Artists Getaway Weekend organized by Byron Carr and sustained by Sharon Allen’s cohort of plein air fanatics brought together, in addition to Byron and Sharon, Bruce Jones, Sandra Garrigan, Patricia Sweet MacDonald, Jim O’Donnell, Elaine Farmer, a Gentleman Jim from Georgia whose surname I never got. I left for Bartlett after class on Thursday, taking only small panels (8×10) with me. I knew by that time that my fatigue will keep me from covering the usual amount of canvas. Sure enough, I finished only four paintings over Friday and Saturday, despite the fine weather we had.

Saco Riverbed

The Davis Farm

Thorn Hill Road View of Ledges

Mount Washington

The last painting, the one of Mt. Washington, took me only little over an hour, including nodding off time. ( Patricia caught me napping with brush in hand, so there’s no point in covering it up.) It is a simple composition, straightforward in execution. No broken color, no short strokes, no uneven thickness of paint. I was not surprised when many of my colleagues refused to believe it was mine. But they agreed I didn’t likely find it under the pumpkin truck either. I really could not have painted such a distant scene any other way on such a small canvas.

I have a new idea for this week’s EEE class: on my way back from Bartlett, traveling the Bear Notch Road, I took some photographs of the cloud shadows on the mountains up North and am planning to make something abstract out of those images for the class this week.

left center

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

Frozen Moments

Posted by Aline on January 28, 2013

My boots were duck hunter’s boots, so wide and thick that I have a hard time climbing stairs in them. I wore four layers on my legs, four on my torso, three on my arms and hands, two on my head, plus a scarf to wrap around my face. My equipment held up well, creaking a little bit but not refusing to lock and unlock. My brushes were frozen but not brittle enough to break. My Gamsol did not turn into jelly in subzero temperatures like my Turpenoid did two years ago. Nevertheless, painting plein air this past weekend in the North Country was a fool’s enterprise.

My biggest surprise was my paint. I made the mistake of leaving it outside overnight. Freezing oil paint is a good way to prevent the large gobs of untubed paint from drying out; it does not damage the paint. But my paint never had a chance to unfreeze before I set out to paint that first crisp morning. (“Crisp” is such an understatement that it is funny–temps were around minus 14 with strong winds adding emphasis.) Once I got my brushes working, I could only poke at the paint and smear it around a little. (Sharon reported that she couldn’t even make a dent in her yellow with a palette knife.) Meanwhile, my face was so covered up that I couldn’t really see what I was doing, and gusts of wind (which fortunately you do hear coming) would periodically force me to hang onto the equipment and endure sprays of snow until the wind died down. I lasted about 20 minutes not counting set up and break down time. Sharon soldiered on for about another ten minutes. [Sharon Allen is the leader of the NH Plein Air painters group, and for the weekend, my chauffeur and guide.] Below are photos of the spot we were painting and our two attempts.

Mt. Washington from Rte 302

Heroic Effort (Sharon’s)

Heroic Effort (Aline’s)

Just for comparison, here is a painting I did in the fall, after a snowfall on the mountains, from the same spot.

Mt. Wash. from 302

Somewhat wiser after lunch, we sought out a sheltered spot for our next attempt. Nothing like an indoor viewing point for sheltering from wind, so we drove up to the Glen House, across from the Mt. Washington Auto Road, and obtained permission to set up in a corner of the restaurant. Sharon painted the view to the north while mine was southwest.

Plein air? Not.

Glen House Painters

In my view is Mt. Washington, but a shoulder obscures the top, so no buildings are visible. It’s the hump toward the left side of my panel. Route 16 runs through the painting but I decided to leave it vague.

Indoor painting of Mt. Washington

The next day, Saturday, was a little better. I think the temperature rose to 5 degrees, and the wind had died down. Nevertheless, we got lots of passersby commenting variously on our bravery, determination, and insanity. I was by that time in total agreement. Knocked down a peg or two was I! Below are photos memorializing these efforts.

Artist or Terrorist? (Sharon)

Frozen Stream

This green tinted frozen water was what had fascinated both Sharon and me. We had not realized how hard it is to depict frozen water. I had never learned of any way to signal to the onlooker that, hey, this is frozen water here–not flowing water, not an empty field.

WIP Sharon

Jackson Community Church, looking west

Jackson Community Church looking east

Above was a view we had planned to paint Saturday afternoon, but the wind! I guess we were lucky to get in a halfway decent morning. The church in this photo is the same one I was trying to paint from my location in the parking lot of the Jackson Historical Society, up river and to the right in the photo. You can see the sign on the building in the background behind Sharon’s easel, which is why I didn’t crop her Work In Progress down to just the painting itself. The Jackson Historical Society has a collection of White Mountain Art, including a few by Benjamin Champney. Metcalf, Gerry and Shapleigh were my favorites in that collection. The parking lot was a great place to paint if you don’t mind being interrupted by passersby, and since these passersby were on their way inside to see White Mountain art, they got our full attention.

But we never found a suitable spot to paint that afternoon or Sunday either. Every time we spotted a paintable spot, we would check the flagpoles. The flags kept up the whipping all the way home. We took pictures and persuaded ourselves that in doing so, we were doing artists’ work. We wandered through Conway, Albany, Moultonborough, Meredith (lunched there), Weirs Beach, Alton Bay, Chichester, Northwood, and Nottingham (there we stopped by Jenness Farm to buy goat milk soap and socialize with the goats).

The Friendly Goats of Jenness Farm

So I conclude that to get more use out of my duck hunter’s boots, I must be alert to a good painting day around home and just seize it. Carpe diem! We have a few warmer days coming up this week.

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

at the Hatfield Gallery in Manchester (Langer Place, 55 S. Commercial St., Manchester, NH); at the Bartlett Inn in Bartlett; at the Red Jacket Inn in North Conway; at her law offices at 41 Brook St in Manchester; and at her studio by appointment.

In February, you can also view some of my paintings and drawings at the McGowan Gallery in Concord, NH, and at the Artstream Gallery in Rochester, NH. Receptions for those shows are, respectively, Feb 1, 5-7; and Feb 2, 5-8.

If you happen to be near Orlando, Florida on February 14, 15 or 16, you should go to Nude Nite, a happening at this location: 639 W. Church St. (Blue Freestanding Warehouse just East of I-4). One of my paintings was invited to participate. This one:

Standing Tall

Becky

Posted by Aline on September 24, 2012

I have a lot of different subjects I could go on about this week, and I’m not that great at choosing. My initial instinct was to present a retrospective of all my portraits of a certain model because A) yesterday’s portrait is the most recent thing I have done and B) yesterday’s portrait, of all the many (countless) ones, is, in my opinion, the best likeness. Then I considered the plein air landscape, which appeals to my eye but which is kind of a dead end of a topic, however appealing the image is. Moving backwards, I have a portrait of Margaret from Friday, another portrait from a photograph done Thursday night after work to enter in an online contest, and a my usual nude from Tuesday. Oops! I totally forgot to photograph whatever it was that I did Tuesday, so never mind that one. Either I have regressed further into senility, or this is what it is like to be a full-time artist, almost. But really, I am impressed with myself that I painted (or maybe I drew) every day except Monday and Wednesday of the past week. It would be easier to keep track if I was working multiple days on a single painting.

So that’s the background. I would put it to a vote, but that would be too time-consuming. By the time I got all the votes in and counted, I could have posted a second blog wrapping up all the leftover bits. So it’s between what I can’t resist and what was my first instinct. By definition, we go with what I can’t resist.

The Mill in New Boston

This is a scene in New Boston, on the property of a private residence called “The Mill”. Rural NH folk like to name their homes, but in this case, the name is descriptive: the home was once a mill–the dark red building on the right side of my painting. There were paintable scenes all around us, but this view of the river coursing along where the dam used to be just demanded to be done first. Of course we got permission from the owners to set up and paint from their property, and as we were wandering about, a lovely lady cop stopped to find out what we were up to. Strangers in Town! But we felt Very Safe. “We”, by the way, is just two of us, me and Bea.

Bea had to be back home by noon for a project with her life partner, so I had planned another painting foray for Saturday afternoon in Auburn with a newcomer to NH, but that companion stood me up, so I took that opportunity to make ratatouille out of the veggies I had picked up at the farmer’s market in New Boston. All in all, a very productive day, with a good painting to show for it, and several days’ worth of ratatouille, even if it was overcooked.

The other irresistible topic is the portrait I did of Becky on Sunday. As I mentioned before, I have done many portraits of this model since the first one in June of 2011. This is the best likeness, I believe. You have no c hoice but to take my word for it.

Becky with mink stole

I’m not going to do the entire retrospective, but just for giggles, here is the first one:

Becky No. 1, June 2011

Meanwhile, you may be wondering, “What’s with the mink stole? If she’s so cold, why doesn’t she put on some clothes?” Ah, well! Adrienne’s studio, Adrienne’s mink stole, Adrienne’s concept. What worried me more was, what color is the shine on mink fur? How do I distinguish the mink stole from the model’s hair? My questions–and yours–are still unanswered.

AlineLotter is currently exhibiting:

at the Hatfield Gallery in Manchester; at the Bartlett Inn in Bartlett; at the Red Jacket Inn in North Conway; at the Gallery at Red Gate Farm in Plymouth; at the Yoga Balance Studio in Manchester; at the Pantano Gallery in the Shapiro Library at Southern NH University; at the law offices at 41 Brook St in Manchester; and at her studio by appointment.

Bartlett, October 2011

Posted by Aline on October 17, 2011

Bike Race spectator on Mt. Washington

In my EEE class last week, I painted one of my studies for the Mt. Washington Bike Race painting, and since it is my favorite painting for the week, I start with it. The official title is “On the Top of the Rockpile”. Mt. Washington is, for those of you not from New Hampshire, referred to affectionately as the Rockpile because above treeline, it seems to be nothing more than pile of rocks–quite a few of them loose rocks, which makes the going tough for hikers. Here at the tip top, the boulders are more civilized. I painted this painting on a 9×12 art panel that had been first painted with an acrylic cadmium yellow. You can see some yellow peeking through a thumb print and some smears in the upper right corner. I had dropped the painting, face-down, on a cat-and-dog-fur loaded carpet when I got home after class. The figure escaped undamaged, and the rocks conceal any hairy texture (is the painting now “mixed media”?), but I tried to wipe the sky clean of fur and dirt.

The biannual trip to Bartlett for the artists’ getaway fell on last weekend. “Fell” seems appropriate because the weather was pretty darn awful. We could not visit the Rockpile, or any other tempting peak. In fact, another guest at the Bartlett Inn reported that the Cog Railroad on Saturday started up Mt. Washington but had to back down because of the high winds. Most of us painters sat out Thursday altogether; painted under a roof Friday (pavillion at Swift River Lower Falls), managed to get a few windy hours in before rain started on Saturday, and finally got a rain-free, partially sunny day on the appropriately named Sunday. I usually come home with 5 or 6 paintings from a Bartlett weekend. This time, only three:

Lower Falls

Mt. Washington Valley with Moat Mt. and cornfield

The view above is from the lawn of the Red Jacket Inn. The painting will be exhibited at the Red Jacket once it is finished and framed.

Alpaca Farm in North Conway

I got out my big Beauport easel and a 16×20 panel for the alpaca farm. I intend to add a close up of an alpaca, using one of my photographs. Here is one of my models:

Head Shot

I had to minimize the shadows with my photo editing program (iPhoto) in order to see her amazing face. She came up fairly close to me several times, but each time I could not get my camera in focus quickly enough to get the straight on gaze that I would love to have in the painting.

Not all of the alpacas were this lovely chestnut color. I love that red shade because the edges generate such a warm glow.

Gray Alpaca

White Alpaca

Here are two others, who were not disposed to come so close to me. They are shown galloping toward their owner at the back of the barn, who called them in by shouting “Ladies!” At all other times, their muzzles are buried in the delicious grass.

Aline Lotter is currently exhibiting:

at the Gallery at 100 Market Street in Portsmouth; at the Sage Gallery in Manchester; at the Manchester Artists Association Gallery in Manchester; at the Bartlett Inn in Bartlett; at the Rockport Art Association Gallery in Rockport, Massachusetts.

Link to website: www.paintingsbyaline.com

Paintings by Aline

A Painter's Progress

Tag Archives: rapids

Catching up–Bartlett Style

Abstracting the Landscape, Part 2

New Hampshire’s Fall Foliage

Artists’ Getaway Spring 2014

Changing it Up

Smorgasbord of Art

Frozen Moments

Becky

Bartlett, October 2011

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: