Countdown to Lake Como

I have been so busy lately getting ready for the Atlanta art show and attending to some home and family matters that I find it hard to believe I will be in Italy in 3 days! On Saturday we will leave for a fabulous trip to visit the lovely hill towns of Lake Como. I will bring my paints and do my best to record my impressions of the splendor that will surround me.

Lake Como is the deepest lake in all of Italy. In terms of its expanse, however, it is the third largest, following Lakes Garda and Maggiore. The lake, framed by a ring of pre-alpine mountains, is blessed with beautiful Mediterranean flora and formal gardens, deep azure water, and gorgeous villas along its shoreline. It is no wonder that it was a magnet for the nobility of Lombardy ever since the 18th century.

There are numerous and frequent boat services that link the lake towns to one another, and this is how we plan to navigate the area. This area is known for its magnificent villas and gardens. It is a veritable dream come true for the landscape painter! I know I say that about a lot of places, but anyone who has seen pictures of this place knows in an instant that it is hard to beat in terms of beauty.

My task in the days ahead will be to try and pack all of my personal items into one carry-on bag, and my all of my art supplies into a satchel if possible.

Jennifer Young; Vibrant Landscapes
www.jenniferyoung.com
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Southern Landscape Show

I spent the early part of last week preparing for a "Southern Landscape" show that will be opening soon in Atlanta. The gallery is a beautiful new gallery called Huff Harrington Fine Art. They will feature my work alongside a number of other landscape artists during the month of June. If you happen to be near the area, here are the details:

The Southern Landscape show runs from June 23rd to July 29th. The gallery is located at 4240 Rickenbacker Drive, Atlanta, GA 30342. Please call the gallery at 404.257.0511 for directions and additional information.

Jennifer Young; Vibrant Landscapes
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Beach Sunrise

Today I finished a painting of a sunrise scene from last summer when I stayed at the beach in Nags Head North Carolina. For some reason I was intent on seeing the sunrise while we were there. We saw a number of gorgeous sunsets in the evenings but the sun sets over the sound and the sun rises over the ocean. So I nagged my husband to get up with me one morning and catch the sunrise over the ocean. Why I couldn't go alone is beyond me now; but for some reason, he HAD to come. Unfortunately in my exuberance we were about an hour early, so my romantic vision of togetherness under the morning sun soon turned to sitting on the beach in the dark and listening to Dave grumble and shuffle around, trying to find a spot to lie down and finish his night's sleep.

Eventually, however, we were rewarded with a beautiful soft misty sunrise over the clouds. Here is the painting inspired by that morning:

I painted this scene with a limited palette (alizarin crimson, cadmium yellow pale, ultramarine blue, and pthalo green, plus white.) This is a scene that called for using a lot of "colored grays". Colors that may even read as "mud" in other paintings, created the soft, barely there light that I was going for. At first I thought I'd have to dip into my arsenal of more vivid colors (like permanent rose and cadmium orange) to get the sunrise effect, but because so much of the painting is muted and soft, my crimson and yellow mixtures really popped. My favorite part of this scene is the way the light skips across the water.

I painted this little study en plein air, and since that time I have been wanting to create something similar, but larger and more dynamic.

I used a very limited palette on this one too, mainly because I was under such limited time constraints and didn't have time to squeeze out a bunch of tube colors. One thing I learned from this little painting is that when painting sun/sky paintings on location you really need to keep your brushes and turpentine clean. You also need to paint extremely fast. Screaming at the changing light doesn't really help, but it may possibly make you feel better.

Jennifer Young; Vibrant Landscapes
www.jenniferyoung.com
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Two new marsh paintings

Here are two new water paintings I've just finished. These are scenes of St. Simons Island, Georgia, where I've visited a few times to paint en plein air. These are larger works though, so I did them in the studio:

"As Evening Falls", 30x36", oil on canvas

"Cloud Reflections", 30x40", oil on canvas

Additional information about these two paintings is available in the southern landscapes section of my website.

Jennifer Young; Vibrant Landscapes
www.jenniferyoung.com
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Traveling with oil paints

From time to time I receive emails from other artists asking questions, and I thought it might be fun to try and post responses on my blog (the idea being that if there is one person asking, there may be more wondering also.)

Here's the question:

I am traveling to Tuscany in June, 2007 to paint for 2 weeks. I have always used either pastels or watercolors, but this time I plan to bring oils. What paints and mediums do you bring and how do you pack them for the airlines? I don't want my stuff held back! Thanks for your help, S.P.

Ever since the tightening of the airline regulations, I have battled with this same question. When I last painted in oils overseas, my solution was to pack my easel as a carry-on and everything else (brushes, panels, palette knife, empty containers for mediums, etc.) went into the suitcase clearly labeled as artist materials. I did not pack my paints, mediums, or solvents, however. Instead, I did a bit of inquiring prior to travel to find out if there were any art stores in the vicinity of my destination. Fortunately there were and I bought my paints, mediums and solvents overseas.

Shopping for art supplies overseas can be a lot of fun. There are things that are familiar and also some wonderful products that I hadn't had the opportunity of seeing before. I felt like a kid in a candy shop and I actually ended up delighted with my purchases. I found Rembrandt oil colors in tube sizes I hadn't seen in the U.S. They were small enough to make my load a little lighter, but large enough to last me the two weeks of my stay. When I was in France, I found that the art stores only had small, expensive containers of paint thinner, so I learned how to say "turpentine" in French, and then asked for it at a hardware store. So, it can really be a fun adventure if you're up for it. However, if you are limited on time, you may prefer to just take the chance and carry your paints overseas. With that in mind, I am including a couple of articles that do a good job of addressing some of the issues that might arise:

Advice from the Gamblin Website

Advice from Pochade.com

p.s. If you do decide to shop for supplies at your destination, keep in mind that European countries use the metric system, so their canvas sizes will differ from what our "standard" sizes are in the U.S. This is not an issue if you don't frame your work, but if you use only standard size frames, this will be a matter of concern.

Jennifer Young; Vibrant Landscapes
www.jenniferyoung.com
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Red Canvases

Since I put my first painting demonstration up on my website a couple of years ago, I have had a number of people ask me about the red toned canvas I used.

That demo is a couple of years old. I should probably update that section of my site and add some newer demonstrations, but I just haven't had the time. I used to underpaint many of my landscapes with red (not architectural scenes, however). I rarely do this any more, except when I do my little minis. I used to feel some comfort in having something down on canvas besides the blank whiteness, and the red underpainting was kind of fun. But after a while I found it took too much time to apply the undercoat and I spent a lot of time trying to cover it up in the passages where I wanted it to be cool (such as in areas of far distance.) I think that the reason it still works on the little paintings is that the red undertone does make the colors pop, but with such a small surface I do not need to labor on covering it up for my cool distances.

I will still often tone my canvases with a rather opaque, neutral gray or a warm beige (a tone of raw sienna thinned and scrubbed in a translucent manner over the white of the canvas) when I paint out of doors. The neutral tone of the canvas reduces the bright glare. In the photo below you can see one of my gray-toned panels underneath the plain white ones.

Ideally your palette color should match the color of your canvas for accurate color mixing. In the studio I have a white palette and paint on white canvases. But outdoors my palette is either wood color or a neutral grey. It is not a "must" to match canvas and palette, but it does help to predict what the mixed color will look like when it's laid down on the canvas.

Jennifer Young; Vibrant Landscapes
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Thoughts on Cezanne in Provence

This week I took an out of town trip up to Washington D.C. with a friend to catch the Cezanne landscape exhibit. It was the last week that the show was on view and I am SO glad I had a chance to see it! It was a magnificent representation of his work, with galleries that seemed to go on and on. The show was devoted primarily to his landscapes but also included portraits, some still life, and his Bather series.

Having seen (and been in awe of) his many still life paintings in previous exhibitions, the landscapes are what held my attention the most. I must say that no photo reproduction I've see does justice to his work. It was exciting to see the transition his paintings made when he began painting outside. His landscapes seemed completley transformed; going from heavy tonalist works to paintings full of light and color. But what was most striking to me was the incredible structure most of his paintings had. Many of his paintings were done from odd and unique perspectives, and his subject matter and compositional choices were not always typical of what the landscape painter might choose. And yet he had a way for line and composition that made the structure of his paintings feel almost sculputural.

Cezanne was interested in the formal elements of painting, and not really concerned with painting beautiful scenes, per se. For instance his paintings of the coast of L'Estaque did not depict an idealized harbor. Instead he chose to include an industrialized view of the smokestacks along the coast. He also did a number of paintings of the red rock quarries, which to me felt especially exploratory, as this subject lent itself very well to exploring his near cubist abstractions.

And yet there were so many paintings in that show that I found to be incredibly beautiful, both in the the choice of the subject and the handling of it. In particular the paintings of the countryside close to his home near Aix were so lovely. In addition to the well-known Mt. Saint Victoire series, there were many paintings of the rocky hillside villages and crumbling old farmhouses. In any event, I got the sense that he was always experimenting, exploring; perhaps sometimes frustrated (?), but never bored.

Cezanne had a light, feathery touch, and many of his oils were handled in a way that to me felt almost like watercolors. He had a masterful knowledge of color, though he used it in a subtle way. His greens were some of the richest I've seen, and within their shadows were hints of rose, blue, violet and lavender.

There was also an entire room devoted to his watercolors and drawings. These were light, sketchy things, but within them I could see the seeds of Modernism and the inspiration for the Cubists still to come.

It was our intention that day to catch the Cezanne show and then head over to the Phillips Collection in Dupont Circle to see the Degas and the Renior show. But we both agreed that we wanted some time to just absorb all of the great Cezannes we had just taken in. It's kind of like eating a meal. If it is a great one, you want time to just sit with the delicious experience before you move on to desert. And if it truly is great, maybe you don't even need desert at all!

Jennifer Young; Vibrant Landscapes
www.jenniferyoung.com
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