Michael Chesley Johnson - Stormy Autumn

I am now down to the final days before heading off to Sedona for the Sedona Plein Air Festival (www.sedonapleinairfestival.com). Besides tying up loose ends, I'll be going through my painting gear to see what I absolutely must take, and what I can leave behind. What with today's air travel restrictions, the less luggage I can tote, the better. I dream of someday flying unecumbered with nothing more than the shirt on my back!

A few days ago, I took some local students out on a one-day painting adventure. Rain never seemed far off, but they braved the raw wind to paint. On the lee side of the island, I found a sheltered nook near the Upper Duck Pond where we could paint. I did the above 5x7 demo in pastel. Bad weather aside, it was a beautiful day for clouds!

- Michael Chesley Johnson

www.MichaelChesleyJohnson.com

Michael Chesley Johnson - Mountain Shadows

"Sun & Shadow," 9x12, pastel

How do you depict peek-a-boo sunshine on the hills? Lately, here in New England and the Canadian Maritimes, we've had a lot of clouds. They make for some wonderful patterns of sun and shadow on the hillsides.

The trick with depicting this kind of sun and shadow lies in controlling the contrast of light and dark. We are so pulled in by the brilliant patches of sunlight that they seem brighter than they are. But if you paint them too bright, they will merge with the bright sky and no longer seem to be part of the hill. Also, watch the color temperature. Although there were some rich spots of fall foliage in this scene, they were cooler in temperature than sunlit trees closer by. As you can see in the painting, these were more of a red-violet than red or orange. To further enhance the light on the hills, I kept the foreground dark and mysterious. (9x12, pastel)

Michael Chesley Johnson - www.MichaelChesleyJohnson.com - http://mchesleyjohnson.blogspot.com

Michael Chesley Johnson - Surfaces

"Ebb Tide" 9x12, pastel

Lately, I've been experimenting with grounds for oil painting, but this week I diverged and began to play with pastel grounds. I decided to salvage some of the hardboard panels that I had prepped for oil painting with three coats of Blick Master Gesso - it's a surface that, as I've said elsewhere, is too slick for my way of oil painting - by adding added two coats of Golden Acrylic Ground for Pastels. I ended up with a surface with a medium amount of grit to it.

It doesn't hold the pastel as well as Wallis paper, and because it doesn't have as fine a tooth, it is best suited for broad applications of pastel rather than detail work. Also, it "grabs" softer pastel better than hard pastel. For this one, I used mostly Mount Vision pastels. I really like the simple, large shapes and implied detail.

Michael

www.MichaelChesleyJohnson.com

http://mchesleyjohnson.blogspot.com

Michael Chesley Johnson - Afternoon Delight

"Cobscook Bay Afternoon" 5x7, pastel

Now and then, when you find the stress of painting too much, you need to go visit a friend. Take your painting gear, so you can paint while you chat. There's nothing like it! While the verbal half of the mind is engaged, the artistic half can have a field day. I went out to visit my friends who were camping at Cobscook Bay, where I set up in the shade with a cool breeze and a folding chair to sit in. I chose pastel rather than oil because there's just a lot less fuss with pastel. All that, plus a glass of wine - what a perfect afternoon!

Michael Chesley Johnson
www.MichaelChesleyJohnson.com - http://mchesleyjohnson.blogspot.com

Michael Chesley Johnson - Late Summer Hues

As we get closer to the end of summer, the color of things change. Reds begin to show in the deciduous trees, and yellows begin to show in the grasses. On Campobello Island, where I live in the Canadian Maritimes, the marsh grasses have already started to change. A decidedly yellow cast has appeared, but still some subtle greens show. Here's a little sketch I did in oil yesterday to capture this transistional time. If you click to enlarge and then look at the grasses below the large tree shapes on the left, you'll see what I mean.

"Late Summer Grasses" 5x7, oil/panel

Michael Chesley Johnson MPAC PSA PSNM

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Michael Chesley Johnson - Painting Fog

On foggy days, what subject is best? Well, you certainly don't want to try painting a broad vista! When we have fog, I look for something colorful, like a boat or building, or a close-up view of the natural landscape. Even on the foggiest days, the world right at your feet often features a great deal of warm, exciting color.

Yesterday, we had persistent fog, so I took the workshop out to Herring Cove, where I knew there'd be some good color in the grasses. I did these two small paintings, playing with the composition but keeping the same palette for each.

Michael Chesley Johnson - www.MichaelChesleyJohnson.com

Michael Chesley Johnson - Sketching in the Field

Most of us don't sketch as much as we should. In a recent newsletter, Canadian artist Robert Genn remarked that he doesn't sketch anymore. (Read it here.) I, too, rarely find time to sketch. Time is so taken up with painting and the business of painting. But when I teach outdoor workshops, I always have my sketchbook with me. Partly, it's for doing thumbnail sketches in preparation for painting. But when the workshop is small, I often have time between visiting students at their easels to do a little drawing, too. I also find it useful to illustrate concepts for individual students when they're having some difficulty.

Above is one page from my sketchbook.

Michael Chesley Johnson - Color Studies from Photos

Most of you know how I dislike to paint from photos. However, when I'm forced to do so because of the weather, I like to use a little trick to spice up the color.

Below is a grid of four small color pastel studies I did based on a photo. (These images are from an exercise I did with a student yesterday; you can click on the image to see it larger.) The top left photo (#1) shows a sketch that I did in full-color directly from the photo. This is how most of us, I suspect, paint from photos. I tried to analyze the color as best I could. It was OK, but the color is a bit ho-hum.

In order to find a process that would make the color more exciting, I stepped back a bit to basics. First, in #2, I did a simple value sketch in four values. Next, in #3, I analyzed my value sketch and selected cool colors for the two dark values and warm colors for the two light values. I purposely selected colors that I didn't see in the photo. Finally, in #4, I made a copy of #3 and then used the colors I did see (the "local color") to layer over these. In my mind, #4 has richer, more interesting color than what is happening in the cut-and-dried #1.

To be sure, this is a gimmick - but sometimes coffee and rock-and-roll just aren't enough to liven up a rainy studio day!

Michael Chesley Johnson - More Boats

"The Lucy B" 12x16, oil/canvas

Rainy weather drives us outdoor painters into the studio. When I'm in the studio, I sometimes find working from a single photo to be a dull exercise. I like to liven things up a bit by combining photos. Here are two photos I used for "The Lucy B," above. Can you spot the two elements I pulled from each?

Michael Chesley Johnson - About Boats

"The Simone & Rachel" 16x20, oil, en plein air

I've been painting boats lately. Boats can be complicated - they're full of compound curves. And boats can be undependable, because they go up and down with the tides, and they are likely to vanish when the fishermen show up for work. But I enjoy them. I like their shapes, especially when I have a big canvas and can let my whole arm swing as I sketch in their curves. I also like their proportions and consider them a worthy challenge. It's a good feeling when everything comes together just right!

The best boats to paint are the ones that are beached. If you can catch them at low tide, they will stay beached - it's not until the tide floats them that there's any chance of them being put to work. Today, I went over to Lubec, Maine, to paint en plein air the "Simone & Rachel," which is exactly that kind of boat. I've seen it at low tide several times, and I reckoned that at today's low tide, it'd be there again.

Once I got it back to the studio, I spent the afternoon adjusting values and edges.

Michael Chesley Johnson - Using Greys

Lately, I've come to love the use of grey, whether it's in oil or pastel. I've started using neutral greys to moderate strong color, rather than that color's complement. We've always been taught how a complement can neutralize a color. In my experience, the complement doesn't quite "kill" the color and, in fact, can often lead to an unintended color that doesn't quite fit the painting. Using a neutral grey, however, does the trick. It dulls the color perfectly. I suppose this is obvious to anyone who's academy-trained, but for me, this was a discovery and a real eye-opener!

For my pastel greys, I've been using the greys from the full Polychromos set and the set of 12 greys in the NuPastels. For oil greys, try the Gamblin "Portland" greys, which come in three values.

"Two Boats" 5x7, pastel

"Bernard Harbor," 8x10, oil

Michael Chesley Johnson - Sketching Surfaces

Yesterday was my day to clean up all my oil gear. After this week's workshop, which is a plein air pastel class for the Sedona Art Center, Trina and I hit the road. I won't have the opportunity to paint in oil for another week or so. Both brushes and palette needed to be made ready for a week of storage and car travel.

Because I didn't want to throw away the bits of paint that were left on my palette, I decided to play with Judson's "Cartón Board." Last week, I had a student give me a couple of small samples. Here's what Judson says about the board:

"Toulouse-Lautrec and Vuillard used tan card stock for oil painting. This thin resin-sized card stock is far more permanent than that used by the famous painters of past centuries. Great undercolor for oil paintings."

I doubt the board is archival, but it's great if you just want to do some quick sketching. You can secure it with a few pushpins to a sheet of corrugated cardboard. The board is very absorbent, making it perfect for oilier paints.

We had a big windstorm yesterday - 55 mph gusts - but I found a sheltered nook to do the below sketch in.



"Stormy Villa"
6x6, oil

Michael Chesley Johnson - www.MichaelChesleyJohnson.com

PS Don't forget my art sale, Thursday and Friday (March 26 & 27), 2-5 pm at the Arts Center!

Creating Light - Michael Chesley Johnson

Creating a sense of strong light has to do with correct value and color temperature choices. Many people think strong value contrast alone does the trick, but it's not true. Temperature contrast also plays a part. In the demonstration pastel sketch below, not only did I keep my lights well-separated from the darks, I kept the shadows considerably cooler than the lights. I started off with a red-violet underpainting for Cathedral Rock and then layered more neutral browns and greens over it - but still keeping the color cooler than the sunlit greens and "rim lighting" along the edge of the rocks.

By the way, there are still a couple of spaces in my pastel plein air workshop next week Also, in conjunction with the workshop, I am hosting a two-afternoon "art sale" of my work.  The sale will consist of both framed and unframed work, oil and pastel, and of all sizes.  Dates are Thursday, March 26, and Friday, March 27, from 2-5 pm.  Work will be displayed in the Theater Classroom.  Come down and see some of the work I've been posting.

"Cathedral Rock Sketch"
5x7 pastel

www.MichaelChesleyJohnson.com

Michael Chesley Johnson - A Perfect Day

It was a beautiful day today, and I decided to go out and shoot footage for the pastel video. (As you may recall, I plan to release two videos as companions to Backpacker Painting.) Everything went right today. That's a rare thing in outdoor painting, and even more rare when a painting session is combined with a recording session! No wind, no interlopers, no air traffic and a good painting. Here's the painting I did:



"A Perfect Day"
9x12, pastel
Michael Chesley Johnson - www.MichaelChesleyJohnson.com

and here's a little trailer I put together. Enjoy!

Michael Chesley Johnson - Extreme Limited Pastel Palette

Pastel students sometimes complain about having to lug 200-plus pastels out into the field. When this happens, I have them do my "extreme limited pastel palette" exercise. We go through their pastels and pick out 14 sticks - a cool and a warm version of each of the three primaries and three secondaries, plus black and white - and then they use them to do a painting! The results can be surprisingly good. You really can mix just about every color you need.

I will confess, though, that you have to work hard at it, and not always do you get the exact neutrals or vibrant hues you'd like. But, you'll come very close! And it's refreshing to carry into the field just a pocket full of pastels rather than the whole store.

Here's a small piece I did with the extreme limited palette:



"Sail Rock Shadows"
pastel, 5x7

By the way, there's still room in my weeklong, pastel-only plein air workshop at the end of March. Contact the Sedona Arts Center to register. Spring is happening, and we'll have some really nice spring foliage to paint!

- Michael Chesley Johnson, www.MichaelChesleyJohnson.com

Michael Chesley Johnson - Color Triads

"Schnebly Hill Chasm"
9x12, pastel

I remember reading somewhere that the triad of secondaries makes for the most pleasing color harmony because the natural landscape consists of orange, green and purple. This wasn't on my mind when I painted the picture above, but in retrospect, I unwittingly used this triad. Most likely, it's because I painted what I saw.

My secondaries run from the pure hues to neutrals and in a variety of temperatures. It'd be a good quiz for students to see how many they kind find. (Any takers?)

This was painted during late morning at Schnebly Hill, when Munds Mountain is backlit. The chasm in the foreground is part of a wash that runs into Bear Wallow Canyon. The rock ledges are steep and dramatic - worth exploring, for sure.

By the way, there are still openings in my pastel workshop for the end of March.  We'll have glorious weather and long days for painting!  I hope to see some of you there.

Michael Chesley Johnson - www.MichaelChesleyJohnson.com

Michael Chesley Johnson - Picking the Right Color

"Red Rock Crossing Hues"
5x7, pastel

I've seen many students agonize over selecting "just the right green" from their pastels or mixing "just the right blue" with their oil paints. The implication of this is that they're trying to duplicate the scene before them photographically by painting exactly the colors that they see.

The problem with this approach is that we are often faced with a world of dull or monotonous color. Too much green in moist New England, too much brown in the desert Southwest, too much grey in the foggy Northwest. Duplicating the scene may give you a painting that doesn't quite work. We all remember those fantastic scenes we've photographed, only to look at the photographs back home and sadly learn that the camera failed to capture the feeling. It's the same with painting.

Here's a better approach. Pick a color that's close and works well with your other colors. Think of getting the color relationships right, not the exact colors.

Above is a case in point. Under the hazy, almost-overcast light, the red rock slab had a little more orangey-red in it than I've painted it. I didn't have quite the right pastel color. Still, the colors all work together.

Michael Chesley Johnson
www.MichaelChesleyJohnson.com

Michael Chesley Johnson - Rain in Sedona

The day before, we had rain, which is an uncommon but welcome event in this dry country. Needless to say, we painted from indoors, but looking out at the view.

I chose pastel to do two small sketches. I was interested more in color and value than anything else. I worked especially on the cool reds and greens in the distant hills and the relationship to the warmer foreground greens. For the distant hills, I chose two pastels of the same value - a rather vivid red-violet and a blue-green. After blocking in the hills, I layered the complement of each over them to neutralize the rich color somewhat. I also used a bit of "real" grey to cool them down further.

For both of these pieces, I used the "Belgian Mist" color of the Wallis Sanded Pastel Paper plus the hard Polychromos pastels. Having the paper already toned a warm grey helped warm up and harmonize the cool, sometimes discordant colors I used in the underpainting.

Michael Chesley Johnson
www.MichaelChesleyJohnson.com

Michael Chesley Johnson - Workshop Demonstration Paintings

I taught a one-day Introduction to Pastel workshop for the Sedona Art Center on Saturday. It was a great class, and everyone had a good time. I did two demonstrations to illustrate a couple of basic approaches to painting in pastel. In the first, I painted with soft pastel on steel-grey Canson paper. This is a very direct approach without any underpainting, and it's about as close to drawing as you can get. Pastel is a wonderful transition medium to get you from drawing, which is something we've all done in grade school, to real painting. Beginners really enjoy this.

In the second method, I created an underpainting on sanded paper with pastel that I then "scrubbed in" with rubbing alcohol. This establishes a good foundation of value and color. Once it dried, I finished with more pastel. This more advanced method is very much like painting - you even use a brush to create textures and brush strokes in the underpainting stage.

The first painting is the dry technique, and the second is the wet technique. (Neither painting is really finished at this point; they are just illustrative sketches.)

Michael Chesley Johnson PSA MPAC PSNM
www.MichaelChesleyJohnson.com

Michael Chesley Johnson - Looking Into the Shadows

"Doe Mountain Colors"
5x7, pastel

I've been in Sedona for a little over three weeks now, painting up a storm. One of the subjects I find myself continually drawn to are mountain shadows. Many people praise the brightly-lit summits in evening light; but I'm seeking out all the hidden colors in the shadows.

At noontime, the sunlit cliffs tend to be the color of terra cotta or, if you look higher up the strata, more of a warm, chalky color. The shadows, however, seem to have every color of the rainbow. I've had a lot of fun painting them, especially in pastel, which gives me so many immediate and rich color choices. Can you find all the colors in the shadows of Doe Mountain (above)?

Michael Chesley Johnson
www.MichaelChesleyJohnson.com