Betsey Nelson - Plein air class

Doni Suggs (artist)

This is another piece created during a plein air painting workshop.
This piece is an acrylic. Doni did several nice clean pieces. Getting her to pay attention to values and temperature was pretty easy. Sometimes a little of the right direction goes a long way.

Betsey Nelson- plein air class

Roy Gould (artist)


Connie Willey (artist)



These are paintings done by two students who participated in two of the four plein air workshops that i taught. The first painting is an acrylic the second an oil. Due to unusually cold conditions we were forced to paint inside much of the workshop. Two days out of the four were warm enough to paint outside though for the way i teach it didn't really matter. All four workshops were full and all of the artists had a wonderful willingness to just go for it and try painting, thinking, seeing everything a bit differently.
These workshops were held in conjunction with the sedona plein air arts festival. and were all one day workshops.
Thank you to all the volunteer assistents for all their help and the m. graham paint company for providing the paint.
Please join us next year and through out the year as sedona arts center is always running day, two day, or week long or once a week classes in all media and all levels from beginner to advanced.

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

Betsey Nelson- End of the day Utah

Betsey Nelson - End of the day UT 8x10 oil on canvas board $485
Returning to areas, photos, or still life set ups that you once dismissed as material for a painting is always a good idea. You may very well change your mind either because your eye is better trained or your palette more comparable to the scene now or your other skills have improved to be able to do the subject justice. Returning again and again through the years may also improve enlightening.

Betsey Nelson - Pampas Grass

BetseyNelson- Pampas Grass pastel 13.5x18 NFS
A difficult painting is sometimes a wonderful surprise. Don't be afaid to tackle something you have no idea how to paint. This piece was a plein air piece done in an unfamilar place at the time of day which usually is hard to get a strong piece high noon to 2pm. Throwing caution to the wind i went for it and was very pleased with the result. It will be a part of my own collection and may someday be the basis of a studio painting. Right now it is a constant remonder of what can be when you take a chance.

Michael Chesley Johnson - Stone Cottage, Minister's Island

Last summer, when I was teaching a pastel workshop in St Andrews, NB, a student challenged me to use only soft pastels in a demonstration. I usually start off with hard pastels and then wash in the pigment with Turpenoid before moving on to the softer sticks. Could I skip the hard pastels?

We were painting on Minister's Island. Back in the late 1700s, this scant bit of land was home to the first Anglican minister of St Andrews. The island was -- and still is -- accessible by foot or wheeled vehicle only at low tide, when the receding water reveals a gravel bar that connects it to the mainland. (At high tide, you can take a boat.) My subject for the demonstration was the stone cottage the minister lived in.

I used the 80-half-stick "landscape" selection from Sennelier. You can't get much softer than these pastels! They require a very light touch, especially when using the aggressively-toothed Wallis Sanded Paper. This painting has a thick, rich build-up of pastel.



"Stone Cottage, Minister's Island"
9x12, pastel, en plein air

Betsey Nelson - Full Sun

Betsey Nelson - Full Sun AZ Strip 8x10 $450
This was painted after another long plein air day and painted quickly. I mainly wanted cature distance in a pretty monochromatic landscape.

Betsey Nelson - A Window To The Rocks

Betsey Nelson - A Window To The Rocks 8x10 oil on canvas panel $460
This was done on a trip to Sedona. A place I knew I could sneak a view but at a time where the light would be changing rapidly. I wasn't sure I could pull off the effects that I wanted but I did have a goal in mind. Sometimes paintingis just for pure pleasure and sometimes (maybe too often!)there is a goal and then there is a good chance I may fail. To paint what I know I can paint doesn't require the same intensity and therefore the painting often lacks that something special.

Michael Chesley Johnson - More Drizzle

I really can't complain about living in the "grey zone" here in the Canadian Maritimes.  This extended period of fog, drizzle and rain does me a favour.  The grey overcast saturates the colours, pouring rich color throughout the landscape.

I went out the other afternoon - again, between bouts of rain - and got caught.  Not as much drizzle as the day before, but enough that I could see it building up on the paint surface.  I tipped my easel forward to keep any more rain off the panel so I wouldn't  have to fight with the water.

"More Drizzle, November"

5x7, oil, en plein air

$60+$5 shipping

Betsey Nelson - Boat Study Plein Air

Betsey Nelson - Boat Study Plein Air 8x10 oil on panel $460
This study along with a photograph gives me enough information to do a studio painting. The studio painting would be a different size and having all this information would allow me to play with the painting and create another painting. I find I am unable to just create a larger version of the original I keep asking myself what's the point? But to take the information and create a new painting would challenge and interest me.

Michael Chesley Johnson - Looking Up

Lately, I've been enjoying painting simple pieces. I've been looking more for an abstract angle and composition. One evening, the sight of these spruces against the rich, blue sky caught my eye. I was fascinated by not just the compositional possibilities but also the color. You don't get moments like this very often!



"Looking Up" 5x7, pastel, en plein air
$60+$5 shipping

Betsey Nelson - Horse study

Betsey Nelson - Horse Study oil 9x12 NFS

As a participant in the recent Sedona Plein Air festival i had an opportunity to teach two workshops and talk with some established artist as well as beginning artists and all levels in between. I think the most common misconception that I discovered is that the less experienced artists all thought that reworking or continuing work on either a workshop piece or one of their past pieces was a good idea. All the experienced artists agree that this is a BAD idea a much better idea (with some exceptions of course) is to do another painting. Not all attempts are going to work and usually it is a much better idea to try again either with the same landscape or still life etc. or even an entirely new subject. The idea is the more you paint the more you learn and those ones that work should start to become more frequent. Everyone no matter what their skill level will create bad paintings once in awhile, and more often if they are commited to growing as a painter.

This study was just a search for information on how to paint a horse from life what to look for in the horse and the normal painting relationships i think all good paintings should have. When i had gotten that information i stopped. The study stands on its own as a study and for use when i need to do a painting.

Michael Chesley Johnson - Bernard Pier

I recently taught a workshop in Acadia National Park in Maine. One day, we went out to Bernard, a quaint fishing village on Mount Desert Island. The light was overall cool, which made for some very warm shadows. You don't often see this in nature on a sunny day. I "pushed" the warmth in the shadows a bit to include some lovely oranges and reds.



"Bernard Pier"
9x12, pastel
$100+$5 shipping

Betsey Nelson - Losing Light

Betsey Nelson 6x8 oil on canvas board $350

This was done on a painting trip with several other artists. To minamize the decision factor for picking the painting spots we decided that if one of us was interested in a view we would all paint at least a 6x8. The trip became a visual diary and we probably learned more doing lots of small quick paintings rather than only a few larger pieces and we probably took more chances knowing that it was 'just" a small painting.

Michael Chesley Johnson - Autumn Splendor

In my mind, there's nothing finer than painting in the autumn. I love to be out on a warm afternoon when the grasshoppers are singing their last songs and the sun sets a golden fire in the fields. This week, I went to one of my favorite wet areas, a marsh near Eagle Hill Bog, to paint the marsh grasses. The trick was to make the grasses incandescent. I kept the shadowed parts of the grasses red and warm, warmer than the sunlit tops, and then made sure the highlights on the tops were the brightest extreme in the painting.

"Autumn Splendor" 8x10, oil, en plein air

$150+$5 shipping

www.MichaelChesleyJohnson.com

Michael Chesley Johnson - Pastel Nocturne

Although I've painted nocturnes in oil, I've never done a night painting in pastel. I thought I'd give it a try. Unlike oil painting at night, you don't have the color mixing issue. (In the glow of my headlamp, Ultramarine Blue oil paint looks a lot like Alizarin Crimson oil paint, and it's mostly because I always arrange my palette in the same way that I can tell them apart.) But you do have the color selection issue -- which is, in my mind, almost as difficult.

We had a beautiful full moon this morning, and when I woke around 4, I decided to take advantage of it. I loaded up my pastel gear and hiked down to our beach through the apple trees. The ripe apples seem even more fragrant in the night. As I moved out into a clearing, I saw Friar's Head, lying in the distance like a black slab in a silvery sea.

I set up my pastel box. I keep it well-organized. It has six sections, one for each color family. I divide each section with cool colors at one end and warm colors at the other. In addition, I sort the pastels in each section by value. With this level of organization, you'd think it'd be a piece of cake in the dark to find the correct cool, dark purple I need. Not so - there are subtle but important variations among those cool, dark purples. They were almost impossible to see under my headlamp.

I found myself looking at the scene, deciding (or guessing) what color a certain shape before me was, and then reaching into the box where I remembered that particular color should be. But was it the correct cool, dark purple? The best I could do was get right the color family, the temperature and the value. Whether it was a slightly redder purple or a slightly bluer one was hard to tell. But this isn't a problem unique to pastel; it's the same with mixing oil paint in the dark.

Unlike oil paint, however, which stays on the palette where you put it, pastel sticks don't. I have a little tray (my "working palette") that I put my pastel sticks in as I work so I can find them again easily. Well, they rolled around and got jumbled up a bit. Oops! Is this the purple or the green? I had to work very hard at keeping the pastel sticks that were in use separate.

I ended up focussing more on value than anything and tried to approximate the temperatures. Even so, I was pretty satisfied with the result. Here's the painting after a few minor tweaks in the studio:



"Friar's Head, Moonlight"
5x7, pastel, en plein air
$60+$5 shipping

www.MichaelChesleyJohnson.com

Journey to England:7

Libby Caldwell, Oil on Panel, 6 x 8 $115.

Journal entry 7: View from the Beach Hut.
As we sat on the front porch of the beach hut, this was our view looking out to sea. Out over the sand and small pools that were left behind by the tide. I had been sketching people as they made their way across the sand; they would often stop and the children would play in the shallow pools of water. Dogs would run by, yachts would sail by, but now all was still, and I wanted to capture this peaceful view on the only small panel I had with me, and the limited palette I had carried down to the beach that day.

Michael Chesley Johnson - Salt Marsh Overcast

Lately, I've been trying a new approach with my oil paintings. I've been using oil pastel for my initial block-in and then washing over it with mineral spirits to create an underpainting before applying traditional oil paints. Why? I find I can control the drawing better with oil pastel. And what's more, if you don't cover the underpainting completely, some of the wonderful "scribbly" marks will show through and energize the final surface.

I must warn you about oil pastels, though. They contain a non-drying vegetable oil. You must use enough mineral spirits to dissolve and wash out this oil so the following layers of traditional oil paints adhere properly.

Here's a recent painting I did this way. I like the way my underpainting shows through.

"Salt Marsh Overcast" 9x12, oil/oil pastel

$300+$10 shipping

www.MichaelChesleyJohnson.com

- Michael Chesley Johnson PSA MPAC PSNM

Michael Chesley Johnson - Salt Marsh Glimmer

This little painting is only 5x7, but I think it really evokes the sense of late summer here on Campobello Island in the Canadian Maritimes. A light fog tumbled in from the ocean into the salt marsh, throwing a cool light on the scene. But the grasses, which are just starting to change into their fall colors, lend a sense of warmth to the foreground. The cool light in the distance and the warm colors up front go a long way to creating an illusion of space in the painting.



"Salt Marsh Glimmer"
5x7, oil, en plein air - Michael Chesley Johnson, PSA MPAC PSNM

www.MichaelChesleyJohnson.com

Michael Chesley Johnson - East Quoddy Morning

We have three lighthouses within a few minutes of my studio. Although some artists eschew the idea of painting lighthouses as being too cute, there's a lot that can be done with them. I chose the East Quoddy Lighthouse (also known as the Head Harbour Lightstation) to do an early morning study of light on a white structure.

It's a lonely-looking lighthouse, isn't it?


"East Quoddy Morning"
5x7, oil, en plein air
$60+$5 shipping
www.MichaelChesleyJohnson.com