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

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

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 - 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

Michael Chesley Johnson - Four Values

In my outdoor workshops, I teach John F. Carlson's concept of rendering the landscape in four values. Typically, the darkest darks will be uprights, such as trees; the mid-darks will be slanted surfaces, such as hills; the mid-lights will be flat surfaces, such as meadows; and the lightest lights will be in the sky.

I ran into a situation the other day that exemplified this concept almost perfectly. Rather than slanted surfaces as the mid-darks, I had a distant, befogged treeline. The value of the treeline is close to that of the meadow, but still a bit lighter. You can see clearly how I've broken up the landscape into big, simple shapes and have kept my four values well-separated.



"So Quiet" - Michael Chesley Johnson
9x12, oil, en plein air
$175 (unframed) + $5 shipping

www.MichaelChesleyJohnson.com

One Rose

Betsey Nelson oil on canvas panel 5x7 $225
I prefer to paint small still lifes alla prima. It 's like an indoor plein air painting in that you get one shot to get it right. More exciting than a painting with unlimited time and the piece retains that freshness that I love.