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 - 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 - 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.

Betsey Nelson-Full Sun

Betsey Nelson - Full Sun 12x9 oil $625
This is a quick start-painting. I usually work on something with a lot if intensity and get almost done (or done). I then leave the piece and come back with a fresh eye and try to clean up, strengthen or restate. Sometimes it needs nothing but a signature.

Betsey Nelson- Two Boats

Betsey Nelson - Two Boats 9x12 oil NFS
This is a start that i like and will go back to work on. If successful i will post the finished piece or successive steps to the finished piece. The intent of the piece has (thus far) been achieved. I was attempting to get the feel of dappled light on the two boats. As a painting gets worked and reworked the first steps of the painting,the start, can be destroyed in later stages. The artist can lose sight of the original intent and become engrossed in some insignificant parts/part usually only appearing on the artists radar and not at all important to the bigger picture. It can become just a figment of the artists obsession and on the larger scale insignificate to the viewer. This is one of the reason the student (and that would be all of us) needs to STEP BACK and view the painting as a whole.

oi

Betsey Nelson - Field Pastel Sketches

Betsey Nelson - Field Pastel Sketches
These are two small (5x7) or smaller field sketches out of multitudes of sketches i sometimes do while scouting areas for plein air painting. Sometimes just the act of doing them looses up my color senses and some wonderful surprises happen. Plein air painting for me is about discovery not about just recreating the scene in front of me. There really needs to be more to make it stand on it's own. My search is to find that and i can only do that when i open up to allow it to happen.