Plein Air "Takeaway" Technique

I’ll be teaching this oil-painting technique on Sunday, January 30 at the Volcano Art Center's Niaulani building in Volcano Village. Here are some notes to ponder:

Paints to use when starting a painting (more transparent, dry quickly)

For Trees, buildings, etc:

Ultramarine Blue
Prussian Blue (good for the ocean)
Dioxazine Purple
Yellow Ochre
Viridian Green
Sap Green
Alizarine Crimson
Burnt Sienna
Burnt Umber
Indian Yellow (very strong clear transparent yellow)
Permanent Rose
Quinacridone Magenta

For sky areas and for a sense of distance (use sparingly):

Naples Yellow
White
Cobalt Turquoise (good for ocean and underwater seafoam)

Paints to use only later in the process (very opaque, dry very slowly):

Cadmium Yellow Light (or Cad. Lemon or Hansa Yellow)
Cad. Yellow Medium or Dark
Cadmium Orange
Cadmium Red Light, Medium, and/or Dark
Cad Light Green
Permanent Green
any Gamblin Radiant Series

Regard the scene (or still life or figure). See if you can “grok” the overall dance or movement of what’s going on. Is there a focal point of interest? Is there a path going into the space? (consider inventing one if there is not!) Does the space between things do any special movement? (i.e. a tunnel of space over a shady lane, or a sweep of air along a coastline, or mysterious glades among treetrunks...) What emotion is expressed by this scene? Squint if it helps to see the larger masses and the overall pattern. If the light is doing something truly amazing, take a picture now since those effects rarely last! Same thing with animals or people doing interesting things in your scene.

Step 1: Dot paint directly from tubes onto canvas for quickest results. Your choice of color now will set the tone for the whole painting. Balance observation with fantasy and imagination regarding color! Use your largest brush to mush paint into approximate shapes without regard to lighting effect, just simplified silhouettes. Let the tones be in the middle, neither very light nor very dark. Cover the canvas completely with thinned paints, using either turpentine or turps mixed with some dryer. Borrow paint with your brush from heavier areas if needed to distribute and re-arrange. Note that more distant objects are lighter in tone, so add white or let the paint be more transparent.

When the whole canvas is covered, take a moment to congratulate yourself. Eat a cookie and drink a sip of your hot tea.

Step 2: Use a medium size brush dipped in darker paints to draw shadows and structural details. Adjust the darkness so more distant objects are sketched in lighter tones. This would be the time to add the more important tree trunks and branches.

Step 3: Then take a rag in one hand and dip a smaller clean brush in thinner. A t-shirt rag on your finger works well for this step, or just keep re-cleaning the brush. Start wiping away areas where the sun directly hits the objects: rooftops, tree bulges facing the sky, sunlight patches on a road surface or a lawn, linear streaks along tree trunks facing the light.
If the canvas has been toned a deep color, this step may take some imagination and delayed gratification since you are working to achieve a sense of light.

Step 4: Start adding highlights using strong, thick opaque paints. Now’s the time for cadmiums. Sunlight is yellow, and so a stronger effect of light can be achieved with yellow tints. White clouds can have a pure yellow edge to pop them against the blue sky. Tree trunk highlights can have a cadmium orange edge to pop them against all the green and blue shadows. Road highlights can be pink, yellow or orange depending on the paving material. Lawns and trees can have pure yellow or cadmium green light highlights. Permanent Green can be used sparingly. The Gamblin Radiant Series can be helpful.

Time and energy permitting, the final working of the painting can go on to whatever level of exactitude you prefer. Take photos of the scene if you like so you can tweak the details later. But oftentimes the first bold approach will result in a fresh, exciting painting that might not be improved with a lot of fussing!

Thanks as always to Roger Montoya of New Mexico for always generously sharing his techniques!

Afternoon at the Gallery, January26

These are some photos from around the gallery just to show what's new this year. I'm always on everyone's case to keep producing new art, but the truth is that it's pretty challenging to keep it coming! New, fresh art is often the first to get sold, and so sometimes it can seem like the gallery doesn't change very much. But it does have its progression of novelty....

We looked longingly at a space that's opening up on bayfront, just down from Sig Zane's very prestigious store. Dreams of expansion and better exposure danced in our heads, but the rent (double our current, plus lots of insurance needs!) was daunting. A mishap with a very grouchy manager clinched the non-deal, as he threw Cosette and Tuko out of the space for just being there looking around! We think we'll stick with our current location and our friendly landlords!

To celebrate Valentine's Day and month, we are having a sale on cards, t-shirts, pareos and boxes. I personally love the little hand-crafted items, but they take a lot of time for the $$ amount we can charge. But it's just this sort of thing that will be popping up on those TV antiques road shows in future years, unbelievably rare items from the hands of artists!

I'll be teaching an oil-painting workshop this Sunday up in Volcano Village, at the Niaulani campus of the Art Center. It's been a while since I've taught, so it will be a good chance to brush up on my people skills and communication arts.

A friend of David Hubbard provided this shot of him working on a portrait.

Fifth Anniversary Celebration!

Everett took these photos of us in front of our works, and some shots of the party we had on Friday September 3. Noticeably absent are the dynamic duo of Leslie Sears and David Hubbard, but we'll post their photos eventually. Everett is updating our website arthurjohnsengallery.com and has been compiling files of photos to draw upon.

The main news this month is that Sonya has to leave the islands due to her husband's allergies. This is a bummer because she is a super nice person and her artworks are very beautiful. In an effort to lighten her load and send her happily on her way, we are holding a silent auction of her paintings and pastels. This is an extraordinary opportunity to purchase gorgeous artworks at a very minimal price! Many of the pastels are unusually framed with custom matboards with real sand texturing them. The auction will last until the end of September.

The opening was fun and well attended. We always have tasty and abundant food to share, which I imagine has an attractive effect. Up the street at the East Hawai'i Cultural Center, a group of environmentally active artists opened a show of native species and habitats, while in a side gallery John Mydock presented an array of very spectacular turned and carved and radically painted wooden objects. In my humble opinion this show establishes his position as one of the Big Island's most powerful and creative artists, much as Henry Bianchini's amazing show did in July at the same venue.

Our Fifth Anniversary Bash this Friday

Hard to believe we've been on Waianuenue Avenue as long as we have. It's a tiny gallery on a very noisy street with ambulances screaming up and down on their way to the hospital up above Rainbow Falls (Waianuenue = water of the rainbow, get it??). But the very things that keep us small and humble are also the strengths that have allowed us to stay open while businesses have come and gone throughout downtown Hilo. We are more or less a co-operative group where everyone showing on the walls shares time working at the gallery. So if you walk in you are going to meet a creative spirit no matter what day it is. Now we are even open on Saturdays, thanks to the generous willingness of Deborah Beaver, who uses the time to actually paint in the shop. We are also very excited about the participation of our new friend and ally Everett Charters, who is a technogeek, very intelligent, and with great ideas on how to improve our website.




Members of the A J Gallery will be celebrating our 5th anniversary with a special opening this Friday, September 3, from 5 to 7 PM. Come join us for music and pupus!

Kaua'i No Ka Oi

I had a mission to visit a new client on her property just across from Limahuli Gardens on the far North coast of Kaua'i. She was inspired by my paintings in Mary's book "Hawai'i A Sense of Place" and by my big lobby painting at the St. Regis Hotel in Princeville, to commission a couple of figurative paintings for her house which is still in the early stages of construction. When it's finished the house will have an incredible view up into the Limahuli Valley with its green spires and legend-haunted stones. Constance herself is a remarkable individual with a strong sense of connection to the land and a desire to bring beauty and improvement to the world around her.

Everett and I visited my high school friend Helen Cox and her husband John in Kalaheo, south Kaua'i, and walked their two dogs in the golden afternoon light. What a beautiful island Kaua'i is. Then after a night with Constance on the north shore we checked into the Princeville St. Regis for several days of pre-birthday celebration. Very glamorous, very nice location, but super expensive for every little detail. The best part was Everett gravitating toward a Wahine Kupuna (elder woman) sitting in the lobby one morning, "talking story" about life and art on the island. Auntie Dora, known to her family as "Puna", brought artifacts, shells, Hawaiian quilting projects (Everett's favorite) and lots of stories to share.

New (Old) Card Designs

Anyone who knows me has seen that lately I've been obsessed with Hawaiian kapa (tapa, or barkcloth) stamp designs. This is a holdover from some fruitful collaborations with Mary Philpotts and her gang over the last several years. But it's also just an increasing appreciation for how creatively the kanaka maoli (native people) used their resources and combined their design motifs. I have a big box of linoleum blocks that emulate the designs, although not at the original sizes which were scaled to the limitations of carved bamboo ('ohe kapala) and the cut stems of plants.

I keep searching for a synthesis of my regular painting style with the graphic brilliance of old Hawai'i nei. I've collaged printed paper into paintings and on their borders. Tuko inspired me with her border for Nikko's memorial photo portrait (see August 3), with its colorful collage of my tapa print origami papers.

Now I've been unearthing old paintings of mine and making cards and prints using kapa-motif borders. This gives a nostalgic effect that is appropriate to the atmosphere of the Puna of a decade or two ago, when the road was still a sleepy one-lane byway paved in a motley patchwork of red and grey cinder. These cards are printed on my home Epson photo r1900 and are now available at the gallery which, astonishingly, will be celebrating its 5th anniversary with a party on the first Friday of September.