influence, inspiration, imitation

Last winter, when I was in Philadelphia, I was thrilled to happen upon the colossal "Van Gogh Up Close"  show at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. I love van Gogh, and his strokes of color on the canvas inspire and excite me. While listening to the recorded narration of the exhibit,  I heard this memorable description:

 "Van Gogh paints the landscape with the knowledge that he is 

painting the skin of a living and breathing dragon."

This summer, during my week with Marj Lightle and Dori Dewberry, we looked at the work of Canadian landscape artist Tom Thompson in many books I have in my studio. Tom Thomson: The Silence and the Storm is a beautiful book, filled with photographs of Thomson's paintings, and is still available through Amazon and other booksellers. The Group of Seven and Tom Thomson is another great resource for works done by this pioneering group.

For the last year or so, the dazzling work of these artists has rolled around in my imagination. In the painting above, you see some of my thoughts turned into action. How will I divide the landscape shapes into interlocking and interesting pieces? What will happen if I lay color in with short, directional strokes?

Both Marj and Dori did paintings during their stay with me that showed these same influences. You can click here to see. 

Trying on ideas, each in our own way. Nodding to the masters of the past. Looking to create something of our own. It is all part of the process of art making.

Sort of like this video. Or, maybe not at all.

RUN DMC "Walk This Way."

excellent experiment

pick up at Portland International Airport

Marj Lightle and Dori Dewberry

I invited two California artists, Dori Dewberry and Marj Lightle to come up to the Pacific Northwest to have a painting retreat with me. We had a wonderful week together and now they are heading home.

On our first morning, we started by loading up the car with all of our plein air gear and heading out to the Columbia River Gorge. Our first stop was Wahkeenah Falls, where we all enjoyed the challenge of painting moving water.

van Schoonhoven, Dewberry, Lightle

Here are the results from our first day painting.

Portland Art Museum

We had some studio painting time and then took a day to go into Portland. The Farmer's Market in the Park Blocks provided lots of opportunities for reference photos and preliminary sketches. Artist friend, Roxanne Clingman joined us at the Portland Art Museum for the great Ellsworth Kelly exhibit and also the California Impressionists show. 

plein air at Crown Point in Columbia River Gorge

Another trip out to the Gorge for plein air painting at the Vista House. The clouds really neutralized the colors and we all enjoyed exploring the shapes of the land and water masses. 

Friday in the studio

With such a great week of visually stimulating plein air adventures, we took Friday as a studio day and painted more from our sketches and photos. It was great to talk about our time together and how it exceeded our expectations. 

In the photos below you can see the final painting results from our days together. It's harder to quantify the joy of a week of painting, art conversation, and inspiration. Three willing and passionate artists took a chance and set aside a week to inspire one another. It was an excellent experiment. I call it a SUCCESS!

Marj Lightle

Dori Dewberry

Katherine van Schoonhoven

visit with Dori Dewberry!

Dori holds a value painting from Kitty Wallis' workshop

 

I met Dori Dewberry a couple of years ago at a Kitty Wallis Color Intensive workshop in Portland. We were "tablemates," which means we shared a table for all of our pastel supplies. I don't think it took more than 10 minutes for me to be charmed by Dori's enthusiasm and warm laugh. I liked it that she shared nicely at the table, too!

Over these years, we have kept in loose touch by following one another's blogs (see her on my bloglist to the right of this post or click here). Since I was in Southern California on this trip, we connected face to face!

Dori's work looks great on line but looks even better in person. She has a keen sense of light and her paintings are luminous and beautiful! We had a great visit today at Dori's place.

Now, we're plotting to have Dori come up my way for a plein air field trip! I hope we make it happen!

I had such fun talking to Dori's husband, Bob, who is a musician! This one's for you, Bob.

Day Three of Kitty Wallis Workshop

Kitty calls her workshops "Color Intensive" and she is RIGHT! Here's what a temperature-controlled value palette can do. For this study, Kitty had us choose warm colors for the lighter values (in equal value steps, light to mid-tones) and cool colors for the darker values (equal steps from mid-tones to dark). Good to know how the warm lights make this painting look like a lemony confection!

In this study, we selected both warm and cool pastels for each of the value steps, and then used that limited palette to render a painting from a black and white photo. What do you think?

This was my final painting of the day. My painting time was very interrupted but I am still pleased with some parts of this painting. I can see the the values are considered and even describe some of the forms.

Here you see a more fully developed color wheel. Notice the shift from the outer pure colors to the more grayed tones in the center. Choosing the right pastel for value-matching was a big challenge. On the right you see my table-mate's box. It was great to meet Dori Dewberry and see her fine work during the workshop. You can see more of her work on her blog here.