Saturday, June 27, 2015

Shanna Kunz Workshop Day Two

Today was the studio part of the two day "plein air to studio" two day workshop with Shanna Kunz.  We started the day with instruction and a demo from Shanna at the Bella Muse gallery. Here is a photo of Shanna working on a larger version of the plein air study she painted the day before. 

art painting workshop landscape Shanna Kunz


Shanna discussed the compositional changes she decided to make in order to emphasis the thing that made her the most interested in the scene and to de-emphasis the "supporting actors"  The info from this demo alone was worth the price of admission!

In the afternoon it was our turn to take our studies from the day before and enlarge and improve them.  Here is my 16" x 20" painting after nearly 4 hours of painting.

art painting landscape worshop acrylic nature green


This is still a work in progress.  As you can see the view  is much tighter than in my study, but I had done a thumbnail sketch of this composition yesterday and Shanna wanted me to try it.  We decided to try and keep the value range low key and the color temperature on the cool side.  I thought the painting was going pretty good in the workshop but when I got it home and looked at it again I wasn't so thrilled with it.  I guess I'm just not a low key kind of artist.  There are quite a few changes I want to make now so it will be some time before this one is finished.

I have watched a couple of demos by Shanna in the past and enjoyed them.  This was my first real art workshop and Shanna was even better as a workshop teacher.  Even though this workshop beat me up a bit mentally and physically I enjoyed it very much and would recommend classes, demos, and workshops by Shanna Kunz to any artist interested in improving their landscape painting skills.


Friday, June 26, 2015

Shanna Kunz Workshop Day One

Today was the first day of a two day workshop I am attending with renown landscape artist Shanna Kunz. This is a "Plein Air to Studio" workshop.  We spent today painting "en plein air" in beautiful Ogden Valley, or more specifically in the Jefferson Hunt Campground area.

First Shanna painted a small demo for us.  Here is Shanna near the beginning of the demo and all the students diligently taking notes.

art painting workshop plein air demo Shanna Kunz


Here is the scene Shanna was painting;

photogrpaph landscape water stream nature Ogden Valley


Shanna did an excellent job of course but you'll just have to take my word on that.

Here are my two 8x10 studies for the day;

art painting plein air nature acrylic landscape green

"Spring Foliage"

10" X 8", Acrylic on panel
Original - $100





art painting plein air nature Ogden Valley green

"Ogden Valley Meadow"

8" X 10", Acrylic on panel
Original - $100



Tomorrow we work in the studio to develop one of our studies into a larger studio piece.  I think I'll be working on the second one, I can already see some things I'd like to improve.






Sunday, June 21, 2015

Painting Spring in the Mountains

Okay, the calendar says officially that it's the first day of summer, but in the mountains it definitely still feels and looks like spring.  I spent the morning painting near the bottom of Cardiff Fork in Big Cottonwood Canyon in the Wasatch Mountains and it was simply glorious.  I usually paint 9" x 12" and smaller for outdoors but I plan on participating in a plein air event next week that requires 11" X 14" be the minimum painting size so I have to step up my plein air game size wise and so took some larger panels out.

 

"Perfect Day for a Hike"

Acrylic, 14" X 11"
Original - $160



"Cardiff Spring"

Acrylic, 16" X 12"
Original - $200



Many artists are afraid of green, especially the "acidic" greens of spring.  Not me, I love spring greens!




Sunday, June 14, 2015

Painting Wild and Wet

No, I don't mean the paint, but rather the subject.  I spent the morning painting up in Big Cottonwood Canyon in the Wasatch Mountains of Utah.  Easy access to Big Cottonwood Canyon from the Salt Lake Valley is both a blessing and a curse.  I love that I can be up in this beautiful wilderness in just fifteen minutes, I hate they everybody else can too.  I decided to go painting by the Mill B trailhead, there are some spots on Big Cottonwood Creek there that I wanted to paint.  Even though I got there just after 8:00 AM the main trailhead parking lot was already full with a long line of cars parked on the shoulder.  Luckily the upper, overflow parking lot still had spaces.  I guess I'm going to have to get out there even earlier in the future.

The spring runoff is fast and deep right now.

art painting plein air nature stream running water

"Spring Runoff"

 8" X 6", Acrylic on panel
Original - $60


art painting plein air waterfall nature creek

"Raging Water"

10" X 8", Acrylic on panel
Original - $100