Book Excerpt: Gear & Materials

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Here's an excerpt from my new book, THROUGH A PAINTER'S BRUSH: SCOTLAND! It's the chapter on gear and materials.  I'm making this post free for everyone.

Scotland / Week 3

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I've been traveling! But I've been keeping up with my blog over on Substack.  You can read all the entries there, but here is the latest.

https://mchesleyjohnson.substack.com/p/scotland-week-3 

Scotland / Preparations: Route

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The time has come!  If you'd like to follow my month-long trip, please head over to Substack.  I won't have time to also post to Blogger.  Go to: The time has come... https://mchesleyjohnson.substack.com/p/scotland-preparations-route

Heading for Scotland - And I'd Like Your Help!

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I'm heading to Scotland in September.  Interested in helping me get there?  Then please read my Substack at this link.

Plane Tickets: Check!

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Skye Sheep / 6x8 Oil
One of my "gift" paintings for supporters.
We met this little Blackface sheep on the Isle of Skye

Our trip to Scotland is getting closer to reality--we recently bought our plane tickets!  As I write, we are poring over a map and studying ScotRail routes to determine exactly where we might spend our four weeks.  (By the way, I'm finding Google Maps to be very helpful; give it a destination, and it will give me the different ScotRail routes and times to get there.)  Our next step it to start making lodging reservations. Excited? Yes!

As I've mentioned before, I'd love your support.  My goal for this trip is to gather scads of reference material--color studies in gouache, pencil sketches and photos--for a series of studio paintings plus a book.  How can you support me?  There are two ways:

1. You can pre-buy a 6x8 oil painting of Scotland.  I've offered this for past trips, and the feedback has been wonderful.  After I return from my trip, I'll embark on creating a series of these small paintings, and for $300, you can have your pick of them.  They will be nicely framed, and I will ship them for free to the continental US.  (For elsewhere, I'll charge you actual shipping.)

2.  You can pre-buy my new book (signed!) AND get a 6x8 painting of Scotland.  Same deal as above with the paintings, but the book will be shipped separately and a bit later, as I need to not just make paintings for it but also write it and get it printed.  The book will be similar to my past Through a Painter's Brush books, filled with beautiful images of Scotland and essays on my travels.  You can have both of these, the painting and the book, for only $335. 

Here's a draft cover of the new book

 Although I've set up a Patreon page where you can make monthly payments (price is as bit higher because Patreon charges me 5%), you are also welcome to pay the full amount up-front (without the Patreon fee!) For Patreon, go here, and to send me a full payment via Zelle, Paypal or personal check, email me and I will tell you how to do it.

Below I've included images of some of the past 6x8 paintings of Scotland I've made.  I'm looking forward to this project, and I hope you'll join me in the journey.

What Do Plein Air Painters Do in the Winter?

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Ready, set -- go!
A 36x12 toned for a painting of Scotland.
Why violet?  It'll go well with all that green.

What do plein air painters do in the winter?  Well, if it's not too cold and not too snowy, I go out.  You've probably seen some of my snow sketches and paintings over the years.  But what if the weather is worse?  Then I retreat to the studio.

These past couple of weeks, we've had cold mornings (18°F or lower) and snow.  (Should I mention that the snow turns to mud here?) Sure, I've painted in worse.  But honestly, the only thing I get out of bad-weather painting is bragging rights.  I've realized it does nothing to advance my skills as as painter.  These days, I'd rather take a photograph.

For me, winter weather is the time for a studio project.  As you may have read, I'm planning a month-long trip to Scotland next fall.  One of my goals for that trip is to gather enough reference material for a book on Scotland as part of my Through a Painter's Brush series.  

As of this moment, I have enough material from previous trips to forge ahead on a few large studio paintings for the book.  (By the way, if you'd like to support my trip and get a small painting and/or the book, you can get details here.)  

Going through my photographs, video clips and plein air sketches helps me relive the moment and re-creates the excitement I felt while traveling.  (I'll share some photos of my past Scottish travels below.)  I've already got the first canvas toned and on the easel, so I'm ready to go.  I'll be posting all the work on my Instagram account, so stay tuned!  

In Scotland, I've painted through
sun, showers and...

...even sheep.

Home Again – And When Will the Painting Begin?

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This is the scene that greated us on our arrival home.
Somewhere in all that is a path that needs to be 
cleared to Raku's pen.

First, to answer the question:  I hope to paint very soon! 

But before I get into that, let me tell you about my trip.  I'm home now, after 2820 miles.  That's the distance, more or less, between Campobello Island and my studio in New Mexico.  Tiring?  Yes, but we had a few respites along the way.  Read on!

Closing up the Campobello studio was, as always, bittersweet.  Paintings came down to be stacked up against the walls, facing away from the light.  Art materials containing water were boxed up in coolers and stashed in the cellar to protect them against the cold Canadian Maritime winter.  Plastic sheeting was pulled over everything else to guard against dust and stuff falling from the ceiling.  (My barn studio has a resident red squirrel who likes to decorate my studio with pink Fiberglas insulation.)  After that, we took a few hikes to say goodbye to a place that is beautiful well into fall.  “We are leaving too early,” we told ourselves.  Next year, we'll probably stay longer.

Along the way west, we stopped in Vermont to visit family.  I also met with Marcia and Jeremiah, a couple of old friends I haven't seen since 2009.  (That it had been so long surprised all of us; my last contact with them was shortly after the pandemic began, when I called to tell them that George, another of our friends, had recently passed on, not a victim of the virus but of pancreatic cancer.  “Let's not let it be so long between calls,” we agreed.)  From Vermont, we traveled to Indiana to spend a couple of days with a painter friend.  Doug was the one who introduced me to gouache a few years ago, and it was thanks to him that I was able to ride the crest of the initial wave of this new fad.  This time he introduced me to Tom's Donuts.  It's a “thing” in that part of Indiana.  We also did a little sketching each day.

From there, it was on to Chicago to visit more family.  My sister-in-law, Greta, is a painter.  She's doing very well painting and selling large canvases.  Although I don't paint anything like her, I find her work inspiring in color and brush work.  She also is a wonderful baker and gave us some bread that has now traveled with us to New Mexico.  Then it was a pedal-to-the-metal, making overnight stops in Topeka, Kansas, and Clayton, New Mexico.  Topeka, we discovered, has some beautiful streets paved with bricks and lined with historic Victorian homes.  Despite the heat—it was probably 90 and definitely very humid—we walked up and down these streets to admire the architecture. 

And now I am home, still unpacking.  We were greeted on our arrival with a yard full of fantastic wildflowers—sunflowers, chest-high—and paths that had somehow vanished in the weeds.  The monsoon season this summer was apparently of historic proportions.  Unpacking is happening between bouts of clearing pathways.  (It's still rattlesnake season here.)

So, what about painting?  In two weeks, I'll be participating in the Escalante Canyons Art Festival in Escalante, Utah.  The event runs from September 12-25, 2022.  Stamping of canvases starts Friday, September 16, followed by painting on-location.  Finished paintings are due on Wednesday, September 21, with judging on Thursday, September 22.  The exhibit and sale happens Friday and Saturday, September 23 and 24.  It's been several years since I've been to the area, but I remember it as a fantastic place of canyons and cliffs.  For full details, visit https://escalantecanyonsartfestival.org/ 

Also, I'll be painting in the Prescott (AZ) Plein Air Festival, October 13-16, 2022.  Prescott isn't far from my old stomping grounds around Sedona, and I'm excited to go back and paint.  The reception that ends the event is on October 16; the sale and exhibition continues through December 21.  For full details, visit:  https://highlandscenter.org/prescott-plein-air/

I have an opening in my October 2-7, Taos, New Mexico, painting retreat for experienced plein air painters!  It's only a month away, and if you're at all interested, you need to contact me immediately.  Cost is $300, which does not include lodging, meals or travel.  What it does include is my expertise from painting in the area over many years, daily critiques, visits to local museums and galleries, plus the camaraderie of like-minded participants. I've included some photos of the area below to whet your appetite.  Contact me now if interested!

Besides the Taos retreat, I have the following teaching events coming up:

• November 3, 2022: Phoenix, AZ, demonstration for Arizona Plein Air Painters
• November 7-10, 2022:  Sedona, AZ, painting retreat for experienced plein air painters

Contact me if interested in any of the above.  After these, I will be sequestering myself over the winter in my studio for studio work.

Finally, if you're ever in New Mexico, I welcome you to visit my studio, where you can see (and purchase!) some of the work I've created in the last 20 years of painting in the Southwest.  You can find the contact information on my website:  www.MChesleyJohnson.com

Here are a few of the 5x8 gouache sketches I made while in Indiana:

On the Road: Downeast Maine Plein Air Painting Workshop and Retreat

End of Bar Road, 9x12 oil/Multimedia Artboard

I just returned from a whirlwind trip to Lubec, Maine, where I taught a workshop one week and then ran a retreat the next. Normally, I'd be there for the entire summer, but because the Canadian border was closed to me, I was unable to occupy our family home on Campobello Island, my usual base camp for workshops.  Having rescheduled these two events from last summer because of the pandemic, I didn't want to disappoint anyone yet again, so I decided to fly up and rent car and lodging.  Despite the extra expense and trouble, I had a fantastic time and enjoyed working with everyone.

Because of the unusual heat wave baking New England, a good deal of moisture pushed toward Lubec and the cold waters of the Grand Manan Channel, making for some foggy mornings and drizzly afternoons.  Even so, we had some stunningly brilliant hours.  Of course, one of the charms of Downeast Maine is the fickle weather, and as plein air painters, we are all used to rolling with whatever comes along.  We painted at a variety of locations, including West Quoddy Head, where the cliffs and the ocean swells are most dramatic; in Lubec itself, where we enjoyed a bounty of ramshackle fish buildings and fishing boats; and in spots nearby, where we lingered on quiet beaches or near tidal streams that created interesting patterns among the seaweed-cloaked rocks.

For the workshop, students lodged where they pleased, but for the retreat, we all lodged at West Quoddy Station, just a mile from the lighthouse on West Quoddy Head.  A beautifully-renovated US Coast Guard campus, it gave us immediate access to some of the best scenery and provided a comfortable place where we could be together and build the friendships that are so important to the retreat concept.  I am scheduling this retreat again for next summer.

I wrote that the Canadian border was closed.  This is not entirely true, as it did open up while I was at the retreat.  Fortunately, I was able to fulfill the requirements for entry, and I went over for an afternoon, which was all I had time for.  (The border agent asked, “You went through all that trouble just for a few hours?”)  I checked on house and studio—it'd been two years since our last departure—and I'm happy to say all is in good order.  I hope next year will be better for international travel.

In this post, I'm sharing some of the work I created while in Maine.  They are all for sale at $200 each, shipping included to the lower 48 US states

By the way, if you are interested in my plein air painting retreats, here are two coming soon that I still have space in.  Please let me know if you would like to join us!

Taos, New Mexico.  September 26-October 1, 2021.  $300, lodging and meals not included.  Join me for some of northern New Mexico's best scenery!  We'll paint at such beautiful locations as the Rio Grande Gorge, the scenic village of Arroyo Seco, the aspen-clad slopes near the ski area and, of course, in Taos itself.  Our retreat will include visits to such historic sites as the Mabel Dodge Luhan House, the Nicolai Fechin House and the Couse-Sharp Studio.

Sedona, Arizona.  November 2-5, 2021.  $300, lodging and meals not included.  I lived and painted in the Sedona area for over ten years, and I'm eager to share some of my very special painting spots with you.  We'll paint among Sedona's stunning red cliffs and explore its rich riparian areas.  At this time of year, we should have some good color in the cottonwood trees, which make for a beautiful pairing with the red rocks.

Unlike my all-level workshops, the retreats have no formal instruction.  However, we'll have daily critique sessions, informal art talk, and I'll demonstrate my painting methods in both oil and pastel.  The retreats are a great way to connect with the other participants and to learn from them.  And, of course, I will be your in-house expert and happy to answer any questions!  (You can learn more about my retreats here.)  The retreats will be held entirely outdoors, and we will follow CDC guidelines for masking and distancing.  Let me know if you're interested in any of these retreats.

Fog in Purples and Greens, 9x12 pastel/paper

Fog in Greys and Greens, 9x12 pastel/paper

Low Tide, 9x12 pastel/paper

Bay View, 9x12 pastel/paper

Fish Buildings, 9x12 pastel/paper

Standing Tall, 9x12 oil/Multimedia Artboard

The Village, 9x12 oil/Multimedia Artboard

Fog and Rocks, 9x12 oil/Multimedia Artboard

Staying Put, 5x12 oil/Multimedia Artboard

Reaching Out, 9x12 oil/Multimedia Artboard

Pirate Cove in Fog, 9x12 pastel/paper

Road Trip: The Turquoise Trail and the Value of Aspens

Cerrillos Heat, 9x12 Oil
Available

Because the Canadian border is still closed, which means I'm not in my summer studio on Campobello Island, I decided to join a few paintouts here in New Mexico.  Plein Air Painters of New Mexico is a very active group and offers a full slate of events, and so for my first summer paintout I picked one in Los Cerrillos.  Los Cerrillos is a tiny village that sits along New Mexico's famous Turquoise Trail, which connects Albuquerque and Santa Fe and provides a calm alternative to the heady rush of Interstate 25.

The paintout took place at Cerrillos Hills State Park, a little pocket park that occupies a small canyon.  Hills studded with juniper and a backdrop of the Ortiz Mountains provide some interesting vistas for the painter.  But I didn't want to take too long settling on a spot—the high temperatures that week had been pushing 100, and I knew it would get hot fast.  I even arrived early, before the appointed meeting time, so I could get started.  (I'm not much of a hot-weather painter, which is why I avoid summertime events like Plein Air Easton.)

For a few weeks at the start of summer, a tiny gnat enjoys waking up right after dawn to annoy early-bird plein air painters.  It gathers in a sort of flash mob that can disturb the most focused of painters.  The gnats especially seem to enjoy entering small orifices, such as one's ear canals and nostrils.  This morning was no different, and I ended up stuffing my ears with bits of paper towels to keep them out.

DEET-free repellent is a smart addition
to the painter's kit.  Also note the bits
of paper towels in my ear.

I didn't paint long.  By 9, it was already too hot.  But I'd gotten a good painting, so I packed up, greeted the other members as they were just coming in, and then Trina and I headed up to Santa Fe for a couple of days.

Santa Fe sits at a higher elevation than Cerrillos—7200 feet as opposed to 5700 feet—so one would expect it to be somewhat cooler.  But it was still too hot with a high of 94.  Fortunately, after a morning of gallery-hopping on Canyon Road, we were able to retire to our AirBnB to escape the intense midday sun and heat.

The next day, we drove up to the Santa Fe Ski Basin where we hoped to hike in cooler circumstances and to paint some aspens.  The ski area rests at over 10,000 feet, guaranteeing a cooler experience.  When we arrived, the temperature was around 68 and never got beyond the low 70s.  After hiking and a picnic, I set up my gear in a shady spot in front of nice clump of aspens.

Aspens, like any white or off-white tree, can be tricky to paint.  To the inexperienced eye, the shadowed bark often appears much lighter than it actually is, and it's easy to misjudge the value relationships of it and the surrounding shapes.  I took my time first working out the values before paying too much attention to getting the color right.  I first painted the main tree, putting down what I thought was the correct value, and then painted in values for the immediately adjacent shapes:  a patch of shadowed grass, a patch of sunlit grass.  I adjusted the values of these three shapes until they related correctly to each other before moving on to other shapes and accurate color.

High Aspens, 6x8 Oil
Available

Now we're home again, and I'm looking forward to a monsoon season that we all hope will come soon to cool things down.

Road Trip: Colorado, Again

Lake Fork of the Gunnison
5x8 gouache

A couple of weeks ago, as summer was starting to heat up, the Southwest burst into flame.  Arizona in particular endured a couple of big wildfires east of Phoenix.  Although I live 150 miles from the nearest fire, the smoke enveloped our little valley in a thick, blue haze.  We were warned to limit our outdoor activities.  Because of the heat—it was hitting the mid-90s—we wanted to do our hiking in the morning, but unfortunately, that was the time of day when the smoke was at its worst.  Our daily hike became a short jaunt out to the dog pen so Raku could take care of business.

A typical smoke map from before we left.
The studio marked by the blue dot.

So, we decided to head to higher, cooler ground.  Our destination:  Lake City, Colorado, at 8660 feet.

Lake City's a beautiful town with many
historic homes and a small downtown. But
get there off-season, as it is ATV-crazy in the summer.

Lake City is in the San Juan Range in the southwestern part of the state.  As you may recall, just a few weeks ago we spent some time on the west side of the range, near Dolores and Cortez.  This time, we settled on the east side.  As with Dolores and Cortez, Lake City is a perfect base camp for hiking and plein air painting.  Nearby are the scenic towns of Pagosa Springs, Creede and Gunnison, plus many miles of roads and trails through forest.

Although the smoke didn't follow us to Lake City, the heat did.  Even at nearly 9000 feet, afternoons pushed the mercury up into the mid- to high 80s.  We hiked in the morning, painted at lunch time, and then hit the shade for the early afternoon.  It wasn't until near sundown that things cooled off again for an evening walk.  We did find a wonderful trail in a canyon that fell into shade early and edged along a cool creek.  We walked that trail every evening.

Because it was a short trip, I only came back with a handful of gouache sketches.  But being somewhere cool and smoke-free was the point of it all.

Below are all 5x8 gouache:

Road Report: Paint or Hike?

 

Hiking at 10,000 Feet - Lizard Head Pass

With the weather warming up, we felt the time had come to take Wilma, our Pleasure-Way camper van, out on the road.  Our destination was Dolores, Colorado, a tiny town at the foot of the San Juan Range and a great base camp for exploration.  The surrounding country offers plenty for the painter and hiker: mountain streams, winding trails, tall firs and, in the right season, snow-capped mountains.

Immersed in this kind of beauty, my painting self always has to wrestle my hiking self for equal time.  Paint or hike?  I try to find a balance, but usually, and especially when I come across a new trail, the hiker wins out.

A "postcard scene" -  Sheep Mountain
5x8 gouache

A more artistic, close-up, abstract view of the mountains
5x8 gouache

Also, the painter in me prefers not to paint postcard scenes. This is hard when faced with a new vista that takes your breath away.  What's more, developing an understanding of your subject matter requires time; this is more easily done if you immerse yourself in the landscape for awhile.  For example, I've lived in western New Mexico for several years now and have developed a 100-mile “comfort zone of the familiar” around my studio; within this range, I am able to see past the postcard view to subjects that challenge me and build up my artistic muscles.  But outside this range, when I encounter something new, I am more likely to take the easy way out.  Plus, it's just so much relaxing after a long hike to plop down and paint the convenient scene!

Yet sometimes, you just have to paint the postcard.  The view inspires you to paint, and even if you know you can do better, you have to do it anyway to get it out of your system before you can move on.  Sometimes it turns out better than you had hoped; other times, it looks like, well, a postcard.  Still, a postcard can jog the memory, especially if it accurately records the moment, and you will find it useful in the studio.

When we bought the camper van, I decided I would focus on using gouache.  Although the 19-foot van has lots of storage room (and all the conveniences—i.e. stove, refrigerator, toilet, air conditioning and heat, full kitchen with running water), I prefer to take an extra pair of hiking boots and a warm coat rather than more painting gear.  The gouache kit takes up very little space and it's perfect for satisfying the artistic urge.  If I want to do something more ambitious, once home I can take my sketchbook and photos to the studio and engage in a bigger effort.  Plus, for me, these trips are about exploring and relaxing and also about looking toward the future:  Is this somewhere I might want to come back for some truly serious painting?  

By the way, I don't take my usual watercolor journal with me on these trips.  Instead, I dedicate a separate journal to travel.

Over the week, we had mostly excellent weather.  The weather was cooler (and thus more pleasant) than we had expected.  I think we used the air conditioner only one night, and even then, by dawn the temperature had dropped to 35 or so.  During the days, hiking was a pleasure, especially as we wandered up to 10,000 feet near Lizard Head Pass, just west of Telluride.  We did have one day of near-solid rain, but we easily coped with it by heading lower to a more desert clime, over in Utah near Hovenweep National Monument, where the rain barely reached.  But up near Lizard Head, the rain fell as snow, and the next time we drove to the pass, I could see the snowline had dropped considerably on the surrounding peaks.

Here are some photos and sketches.

Arroyo Lupines

Columbine

Long Palace, Mesa Verde National Park

Puppy Time by the Dolores River

Sketching by the Dolores River
(Yes, it was chilly)

Dolores River Sketch
5x8 gouache

Dolores River Sketch
5x8 gouache

Windy Day Sketch / Sand Pueblo Trailhead
5x8 gouache, done inside the car to escape the weather

Hovenweep National Monument

Cicadas were out, big time!

Wilma the Pleasure-Way Camper Van

Telluride

More Telluride

Bridal Veil Falls, Telluride
5x8 gouache

Sketching at Mesa Verde

Mesa Verde Sketch
5x8 gouache