Seeking Painting Workshop Venues

Like most artists who teach, I schedule my workshops a year or more in advance.  Although 2018 is already scheduled out, I am looking ahead (already!) to 2019 and beyond.  If you are part of a painting group or art organization that would like to have me travel to your location, let's talk!  The best workshops, I've found, aren't with "art centers" but with painting groups or art organizations like yours.  Also, if you have a juried exhibition, I'm happy to serve as judge and teach a workshop in conjunction with the show.

Here are some details to get you started.  The workshop can be:

• Pastel-only, oil-only, or both
• Plein air, studio or a combined plein air-to-studio format
• Or customized to cover a specific topic

As for costs:

• I charge $75/day per student (you can add more to cover space rental, refill the coffers, etc.)
• You pay my travel expenses (unless it is "on the way" when I make my cross-country trip in spring and fall, and I always cover my own meals)
• You provide lodging, preferably with a host in exchange for the workshop (a "comp")
• You provide workshop space suitable for the number of students
• If the workshop is plein air, I'll need a guide to suitable plein air locations

I offer one complimentary workshop either to the workshop coordinator (you!) or to the person providing lodging.

Length of the workshop can be anywhere from 1 to 4 days.  The minimum number of students is determined by how far I have to go and how many days the workshop is.  It's best if you contact me and we can discuss this.  You can reach me via e-mail at mcj.painter@gmail.com and visit my current workshop listings at www.MChesleyJohnson.com/workshops

Now that the New Year is here, let's make a resolution to get out and paint!  I've included a few photos here from previous workshops.

Some Upcoming Workshops

Sometimes I hesitate to post information about workshops because I feel the world today is already so saturated with advertising.  But teaching is my bread and the painting, only butter.  Besides, I do enjoy sharing what I've learned over the years--and I always learn something when I teach, too.  It's a win-win, as they say.

With that in mind, here are some upcoming workshops.  I hope you'll consider one for the New Year.  And I promise I'll return to more painting soon!

Revisions: El Malpais: Lava and Sandstone

El Malpais: Lava and Sandstone
19x25 pastel by Michael Chesley Johnson
Available

While packing for our move from Arizona to New Mexico last spring, I came across paintings I'd had in storage for 15 years or longer.  Some of these were large pastels painted on full sheets of sanded paper.  I enjoyed rediscovering these past works.  Although I've grown as a painter, I feel they still have value.  In fact, I actually like them quite a lot.  But, with my more experienced eye, I see things in them that I want to change.

Set up and ready to work.  All revisions were done without references.

So, this past week, I pulled out two to work on between other projects.  The one I write about here features a place known as the “Narrows.”  It's a sliver of land caught between sandstone cliffs and the vast lava fields of the El Malpais (or “bad country”) in New Mexico.  Several hundred years ago, if you were from the Zuni pueblo and traveling to the Acoma pueblo with your trade goods, or a Spaniard, traveling from one mission to the next, you most likely took this route.  The lava to the east was sharp, cutting boot and pastern; the sandstone cliffs to the west were high and unscalable; so you stuck to this narrow trail that threaded between these areas.  Today, the route is paved, and there's a trail that takes you to the top of the cliffs for the view I depict in the painting.

On “El Malpais:  Lava and Sandstone,” I didn't make any substantial changes; my revisions were small in scale, as follows:

• In my early days, I tended to use cool colors, and these days I look for warmer passages.  With that in mind, I added more warmth to the sunny areas as well as to the light bouncing into the shadowed rocks.
• Having painted a whole continent of rocks in the past 15 years, I now know how to paint rocks.  The sandstone outcrop was too soft-edged, so I reinforced angular areas and broke up the top of the cliff a little so it wasn't so straight across.  Also, the boulders at the bottom looked like a tractor trailer had overturned, spilling a load of potatoes.  I gave these sharp angles, too.
• I wanted to enhance the idea that the painting shows an area of ancient volcanic activity.  I already had the dark passages of lava out in the distant, flat areas, but I added a small caldera on the horizon to give the viewer another clue.  Not too far from this spot, there is the “Chain of Craters”—a series of cinder cones, lava tubes and other volcanic features for the visitor to explore.  (But make sure to carry a couple of spare tires if you go.)  Just out of the picture frame there is a caldera or two, so I just slid one over into the picture.
• Finally, I added ravens.  I love ravens—I seem to have some spiritual connection to them—and they are such a characteristic element in the landscape in my part of the world.

Below are some detail shots, plus a side-by-side comparison.

If you'd like to paint scenery like this, check out my one-on-one intensive workshops in New Mexico as well as my March workshop in Sedona, Arizona. 

Detail

Detail

Detail

Left: First Version; Right: Final Version

Encounter: John Tenney Johnson, Master of the Nocturne

“Down the Moonlit Trail,” 1938. Oil on board.
Buffalo Bill Center of the West, Cody, Wyoming, USA. 

I've always been an admirer of nocturnes.  Although some artists paint them at night, many paint them in the studio, working from memory or sketches done on-site.  The ones done in the studio tend to “read” better, since the artist wasn't sacrificing craft by struggling under a portable lamp in the dark.  There are many good painters of nocturnes alive today, but for me, the ideal is a historic painter, John Tenney Johnson (1874-1939.)

Frank Tenney Johnson

I've been reading a biography of Johnson.  The Frank Tenney Johnson Book by Harold McCracken (Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1974) is a large volume filled with extracts from Johnson's letters to his wife, Vinnie.  In the early 1900s, although married and working in New York as an illustrator for Field & Stream, Johnson led a peripatetic life consisting of cowpunching, roundups and rodeos, all the while painting and sketching and shooting hundreds of rolls of film.  (Kodak had come out with a line of consumer cameras by this time.)  While traveling, he sent lengthy letters (as well as many rolls of film and sketches) back home.  These letters give us a good look at his travels in Colorado, New Mexico and beyond, and how he gathered his reference material for the studio.

Here's an excerpt from one letter:

In the morning, I saw an emigrant outfit that stopped in town for supplies.  I rode out to the west ahead of it and when they came along I made some photos.  I think they are a valuable addition to those I have already sent back to you to develop.  Let me know how they turn out.  I'll keep getting photos of things that will add to the sketches I make and will help to make up fine pictures.  My photos are going to be the most value to  me.  But the first thing to do to get real good pictures of cowboys is to get right out where they are working and be on the right side of them.  Incidentally, I'm about strapped—only 50 cts left.  I'm saving that for a rainy day.

Reference photo shot by Frank Tenney Johnson

Although the train west was paid by his editor, on the promise that Johnson would reimburse him on his return, Johnson was responsible for buying horse tack, meals and lodging, and of course, film and art supplies.  Every letter from him to Vinnie seems to include a plea for another money order to be sent.

One interesting thing about Johnson's nocturnes, especially the moonlit scenes.  They don't present the muted, almost-grey colors that one sees in an actual moonlit scene.  The foregrounds and clothing often have very rich color, almost as if lit by a spotlight rather than a full moon.

You can see more nocturnes by Johnson at this link.

Plein Air Painting Essential Tools: 6B Graphite Pencil

Value Sketch Showing Marks Made by 6B Graphite Pencil

I thought I'd start the new year off right with a new blog post.  In the past, I've written about essential tools for the plein air painter.  One tool I forgot to write about—which surprises me, considering how much I stress it in my workshops—is a 6B graphite pencil.

Most of us outdoor painters carry a small sketchbook for value sketches, for jotting down notes about the scene before us, and sometimes even for grocery lists.  What we choose to make these sketches and notes with, however, varies greatly from painter to painter.  Some like ballpoint pens; some, felt-tip markers; but I prefer a 6B graphite pencil.

A 6B pencil has a very soft lead.  It allows me to make not just a very light mark but also a very, very dark one.  When I make my value sketches, I liked to “sneak up” on the darks.  When I start a sketch, most times I haven't quite figured out my value structure yet, and starting off with a light touch with the 6B lets me explore a little before committing to my darkest values. You can't do this so easily with a set of grey felt-tip markers, and a ball point pen tends to get messy when darkening darks.  I've included a small example above, a value study I made of a painting by my late mentor, Ann Templeton, which I own.

You can get these pencils in the traditional wood case, but you can also get them as leads and use a holder.   Here's a photo of these items.

Top:  A case of 4B leads for the holder (6B is preferred, but Staedtler

doesn't make them, but there are other brands)

Middle:  Staedtler Mars Technico lead holder

Bottom: ProArt 6B pencil

By the way, I'll show you exactly how I use the 6B pencil in my plein air painting workshops.  I have lots of workshops coming up, including my intensive one-on-one study, my March Sedona (Arizona) all-level workshop, as well as workshops coming up in Maine.  Workshops are starting to fill, so don't delay!