My New Article about Painting on Monhegan Island in PleinAir Magazine is Now Out...

I just had an article published in the Feb/Mar issue of PLEINAIR MAGAZINE about my recent trip to Monhegan Island, Maine. 

In it, I share the pure joy of painting without purpose. If you are a subscriber, I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed living and writing it. If you aren't subscribed, a copy can be purchased at your local magazine shop. If you must wait, I will publish it in full in three months. (Publisher's requirement.)

And yes – as my article says – I will be teaching a week-long plein air workshop this August on Monhegan. This will be a rare workshop from me, open to ALL mediums. I've already reserved accommodations for you in the grand old Island Inn, and in the artists' cottage Zimmie's – and I've put together an exciting itinerary for everyone to paint. So all you have to do is show up with your gear. 

Come join me, and experience the historic beauty of one of America's greatest art colonies! Paint in the footsteps of George Bellows, Robert Henri, Frederick Judd Waugh, Rockwell Kent, Kate Chappel, Elena Jahn, Lynne Drexler, and the three generations of N.C., Andrew, and Jamie Wyeth.

But don't delay: an announcement has already gone out to my Early Bird Workshop Notification List and folks are now signing up...

To learn more about this, and my other workshops, visit: 

https://thokitts.wixsite.com/pleinaireverywhere

Pictured above: An old postcard looking out over the dock, near Fish Beach.

Believe me when I say things have not changed all that much today – TJK

Announcing My First DVD Video Release! Sorolla: Painting the Color of Light...

Hey there Everyone:

It's been a while since I posted to the blog and my wife has been bugging me to get back to it because you readers have changed my life and attitudes about art over the past decade. And so, I shall...

Much has happened within the past few years that pulled me away from this blog. There is only so much time in a day, right? But I am going to commit to offering more tips on painting – and art in general – right here in the near future. 

But first, I want to share the biggest news about me in a long time.

______________

My Sorolla DVD Set Will be Released April 16th, 2018 through Streamline Premium Art Video!

Click to order now...

You can pre-order your own copy right now and receive a pre-release discount – or you can wait to hear about it at the Plein Air Convention & Expo in a few weeks. Or hopefully, you can hear about it from your friends...

This video demonstration focuses on how Sorolla painted. With much attention given to how he used value and color temperature to convey a sense of intense natural sunlight.

While I put a lot of effort into explaining things clearly, nothing has been "dumbed down" or held back during this demo. Having said that, I made sure it includes substantial instruction for both the novice and the advanced painter. In fact, while I do talk about Sorolla's methods and materials at the beginning, this demonstration is more about how Sorolla used color to achieve his astounding effects, how he simplified and composed his subject matter, and how he physically applied and pushed his paint around. You know, the things with move you forward as a painter...

Click here to pre-order your own copy at a special pre-release discount from Streamline Premium Art Video......

In 'da house', the Museo Sorolla, Madrid...

This three-DVD set contains a complete stroke-by-stroke, start-to-finish demo, with a total run-time of over 15 hours. It also contains many extras, such as a brief overview of Sorolla's life, an explanation of the color theories he incorporated into his work, and an in-depth interview with me hosted by Eric Rhoads, owner and publisher of PleinAir and FineArt Connoisseur Magazines. We talk about how and why I became a painter, what my current artistic interests and influences are, and there is also a select gallery of my artwork that spans the last two decades. So, for those of you who've been asking me for a DVD at my workshops, well – this is the one to get. (In fact, it is the only one to get...ha!)

"How did you do it?... How?"

I started working on this project five years ago when I began traveling to Madrid, Granada, Toledo, New York City, and San Diego to study original Sorolla paintings first-hand, and to visit the places he painted. All of which has been a dream come true for a Sorolla-nut like me.

Now, I am thrilled to offer it to you with the assistance of Streamline Premium Art Video – in HD format, with high production standards, edited for your convenience. I hope you will find this video demonstration a valuable addition to your art library.

And oh yes, please let me know what you think of the demo in the comment section below!...

Thomas

Happy Holidays and a Look Back at 2016...

Hello Everyone! 

Happy HannuChristmaKwanzaSolstiFestivus to you and yours during this bright holiday season – and please, accept another hearty congratulation from me for almost making it through 2016!

What a year, right?

This is a long read so read as much of this post as you wish. But, if you make it all the way to the end there is a little surprise for you...ha!

. . .

I toyed with the idea of writing up a year end review of 2016 like a family Christmas letter, then photographing the family and dog in antlers and sweaters, but decided that would be too cute. So I’ll just jump in and ramble about my year in painting...

January, 2016, was one of those rare months when I stayed home and endured the vicissitudes of Oregon's wet winter rain. But the upside of being home was I could rest up and prepare for the coming Spring which was packed with trips, events, and workshops.

At the end of February I drove down to Borrego Springs, CA to compete in a plein air event new to me. Borrego, if you don't know, is east of San Diego, way out in the low California desert, and is kind of how Palm Springs used to be before the Rat Pack discovered it. Or so I am told. All there was to do was paint in the desert in the wee hours of the morning and late evening, and sit around in town during the middle watching the desert rats come and go. Oh, and spend the nights gazing up at the stars. (Borrego is an International Dark Sky Sanctuary where you can see actual nebulae with your naked eyes.) There were occasions when I felt like an movie extra waitin’ ‘fer a shoot out in a Sergio Leone/Clint Eastwood Western but I enjoyed painting the harsh landscapes nonetheless. In fact, I had never painted in such an austere environment before and I thrive on new experiences and challenges so I was good. After painting in the Borrego area for a week I thought, heck what could be more harsh or interesting, and drove further east to the Salton Sea. Talk about quirkiness. To get there required driving through a giant dust storm and an unexpected epic off-road Lolapolooza of dirt bikes and ATVs that made Mad Max: Thunderdome look like a family flick. (Just to maintain the movie references.) After which I pulled some of the leftover work from Borrego and drove it up to Palm Springs where I painted for another week and opened a show in my gallery there. (Brian Marki Fine Art | Palm Springs)

Mid-March, My lovely wife flew down to meet me at for my Palm Springs opening and we stayed a few extra days to hike around to see the magnificent Jefferson Palms in Indian Canyon, and tour Joshua Tree, before setting off back home to Oregon along the backside of the Sierras. Driving up highway 395 seemed like a good idea at the time until a storm front blew in on day two, which made it difficult to get across the Sierras, the Siskiyous, or the Cascades, and back home. It was early Spring after all, right? What was I thinking?

But hey, we made it safe and sound by swinging into Nevada and so at the end of April my next task was to drive back down to Carmel, California to teach the first workshop of the year. I love Carmel but I had just driven up the entire east side of California only to find myself driving halfway back down the west side again. Which can give you a more nuanced understanding of Willie Nelson’s "On the road again".

I finished up April by flying out to Atlanta, Georgia, where I participated in Olmsted Plein Air for the first time. Again, what fun. What a great event and fine group of people. I got to experience southern hospitality for the first time, and well, liked it so much I am prepared to experience some more when I return in 2017 with a smile on my face and a better idea of what to expect. I sold well during the event, with my signature painting being purchased by the Cherokee Town & Country Club for their permanent collection, a social milieu generally referred to in something of a hushed voice because the Cherokee is one of the old-school clubs in Atlanta. Amusingly, one of the things that stuck in my mind at the Cherokee – go figure – was a rivalry going on between a another club as to how much maple sugar could be carmelize onto a piece of fried bacon. Stop and think about that for a minute. I am a foodie – I'll admit it – and I tried some, and well, talk about gilding the lily, right? "Baaaacon" + a thick crunchy layer of sugar crust, right? But who am I to judge, given some of my own personal culinary quirks? And apparently, some southern tradition foodstuffs are sacred. Especially if they are deep fried. Clearly this rivalry was good-natured for most, short of coming to fist blows, and better than the Sharks and the Jets or the Bloods and the Crips, and I plan to try more of Cherokee bacon when I return. Because I am Switzerland when it comes to food. Unless Brussel Sprouts are involved.

Immediately after that event, the first week of May, I threw the few remaining Olmsted paintings at a UPS employee and jumped into my rental car to drive down to the Forgotten Coast of Florida where yet another plein air competition was scheduled to begin. I took the back roads all the way down and got a nice long look at rural Georgia. The Forgotten Coast Plein Air would be the second of two long back-to-back events, and surprisingly I still had the energy for it. For those who might not know, the Forgotten Coast is so called because it lies along the panhandle between Panama City Beach and Alligator Point, with Apalachicola in between. (Note to self: Do NOT keep inadvertently calling Apalachicola, "Appalachian-cola! Just don’t...) The Forgotten Coast is definitely not the Miami Vice/CSI: Miami kind of FLA you see on television. It was, well, even more colorful and everyone there kept proudly telling me it remains one the last holdouts of The Old Florida. I wouldn't know, but it was all good to me. I liked the people, the working boats, the 'elegant decay', the area in general, and whatever there was to paint. Oh, and the oysters. I ate more oysters than I ever have in my life. For breakfast, lunch, dinner, and late night snack. I even painted a plate of oysters (sold). I hung out at the Raw Bar with my new friends until closing time. (Some of whom could have inspired a Carl Hiaasen novel). I even painted the Raw Bar at night. And painted a lot of stuff that looked like it came out of a 1972 issue of National Geographic. (Cool!) I did well again with the sales and I can't wait to go back and paint some more fishing boats and bayou culture. Oh, and to eat more oysters...

I flew back home in mid-May, looking forward to time with the family but the first week of June I had to drive up to Annacortes, WA, to the tip of Puget Sound to judge a show of really good PNW painters, and then drive partway back and take a ferry over to Bainbridge Island to teach a workshop for a Washington artists' group. Both Annacortes and Bainbridge can be stunning if you catch the weather just right and I was blessed to do so. Always good for a plein air class.

After all the judging and teaching was done, and the hugs and tears exhausted, I drove home looking forward to painting in my own backyard for a while. Backyard in the sense of painting the area where I grew up, where I learned to paint, but had been sorely neglecting over that past ten years. I spent the rest of June, all of July, and the first few weeks of August painting in old haunts, revisiting favorite subjects, and feeling more grounded as a result, producing work that would eventually appear in one of my rare Portland gallery shows in the Fall.

Not being one to lounge about, I submitted and had several paintings juried into national shows, such as the American Impressionist Society and the Western Regional of Oil Painters’ of America. That sort of thing. But still, I was happy to be home in the Pacific Northwest quietly making art in my own ‘hood.

Then late August rolled around and I remembered I’d juried into the Pacific Northwest Plein Air held out in the Columbia Gorge and packed up the kit again. However, this event was only a couple of hours east of Portland and I'd be painting an area I knew intimately with many long-term friends. PNWPA went well too. I had a great time, sold well, and was honored with First Place…Best of Show?… whatever it is called, and more notably, was also honored with a Museum Purchase Award from the Maryhill Museum. Yes, this was my second museum purchase and it felt good. (The painting is now hanging but I have not yet gone out to see it.) It was a painting I hadn’t planned to execute. I just got a wake up call from a couple of friends encouraging me to paint a tribal fishing ladder at sunrise below the Dalles Dam and I thought, heck why not? Well, thank you for waking me up. That painting turned out to be one of my favorites of 2016, and that was before it was purchased by the museum. (Have I mentioned it was purchased by a museum yet? ha!) Every now and then, when you aren’t paying attention, you knock one out of the park, and on that day it was my turn. Truthfully, it could have been any other the other painter as well. Actually is was. Another artist also had work purchased by the museum.

So a few more weeks go by and I hit late September. I find myself frantically preparing for two major events at the same time: a show of a large body of work at my local gallery (Brian Marki Fine Art | Portland) and what would be my final plein air competition of the year on the East Coast. It may have been two weeks of pure craziness, but on the first Thursday of October, my gallery show opened and went well.

Five hours later I found myself on the 4:30 am flight to Boston, dozing. Cape Ann Plein Air was brand new spankin' event launching out on the coastline of Massachusetts above Beantown and I wanted to be in on it. So after I landed I grab my rental and drove up to the cape and begin scouting locations to paint, in and around Gloucester, Rockport, and Essex, and Manchester-by-the-Sea. (Note the English names, yes? That's not even all of them on the cape.) Cape Ann is juts off into a major Atlantic fishery and it is filled with American history writ large, and in many ways its presence and culture was the precursor of our country today. Skip forward a few centuries to the late 19th and early 20th century and the cape becomes the birthplace and nursery of what I have pursued most of my professional life – American Impressionism. Almost all the exemplary American landscape painters of that period spent time on the cape, from Homer, to Potthast, to Duvenek, to Hopper, plus many more. For me, Cape Ann Plein Air was another opportunity to paint old-timey boats again, with old-timey flotsam and jetsam lying about, which I did with much gusto. (Thank you, CW, Steve, and Stape, for sharing some of your finest and perhaps few remaining 'fishing holes' on the cape.) And again, I did well, walking away with a lovely ribbon and a new gallery in Gloucester, which, if you are a local you pronounce 'Glawsta', not some other three-syllable word you think you should say. 

So, if you are ever near Boston and need to conceal the fact that you are a tourist, try practicing with this list:

• Gloucester : Glawsta
• Worcester: Wuhsta (or Wistah)
• Leicester : Lesta
• Woburn: Wooban
• Dedham : Dead-um
• Revere: Re-vee-ah
• Quincy: Quinzee
• Tewksbury : Tooks berry
• Leominster : Lemin-sta
• Peabody: Pee-ba-dee
• Waltham : Walth-ham
• Chatham: Chaddum
• Samoset: Sam-oh-set or Sum-aw-set but nevah Summerset!

After Cape Ann, the plein air season came to an end for me and it was time to go home and rest up – the usual halfway-hibernating thing I do in late October and November. And of course, spend time with the family. And start some long-delayed house remodeling projects. Why? Because it rains constantly around here this time of year and I need to expand my studio so I can teach a few long term students in my own space. I love to lead destination workshops, but like to also cultivate a few dedicated students willing to pursue more long-form instruction. You'll hear more about all that later at some point… (ha!)

And now it is December and 2016 is winding to a close. But my thoughts are already turning towards January, 2017 when I will head out the door again. I'll be starting off in Florida, painting in Key West and working my way up to Key Largo, wear I will teach in Ocean Reef, before flying directly out to Scottsdale, AZ to teach some more and paint in the desert (see above). Then home again for a week before flying down to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico with my wife and our best friends to teach again and paint with more good friends. Then home and off to Borrego Springs like a ricochet Then home and back out to Atlanta to teach and compete. Then home and back to the Forgotten Coast to paint some more. Boing, boing. I think that takes me to the end of May. And then…?

Well, the fun never stops…

TJK


P.S., I lied...or can we all just agree that I am being 'post-fact'? If you made it all the way down to the end you've probably realized that I did turn this post into a family Christmas letter after all. So here is the requisite shot of the family dog in antlers. The rest of the family refused to step into the frame. (kidding!) Really, I just couldn't get anyone out of bed this early in the morning...

Anyway... Merry Christmas to you, and I wish you a Happy New Year filled with lots of painting, lots of collecting of paintings, and any other kind of adventure you will have!

A Decent Fake Lead White...

Another quick one for today...

I was talking to someone at Gamblin Oil Colors this morning and our conversation reminded me of a photograph I took down in Laguna Beach last month. Many of you know I am a bit old-school and like to paint with Lead White (a.k.a., Flake White). And as of late it has become harder and harder to find suitable lead white in stores across the country because the quality has been going down or the cost has been going up. Why? Because fewer color houses are making it for oil painters. Scared away by the terrors of over stated toxicity.

Here I am, last month, on the main beach at sunset during the 16th Annual Laguna Beach Plein Air Invitational. Working on the painting honored with the Mathewson Foundation Award. No lead white paint being used here, but another 'magical elixir' instead...

As a result I've recently been using a combination of Titanium/Zinc White and Gamblin's Titanium White from their Fastmatte™ line. I often put both on the palette side by side. (see below)

The Fastmatte White is extremely short and stiff and it imparts both qualities to any other paint you mix it into. So I have found if you mix a little FM Titanium white into a traditional titanium white and add a teenie-weensie bit of yellow or cadmium orange to warm things up you will end up with a mixture that looks and acts a lot like lead white. The FMTW softens the opacity of the T/ZW, and the shorter, stiffer characteristics retain the texture of your brush strokes. It's great for quickly building up a paint layer or for applying those last touches of juicy impasto. And yes, it is perfectly okay to mix the two kinds of paint in any proportion. No worries there.

Not every painter will like the way this combination works, but I do. Plus, the alkyd resin in the Fastmatte acts like an accelerator and speeds up the 'drying' time of your thicker paint film – making traveling with wet painting easier. This FMTW plus traditional TW is what I took to Europe last year and my paintings were dry to the touch within 18 hours.

My palette during the Laguna competition...

This close up photo shows how I have been laying out both whites on my larger palette. The traditional T/ZW is on your left and the FMTW is on your right. With the whites in line like this I can use a brush or knife to quickly scoop up one or the other as needed. Or I can easily pick up a little of both if I want an intermediate mixture.

I still love to paint with lead white and want to see it survive as an option for future painters because nothing can truly replace it. Not even this ad-hoc solution. But these days I am less worried that some crazy ill-informed congress will legislate it off our palette. If that actually occurs in the near future I will be frustrated, but at least I know there is a viable option if it does.

If you try this let me know what you think...

#thomaskitts
#pleinair
#lpapa16th
#painting

"Excuse me sir, but I think your painting has a certain, um...'Jen ne sais quoi?'"

It seems these days there is an online painting competition around every corner. Enter your art here. Enter it there. And if it wins something then enter it somewhere else. Perhaps it has always been like this but I don't think so. At least in terms of how many there are. The number of competitions these days is staggering.

Ha! Even as I started drafting this post I received a notification about yet another competition – one from the 'Museum of Biblical Art'. (whaaah?) Apparently they would appreciate it if I would consider submitting any tile mosaics I've created in the past year that expresses a religious narrative. Not sure how I ended up on that mailing list...

With every painting you enter there is an entry fee attached – usually running between $25 to $60 or so, depending upon the association or event. Philosophically I'm not against racking the credit card for such things but sometimes I wonder where all the money goes. Or if participating helps my career in any way.

But in truth, there are competitions that can elevate your profile, put cash in your pocket, garner esteem and accolades from your fellow artists – and attract collectors down the road. And, in my opinion, Raymar Art offers a terrific opportunity for this every month.

I will be the judge for this month's Raymar Art Contest

and I'd like to share a few thoughts with you...

I don't know about you, but whenever I decide to enter a competition the first thing I do is check out the judge's website in the hopes of gaming the system. (Ha! joking!...) Then I cherry pick paintings from my stacks guaranteed to sway the judge. (Ha again!...) And let me tell you, it works every time! (Ha! ha!...) 

Nope, not in my experience. I have come to the conclusion that trying to second-guess the judge in the hopes of affecting a difference is a fool's errand because he or she will always surprise you with the quirky nature of their final picks. In reality, if you are chosen as a winner you will instantly feel as if you are riding at the top of the world – that everything is beautiful, and all is good. If not, well, your world collapses into a burnt out cinder of ennui. 

But then, another competition comes along and your prospects seem rosy again! It's an up and down cycle and sometimes manic. So don't take competitions too seriously.

However, having said all that, there are few things you can do 

to increase your chances of being noticed by the judge. 

1. Photograph your work well. It all starts with that. Without a good jpeg to upload, you have no hope. If you don't have access to the services of a professional photographer then you can shoot it yourself. Bring your painting outside between 10 and 2:00 and place it in the shade if it is a sunny day (north-facing is preferred.) If it is overcast then set up in the best light available. Mount your camera on a tripod and set the meter reading to 'average' (see your camera's manual). Then, use the 3-second shutter timer to eliminate any camera shake. If you can, place a white card next to the painting at the same angle. The camera meter will then automatically white balance (color-correct) the digital image for you. This really works and is easy to do. And no, you don't need the latest and greatest 24 meg digital SLR to shoot your work. Most point-and-shoots you buy today are sufficient.

2. Square up the painting in the camera before taking the shot. It's easier to do it in-camera than on a computer. When you put it on your computer be sure to crop out whatever isn't part of the painting. This means editing out the white card I just told you about. Delete any errant tufts of grass along the bottom. And for goodness sake, do not include that French swirly faux-gold picture frame your mother loves so much. Crop out anything that isn't the painting itself.

3. Read the contest submission requirements closely. Then reread them again before you click 'upload'. If you intentionally or accidentally violate one of the requirements it's game over. No judge will look past that. 

4. Submit your paintings and pray – assuming you believe in prayer. Because that is all you can do from this point on. Well there is something else you can do. You could start another painting because it is likely to be a better entry for the next competition that comes along. No matter what is decided by the last judge you must keep going.

But how do those sum's-a-b*&%#$tch judges pick their winners!!!?

There are no formulas, and honestly, I can't shed any light on how other judges think – but here are some things I look for when asked to evaluate a competition. Admittedly, my criteria can appear a bit subjective but it is supported by a formal art education, a deep knowledge of art history, years of teaching in a BFA program and offering workshops, and thirty years of pushing paint around. But let's cut to the chase: I want you to submit what you believe is your best work, not what you think I think is your best work. Did that confuse you? Just show me what you believe is your best work. I can't emphasize this enough.

What I look for (which is as good as admitting a few biases right up front):

1. First, I ask how much did the artist reach for in this painting? Was it a softball toss or did he or she take some risks? 

2. Okay, so maybe there is a risk here. Did it pay off? 

3. Does this painting create an emotional impact? A technical tour deforce is all well and good and it can generate some appeal but if that is all that is present then the entire effort skids toward taxidermy. I kid you not, if I feel gut-punched by looking at a painting then I know something powerful is present. The how and why I feel tat way comes second. 

4. Technical expertise. I am going to go with what I've always been taught – that craftsmanship should simply be expected. Because, unless you are talking to another artist of your own ilk, the non-artist (civilian?) wants to feel your painting, not be amazed by the manner it was made. I am not being pedantic by drawing this distinction. It is no less meaningful to be awed by the view driving across the Golden Gate Bridge without any idea of how it was built than to also be able to explain the engineering involved. In art, method and technique are the plumbing, not the raison d'être. So I encourage you to submit the content that excites you emotionally. Make it personal.

5. Paintings which have an immediate read will usually make the first cut, but paintings lacking in further complexity are unlikely to make the second. I appreciate how confusing that may sound but really, most great works of art encompass both things. Submit work that can draw viewers in from across the room and then reward them for coming close. Yes, this can be a difficult thing to embody in a single work but there you have it: making art ain't easy.

I promise I will do my best to pick good paintings out of the work submitted this November. I have done this sort of thing in the past for other venues so I know what difficulties lie ahead. I am honored to be asked by the folks at RayMar to do this and feel accountable to every artist who chooses to submit their work and all the judges who have preceded me. This is a high-caliber competition, with high standards, and while it may be an honor to critically evaluate the efforts of one's fellow artists, it is always a difficult task. 

Because, as any artist who has ever been asked to 
appraise the work of his or her fellow colleagues knows... 

"When you are the judge you don't have a friend in the room..." 

(ha!)

Good luck!


TJK

Artist's Choice, at the 15th Annual Laguna Beach Plein Air Invitational...

"Eucalyptus in the Evening" | Thurston Homestead

18 x 24 inches, oil on linen, en plein air

private collection

I received the Artist's Choice Award for this painting during the 15th Annual Laguna Beach Plein Air Invitational. I was caught by surprise and completely taken aback as it was announced. I have never won an artist's choice, but always voted for whatever I believed was the most outstanding painting in every competition or invitational I've been involved with.

For those who may not know, an Artist's Choice Award is determined by secret ballot. The only people eligible to vote are your peers who just spent the past week competing against you – which makes this a recognition I treasure more than anything else. Why? Because only four years ago no one had any idea who I was. 

Sure, I could paint back then, and had been doing so for a long time. But until recently I mostly painted in my own part of the world, often alone, and seldom ventured beyond that world to show the work. Then a couple serious things happened to me that revealed the transitory nature of life, and how short it could be, and I decided to travel and paint as much as I could – and meet as many other like-minded outdoor artists as well. Life has been magnificent since. Even on the days I paint like crap.

I am humbled by this recognition. I love this painting but didn't expect it to be received this way. I chose an impossible subject to paint. I fretted and worried as I mixed the colors and marked off my shapes. I watched with a growing sense of despair as my canvas slipped further and further out of control over the three nights I worked it. I almost abandoned the mess towards the end because the light turned out to be so fleeting and beyond my reach. But then I stopped thinking and started painting on faith and it turned onto one of those rare moments when everything comes together at the end. A photo-finish.

Because what I learned from this painting is there is a threshold where terms like difficult or easy, better or worse, smart or stupid merely hold you back and you just have to go for it.

* * * UPDATE * * *

A Laguna Beach planner just sent me this image last night. It is a 1930 photo of the Thurston Homestead, the first house built in Laguna. (c. 1880) This is cool because I believe the trees I have indicated with a red arrow are the same ones that appear in my painting. The house and outbuildings are gone but the eucalyptus remain. The vantage point the photo was shot are the rocky outcroppings what appear in the painting as well.

Neat, huh? I love history.

TJK

Plein Air Painting on the Run...

These days, it's always a scramble. 

You get home from one plein air competition and say hello to your family. You go out and paint a few new paintings, and then submit the best ones to one or two online competitions – LPAPA, OPA, AIS, CAC, or others – and then you turn around and send some more paintings off to another. Then you bundle up a couple of paintings into a blanket, toss them in your car, and drive six hours (round trip) to drop them off at a new museum opening up in two weeks. And then, if the weather holds, you paint a couple more as you wend your way home again. You say hello to the family again. Then you get on another plane to go to another competition.

And somehow, along the way, you forget to enter that one high-profile Western Salon show you've been wanting to do every year – that one you believe might make your career. (No worries, there will always be next year!) And somewhere, sometime, during all of this scrambling around you squeeze out more time to paint. Which means you now have more work to submit to a competition, exhibition, or show...

Yes. It can become a bit confusing when you are busy living the dream. (ha!)

–––

For example: last week I learned that one of my submissions had been accepted to the Laguna Plein Air Painters' Association's yearly big show (The Best Of Plein Air). At least I think it was accepted. I didn't receive an official announcement telling me this, I saw someone's post on Facebook saying the judging was over. So I visited the online submission site to see if I was in. (Which submission site was it again?) And yes, by golly one painting had been accepted. Cool! I assumed that was all there was to it  – one painting out of three submissions, and mentally flagged a delivery date, and went back to painting in between the scrambling.

"Sometimes a Great Notion"

12 x 16 | oil on amounted linen | en plein air 2013

Accepted into the 2013 LPAPA Best of Plein Air Show

Today was the shipping date so I pulled out the painting and a frame and started wiring things up. I began nice and relaxed after a leisurely lunch, feeling no hurry. But because I still had not received an official notification I called the Executive Director of LPAPA for confirmation. heck, there's no point to shipping a painting that wouldn't be hung, right?

Good thing I did. She told me I had two paintings accepted – which was news to me!

"The Winds of Garrapata"

12 x 16 | oil on amounted linen | en plein air 2013

Apparently also accepted into the 2013 LPAPA Best of Plein Air Show

Who knew? (grin)

So now I was scrambling again. I had to get my two paintings photographed, framed, wired, and labeled, wrapped, and out the door to the UPS man, who was picking up parcels in 30 minutes. And let's not even mention the fact there was a 4th of July and a weekend between now and when the paintings were supposed to arrive. No exceptions!

$h*t  M$#*%@  F&%(^&)#!!!!!!

Then I remembered the show was going to be hung in a Costa Mesa gallery where the host and owner runs a massive framing operation on the other side of the wall. I could send my paintings down naked and he could frame them for me. One brief phone call later (Thank you Terry!) I was out the door to the UPS store with the raw paintings in hand. A short $60 later I was happy to know everything was being handled by people I trust. A complete workflow I was no longer in charge of. Hey, I could go back to painting.

Of course I would. If only to produce more work, to submit to more shows, so I could ship more paintings... (hee hee!)

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The Best Of Plein Air 2013 exhibition opens at the Randy Higbey Gallery in Costa Mesa on July 13th. I'd love to be there but can't. At 4:00 am that morning I'll be scrambling onto a plane flying out to Washington DC, where I'll then cross the Chesapeake and be off and running during the next two weeks, painting for the largest plein air event in America: Plein Air Easton.

Catch me if you can...


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My Portland-area Plein Air Workshop is now filled. 

There are ONLY four spots left in my Columbia Gorge Plein Air Workshop at the end of this month. If you want in email me now!

TJK

Here, There, In, Out, Away, Home, and the 2013 Carmel Art Festival...

Sometimes what we do as traveling painters boggles my mind. We come together from what is often already a beautiful location in the world, we shake hands, hug, then paint like madmen for a few days before scattering apart like particles from smashed atoms. Only a few days ago I was down in Carmel, California with my fellow painter Anton Pavlenko, in one of the most stunning areas on the West Coast (if not the world) intensely painting with some old friends and making new ones, competing for cash awards and sales, joking, having fun, and eating and drinking together after dark in hidden pubs and eateries. Then getting up in the wee hours of morning and doing it all over again the next day. And finally, frantically polishing up the work and framing it in the back of the Jeep before hanging it on a peg board wall for the moneyed set to collect. Intensity and focus poured into a mere sixteen hours of light.

Then, boom, it is over and we run back to our respective worlds and leave it all behind. Anton and I rocket up I-5 back to Portland, Oregon, out from under the sparkling sun and back into the gray and green. Roos Schuring flies off to Holland and re-emerges on Facebook to send everyone love and kisses and that she is now busy cooking dinner for her two young children. Marc Dalessio and his lovely wife Tina pop back to his new hometown of Zagrev and start answering emails. Carol, Al, and Sergio stay for another day or two to push more paint around but make it back to Petaluma and Santa Rosa, California before I walk in my door. Artists like us are the new peripatetic itinerants. Traveling artist who are quasi-homeless, being hosted in one part of the world before heading off to another, and for the most part we are content to be so. (right: A painting of me painting my ribbon winner at Cypress Point, by Roos Schuring)

It really does boggle my mind. Our predecessors couldn't do this. It would require weeks, if not months, for Church, Bierdstadt, Hill, or Moran to crate their gear up and get to a painting location. It would take days for Constable to load up his rented coach and ride it out of London – as it did for Monet and his crew to head off to southern France. Now everyplace is just a plane flight away. (Okay, in some cases, a plane flight, a ferry, plus some arduous overland traveling, but who can quibble with the point?) Hans Versfeld, Roos' traveling companion and fellow Dutch painter made it home before Anton and I did and he had a 15 hours flight.

Then last night, my wife and I invited some friends over who wanted to hear about my  trip. And view the remainders I brought home. They were the same friends who joined me on my recent trip to Spain and Morocco just to hang out while I painted. And as we were sipping a nice Bordeaux by the fire – yes, I lit a fire because it's been 40 degrees F and pouring rain since I came home! – I casually mentioned I had just signed and faxed off a contract to teach in Tuscany next May. And suddenly, there we all were, leaning in over an atlas on the coffee table, planning another trip. This time to Croatia. Launched from Italy.

Just like that. As if thousands and thousands and thousands of miles mean nothing. 

What a world. So much to paint, so little time...

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Here is this year's work from the Carmel Art Festival – I hope you enjoy it:

"Ghosts in the Evening" 17 Mile Drive, Carmel, CA

(A companion piece to "Ghosts in the Morning")

16 x 20 | oil on mounted linen | Sold

"Living on the Edge" Cypress Point, Pt. Lobos, CA

(An Honorable Mention Ribbon Winner)

20 x 24 | oil on mounted linen | Sold

"Going Down to the Beach" Carmel CA

QuickDraw Painting (iPhone snapshot)

12 x 16 | oil on mounted linen | Sold

"Emerald Waters" China Cove, Pt. Lobos, CA

(Roos set up right behind me and as I worked and she kept shouting: "More paint!")

12 x 16 | oil on mounted linen | Available

"Garrapata Winds" near Big Sur, CA

12 x 16 | oil on mounted linen | Available

"A Crack in the Pinnacle" Pt. Lobos, CA

12 x 9 | oil on mounted linen | Available

"Living in the Edge, Overcast Study" Pt. Lobos, CA

12 x 9 | oil on mounted linen | Available

"Living in the Edge, Sunlight Study" Pt. Lobos, CA

12 x 9 | oil on mounted linen | Available

"Ghosts in the Evening Study" 17 MIle Drive, Carmel CA

12 x 9 | oil on mounted linen

(No photo available; traded to Marc Dalessio)