Hazy Sunshine on Lake Superior

Hazy Sunshine 5.75" x 7.5" Oil

Here is another look out onto the great inland sea that is Lake Superior. It was a cloudless afternoon at the cabin. The sky was faintly hazy and yet the lake sparkled like diamonds. A brilliant contrast to the purplish-brown rock. The small spruce tree hangs tight to this rocky, lichen covered outcropping above Lake Superior. It is battered by the elements but its roots go deep into the cracks in the basalt.

This painting is done on book board primed with three coats of vermilion colored clear acrylic gesso. It give me a nice toothy surface, a little rougher than regular gesso. I started using clear acrylic gesso as a ground for my pastel paintings and find it is also nice for oil.

I will be showing this painting along with several others at the Phipps Center for the Arts in Hudson, Wisconsin. The show will run August 19 to September 26. The opening reception is Friday evening, August 26 from 6:30 to 8:30. More details about the show next week.

Same View, Different Color

Lake Superior Sunset, Lavender, Pastel 4.25" x 4.25"

Here is another image in the "Twilight" series. The colors in my paintings often bear no resemblance to the local colors I see. However, this and last week's post really do represent the amazing light changes one can experience on Lake Superior's north shore. In both cases the colors are accurate. The light is really gorgeous there. It is a wonderful place to be and a real treat for a painter.

The fact that it is 66 degrees Fahrenheit in Grand Marais right now while we are sweltering in record humidity and temperatures in White Bear Lake makes the lure of the cabin a strong one.

Luminous Twilight Colors

Lake Superior Sunset, Peach Pastel, 4.25"x4.25"

This small painting was done looking west along the shore of Lake Superior to what is known as the Sawtooth Mountain Range.

I started this painting with a watercolor wash to lay in some complementary colors to the pastels used to render the final image. You can see the texture of of the cold pressed Arches watercolor paper. The texture worked out well to help me show both the small waves on the water and the rough rocks of the shoreline. I primarily used Rembrandt and Unison pastels and then put in some details with Carb-Othello pastel pencils.

Pastels work especially well to capture the luminous colors of the long twilight along the north shore of Lake Superior. We are located about forty miles from the Canadian border where in midsummer twilight lasts until after 10 PM on the summer solstice--noticeably longer than twilight in Minneapolis and St. Paul. Not quite the same as the "White Nights" of a Scandinavian summer, but almost.

As I sit here describing this painting, I realize the titles of this series should have been "twilight" not "sunset." Too late: the titles are posted on the gallery walls. If you want to see them in person go to Betsy Bowen's gallery in Grand Marais, Minnesota. The Summer Underground Show will be there until July 27.

Time to Change Out My Palette

A few weeks ago fall colors were brilliant in central Minnesota. The color change was so dramatic compared to late summer that I had to make changes in my traveling watercolor palette. Out went the cobalt teal and in went pyrrol and cadmium oranges. I have used up a lot of the cerulean blue since the sky color has changed. My nathamide maroon is also in heavy use. Mixed with with pyrrol red and burnt sienna (especially when you use various amounts of each) it can represent the changing oak foliage.



Above is a field sketch. Below is a small watercolor done

with this as an inspiration.

I don't necessarily use local color in my pastels and oils, but they are evident in my field studies--it is the fastest way for me to get the light right. Even my studio watercolor paintings like the one above is more representative of local color. (Yes, there is a lot of pink in the grasses.)

A note on fall greens. In the little study below I used some sap green which is a mixture of Quinacridone gold (PO49) and Pthalo green(PG7). I do use Quin gold but I'm a little leary of having powerful pthalo green on my palette. Even in the fall you need some green and the sap green is very useful. Last year I started to use Daniel Smith's Serpentine green. It is lovely and I seem to be going through a lot of it. It is expensive but I'm not sorry I bought a tube.

Evening Painting

Evening is my favorite time of the day to be painting. The light is luminous and the shadows are deep. Best of all, I have to put myself on auto pilot and just paint; no second guessing, no overthinking. Why? The light is fading fast forcing me to make decisions and stay with them. Otherwise I can get caught in the plein air landscape painter's trap of chasing the light.

The painting above was done on my recent trip to Utah. The sun was just setting. Cottonwoods were catching the last direct rays and were lit up to a chome yellow and the field in front of them was still sunny. Everything else was in that sort of early evening mountain shadow where they were gently illuminated by the reflected light from the sky.


The painting above was done another day but also in the early evening. (Actually it is the third painting done the day I painted the two from the last post.) As you can see, neither has much blue in the sky. Just a faint bit in the part farthest from the sun. So the yellow light of the sky is present in the rest of the landscape and influenced my choice of pigments. Doing a bit of forensics will help me remember my instinctive, auto-pilot choices since I foolishly did not take good notes. Now that I'm back home and attempting some studio paintings with these as reference I sure wish I know exactly what I used. Another lesson learned.

Here is a lesson I did learn: The advice that one should always lay out one's palette the same way is smart. When you obey this rule you don't have to wonder if you are dipping into cobalt or ultramarine or violet or alizarin in the dark. Believe me, after the sun goes down, they look alike.

Both paintings were done on gessoed board. The two above each had one coat of regular white acrylic gesso and one coat of clear acrylic gesso. I like the bit of tooth given by the clear acrylic gesso but I have wondered if it causes too much of the paint to be absorbed. I use a bit of odorless solvent but no medium. The result are paintings that dry relatively quickly (a day or two) and have a matte finish except where I have laid on really thick layer of paint.

I took a wonderful workshop from Marc Hanson this summer and have been using his suggested palette with the addition of Ultramarine Violet:

Titanium White, Cadmium Yellow Light, Cadmium Yellow Deep, Cadmium Red Light, Permanent Alizarin Crimson, Magenta, Light Red, Transparent Red Oxide, Ultramarine Blue Deep, Cobalt Blue, Viridian, Yellow Ochre.

This a nice palette for landscapes--especially representational ones.

Last week I went to a lecture by a representative of Gamblin Oil Colors which prompted me to drive to Wet Paint to get some new pigments. Stay tuned!