Keuka Lake: Day 5, Friday

Friday, my last full day at Sunny Point; it's gone so fast, as time does when you're having fun! How did Van Gogh and other artists who worked before electric light and photographs paint night paintings? From their imagination? I'll tell you, it was a lot more difficult than I imagined.

I wanted to do a sunset view of Keuka from the screened in porch of the Red Barn, where I'd been painting this view every day. But I only had one canvas left for oils, and I also wanted to try a painting at night. The stars were so beautiful from the pier in front of the White Cottage and with a half moon, there were enough value contrasts to capture the scene.

But here's the thing -- if I painted in nothing but natural light, I couldn't see the paint on my palette. But if I turned the lights on, I couldn't see the scene well. I had a headband flashlight with me and it even had a red light: good for hiking in the Grand Canyon at 4 am before it got too hot when I walked there a few years ago.

And then I ran out of paint in some colors, so I basically just used whatever I could get on my knife and this was the result, at about 10 pm Friday night.  The second painting is one I sketched in acrylics at about 5 pm. See all 6 paintings in this series at Final Friday at the Pendleton Art Center in downtown Cincinnati tomorrow night from 6-10 pm.

Here's another little acrylic sketch I did around 5:30-6 pm of the White Cottage. I'm going to have great memories of this place -- it's been a wonderful week and, when I count them up, I've worked on 13 paintings and didn't have to worry about whether anyone liked them or not. It was all just for fun.

Keuka Lake Day 4: Changing Weather

Here's the oil I completed on my fourth day at Keuka Lake. Instead of painting first thing in the morning, I kayaked at daybreak and then got down to painting in earnest.

This turned out to be the last day I had sunlight to work on my landscape of "Sunny Point." I took photos of this view and will try to finish the painting when I get home.

Next I went down to visit Yates County Arts Council's new facility on Main Street in Penn Yan NY. Director Kris Pearson showed me the first floor gallery, currently exhibiting the annual show of work by the Penn Yan Artists' Guild. And we toured the meeting rooms and classroom/workshop space on the second floor. Fundraising is currently in progress to put in an elevator, so people (and their artwork and supplies) can travel more easily between the two floors. As you can see, it's a top notch place and I am so honored to have received the residency here this week.

After visiting YCAC, I headed off to the main gate at Watkins Glen State Park to paint outdoors. It was a challenge capturing this waterfall as the light moved up in the sky over the left wall of the gorge, so I had to quit when it changed dramatically enough. I did get photos, so again, I may be able to work on this acrylic painting some more after I get home.

The week's gone fast: tomorrow will be my last full day but I'm done painting at this point and decide to refresh and renew either by getting homemade ice cream at one of the creameries in the area or going to some wineries for tastings. The wine won out, although I also bought fresh Himrod grapes (green) and some Cortland apples from farm stands that were just the best.

Apparently there are over 300 wineries in the Finger Lakes area, so I barely made a dent with my tastings along the Seneca and Keuka Lake wine trails. Some of my personal favorites on this trip were McGregor, Rooster Hill, Keuka Springs, and Bully Hill (great lunch with a view!)

More tomorrow; stay tuned.









Keuka Lake Day 3: Watching for the Light

Today looks like it will be a beautiful sunny day; hooray! Getting into this knife painting with oils on the screened in porch of the Red Barn studio every morning but I thought it would be good to do some at different times of the day too. (This one painted between 2-3 pm). The scene I chose to paint first thing Wednesday morning was this one: 

But the light was changing quickly as the sun rose higher behind me and by 10:30 am, it looked completely different, so I decided to knock off and hope that Thursday or Friday morning light will let me get back to it again.

Dramatic sunlight effects, especially on homes or buildings, are what inspire me most about subject matter, whether in a photograph or real life. My Red Barn scene isn't lit correctly to work on yet today ... I'm thinking I'll have to wait at least an hour and may have from 11:30 am to 1:30 pm to capture it with the right light. Realizing that will probably keep me from visiting the Yates County Art Center building on Main Street in Penn Yan today, as I'd planned, I phoned Kris Pearson to let her know that. Then I warmed up for the Red Barn by painting a little vertical of this view.

Progress continued on the big Red Barn painting (with hostas) until I took a lunch break and then painted the little knife painting in oils. Now it's off to taste some great wines before dinner.





Keuka Lake 2: Tuesday Morning

Raining this morning so this was a good day to visit the Corning Museum of Glass (CMOG). Watching made me appreciate how easy I have it as a painter: when something goes wrong or doesn't suit, it's easy to just paint it out or paint over it. Maybe that's why I'm so taken with glass -- it's the artwork I most like to collect although having the right place to display a good piece is challenging.

The thing that impressed me about CMOG was the combination of industrial inventiveness and usage vs. art for art's sake. I'd read about Corning in the Steve Jobs biography earlier this year but I had no idea of the scope and breadth of what they do! Absolutely amazing and the 4 short demos were fabulous.

When I went, I didn't know if I'd want to spend 1 hour or all day there ... it could easily have taken up the whole day but I wanted to go back to Sunny Point and work on a watercolor of Esperanza Mansion seen from Keuka Lake State Park.

This turned out to be more of a challenge than anticipated, due to the quality of the paper I used and the difficulty of removing the friskit (miskit) from it without tearing the surface. The series of little oil palette knife paintings is 8 x 10; this one is about 9 x 12 or 13.

No work on the Red Barn today -- waiting for that light and hoping it will return on Wed.

Keuka Lake I: Monday morning

I bought five eight by ten canvases so that I could paint with a knife in oils every day, so I decided to start my first morning early on the porch of the Red Barn overlooking the lake. I painted this in about an hour and a half and I'd forgotten how quickly the light changes! Stay tuned for four more attempts to capture this view on different days and at different times each day.

Some of my tubes of oil paint hadn't been opened in so long they were frozen shut. Running them under hot water, I've managed to open all but the Indian Red so far.

YCAC Artist in Residence: Day One

The Yates County Arts Council wants Sunny Point to be a place of creativity, laughter and healing and boy do I feel fortunate to be the Artist in Residence here this week! Arrived at Keuka Lake on a warm Sunday evening before sunset and was graciously welcomed to the area. I couldn't wait to have a whole week with nothing I have to do but paint; what a luxury!

It's been such a hot summer at home, I realized I haven't painted outdoors (plein air) in quite some time. And some of the best features here are nice big screened in porches on both the White Cottage and the Red Barn, so there will be no problem painting out there rain or shine.

It's also been a long time since I've chosen my own subject for a painting and I was overwhelmed with so many choices just a few feet from my front door. I was going to set up to paint the Red Barn but then I got distracted by the light on the pier and the blue kayak, so I did a quick acrylic painting of that before starting to paint the barn.