The Greens of Winter

Yes, I realize I've been painting lots of snow lately. I promise I'll stop soon. The winter weather in most areas of this country has outstayed its welcome already, but it's so darn fun to paint! In my classes this month at my studio, I wanted to spend one more session playing in the snow, this time focusing on greenery within a snow scene in order to study the warm and cool color temperatures in the greenery as compared to the snow.

It's quite the balancing act to observe these color temperatures in such different hues in the landscape. But with painting, everything is relative, and it's a matter of comparing how one color appears next to another. The same color can appear cool in one location but warm in another.

Below are my oil and pastel demos from this topic...

Three's a Crowd, pastel, 8x10

Middle of the Road, oil, 8x10

In both paintings, the darks of the greenery made for a strong value contrast against the snow. Careful observation reveals that even the shadow areas of the snow are a great deal lighter than the greenery. Even the highlighted areas of the greens are still darker than the shadow areas of the snow. Warm and cool color shifts in both the snow and the greenery are key to conveying sunlight and shadow areas, with the value shifts in those areas much more subtle.

Below are a few progression shots of each...

Workshop Wrap Up - Red Cockerill Gallery

This past Saturday I enjoyed spending the day with a great group of artists at the Red Cockerill Gallery in Austell, GA, a town just west of Atlanta. This charming little gallery is run by Ann Cockerill, who also teaches classes regularly at her gallery, and occasionally hosts workshops by guest artists. I was fortunate to be invited back to teach a workshop, after conducting a demonstration there several months ago.

Several in this group were experienced artists, but new to pastel. Ann was kind enough to work with me to put together a starter supply kit for students to purchase from the gallery. This was a great, affordable way for many in the group to give pastels a try.

Since many of the pastels in the starter kit were fairly bright, and I wanted to try and use as many as I could from the same pastels as the class, my resulting demo was a bit on the bright side! I did sneak in several of my neutrals, and explained the importance of balancing color temperature, even when you desire intense color in your finished painting. "Winter Reds" was my demo from this workshop.

Winter Reds, pastel, 14x11

thumbnail value study for Winter Reds

Workshop Wrap Up - Terry Ludwig Pastels, Littleton, CO

Earlier this week I returned from a two-week visit to Colorado, which included a family ski trip in Winter Park, a few days of plein air painting with artist friends in Longmont, Rocky Mountain National Park and Boulder, and teaching a three-day pastel workshop at Terry Ludwig Pastels in Littleton. I came home exhausted...yet energized! I just now had a chance to post some tidbits from the pastel workshop...

Following below are my three demos from the workshop...

Bright Spot, pastel, 11x14

Farm Road Curve, pastel, 11x14

Snow Covered Marsh, (100-stokes) pastel, 6x8

With "Bright Spot" I described my basic method for composing my painting and how I construct my thumbnails.

On day two, we did the "five-shape landscape" exercise, and I began "Farm Road Curve" by blocking in only five shapes to start the painting.

We practiced minimal stroke exercises on the last day. After some warm-up 20-stroke exercises, we painted small landscapes using no more than 100 strokes. "Snow Covered Marsh" was my minimal stroke demo.

There were several accomplished pastel artists among the students in this workshop. As they were blocking in their five-shape-landscape paintings, there were several very strong examples of well designed foundations, so I snapped a few shots. Most of them adhered to the 5 shapes. Some of them went with the "5ish shape" method, which still works. ;-) I hope they don't mind me posting them here.

Student examples of 5-shape block-ins:

Next month I'm off to Akron, Ohio (Feb. 26, 27 & 28) and then in March in the Chicago area (Mar. 14, 15 & 16), both pastel workshops. Last I checked, there were a few spots still left in Akron, but I believe the Chicago workshop is full.

Sun & Snow

Three O'clock Shadow Dance, pastel, 8x10

December Light, oil, 10x8

In my previous set of classes at my studio last month, we focused on snow in cloudy, low light conditions. I did two separate blog posts on this: one for pastel and one for oil. I've combined them here this time. In this month's classes, we turned up the sunlight and studied the effects of strong light on snow.

I happen to like the color and lighting effects of both cloudy and sunny conditions on snow. The subtle greys that subdued light conditions create are gorgeous in the winter landscape. But with strong, direct sunlight, you get those luscious deep blues and purples in the snow shadows. With this stronger light, you also have higher contrast in the snow and more vibrancy in the shadows. And the use of cools and warms placed together in the sunlit areas creates that reflective, sunlit quality of the snow.

In my pastel demo, "Three O'clock Show Dance," I used a very warm underpainting which I allowed to show through quite a bit in order to capture the warm/cool color vibration.

In my oil demo, "December Light," I placed strokes of warms and cools next to each other in the snow and on the sunlit birch trees.

Below are a couple of progression shots of each...

Upcoming Workshops in Colorado, Ohio and Georgia

I'm excited to be starting off 2014 with several pastel workshops lined up...

Terry Ludwig Pastels, Littleton, CO - Jan. 24, 25 & 26, $325
www.terryludwig.com
2 more spots left

Red Cockerill Gallery, Austel, GA - Sat., Feb. 8, $120
www.redcockerillgallery.com, 770-944-3160
This is an ideal workshop for beginners! The gallery is offering the option to purchase a small, affordable "start-up" supply kit for this workshop...contact the gallery for details.

Akron Society of Artists, Akron, OH - Feb. 26, 27 & 28, $395
www.akronsocietyofartists.com

More details are available on my website at www.barbarajaenicke.com, or email me with any questions at barbarajaenicke@msn.com.

Holiday Greetings...and a BIG THANK YOU!

A heartfelt THANK YOU to all who have taken classes and workshops from me and who have purchased my work. I feel honored and blessed that I have the opportunity to share my passion for art with all of you in this way, and to have established such wonderful friendships with so many of you. 

I've appreciated all of your comments on my blog, Facebook, etc., and it's always a thrill when I have the opportunity to meet some of you in person! With a busy workshop schedule that will take me all over the country in 2014, while continuing to teach both pastel and oil from my studio in Roswell, GA, I hope to cross paths with many of you again. 

I wish you all a joyous holiday season and much happiness in the New Year!

Sincerely,

Barbara Jaenicke

www.barbarajaenicke.com

The Grays of Winter - pastel

Along the Corn Field, pastel, 8x10

I had students tackle winter grays once again, this time with pastel for today's class. (Yesterday's class was the same topic but with an oil demo.)

Again, the discussion centered on scrutinizing the subject matter to determine the warm grays from the cool grays in both the darks of the trees and the lights of the snow. For the corn field, it was a balancing act of the warms with the cools as well, realizing that the color choices made for this area needed to be much more subdued that you would initially think, since it's within the context of very grayed colors surrounding it.

The value shifts that were needed to capture the small amount of light streaming from the right side were subtle, but important to show accurately.

Below is the underpainting I used to get things started:

For anyone who's worked in both pastel and oil, you quickly realize the pros and cons for each medium. Big upside for oil: you can mix lots of grays with only a few tubes of paint. With pastel, if you don't have many grays and neutrals in your supply of pastels, they're difficult to achieve by graying down brighter colors. (This is certainly possible to do by visually mixing compliments, but more difficult to keep clean color in the painting using this method.)

New students (or students who don't yet have a good range of colors and values in their supply of pastels) often experience frustration when they realize they're missing these key color options. I've wondered if I need to stick with class exercises that steer clear of these colors that don't usually come in basic sets. However, I think it's important to still include this topic because it helps students realize how critical the use of grays and neutrals are to a successful painting, and also helps them to know what they'll eventually need to add to their supply when their budget allows.

Next month in my studio classes, we'll explore the sunnier side of snow!

The Grays of Winter - oil

Hidden Creek, oil, 8x10

Many artists love to paint because they love color. However, learning to handle grays is a key skill.

With today's class, I demonstrated from a reference photo that had lots of gray and very little color, but with a little "push" from Photoshop, I was able to very slightly exaggerate what little color was there. And it wasn't so much about figuring out the color that was in the photo, but determining if it should be a warm or a cool. This takes the pressure off of trying to mix an exact color.

Most of my demo was spent talking through the block-in portion (in which I simplified the busy trees into one large shape, plus the snow on the ground, the sky area at the top, and the three creek shapes) and the warms and cools I mixed using only ultramarine blue, alizarin crimson, yellow ochre, cadmium lemon yellow, titanium white, and small amounts of cadmium red light and cobalt blue. Sorry, I forgot to get progression photos, but here's where I left the painting at end of the demo portion of the class:

After the class, I took my time fine tuning and adding the small details.

reference photo

I'm holding class again tomorrow, this time in pastel. Same topic, different snow scene.