Last summer I did a painting of this same walkway. This time I painted it late in the afternoon when the sun was disappearing. All the colors were cool except for the sky. And this time it was painted with a palette knife rather than a brush.
The walkway leads up to the home of an avid Tar Heels fan in Chapel Hill. It was game night, thus the Carolina blue flag in front.
Spot color is just one way I’ve found to add emphasis or to define a focal point. I left the graphite smears thinking they make for a more interesting drawing. The orchid which is producing its second bloom on this stem is now in full bloom. Painting all the flowers could make me crazy. I so love being outdoors and doing looser work. I think of pieces like this as a drawing exercise.
I really am going to get out and paint today. I will not be held hostage by this Amaryllis another beautiful day. With the best intentions of doing some plein air painting, I got up yesterday morning and the flower stopped me in my tracks. This time it really did say, “Out with the old, in with the new.”
Thank you good flowers for posing so beautifully and patiently and thank you friends for following my work in 2011. To all, I wish a Happy New Year.
Each year when I start painting amaryllis it’s a pretty sure sign that plein air painting has taken a back seat. Not so this year, not if I can help it. This winter I plan to do my best to beat the cold. I’ll dress like a deer hunter, wear fur-lined boots and gloves, pack toe and hand warmers in my garb. I need to be out in God’s outdoor cathedral. There the sun gives me much needed Vitamin D and I get to stand up at an easel, move around if I choose, both much healthier than sitting indoors at a computer or table easel.
What I tried to illustrate in this painting is the visual equivalent to “Out with the old [bloom]; in with the new.” It’s not obvious here, so maybe I’ll try again. Not, however, until I’ve received a dose of sunshine. Surely my amaryllis will understand my needs.
Nutcracker at the Paramount, 12x12" oil on panel. Collection of The Paramount Theatre Foundation
Facebook and otherwise dear friend Hilary Russo recently tagged a photo on FB that showed my 2011 holiday card sitting on her mantle in her NYC apartment. Her photo shows the card setting next to her Behr painting of the old Paramount Theatre* in Goldsboro, NC.
My card this year features people rushing into the theater during the holidays to see a holiday evening performance of the Nutcracker. Our beloved old Paramount Theatre was tragically destroyed by fire in the wee hours of the morning February 19, 2005. The following year, Hilary and Matthew Addison invited me to paint at Love Notes, a dazzling Valentine performance they created and performed to raise funds to rebuild our Paramount. Later, Goldsboro civic leader David Weil, the City of Goldsboro and numerous Wayne County citizens brought this goal to fruition. The new theatre officially opened its doors on February 15, 2008.
The Paramount Theatre continues to be the star of downtown Goldsboro as well as a brick and mortar testament of the need and love for the arts in all communities.
* Originally built as an armory/office building, what later became the Paramount was built in 1882 by the Weil Family of Goldsboro. It was then the tallest architecture in town.
It is said it takes two to finish a painting — one to paint it; another to say when it’s done. Here’s Morning Marsh 1, recently painted en plein air on St. Simons Island, GA. Please tell me if I’m done with this painting. Morning Marsh 2 will be introduced tomorrow in my Behr Path newsletter. If you’re not a subscriber, you can now become one through Facebook. Just click the link.
Here lately I’ve been painting cotton fields ‘til the cows come home. Literally. A couple days ago I saw a heard of them disappear over the horizon you see in this very scene. We might assume those cows were on their way home. Who knows where they go at sunset. I was out ‘til near dark yesterday, and it was hard to make out, but I saw one of them jump right over the moon.
The plants have been sprayed to lose their foliage. This “leaves” very little green, mostly crimson and brown foliage and of course the full cotton balls. From a distance all you see is white. Or is it white? I’ve found the perfect place to paint cotton fields and fear any day now that it will be harvested, leaving me of course in the dust and headed home with the cows.
I just shared five new oils on my newsletter that comes out weekly. All of them were done in the five-day plein air workshop I recently took with impressionist painter Susan Sarback. Attendees were blessed with five consecutive days of beautiful weather. Some days were partly cloudy, adding an additional challenge to painting the light, but this then added an additional solution.
The cotton field painting above was done on my way to the Oil Painters of America paint-out last weekend in Salisbury. It was my turn to host a paint-out for PaintNC, a group of plein air painters in the [Research] Triangle. I had chosen a cotton field as our destination. Looking into the light is often a challenge when painting en plein air, but offers the wonderful benefit of having one’s subject matter backlit. This time my umbrella actually worked. Having the sun behind it, my panel was naturally out of the light, leaving only my palette board to be shaded by my umbrella. During these mild autumnal days, a visor or hat suffices for our own personal shade.
Here is the painting I did on Day 3 of my recent Susan Sarback plein air workshop. The first challenge is always finding a strong composition, hopefully, someplace that both my canvas and my palette will be shaded. I like to be shaded too when I’m plein air painting, but often find I can’t have it all.
The intense yellow of the tree in the distance is the focal point, the boardwalk is the dominant element, and the easy-to-miss fisherman plays a supporting role to both. With the use of stronger contrast of color, he could easily have become the focal point. But then I would have had to subdue the color of the tree to prevent it from competing with him. He wasn’t even there when I composed the painting, so he remains second, maybe third in line in importance to this painting.
Just spent a week painting with a knife in a workshop with Susan Sarback. Early autumn on the lake, 9x12" oil on panel, is the first of several lake views I painted. On Friday evening the painting (below) I did the day after the workshop will be hanging in the Third Cary Gallery of Artists’ Plein Air Paint Out & Exhibition. Click link for more information. http://brendabehr.com/events
En route to paint the Wilmington [NC] Riverfront on the western side of the Cape Fear River, I drove past this lovely brick bed and breakfast inn. How the light so beautifully laced the woodwork on the southern side of this inn! Now, here is a place I’d love to stay. Pity me, when I travel I don’t always stay in the most luxurious accommodations :-( So, unless I do a trade-out of some kind with the owners of this property, it is not likely I’ll be staying here on one of my painting trips. Luckily, the proprietors have expressed an interest in the painting. So who knows? Maybe I’ll be doing some additional Wilmington plein air paintings in the near future.
by Brenda Behr on 7/25/2011 11:32:05 AM
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I’ve been lax about posting on this blog. Sorry. Some people call my newsletter my “blog” and are even further confused that I have two blogs. This blog is reserved strictly for current work, and On the Plein Air Trail, I use strictly to post plein air painting.
Morning pathway, a plein air painting, would then also qualify for On the Plein Air Trail. But alas! Thought I’d do something current on this blog, and besides I have another plein air piece I can post on the other blog.
Don’t know if I’m finished yet with this painting. I was there for over two hours this morning and of course, the light changed drastically. Without going back, this is as good as it’s going to get. Incidentally, this is the high school I attended, Goldsboro High School, just around the block from where I currently live. I was sitting in the left wing of this school, when in 1963 news came over the intercom of John F. Kennedy’s assassination.
Seems like all I’ve been painting lately is Krispy Kreme®. In fact, I’ll be painting this iconic Krispy Kreme doughnut shop again tonight inside The Little Art Gallery in Raleigh during a midweek happening at Cameron Village. I know an artist who paints many of his oils on the coast. Says his buyers’ fond memories of the beach influence their decisions to buy his paintings. I can say the same is true of my Krispy Kreme watercolors. See my recent posting by clicking Commemorative statue planned.
If it’s not too far to drive, hope to see you at the event. I’ll be picking up doughnuts to share just like the pedestrian in this painting. How’s that for a carrot?
Weekend before last I ran all the way up to the Hillsborough [NC] area to paint fields of lavender during Sunshine Lavender Farm’s annual festival. I painted no lavender. First thing I heard was music streaming from the porch of the charming farmhouse. Many know I can’t resist painting musicians while they’re performing. The music gets in my blood, transfers to my paint and further inspires me as I attempt to capture the experience. Here’s Gregory Blaine, an African American musician whose character I couldn’t resist trying to transfer to canvas. As I recall, the temperature that Saturday reached 98º. I am so glad now I didn’t succumb and that I found a place in the shade that gave me a comfortable spot from which to paint some of the shopping venues.
Festival shopping at Sunshine Lavender Farm, 8 x 10" oil on panel
More and more I tend to like my paintings better after they’ve set for a while and I can revisit them. Such is the case with this painting. For this small oil I used a fairly coarse cotton canvas panel. When the weather is warm I find it a challenge to move the paint around as much as I’d like, so I’m considering switching at some point to linen that will provide me with a smoother texture. I’ve tried Ampersand panels and find them a little too smooth.
Love the marshes we have here in North Carolina. Not only are they beautiful to behold, they prevent much of our coastal areas from being developed. They provide breathing room in a growingly cluttered coast. Breathing room is what attracted me to the Looking up . . . scene. There was temptation to put some calligraphic strokes in the water in the forground to designate ripples, but I really like the simplicity of this painting and the breakup of space. In my mind there is something Asian about the vast area of whiteness in the design of this landscape.
Above is a photo of my gear so you can see from what vantage point I was painting this scene. As my feet dangled in the water below, I wondered if there might be alligators in these parts of North Carolina. Or water moccasins, although I suspect the later is not something you’d find in brackish or saline waters. It is best to stand while painting, but perspective and view need always to take precedence.
“I did not have sexual relations with that woman”, 5.5 x 3.5" watercolor SOLD
I try to keep politics out of my art. But if it means a sale and the proceeds go to a good cause, I don’t draw a line, I paint. Here’s just a handful of the pelican watercolors I’m offering for $25-$50 plus postage that will go to benefit Sea Biscuit Wildlife Shelter on Oak Island, NC. Tim, the pelican has the rare distinction of being a permanent resident at the Shelter due to the unfortunate accident that permanently damaged his wing. He has a full time job teaching his brothers and sisters that fish don’t have to be live to be worth eating. Quickest way he teaches this is to simply attempt to take the fish for himself.
Read more about my humble fundraising endeavor at On the Plein Air Trail. There (and below) you will find many more pelican paintings from which to choose. Also featured will be the obnoxious Mouth with Feathers. I’m proud to say to say these paintings are for the birds.
You notice I’m painting whirligigs? You notice correctly. Thursday I will be given a reception for a show that opens at the Arts Council of Wilson. The town of Wilson, NC lays claim to Vollis Simpson, famous maker of these fantastical whirligigs, and so I’m trying to pay tribute to him with some paintings of his indescribable folk art.
Simpson’s whirligigs are all over, from Albuquerque to his Whirligig Windmill Farm in Lucama, NC. I painted this one at Fearrington Village, a quaint community not far from Pittsboro, NC. I had to complete most of the painting using a photo for reference as a thunderstorm and downpour forced me to retreat.
Click EVENTS for information about the solo exhibition that begins Thursday, May 5 in Wilson.
Here we go, art of someone else’s art. Vollis Simpson in Lucama, North Carolina is the creative mastermind sculptor behind these fantastic whirligigs. I just finished writing about them in my email newsletter, so am fresh out of superlatives to describe them. They’re to be seen, not read about anyway, so if you find yourself in North Carolina, just ask where you might find the nearest whirligig.
This painting and another one of the same subject matter will be in my show of oils coming up May 5 at the Arts Council in Wilson, NC. Please click here for more info. Hope you can swing by during the reception. My paintings and I would love to meet you.
Since it cannot be called plein air if it is not painted in the open air, I came up with another French description for paintings I do in my car, dans la voiture. Imagine my surprise when I googled dans la voiture and found a soft porn French movie. OMG! And when I wrote about dans la voiture on my other blog, my very first follower was a man in Italy. Don’t you just love the Internet?
