An Art Fair and Gallery Report

Whew! It has been a whirlwind of a summer! Very busy with shows and painting. I have worked more art fairs than usual this summer, some were worth the effort, some were not. I have gained some new collectors and am happy that art sales seem to be on the upswing! The best shows this year were the shows that I have been exhibiting at for many years, with a good following of collectors. That is really no surprise, as it usually takes time for folks to notice an artist and follow their career. Folks also enjoy meeting the artist and talking about the artwork. The art fair shows also help the gallery sales. Many folks will mention to me that they saw and/or purchased my work at one of the galleries that represent me. This helps the artist with credibility and helps the gallery in name and artwork recognition! I am a firm believer in gallery representation and anything I can do to help promote the galleries is good as I want them to stay in business. It would be a sad world if art galleries no longer could afford to represent artists and stay in business.

Some booth shots from my 2013 shows. The paintings are all pastels. The last show is St. James Court Art Fair in Louisville, KY, October 4,5,6 . I will have both oils and pastels for sale.

Workshop Lesson - Memory Painting

One of the painting exercises during the workshop was to do a memory painting. Marc took us to the beach at Petoskey State Park. The idea is to look at the scene for a short time (5 minutes) and then paint what you remember the next 10 minutes. We repeated that sequence for an hour. Then after a break, put that painting away and did a painting of the same scene for only an hour. The sun was hot!

"Hot Sand Dunes" , oil, 8x10

The memory painting is on the left. Amazing how they both pretty much look the same!

Marc Hanson's dune demo. His was not a memory painting, though he showed us how he massed in the big shapes with a variety of grayed greens. The light was flat by this time, not an ideal situation. Plus it was getting quite warm with little breeze. 

See our easels facing the lake! Someone driving by commented on how odd that we were painting the dunes while facing the wrong way!

Marc Hanson's painting of the dunes.

Workshop Lessons

I was happy to participate in a plein air painting workshop with instructor and fabulous artist, Marc R. Hanson based at the Crooked Tree Art Center in Petoskey, MI. This workshop followed the weekend opening of the Oil Painters of America (OPA) Summer Salon Show. The show will be in the center until August 31, 2013. If you get a chance to see this fabulous exhibit, please look for my painting, "River Banks - Spring Thaw". 

Marc Hanson's demo on using a simple black and white value study and then painting those same values with color.
Square one on left is the scene with four values in black and white, below that is the same using color.

My attempt using the same exercise of Bear River.

My painting of the same scene using those principles of simple value structure.
"Rushing River", oil, 8x10

Marc doing a demo the next day at Bill's Farm Market. Here the demo is on using the same simple value structure and quickly painting in the large shapes using three - five values and color.

Below are several of my studies from that day of painting.

Capturing a Day in Paint

Last week Sunday while in Petoskey, MI, my artists friends and I decided to spend the day painting in Harbor Springs. Harbor Springs in a quaint town with only five or six blocks of shops, restaurants and art galleries. There is plenty of subject matter. We were excited about the beautiful harbor with the sailboats so that is where we set up our easels. The first half hour was sunny, then it clouded up with fog. The weather changed so frequently, from calm to windy, from warm to chilly, sunny to foggy, that it was hard to establish values and color in the painting. Almost gave up but I loved that red boat and so  I quickly painted in the foreground water and bouy and liked the results.

Red Sailboat - Foggy Morning, oil, 11x14, $300 unframed

The owner of this boat may be interested in purchasing this piece, so it is currently on hold.

That was hard work. After a lunch break, we set up to do an afternoon painting. The sun was out consistently and decided to do another harbor painting from a different viewpoint.

Harbor Springs Bay, oil, 12x16, $900 framed

I am satisfied with this painting and will frame it!

Not wanting to quite leave yet, we ate dinner at Turkeys. You know if you have been to Harbor Springs, it is the pink one with the black and white striped awning. I did a painting of it years ago and it is a charming place both inside and out.

With just a little bit on energy left, we did a small evening study as well.

Harbor Study, oil, 8x6, $300 framed or $200 uf

Plein Air to Studio

   I decided to use the "Apple Orchard-May" plein air study (from the last blog) as a reference for a pastel painting. It has been awhile since I painted an orchard scene in pastel, especially one that is back lit.
   Since I was not satisfied with the "back lit" effect on the plein air study, I also used reference photos when working on the pastel in the studio. I wanted to achieve a bright sunlit morning, so I accentuated the tree shadows and tried to keep the core of the apple trees darker than the edges. The blossoms in shadow had to be a blue/purple mixed with a blue/green. The blossoms hit by the sunlight were indicated with a warmer tint, even using a warm peach in a few areas.

Apple Orchard - May II, pastel, 12x16, $800 
Framed with a wide warm silver frame.

Thank you for viewing my work!
This painting will be on exhibit at the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts Fair, June 7-8.

 See all of my upcoming shows on my new website under Events.

Orchard Blossoms II

  The weather here has finally turned and we had beautiful weather for plein air painting this past week! I was able to paint in the orchards three times this week and hopefully again next week unless the forecasted rain puts and end to them.

   With each orchard painting, I felt like I was improving. Painting trees with white blossoms is more difficult than it seems. The trees are a slightly darker value than the blue morning sky. The core of the tree is a darker value than the sunlit grass on a flat plane of ground. The white blossoms are really not white but should appear so in the painting. I used cool and warm tints.

Apple Orchard Reflections, oil, 8x10, $250 unframed

The subject of an orchard and reflections in a pond. The tree on the right was not so pretty, so I used my artistic license and substituted another.

 Another morning, I tackled this difficult subject of a back lit orchard. 

The corner of an apple orchard, backlit in the morning light.

The start of my blocking in the large masses. I was working on the  apple tree masses when I took this photo, trying to figure out the right tone.

Apple Orchard - May, oil, 11x14, $400 uf

This study will translate well into a pastel painting!

Thank you for viewing my paintings! Please contact me if you are interested.
To see more plein air work see my website: www.KalinowskiFineArt.com

Orchard Blossoms

With the beautiful weather West Michigan experienced this past week, I was able to paint two more times in the orchards. The apple trees were just starting to blossom, so I chose plum and pear trees, which are the first to bloom. This is a progression of the painting session which took about two  hours.

My subject, a plum orchard.

A wash of transparent oxide brown and yellow ochre. Then massed in the trees with middle value grays.

I left out some of the grass area, condensed it, to add the road for more interest on the left side of the composition.

I spent a considerable amount of time, probably too much, on the tall back ground trees and the negative space of sky holes.

My palette consisted of T.white, cad yellow lt., yellow ochre lt.,  cad.red lt., Aliz., ultra blue, cerelean blue, viridian, transparent oxide brown and maganeze violet.

Plum Blossoms, oil, 9x12