Power Up Plein Air Series, Part 2: The Supporting Players

"In a successful painting everything is integral – all the parts belong to the whole. If you remove an aspect or element you are removing its wholeness. (Richard Diebenkorn)"

  It's the part of the painting that is so easy to ignore. The lowly support panel.  I have run out the door many times with whatever I have to work with (gotta catch that moving light,right?) but it's often starting the work on the wrong foot! The support is Choice 1 of a whole day full of decisions. The outcome of the painting is tremendously affected by what's chosen.

My smorgasbord of supports:

1. 3/4"Birch Plywood with Amber Shellac

 

Oooooh Yeah, I like this. It's going to give me a lot of juicy brushwork and I feel like a speed painter when I use this. I make a bunch of these in many sizes from a 4" x 8" sheet.

2. Gessoed hot press watercolor paper. Quick to make and carry along. Here's a painting on gessoed paper:

Spring Bouquet-more information

3. Linen Panels from RayMar. Very fine and all ready to go.

4. 100% cotton muslin gessoed to a wood support. This will create a very soft edge to the paint stroke. A great way to reuse a failed painting-just gesso, then press the muslin onto the wet gesso. Sand when dry and add another gesso layer.

5. Denril mylar taped to a board. It's a very different brush feel but it can contribute to a unusual look. 

Lissa Lassitude- oil on mylar- more information

  No canvas on my list. For some reason I don't like canvas or canvas paper- the classic oil paint support!

  When I am off on a long term plein air painting jaunt, I keep an assortment of all of the above in my car along with some part of a roll of primed linen that I can cut some pieces from. I can make an odd sized support from that by taping the linen to a board. 

  I know people that buy their favorite supports in a few sizes and buy the frames to match at the same time. I get it- it's so much easier that way as you never worry about getting the frames when you are ready for that step. But I can't work that way. It feels like a cage and I don't want any constraints at the time I begin a painting.
  I had a great conversation on that subject with a painter friend who painted out that a "constraint" can be used to focus your attention on the areas where there are no predetermined boundaries and let the work be about those. Think of Joseph Albers "Homage to the Square" with size and subject constant and all the energy placed on the effect of color.

"New Ink" Peregrine Press at Engine

March 28- April 19

Engine in Biddeford Maine continues to offer up a variety of excellent art offerings and this show is no exception.

"Peregrine Press, founded in 1991 as a non-profit, fine arts printmaking cooperative in Portland, Maine, is the only such cooperative in Maine, and among a few of its kind in the nation. Currently there are 30 active members who work in a variety of printmaking techniques such as collograph, woodcut, monotype, etching, photo-etching, lithography, and other mixed media processes."

This show has a great mash up of different techniques and art styles and it looks just right on the textured walls at Engine. Stephen Burt's etching of an energetic vine entwined with a slew of figures is a favorite and lends itself to a close look. If you haven't yet made the time to check Engine out, here is a great opportunity!

Engine

Peregrine Press

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