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It's a special joy to have my painting on Keeneland magazine given that I have memories from the trackside there that stretch back into early childhood. I grew up in Lexington, and my parents made a regular habit of taking my sisters and me to watch thoroughbreds warm up on the track in the cool mornings during the spring and fall meets. I do the same with my three-year-old son now--it makes a big impression on him to watch the power and grace of these athletes.

Here's the cover:

For those who attended* PACE and signed up to receive the digital versions of the handout and presentation, here's the link (it's under the password provided at PACE and in your email): http://www.kathleenbhudson.com/demo-handouts

It was a joy to do my demonstrations early in the week. Not only did that mean I wasn't tempted to spend too much time later in the week editing my Powerpoint file, but I also got to field follow-up questions in person from the artists who'd attended the demo as I met them throughout the week. On Tuesday after my demo, I set up my easel right next to Michael Harding's table in the bustling Expo Hall so that I could finish my painting. (I wanted to make sure it was finished and framed since an artist had already bought it!) The setup worked so well that I returned Wednesday and Thursday morning--it was a perfect way to meet attending artists and talk with them a little more about their work than a short demo Q&A allowed.

It also led to one of the more memorable moments of PACE for me. As I was wrapping up my initial demo painting from the Expo Hall, art legend (and PACE's Lifetime Achievement Award winner) David Leffel approached to take a closer look at the piece. We chatted for a while and then I asked him if he had any input on the painting. He made some helpful pointers on the composition and then treated me and a small group of fellow artists to an enthusiastic riff on brushwork, painting from the shoulder (rather than painting with a still arm and wrist movements), and bringing your life experience to bear in painting. It was a remarkable exchange!

The whole group (around 1,200 strong!) ventured out to Ghost Ranch on the last day to paint. It was stunning--views like this in all directions:

(Also pictured above: the Taos Pueblo.)

*If you attended PACE and/or Plein Air South and would like to get access to the demo handout, you can contact me and I'll send you the password!

Last week's Lighthouse Plein Air Festival was eventful. I had an unusually slow start for a plein air event, spurred mostly by my vision for a painting of reflections in a cypress marsh that never came to fruition. I devoted nearly a full day to hiking and bushwhacking around a couple of state parks and I still couldn't find the flora to fit the bill. (I've since learned of a few promising spots, but early last week I gave up and assumed the cypress canopy part of the Upper Loxahatchee River was only accessible via kayak.) I finally decided to do a small painting of some ibis near the main parking lot at Riverbend Park so my hours there hunting for a cypress marsh wouldn't come to a complete waste.

I set my easel up under this tree, thankful for the shade, and started a study of some ibis in a mud flat.

Only about fifteen minutes into the painting, I was shocked to feel a spray of water (or so I thought) rain down on me. I looked up for an errant cloud only to see an angry squirrel peering down from a branch ten feet above. It took me a second to realize that the little guy had cut loose and urinated on me. What?! That happens? I edged away from under the squirrel called my sister to laugh about it and ask if she'd ever heard a story like mine. For good measure, I ran it by some other plein air artists, too. No one had ever heard of a squirrel doing such a thing. It was certainly a first for me.

I decided to keep on painting since the squirrel in question came down from the tree and watched me from the grass instead. I tried to work quickly--it was bizarre to be an unwilling participant in a standoff with a rodent! I guess the squirrel must have felt territorial about the tree. He sat there like this for the rest of my painting session:

After capping a day of fruitless scouting by getting peed on by a squirrel (argh!), I needed to either find something good or call it a wrap. Right on cue my friend and fellow artist Beth Bathe came through with a great tip on a painting location. She knows I love coastal scenes with rocky shorelines and surf, so she sent me to Hutchinson Island, which boasts the oldest building in Martin County. The House of Refuge there was built by the US government as one among a series of houses every ten miles up the Atlantic coast. These were maintained by keepers who were paid to watch out for shipwrecks and be a resource to sailors in the event of a wreck. The house of Hutchinson Island is now a  tiny maritime museum with ample parking spaces (10) for the history buffs, photographers, and artists who venture there.

I loved the location because I could work on a more complex painting of the Atlantic surf over a couple of afternoons (see below) and then turn my easel around and paint a sunset over the Indian River. As I wrapped up my larger painting on the second day, I was amazed to see some folks set up a fancy table and spread flowers. (An engagement photo shoot?, I wondered.) Then the guests arrived and with them the bride and groom. I crashed my first wedding while plein air painting! Or did the wedding crash my painting session?

I was deeply honored when the event judge, artist Nancy Tankersley, gave this painting third place in a field of great paintings. 

I always do a lot of research on painting sites before I travel to an event. I’d seen photos of Timberline Falls before I traveled to Plein Air Rockies last year, and I knew it would be on my shortlist of painting subjects if I happened to have a full day free of thunderstorms. Luckily I did have a clear day about a week into the event, so I was able to plan the nearly ten-mile roundtrip hike with the falls in mind. Most falls in the RMNP are found along streams in ravines, but Timberline Falls is unusual in that it cascades down a rock face out in the open, the light on it unobstructed by trees. I wanted to capture the early morning light that catches the mist on the crest of the falls.

I had to hike five miles with some significant elevation gain to get to Timberline Falls, so I started before dawn. It should have been a slightly shorter hike, but both parking lots near the trailhead were full even before sunrise! Hence some extra trail mileage.

After passing some beautiful scenes at the Loch below the falls, I arrived at Timberline Falls around 9am and spent a long time on my sketch - I knew I’d need some good guidance for my painting once the shadows on the rocks changed.

I probably started painting around 9:30am, then painted straight through until 3pm. I knew I wasn’t going to get a chance to return (we had afternoon thunderstorms every other day of the event) and so I tried to achieve a high level of finish in one marathon session. I think the pressure of “no return” helped me focus more intensely—I knew I couldn’t hike all the way up there and back and make a dud!

The real adventure happened on the return trip. I remember marveling at how smoothly the day had gone as I packed up my supplies and prepared for the hike back down. Even though I didn’t have the correct size of panel carrier, I was prepared—I’d picked up some twine at a hardware store the night before and planned to tie the wet painting to the back of my pack facing out. Once it was secure I started down the trail, knowing I’d have to take care to avoid falling or brushing against stray foliage. I wasn’t counting on outside intervention, though…

About halfway down the mountain I came across a tourist couple taking photos of an elk calf a little off the trail. A quick glance told me the cow elk was not happy about it. She was bristling and snorting, staring them down with a look that could kill. (They were oblivious.) I shouted at them to get back on the trail and away from the calf; fortunately they listened, scooted off in a hurry, and then disappeared down the trail ahead.

That left me in a bit of a pickle since my only way down the mountain ran ten feet from where the cow and calf still stood. I decided to wait it out a while until they moved away uphill, far enough off the path that I thought I could pass by along the trail without alarming them.

I was wrong. A moment after I passed the spot where the tourists had gone off the trail, I heard brush crackling and looked back to see the cow elk on the trail right behind me. I kept walking quickly and didn’t look at her again…hoping against hope that she would realize I wasn’t threatening her calf. A bunch of things were running through my mind during the long minutes that followed. I was mad at those tourists. I was trying not to think of a documentary I’d just watched with my two-year-old, Sam, in which we’d seen a mother elk successfully (and somewhat violently) defend her calf from a pack of wolves. And, tellingly, it occurred to me that my painting was immediately facing the elk—that if she ended up making any physical contact, it would likely be destroyed. I’m still not sure why that seemed so significant at the time, but I guess I liked the painting!

After what seemed an eternity, she slowed her pace and appeared to calm down. I took a blurry photo of her over my shoulder without turning my head:

Shortly after that, she turned around to go back to her calf.

All in all, I was relieved to reach my car at the end of that hike—both I and the painting were miraculously intact.

I went ahead and booked a flight thanks to a Frontier Airlines sale, thinking I didn’t have anything to lose by going—and plenty to gain even if I did go home empty-handed after the Salon awards. I’d wanted to experience the convention since I’d attended my first regional plein air festival in 2014. With around a thousand attendees and faculty, the Plein Air Convention is the largest gathering of plein air and landscape painters in the world.

It didn’t disappoint! I arrived a day early and painted at Pacific Beach and La Jolla Cove. The latter was particularly fun thanks to the presence of sea lions barking on the rocks right below my easel. I took a pause from painting to video call my two-year-old son, who was transfixed by the scene.

The real shock came at the opening night of the convention on Monday, which culminated in Eric Rhoads reading off the annual Salon award winners. I was sitting next to Melanie Thompson, a brilliant painter from eastern Washington, as she was called up for her award. As Eric progressed through the 3rd Place and 2nd place announcements, I remember thinking, “Ah well—I’m glad I didn’t get my hopes up too much!”

All told, I was in genuine shock a second later when an image of Bright Morning, Timberline Falls flickered onto the screen as the Grand Prize winner. (Melanie had to bump me to get me moving towards the stage.) I don’t believe there are words to adequately describe how moving it was to look out at the crowd—a sea of immensely devoted fellow artists—and see them applauding my work. Just know the moment was surreal enough that I left the stage without the awards package and then had to jog back for it.

I was on cloud nine for the remainder of the week, but not just because of the Salon prize. I got to watch several lectures and demonstrations each day by artists whose work I’ve followed for years. Jill Carver, Quang Ho, James Gurney, Roos Schuring, and Jeremy Lipking all spoke or demonstrated on the main stage—and I’m glad I took extensive notes during their presentations since I’ll revisit them often.

In terms of immediate application, Mike Hernandez’s demo was among my favorites since he emphasized using warm shadows rather than cooling shadows as artists are wont to do. (Guilty as charged!) He also showed how he doesn’t overmix his colors, which means his brushstrokes feature colors that are marbleized and vivid.

Those two things (warm shadows and marbleized brushstrokes) really stuck in my head as we all headed out to Point Loma on the last day to paint at Cabrillo National Monument. Here’s my painting of the tide pools there:

This painting—one of my favorite plein air paintings I’ve done—sold right away to my roommate at the convention, a fellow painter from North Carolina. It marked a great end to an unforgettable week.

This year, artists at Plein Air Rockies enjoyed the honor of painting the park during the exact centennial of the National Park Service on August 25. When a brief hailstorm forced me to take cover that day, I walked into a ranger station just in time to see a cake delivery and join in an enthusiastic singing of “Happy Birthday” to the National Parks.

The centennial celebrations reminded me of the critical role artists played in moving public will toward the parks’ creation. Thomas Moran’s name will always be associated with Yellowstone, while Charlie Russell painted Glacier from his lodge on McDonald Lake and Charles Partridge Adams explored the beauty of the Rockies from his studio in Estes Park. “I see you’re carrying on the tradition!” said one visitor when he saw my easel. (I had unknowingly set up just yards from a sign spelling out the entwined histories of artists and the parks.) It’s a rich legacy to carry on, and for me, painting in the park felt like the landscape artist’s equivalent of walking on hallowed ground.

In honor of Adams, the Cultural Arts Council of Estes Park added another award to the lineup this year. Judges David Santillanes and Carol Jenkins chose Olena Babak’s “Moment of Enchantment” for the inaugural Charles Partridge Adams Award for a painting that best captures the character of the Rockies. Fittingly, Babak spent the first several days of the two-week event hiking instead of painting so that she could get to know the area. “So much of this place was a snapshot of everything I’d seen when hiking around,” said Babak. “The mountain ridge that you can see through the trees, the tall, candle-like sub-alpine ferns at different stages of their life cycle, the mountain river with numerous waterfalls and giant granite boulders … this place felt remote and pure with all of the distinct character of the Rockies.”

I likewise found my favorite painting subject mid-hike — in the middle of a nine-mile hike, actually. I had seen some photos of Timberline Falls and decided to risk one of few fully thunderstorm-free painting days on my hope that it would yield a decent painting. I arrived at the falls, huffing and puffing a bit, and was not disappointed. In hindsight, I think the pressure of doing a longer hike with the painting gear actually served as a motivator for me. (I couldn’t go all the way there and make a dud, right?) On my hike back down I had to strap the painting to the outside of my pack and hope for the best. In the end, my gamble paid off; I was honored when “Bright Morning, Timberline Falls” was awarded Third Place and sold.

Jason Sacran won Best of Show and People’s Choice for “Morning Magic,” a vivid, painterly interpretation of early sunlight on Adams Falls in the Rocky Mountain National Park. Sacran arrived with his family and had only a few days to paint, but — true to form — managed to pull together a stunner of a painting.

Neal Hughes, who won both First Place and Artists’ Choice for his painting “Old Pine,” was en route to Sprague Lake when his subject grabbed his attention. “I guess you could say I was heading for a lake when this wizard-like tree cast a spell on me,” he said. “It was its age and the way that the gnarly branches are reaching out with a play of light, where they become negative and positive shapes, that made it interesting to me.”

Second Place overall and Allen Award winner Lon Brauer made the most of his first time at Plein Air Rockies — in fact, it was his first time ever painting mountains. Like Hughes, Brauer found his muse for “House on the Rock” when he was on his way somewhere else. “I stumbled upon Ward, Colorado, on my way to another destination and ultimately spent the better half of a week painting there,” Brauer said. “I found the dwellings perched tenaciously on the hills similar to mountain goats holding on to a rock face.” Brauer emphasized a strong dark-light pattern in his composition. He sought to use “House on a Rock” to encapsulate his reading of Ward’s character: “I saw the mixture of architectural style as a visual metaphor for the eclectic personality and independent spirit of this delightful community.”

In the Quick Draw, Jason Sacran won First Place, Neal Hughes won Second, and Michael Clark took Third. Larry DeGraff won Best Miniature.

If it’s not already on there, you might want to add Glacier National Park to your bucket list of painting locations.

I still remember my first glimpse of Glacier Park. I was 8 years old, and my intrepid grandfather let me ride shotgun on a month-long road trip through the American West. He spontaneously burst out in song as he rounded a corner on the park’s famous Going to the Sun Road, but I didn’t wonder why: Before us stretched a vista for which no photograph or park documentary could have prepared me. It took my breath away. Ridge after ridge faded into the blue distance, each line reflected perfectly on the glassy surface of St. Mary’s Lake. I tried to sear the view into my mind so I’d never forget it.

Inspired by that memory and last year’s “Timeless Legacy” exhibition of women artists in Glacier, I returned to the park last month to join 29 other artists for Plein Air Glacier, a festival hosted by the Hockaday Museum in Kalispell, Montana. We ventured into Glacier on June 25 for five days of painting.

The distinctive look of Glacier’s landscape struck me as a child, but I appreciate it even more now as a plein air painter. The valleys in the park are U-shaped, forming massive parabolas, because glaciers carved them wide and deep. (Rivers and streams carve characteristic V-shaped valleys instead.) The 150 glaciers that originally formed the mountainsides in Glacier National Park also left behind hanging valleys, which launch dramatic waterfalls like Bird Woman Falls hundreds of feet below during the summer melt-off.

Plein air artists always operate with a sense of urgency required by changing light and weather conditions. But to paint in Glacier is to be aware of time’s impact in a deeper way: Scientists predict that the 25 remaining glaciers in the park will melt and cease moving within the next 14 years. I reflected on this often as I wandered and painted in the park. As an artist I was bearing witness to the end of an era in this landscape: Glaciers, the active sculptors of this terrain for thousands of years, would soon grow still and vanish.

It was timely for me to hear Linda Tippetts emphasize the importance of action words in Native American place names as she led a demo at Running Eagle Falls. “I love that these names have movement in them,” she said. “After all, the elements in the landscape are always moving, never static.” That’s certainly true of the diverse landscape in Glacier Park, but artists have a limited window to capture some of the last glimmers of movement from the glaciers themselves.

Aside from Tippetts’s demo, I only encountered a few artists inside the park. (It’s a large place!) But California transplant Jeff Troupe and I found a common muse in the Avalanche Creek Gorge near one of Glacier’s most popular hiking trails. Meanwhile, artists Jeff Manion and Kenneth Yarus hiked deeper into the wilderness to capture views unseen from the roads. Manion noted that a bear passed by within a stone’s throw of his easel at one point.

On June 30, all 30 artists came into Kalispell to drop off work at the Hockaday Museum in time for the evening’s show and sale. Collectors turned out in droves that night; the museum hired a bluegrass band and catered the event while artists swapped stories about their adventures in the park.

As the other artists and I took down some remaining paintings after the show, I found myself looking at the distant mountains and wishing I could head right back into the park the next morning. For me, there’s no clearer sign that a place has captured my imagination and sense of wonder.

In its third year, the Lighthouse Plein Air Festival featured expanded painting locations along Florida’s Atlantic coast. Fifty juried artists from across the United States and abroad converged on Martin and Palm Beach counties to paint the beaches, public parks, a formal sculpture garden, a historic fishing village, and a vast inland park with characteristic Florida flora and fauna.

 The festival is on the shorter side, with three days of painting plus the Sunday Quick Draw, so several artists arrived early to scope out the painting locations in advance. I used Google Maps with a satellite view in order to take in the terrain beforehand — I can usually tell where I’ll find dense foliage, see sunrises or sunsets over water, or where there might be an interesting bend in a river.
 
The artists made the most of the painting time. We braved strong El Niño-year winds (including some 35mph gusts!) at Juno Beach on the first day and many artists carried through dusk each day to paint nocturnes.

George Van Hook, who won the Grand Prize with his painting from Juno Beach, said the sight of the beach and pier above it immediately caught his eye. “I grew up in Pennsylvania, in love with Reginald Marsh’s beach scenes of Coney Island,” he said. “I wanted to combine the geometry of the pier’s structure with the chaos of all the figures.” The artist reported that it worked in his favor to have limited time at the location. He completed a quick study, then created the larger version by buckling down and painting for five hours straight. “It was fun to know I had to do it all at once,” said Hook. “I painted the background, then put in identifiable figures.”

Van Hook found the volunteers from the Lighthouse ArtCenter indispensible during these marathon painting sessions. “I’ve never been to an event so delightfully organized, both the gallery and the field volunteers. They were at our beck and call the whole time, at every location.” This was true — while I painted a giant banyan tree on successive mornings at Riverbend Park, volunteers found me and trekked through thick undergrowth every couple of hours to offer me water, oranges, and croissants. One even drove framed paintings back to the gallery to save the artists a trip.
 
Other winners included Carl Bretzke, First Place; Shelby Keefe, Second Place; Jason Sacran, Third Place; and Don Mondloch and Ken DeWaard, Honorable Mention. In the Quick Draw, Richard Sneary won First Place, Nyle Gordon took Second, and Susan Lynn won Third.

Jason Sacran created his award-winning painting in Riverbend Park just a few hundred yards from where he painted last year’s Grand Prize-winning piece. “I love Riverbend Park,” he said. “It just screams ‘old Florida,’ and has a wild nature to it that I love. The scene captivated me from the moment I saw it. I enjoyed the contrast of the morning sun hitting the shaded bundle of palm trees, with that great bunch of lit-up foreground dry grass.”

The most popular painting location seemed to be Port Salerno, a fishing harbor initially built in the 1920s by Italian immigrants. A boatyard near the marina inspired Shelby Keefe and Carl Bretzke by day and several more artists by night. John Caggiano was so enamored with a nocturne scene illuminated by the yard’s motion-detector light that he ran over to his subject every few minutes to trip the sensor and continue painting. Carl Bretzke initially joked that he was drawn to the subject of his First Place painting “Fish Truck” because of its smell. “Actually I liked the composition of the truck and shadow together,” he added. “The palm tree still signals a tropical setting and the truck shows an element of real life.”

On the final morning I painted a larger piece from a Port Salerno dock, where a flock of pelicans waited expectantly for the fishing boats to return. I wanted to do a silhouette so I could simplify the shapes of the boats and emphasize the glow of the light reflected on the water. (Simplifying those shapes also meant I’d be in less trouble if the fishermen returned early and needed to use their dock!) An onlooker who had stopped by periodically to watch me paint and talk with me about my creative process ended up buying the painting at the gallery right after I delivered it that afternoon; I was deeply honored to learn that it was her first purchase of a plein air painting.

In the hours before the packed collector’s gala on Saturday, the Lighthouse ArtCenter staff hung upwards of 300 paintings in their well-lit gallery in Tequesta. The scale of the exhibition was a testament to the artists’ intense focus and the volunteers’ tireless support — and it helped ignite the interest of local residents in plein air painting. “I’m going home to get out my paints!” said one lady to me during the Quick Draw on Sunday. A young woman approached and told me that we looked like we were having so much fun she was going to overcome her fears and sign up for a plein air painting class that she’d contemplated for several years.
 
Festival Chairman Ted Matz looked back over the event and seemed well pleased. “We expanded our marketing efforts to include television interviews, newspaper inserts, and private VIP parties for collectors, which all proved beneficial as we increased our attendance well over last year,” he said. “Our judge, Jim McVicker, added the credibility to our event that we wanted, and many artists were drawn to our event because of the respect and plein air painting knowledge that he brought to the whole judging process. Who’s going to argue with Jim on his decision?”

Matz concluded by asking for feedback from participating painters. “We are always open to what the artists want and solicit how we might make our festival better each year,” he said. “Their input is very important to us to help them make the best work they can produce.”

Many artists use a small sketchbook to make preliminary sketches on location before painting. I almost always allow time for this—it makes a huge difference when I work out the kinks in composition before starting to work in color. I keep a 5.5x8.5" wirebound sketchbook in my pack; I'm not picky on brand since I only use it for preliminary studies.

After doing really loose sketches for a while, I thought it would be helpful to create compositions a bit more carefully with my panel sizes in mind. I've traditionally just 'guesstimated' the size of a thumb sketch, but it's never right on the mark—and I don't really want to fuss with a ruler or anything that'll add weight to my pack. 

After a little time with a calculator and Adobe Photoshop, voila!...here's my printable guide for some common sizes, plus some that I might make when I finally start preparing my own panels. I thought I'd share it in case anyone else found it useful. Truth be told, I did a little googling to see if anyone else had published something like this before I dove into Photoshop. (No dice.)

Printable Aspect Ratio Guide - JPEG

Printable Aspect Ratio Guide - PSD (only for those who want to edit in Adobe Photoshop)

If you print it at 100% size, it fits neatly within a 5x8" sketchbook. You can size it up or down depending on the typical size of your field studies. 

To use it, I've cut it along the outside lines and can make hash marks along the edges of my intended panel size (note the square sketch behind the printed guide in the photo above). Of course, I always have to option to change it partway through a sketch if I wind up thinking a different aspect ratio would work better. 

Hope that helps! Happy sketching—and painting.

I signed up, and as I was a little late to the game, I nearly missed out on getting a host family...but mercifully the housing coordinator herself invited me to make use of her (fully finished) basement for the duration of the festival. 

The very first artist I met was Michele Wells, a gifted pastel painter from near St. Louis. Her aesthetic is fairly similar to mine (she loves atmospherics and creates beautiful tonal work), so we ended up painting together frequently during the rest of the festival. I finished two paintings the first day and submitted one to the first daily competition—a purchase prize at Augusta Shores.

The second piece won the first purchase award. I was both grateful and amazed...I came to Augusta hoping to have an adventure, but I was managing my expectations on the competition front. (I came away from New Harmony pretty empty-handed with regard to prizes and art sales, so I knew the same thing could happen again.) I certainly didn't anticipate hearing my name on Day 1 of the event! 

A couple of days into the Augusta plein air festival, several artists joined John Lasater and Jason Sacran, both from Arkansas, as they ventured to nearby Washington, MO to paint nocturnes. John and Jason are both dab hands when it comes to nocturnes (and have plenty of prizes to show for it). They used a creative system of book lights to illuminate their paintings in progress. I don't have a photo of that, but I did document the way the rest of us went about our paintings using headlamps:

A few more memorable painting adventures in Augusta...

1) Painting on a flat field ahead of a storm was a challenge. It was so windy, I couldn't even paint using the new easel...so I had to use my car as a wind shield and weight down my larger easel with a full backpack. Whenever the wind changed direction I'd have to park at a different angle and move my easel!

2) I saw this barn and immediately wanted to paint it. Trouble was, no one was around...so I ended up setting up my easel on the side of the road, only partially on the property of the landowner. Fortunately someone drove up not long after and was okay with my painting location.

3) I was a little unprepared for a 30-degree day at the beginning of May, so when our paintout hosts started a bonfire, I knew exactly where I wanted to set up my easel!

4) On the last day of the festival, I still hadn't managed to paint a sunrise since Day 1. It had been overcast almost every morning, which made it impossible for me to paint a scene (any scene!) at my favorite time of day...sunrises are wonderful because you can develop your light in a painting around the specific moment in a given sunrise that had the most evocative, beautiful effect on the landscape. I'd feel the same way about sunsets, but sunrises possess a distinct advantage: instead of fighting against time, losing the light you need as a sunset progresses, daylight only gets brighter following a sunrise. That gives you a lot more time to create a beautiful painting, though you do still have to work quickly!

So when the forecast showed that the sun would be visible on the final day of Augusta, I knew I'd have just one chance to paint a landscape during the sunrise. I actually scouted out my location using Google Maps. I had a vision for a painting of the Missouri River, with the sunrise above it reflected in a pronounced bend in the river. (There had to be a place like this, right?) So I checked for a potential spot by using the satellite view setting on Google Maps--I needed a higher vantage point on the south shore of the river, looking eastward toward a upward bend in the river's course. Luckily for me there was a church building on a bluff outside Washington, MO. I drove there at 5 in the morning and set up shop behind the church. (Also luckily for me, the pastor there had an art degree and was very supportive of my painting on their property.)

I finished the painting on a tight schedule since I had to be back at Augusta, about 40 minutes away, for the Artists' Choice voting at noon...and I had to have a painting ready and framed. I was pleased with the result and very glad I'd done my research on the location....finding the right subject to paint is half the battle.

I ended up deciding to use this painting as my submission for Artist's Choice (It got third) and as one of my two submissions to the final show competition the next day. I hadn't initially planned on doing a 12 x 16 inch piece, but fortunately I'd swapped frames earlier in the week with Jason Sacran, who was in need of a spare 12 x 12 inch frame in a different finish for a beautiful painting of some backlit aspens. His spare framed worked perfectly on the sunrise painting.

To my surprise and joy, the jurors awarded Sunrise Over the Missouri Best of Show for the festival. It was a huge honor because of the sheer volume of amazing works created during the long festival...I loved seeing so many of them on display during the final exhibition. 

The jurors at Augusta, along with fellow artists I met during the week, gave me a real boost of confidence in what the future holds for me as an artist. My identity certainly rests in something deeper and more permanent than any painting I could create—that is the love of Christ. But painting is deeply important to me, and ever since I've been pursuing a vocation in art full-time, one of the biggest challenges has been the constant question of "Will this actually work?" 

It was a true gift to realize that "Yes, it might!"

Last year brought a couple of firsts. In April, an advertisement for a plein air event caught my eye because it was relatively close to where I live. The event was the Hoosier Salon's "First Brush of Spring" in New Harmony, IN. The only issue was that it started the next day—but I registered, booked a hotel room in a nearby town (New Harmony's B&Bs were already full), and drove to the Indiana the next day with paints in tow. I didn't know what to expect since I'd never taken part in a multi-day plein air event before.

As it turned out, I loved it. I think I'd always conceptualized painting as a somewhat solitary thing. When I'm painting in my studio, I'm usually alone—I listen to audiobooks, podcasts, or music so things don't get too quiet. And I've taken paints outdoors on many occasions, but again, I always painted by myself. (I can attribute some of this to my background as a mostly self-taught artist...I imagine most art students have a group of fellow painters they can call upon for paintouts!) Painting alongside large groups of other artists in New Harmony was such a joy. I learned a great deal from seeing how other artists approached the same scenes I was painting; I got some good tips on outdoor painting supplies, too. I quickly realized I needed a new easel...whenever the wind blew, I had to hold down my $29 metal one with my left hand and balance my palette on my left forearm...which left me just inches from the painting. (This is a problem since it's imperative to stand back from a painting regularly to check the composition and values.) Finally John Lasater, a phenomenal artist from Siloam Springs, AR, took pity on me and improved my setup a bit by weighting down the easel with a loaded backpack:

Each night, many of the artists in town gathered at one of New Harmony's three pubs. And they didn't just talk shop! My favorite memory of the week was probably the sight of Quang Ho, Rick Wilson, and a few other musically-minded painters undertaking a spontaneous jam session.

New Harmony proved to be a wonderful introduction to plein air events for me. It certainly left me excited to do more festivals and meet more artists! Here's my collection of paintings from the three days I spent in New Harmony:

The Eiger Glacier carves out a steep path between the Eiger and the Mönch in the Swiss Alps.

Clouds obscured the mountains when I was there last summer, but enough sun poured through to highlight the glacier and the many waterfalls that tumbled down the mountainside. 

I wanted the climbers in the scene to give it a sense of scale, to show how large these masses of rock and ice really are. That may be the most challenging thing for me when it comes to painting a mountain: my purpose in painting mountains is to transport to viewer. I hope to give them some of the same feeling of awe at the grandeur on display. Yet my constraint of a canvas with two dimensions means that I need to reduce the vision to a defined space—I suppose you could almost think of it as a window. What precedes the actual act of painting, then, is a long process during which I transform the "window" over and over.

What way of looking at the view gives the greatest impression of scale? Of light? Of movement and drama?

Which "window" draws the viewer's eye upwards, giving them a path to follow "into" the painting?

I'll keep exploring these questions with every mountain composition I begin—and hopefully that means I'll get to explore some more mountains in the near future with paints in tow.

I only wish I could have taken the full set of art supplies with me and painted this view in person.

That might have been a challenge, though, given the 4-hour hike that lay ahead. Joseph, my mother and I spent one of our family's two days in the Alps this summer on the Eiger Trail. We began at Eigergletscher, where I encountered this view of a section of the Jungfrau's north ridge.

The day was mostly clear, but some clouds threatened a storm on the ridge of the Jungfrau. Jagged rocks, sunlight on deep snow, and the ominous blue clouds rolling down the side of the mountain created a beautiful visual drama---I knew I would paint it as soon as I got back to my easel. 

From Eigergletscher, the Eiger Trail crosses down underneath the North Face of the Eiger. I found it hard to keep my eyes on the trail (and secure my footing) because the scene around me was so captivating. To the right, the Eiger loomed over a mile above. Below and to my left, I saw the town of Grindelwald nestled in the valley. I could hear the wind rushing across the sheer face of the mountain, the crash of the waterfalls that pour down from the glaciers, and---surreally---the tinkling sound of dairy cows' bells that floated up from the hillside beneath the trail. It was unforgettable.

For the sunset above, I relied on my memory more heavily than on the somewhat grainy and overexposed photograph I took from a boat offshore near Cartagena, Colombia almost three years ago. 

I remember it was one of those scenes where I thought, "Now, this will be a painting."  I soaked in the warm light of the view and tried to commit it to memory, never imagining that three years would pass before I would try to recreate it in paint. I remembered the picture several days ago, when a stormy day interfered with my hopes of painting outside. 

I spent much more time scrutinizing the colors than I usually do. Painting from memory is complicated because I not only have to pay careful attention to the composition, but I have to step away from painting on a regular basis and return to it with a fresh eye. This is because painting from memory requires a lot of imagination with color. (And I'll admit that sometimes imagination gets out of hand!) When I paint from memory, I'm not just trying to create a vivid, accurate impression of what I see in front of me...I'm trying to recreate a compelling (and internally consistent) image that exists only in my mind's eye.

Looking critically at the work throughout the process, I considered things like the following:

• Are the colors I've used consistent for a sunset in this weather?
• Are the reflections in the water realistic without being overdone?  (Does it look "wet"?)
• Are my color adjustments maintaining the integrity of the composition?

These are just a few of the questions I mull over in making adjustments to a painting done from memory....

At the beginning of a thirteen hour drive to Ohio a week and a half ago, Joseph and I passed through the Berkshire Mountains on I-90 W. I had a sketchbook on hand and wanted to get in a study of the lower hills enshrouded in fog.

It's a mercy that Joseph loves driving because I get to spend all of those travel hours looking at the rapidly changing landscape from the passenger seat of the car.

If I see a scene that looks painting-worthy, I pull out the sketchbook. Sometimes I'll make written notes on specific things ("cobalt blue heavy in the shadows," or "underside of clouds are a warm purple gray") if I don't think my camera or sketch will sufficiently commit a detail to memory.

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After nearly a year of working on ​a large-scale corporate commission (which I'll post about once it's delivered and unveiled!), plus another year of working for a nonprofit in Boston, I am back to painting full time. I'm thrilled about it---not least because I get to share a studio/office space with my husband Joseph, who works in sales. He keeps me on point and gives great feedback on works in progress. He hasn't had any formal art training, but he spent years honing an eye for detail as a Division I linebacker, and it shows! My paintings are better for it.

It's a joy to jump back into painting just as summer begins in Boston. Summer is a magical time here, perhaps because winters are long and so everyone in the city relishes the warmth that much more. I got my first chance to complete an oil painting on the streets of Boston a few weeks ago during the Copley Society's annual Fresh Paint Day. (I became a member of the society in 2010, but this was my first time doing Fresh Paint.) I set up on the corner of State Street and Kilby and did a picture of the Old State House. The image below is a little warped and glare-filled, but the painting was the product of six nonstop hours of focus. (I set up at 9:30am and wrapped up around 3:40pm.) Having a 4pm deadline was helpful---I needed to work fast to capture the light well! My mother's visit from Kentucky happened to coincide with that weekend, too, so she was a patient observer during the paint day and helped greatly by tracking down anything (papers, bags...) from my setup that got picked up by the wind gusting up State Street.

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The painting above is one I began painting right after hiking to the summit of Mount Chocorua with several friends this past summer. It was one of those days where the haze hangs thick on the horizon, making it recede into blue obscurity; the light shifted constantly as the wind blew clusters of clouds overhead. We stopped for an extended lunch break at the top so we could take in the view.

Tonight I joined my friend Emily for an exhibition opening at the Powers Gallery in Acton, MA. It’s a one-man show featuring Sam Vokey, a Boston artist I met earlier this spring. The exhibition showcased an amazing variety of subjects, and it’s clear that Sam approaches each new painting with excitement and a lot of creative energy. He’s painting nearby this week on the Charles River, but he plans to be there before dawn to capture an impression of the somewhat ethereal blue light on the river. That's commitment!

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It’s been a much more action-packed semester than I anticipated, largely due to the time drain (and source of great joy) that was the “Harvard Student Art Show.” Several friends and I put on a massive exhibition and sale of 150 student works last week, and it attracted over 3,000 people. That was more than twice the number we expected!

I displayed the painting above ("The Pyg Track, Mt. Snowdon, Wales") in the show; I painted it in my dorm room using watercolor sketches and photos from 2006, when I hiked up Mt. Snowdon while working as a writer for Let's Go travel guides. The view is from a junction in the Pyg Track, one of the oldest routes up Snowdon. I was looking back down the trail towards the valley I had just left. Only a few hundred meters ahead, a wall of dense fog moved in and blocked the entire valley from sight.

​Fog notwithstanding, Snowdon was one of my favorite hikes--it's difficult to imagine seeing greener hills or more beautiful, untamed terrain than in North Wales. And there were enough people on the mountain that I never grew concerned as a solo hiker, but they were few enough that I sensed every bit of the joy that comes from stepping out into an adventure alone.

I haven’t done much in the way of painting lately due to my impending thesis deadline (coming up in less than a month now!). I’ve hunkered down to write and have essentially become a “thesis hermit.” My hermitage is my dorm room, where I’ve shelved the 200 books I pilfered from Widener Library. 

I’ve heard of seniors having thesis-related dreams before. Most of them involve the frenetic writing process (missed deadline nightmare, anyone?), but my one and only thesis dream to date had nothing to do with the actual writing of the thing. Last night I dreamed I was actually inside my thesis, in a sense: my topic is “Mountains as sites of epic spiritual struggle in the Middle Ages,” and I subsequently spent my dream clambering over a mist covered ridge. (I’m not sure where the ‘epic spiritual struggle’ came in.)

I woke up at 3am, keyed up from a combination of imagined mountaineering and real caffeine, and knew I had to commit the image of the mountain ridge to paper lest I forget it by morning. And so out came the pencils—and here is the result.

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