The Mack Way

A New Season 20x 16 Oil by James Swanson
Traveler for the painting was Heather May

Being creative and staying that way are two different things. In my world keeping inspired and motivated to create art is a full time gig. Finding new ways to push yourself is a battle in it's self. That is why one of the ways that I keep pushing is to enter juried exhibitions. These exhibitions are where you are really being judged by your peers. To be accepted into one of these shows can be exhilarating to your work, but not being accepted can be a little devastating also. At least for a little while.

One of the exhibitions that I am sending work into this year is one on Mackinac Island.
Mackinac Island is off the Northern coast of  state of Michigan. It's a place where time stands still. No motorizes vehicles are allowed on the Island. Everyone there gets around by either their legs or by horse draw carriages. The place is vintage. 

This year the art exhibition on the island is about the places on Mackinac Island. I know a few travelers who have been to the island, but I wanted a different view for this one. 

Photos from Heather May's Blog

Meet a New Traveler to the project Heather May. My inspiration for the painting "A New Season". Heather has a wonderful blog "mackinacislandgal" that she does about the island from a locals view all year around. 

" I live on Mackinac Island year-round, and work as a candy maker in the summer and a fine arts teacher in the winter, capturing memories through a blog as I go along."

Heather's photo from Mackinac Island

Heather takes some fabulous  photo of her Island and I was excited when she said she'd be honored to be apart of the painting project. Thanks Heather.

The photo I chose of hers is this one from her blog.

 An early spring morning before the tourist season starts. I loved the light in her photo and the dramatic shadows from the pier posts. I new this would be interesting to paint and was special. Only someone who lived on the Island could see this at that time of year.

Here are the painting steps to "A New Season"

This is the start of the painting done after a sketch and the design were figured out.

It's just a little bit of Burnt Sienna and oil brushed on a linen panel with the design painted in.

As always with my paintings I start painting in the darkest colors first. Here I have started painting in the structure of the ice and some of the water around it.

Here the painting has progressed quite quickly. Knowing that the sky and water are reflections of each other  helped  speed things along.
I try and stay as loose as possible at this point in a painting. I look for brushstroke energy. Big strong meaningful strokes that have tons of character to them. The sky is almost done just with them.

Next I put in the ice. Using the greyed out part of my palette colors I was able to loosely brush them in.

Now the work begins. Everything up until now could be loose and goosey, but now I had to lay in right where all the posts and shadows needed to go. Knowing how to brush one oil color over another wet oil color is one of the hardest things to learn in oil painting. Especially a light color over a darker one and not having them mix too much or vice versa.

This painting is getting close to being there at this point. I like a lot of what is happening, now all that is needed is some small color corrections.
A couple of the posts in the front aren't dark enough, the ice at the bottom of the painting seems to bend downward, the building needs help and paint edges need to be taken care of. So I'm going to do all those things and the painting should be there.

Done. With the few corrections made the painting is finished!

Details from the paint

I love how this painting turned out. I think it's very exciting and has a lot of beautiful color movement to it.

A great BIG thanks goes out to our Traveler Heather May for this one! I couldn't have painted this one with out her.

The only sad note about this painting is that it didn't make it into the show there on Mackinac Island. I was hoping that Heather would have been able to see the painting from her photo up close.  I did have another painting make the show, but I'm sorry that it wasn't one of hers. But like a Cubs fan there is always next year!

Thanks for taking a look! To find out more about Mackinaw Island or Heather May see her blog mackinacislandgal and to see more of this painting project go to- theArtistAndTheTraveler.org

The Beginning of the Beginning - part 3 the finished piece

My Belgian artist friend Franklin offered up this terrific sun lit cafe photo from his travels. My painting class was a little scared of it so I broke down how I was going to go about creating the painting in last weeks blog. This week we get down and dirty and slap some paint around with my painting class.

Here is Franklins wonderful photo that we are working

            Franklin's original photo                            The photo with a few changes  for the painting.                            

Here's where we left off last week. Floor and chairs all in and waiting on the windows and people to show up.

Ah a room with a view finally, still waiting on the people though. 

The buildings outside the windows is painted in the same manor as the inside if not looser. the color of the sky and buildings is a bit darker i=than in the photo. I didn't want the contrast between the inside and the out to fight for attention, so knocking down the outsides color value helps do that. Also the paint edges are soft.

Alright end of class and for this painting I still have a few minor touch ups to do, but this is about it. 

The people have finally arrived. I teated them the same way as I treated a chair. (That sounds kind of rude doesn't it)

And here they are! These are some of the finished paintings from the class. They are all pretty good size too. The smallest one is a 16" x 12". This is always a real fun part of class seeing what everyone else has been up to.

And here is the class results on this painting!

Don and his painting. Very Homer like.

Karen and hers. She follows instruction very well.

Sabrina's painting. Holds together real well.

Ron's painting. Can feel the light in his. 

And Ellen, well she doesn't take directions well :)) She was out sick and felt to far behind so painting this scene in the 2 1/2 hr class.

"The Lonely Cafe"
24" x 18" Oil
By James Swanson  and Traveler Franklin

 Alright then off to our next challenge. Thanks agin to our good friend and Traveler Franklin for the painting inspiration. And a big thanks to my painting class for putting up with me and that floor in this one.

Check out more paintings from this painting project at www.theartistandthetraveler.org 

I'm always looking for new travelers for this project contact me at the website and maybe we can paint something together. See everyone on down the road!

 

The Beginning of the Beginning - Part 2

My Belgian artist friend Franklin offered up this terrific sun lit cafe photo from his travels. My painting class was a little scared of it so I broke down how I was going to go about creating the painting in last weeks blog. This week we get down and dirty and slap some paint around with my painting class.

Here is Franklins wonderful photo that we are working with and a few changes that I made to it for the painting.

                 Franklin's original photo                            The photo with a few changes  for the painting.                              

This where we all started. On a 24 x18 oil primed linen canvas panel we rubbed in our first color. I did decide to go with the Burnt Sienna this time. I quickly brushed in the color and then rubbed out the areas where the shafts of light where.This is going to be a loose painting so I'm not trying to nail everything down in space yet. Just a quick rough in of color.

Next we painted in our darkest colors. That being the lower walls and chairs. Again real loose no need to tighten up yet. The left side of the dark area is much warmer than the right side. it doesn't real show in the wet paint but that is what we did. I also put a lot of extra Cad Red in my warmer darks and was able to get the curtains out of it.

The next step was to start placing the tables and chairs. They are the first key to this painting.  

After softening the darks into the floor transition, I went about laying out where the table top were going to be.

These need to be put in cleanly and simplify.

 After those were in I started to place chairs.

 The thing about the chairs is they needed to be put in in the simplest way there is, 

 in one perfect stroke.

This where the class ended. 2 1/2 hours in.  We worked on the chairs a bit more and while in everything was still wet and gooey I mixed up some greens and put scraped in the plants around the windows.

So this is where I left the painting with my students. 

The next day in my studio I looked at the painting and had to make some corrections and these changes couldn't wait until the next class. They had to be made while it was still wet.

Here is what I did. Basically I reworked the chairs straighten out the tables and laid out the floor. the light on the chair legs made me take on the floor painting. I was hoping to leave it for next weeks class, but duty called.

I knew this was going to take all my concentration to make look right so I scouted ahead of the class to see what needed  to be done. Mixing up all the different values of orange and browns was key to getting the floor to pay down right.

Here the floor is in a good place for the next class. I put in some of the glare and reflections , but there is still some magic to be put in yet. Next week we start the windows and the people.

A student in the class did a couple little videos of me while I was working. They are from the end of the first class and I am putting in the plants in the background in one and I'm putting in the wall candle holders in the other.

 Here are the painting class paintings in the different stages of progress.

Ellen's

Don's

Ron's

Karen's

Nancy's

Charlotte's

Ellen's at the end of class.

Don working on his

Ron working away.

Sabrina at work.

Ron's a work in progress

Karen's

Charlotte's at the end of class.

Well there is where we left off.  I will post the next classes progress next week. Hopefully we will be close to finishing this one up in the next couple of classes. Thanks for looking in and see you on down the road!

See more of the paintings of this award winning series at www.theartistandthetraveler.org