Plein Air Painting In Coastal Maine 2010

ACADIA WORKSHOP CENTER
Shelli Robiner-Ardizzone
Oil, Pastel or Watercolor
July 26 - 30, 2010

PLEIN AIR BOOT CAMP

Painting outdoors is absolutely NOT like studio painting. There is nothing like being IN your painting, IN the physical world, IN sun, wind, fresh air and IN the MOMENT totally involved. You cannot get the feeling unless you do it, and Shelli can help you find your way.

This is for studio painters who wish to challenge their comfort level and plunge into Plein Air in the best possible setting - with expert guidance in COASTAL MAINE.

LEARN THE ESSENTIALS of plein air painting as Shelli Robiner-Ardizzone takes you through the basics of color mixing with a limited palette, values and color clues, and selecting great compositions on-site, in gorgeous Maine vistas.

This PLEIN AIR BOOT CAMP workshop will also include a combination of demos and individual guidance, quick and extended studies, and group critiques that will increase your color awareness and expand your painting skills and confidence.

There will be optional evening studio time in the excellent facilities of the Acadia Workshop Center and local seacoast dining.

SHELLI ROBINER-ARDIZZONE is a Studio and Plein Air Painter, garnering awards in both oil and pastel media. She has organized painting workshops in San Miguel de'Allende, Mexico, Taos, NM, and Tryingham, MA. Presently, she is teaching at The Newark Museum, NJ, and various Long Island, NY art centers.

ALL LEVELS OF PLEIN AIR EXPERIENCE WELCOME!
Workshops run 5 days, M-F, unless noted otherwise. SUPPLY LIST to come.

TO REGISTER AND FOR MORE INFORMATION, visit: www.acadiaworkshopcenter.com/Enroll.html

TO CONTACT Shelli Robiner-Ardizzone, visit: www.shellirobiner-ardizzone.com and at artzoneny@earthlink.net

FOR LODGING contact Jeannie at (718) 597-1414 or jrw.esptravel2@verizon.net


View a slide show from the 2009 workshop below:

New Projects

Pastel, 18" x 24", on Art Spectrum paper

It takes me a few days to settle in to a location before I feel ready to paint. Prior to that I traveled the countryside taking hundreds of shots for future reference, food shopped, and socialized on my annual August pilgrimage, I finally got busy on the Cobalt Farmhouse property.

I have painted this corner of the world often and continue to find it a beautiful, challenging, user friendly place to paint. The sky was totally spectacular, bubbling and erupting endlessly. I think I might have been better served to have concentrated on the sky only.

Having my creative juices flowing, it felt good to do some work in a beloved area with a lot of history for me. I have wanted to do this sort of experimentation with some rather toxic chemistry available to me in the Cobalt storeroom. These paints and potions for the scenic painting trade, are not in my studio anymore since I donated most of my
materials from my decorative painting years to Materials for the Arts. I picked from the vast array materials amassed over 20 years of teaching Theatre Arts. I worked outside to minimize my reactions to these materials, and wailed away.

Same fields, slightly different angle
Oil, 26" x22", on canvas

This canvas has been painted over now, 2 years in a row, not yet satisfied. I may do another from the painting itself. Working on site, I do feel obligated to paint what I see, if I redo it in the studio, I will be more likely to do a freer and colorful version.

First experiment, tinted shellas, aniline dyes, over-glazed, 12" x 12"

Tinted shellac and aniline dyes over-glazed with oil glazes,
12" x 16", on canvas

The morning sunrise (yes I was awakened by the color flooding my bedroom) was so great after days of grey weather that I ran out doors like a loonie to photograph it, The feeling remained and spilled over into the work shown here.

Tinted shellac and aniline dyes over-glazed, 6" x 9", on board

This is the painting for Artists Fellowship Fundraiser.
Small size canvases are no less problematic then larger ones.

July 20-24 2009: Plein Air Workshop on Mount Desert Island, Acadia, Maine

There were wonderful facilities at Acadia Workshop Center, a variety of weather conditions and a group of talented and enthusiastic participants for this painting intensive. I loved the area, and it was an intensely green world due to the heavy rain fall this June and July.

Meeting this challenge head on, I devised exercises in color mixing (limited palette). The objective was to learn to love and differentiate the "greens," increasing one's color knowledge by limiting the accessible and obvious solutions. Students actually increased their color knowledge when working from a warm and cool primary triad of colors.The vast potential and fun of creating the colors seen on site, exemplified the spirit and practice of plein air.

The color palette used consisted of; Cadmium Yellow Light, Cadmium Yellow Medium, Cadmium Red Light, Alizarin Permanent, Ultramarine Blue, and Cobalt Blue/or Phthalo Blue, and Titanium White. The student's work in oils shows the variety of color developed over the course of the week.

Reflection in a Tidal Pond

These are inspirational photos of reflections in a tidal pool area which we had painted throughout the week. The challenge for the trip was the overly verdant palette of "greens". This was my first opportunity to do some work after the Workshop ended and I was still in the area.

Gestural pastel color sketch of the movements on Kitty Wallis on a sanded surface. Working directly on to the surface with a sketchy approach in color and line to find the dominant shapes and color areas.

Continued development of the theme in local color, trying to find the correct greens of the areas. I used primarily soft pastels and strong color for this sketch. The intensity of the visuals and the area cried out for bold color choices.

Adding more strokes of different color to form the matrix of shapes. The pine trees, the grasses, and the moving water combined to create strong dark and light areas of broken color. Everything vibrated and moved making it a perfect impressionist subject.

Close-up of area to show application and variety of impressionist color and strokes, I hope to do other paintings of this subject in more relaxed and colorful interpretations.

Water reflections as broken color strokes, as well as larger masses of color. Feeling a little "Monet" with this area of the painting.

Attention given to edges, watery feeling in the reflections, as well as grasses in the foreground area completes this pastel in the studio. I am looking forward to a series of the "Greens of July in Maine."

Perfectly Plein Air in Coastal Maine

Acadia Workshop Center
Shelli Robiner-Ardizzone
Oil, Pastel or Watercolor
July 20 - 24, 2009

FIND YOUR OWN TRUE NORTH in this JOYFUL workshop!

This is for YOU... the artist/student. You will find your voice, express your spirit and develop your vision... all in the beautiful environment of ocean, mountain, and forest of COASTAL MAINE.

PAINTING IN PLEIN AIR to the rhythm of land, sea and sky, will boost your confidence, develop your creative muscle, increase color awareness, and expand your skills... all in the glorious outdoors. Using a combination of demos and individual guidance, Shelli has helped many students find joy in their work and grow in their painting skills.








SHELLI ROBINER-ARDIZZONE is a Studio and Plein Air Painter, garnering awards in both oil and pastel media. She has organized painting workshops in San Miguel de'Allende, Mexico, Taos, NM, and Tryingham, MA. Presently, she is teaching at The Newark Museum, NJ, and various Long Island, NY art centers.

ALL LEVELS OF PLEIN AIR EXPERIENCE WELCOME!
$550. Workshops run 5 days, M-F, unless noted otherwise. SUPPLY LIST to come.



TO REGISTER AND FOR MORE INFORMATION, visit: www.acadiaworkshopcenter.com/Enroll.html

TO CONTACT Shelli Robiner-Ardizzone, visit: www.shellirobiner-ardizzone.com and at artzoneny@earthlink.net

FOR LODGING contact Jeannie at (718) 597-1414 or jrw.esptravel2@verizon.net

Tilly Foster Farm Paintings 2007

These are images from Tilly Foster Farm in Putman County. The sky was blue, the weather was picture perfect. It is a horse farm, so I had a different sort of audience. As I was painting in acrylic, trying out this stuff in the open air it made this truly a new painting experience.These are the paintings of that day, and the next- when felt compelled to return to the scene. All are done in acrylic materials in an effort to challenge myself and see what would happen. It is good to shake up ones presumptions about paint, especially when the spirit moves one to do so.

I painted on top with the new acrylics. I did not cover all the "mysterious" passages that worked so well with the view of the pond reflections. I use this approach with pastels, when such an under painting shortens the time to build up the surface. I am impatient in pastel, these days, and need to get something on the surface fast (making an under painting of the subject using water color, or acrylics or latex paints so I can get to the drawing/painting part that I enjoy). It makes for a more complex, surface rich, less academic approach. This is actually done over an under painting (which is often created ahead of time in the studio) abstracted form loosely resembling a landscape with acrylic and latex paints.

See my Pastel Landscapes at
www.shellirobiner-ardizzone.com

Pretty much plein air, two hour sketch, although I think I color enhanced this in the studio later with over glazes. What I liked in these long views was my ability to keep my values crisp and clean. The fast/slow dry of the materials made it more difficult to blend everything into less distinct values, which typifies my oil work. So this worked very well for me. This was a fast sketch, and the looseness is kept throughout the piece.

I reworked it in the studio, and color enhanced the painting later. I use the computer to help me see the possibilities if I go in one direction or another. I can explore value corrections, and color enhancement that I do not see on sight. I think it makes for a different painting, more complex, I am removed from the "scene" and concentrate on making a good painting instead of being slavish to what I do or do not see en plein air.

As a realist, working from life, it is fun to get looser, work with color and go where the painting itself may take me. While I love oil for the lush stroke, I liked this medium for the fast layering, and ability to continue painting in the studio, while the image is in my mind, although for me, the paintings are different then my norm. This new stuff forced me to be more playful, and explore the materials, and my painting process, in a different way.

Quick look new stuff/ and how it is still ME. This is really not a switch to abstract art, it is still landscape, but with the tools and manipulations of my decorative painting career as the means to create the subject. I am passing through this, it is fun, and it is going somewhere. I think???

Plein Air Paint Along Demo

Painting in Sullivan County, in the rolling hills near Callicoon. Perfectly lovely late Aug.day to be outdoors in this sea of green. Looking up at the trees at the left, the sky, and hills beyond. The challenge is the greens, and the fast moving clouds.

Limited Palette

- Warm and cool red Cadmium Red Medium and Alizarin
- Warm and cool yellow Cadmium Yellow Medium and Cadmium Lemon
- Warm and cool blue Cobalt and Ultramarine and White.

My beginnings are about gesture, and color spotting, with awareness of darker areas. Working on a toned surface this is my blueprint, sketch, layout of the painting. As I am outdoors, I hope to paint it in about 3 hrs on my 16" x 20" canvas. No bugs, no wind, clouds keep changing. I will have to capture them later, when I am ready to add all that white.

Perfect!

Moving the foreground into prominence, developing the hills. This palette allows for mixing a lot of greens - everyone’s favorite! The two blues and yellows in different combinations, and then additions to those mixes was great fun and offered a lot of variety. What a great color lesson.


Still developing the push/pull of the colors trying to and some of it back, with value, and temperature (warm/cool light/dark). This dance is my way of inching into my lightest lights, and darkest darks. My clarity develops along with the canvas.

Things start to look fuzzy and tonal, and then I have to re-draw and look for the elements of importance that define the painting. It is about finding the lights, and darks that tell my story. I do not make these determinations early in my work, only when I really SEE them. As I study and develop the color, and will clarify divisions of foreground, middle ground, and background.

My fun in mixing the color variety has overtaken my focus. Mid ground, needs to be cooler. Time to develop the sky. The heavy clouds are fast moving and very much a factor in the painting, which I have not addressed. Oops, and, where are the darkest darks?

The resolution of the sky, points up the need and strength of lights and darker areas of the painting. Finally, it happens only when I SEE these areas clearly as the painting develops.The graceful calligraphy of the trees adds height, and adds needed areas of darks for drama and clarity. Not too much needed.

My expressive brush stroking, as well as the variety of color in the strokes are techniques which interest me greatly. The impression is one of movement, freshness, and personal interpretation. This one practically painted itself. What fun is this!