Plein Air Salon Win!

Some good news: Just found out that my pastel painting “River Glow” received third place in Plein Air Magazine’s Plein Air Salon!  This means the painting will be printed in the March issue of Plein Air Magazine, and it will be put in the running for the big annual competition.  Here’s the painting:

This is an idea that was slow to gestate.  I had done an oil study at this spot, but earlier in the day and from a different angle.  In the last minutes as the sun was about to drop behind the hill, I knocked off a quick study of willow and snow, concentrating on the intense evening color. I had these two studies sitting in the studio for months, knowing that there was a good idea hiding in there somewhere, but unable to figure out what it was!  Finally, I turned to my old friend, charcoal, and did a drawing that was based on the idea of the two paintings, but resembled neither.  In short, I recomposed the place to convey an idea.  Warm and cool, and the rhythm of the trees, willows, and drifting ice.   Funny thing is, when I think of the actual spot where I painted the studies, I remember the place as I recomposed it!

My biggest struggle in this piece was the ice.  In fact I hesitated to do the painting at all, worrying that this thin skin of ice and the drifting ice floes would be unreadable to most people. I grew up in the midwest, and never saw ice form on the big slow-moving rivers in the way that it does on the fast moving Yellowstone River.  Would people look at a piece like this and simply not understand it?  Add to that the trial and error process involved getting warm reflections to disappear beneath that skin of blue ice in a convincing way, and well, you had hours and hours of good old fashioned frustration!  But it finally came together, and when I finished this piece I really wasn’t sure that it was good, I only knew that it was intensely personal.  The painting had carried me somewhere new.  That’s what we should be going for isn’t it?

Some of you might recognize this painting from the Pastel Journal.  It won the Gold Medal for the 2011 Pastel 100.  I guess the lesson here is that if it really interests you, paint it!  Work through the challenges and see where the process leads you.  You just might surprise yourself!

Click on the link to see the online Plein Air Magazine article.