Painting a Painter “en plein air”

I finally finished this painting (and posted in on my website), Regina Painting Church Garden, after working on it off and on since late June. I usually don’t do this with paintings executed on site, and for good reasons, which I experienced with this one! The sun’s angle became steeper, most of the flowers had finished blooming, and I never got to coordinate with Regina (one of my studiomates) again. However, that bright blue bicycle was there every time I went!

Regina Painting Church Garden, oil on canvas, 16"x20"

New paintings of the Gowanus ‘hood

If you missed the Gowanus Artists Studio Tour, then here are the new paintings of views within a block of my studio that I showed then. I had posted about them a few weeks ago – trucks and such.

Green Truck in Yard

Red Truck Washed

Moving?

John's Deli

I”ll be posting them to my website soon.

Annual Gowanus Artists Studio Tour – this weekend!

With over 150 artists participating in this year’s event, including me, you are bound to see wide-ranging approaches to painting, photography, video, sculpture, printmaking, etc.  Visit www.agastbrooklyn.com for a list of the artists and a map of the tour locations. There will be pedicab service, which hopefully will help out those frustrated by the myriad MTA subway service disruptions planned for this weekend.

Be sure to visit me in my studio, location #18, at 168 7th Street (not Avenue), between 2nd & 3rd Avenues. I have recent paintings, oil studies, and etchings of Brooklyn’s Bridges. Don’t let the lousy weather forecast scare you away! Hope to see you, Saturday and Sunday, Oct 17 & 18, 1-6 PM.

Gowanus Neighborhood Scenes

Back in my ‘hood, I’ve started a new series of small, 12″x12″ paintings on panel depicting the commercial/industrial aspects near my studio.  They are not yet finished, but here’s a peak of them underway…

Painting Central Park: Weekend Workshop, Oct 3 & 4

This two-day workshop will introduce intermediate and advanced artists to an exciting approach to painting the landscape. Working on site in the diverse landscape of Central Park in New York City, artists will learn how to quickly launch into a plein air study in a bold, abstract way, and then develop refinement, subtlety and finish. Form, light and shade, paint handling and color will be discussed through one-on-one critiques and demonstrations.

Instructor Christopher Gallego has been teaching group and private classes for over fifteen years. Gallego’s work has appeared in over a dozen major museums and many more gallery exhibitions nationwide, and has been featured in Art in America, the New York Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer, Veranda Magazine and American Artist. He has received awards from the Pollock Krasner Foundation, the Marie Walsh Sharpe Foundation and the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. For more information, please visit www.chrisgallego.com.

I will be assisting Chris during this workshop. Please be sure to mention that you heard about the workshop from me when you register.

Number of participants limited to 15.  Sign up today!

Workshop Fee: $250 through 9/20/09; $275 after 9/20/09

To register or for more information: please contact Christopher at gallego@chrisgallego.com, tel. 845.532.4509; or Ella at yangella@aol.com.

Stream Paintings

Fortunately I’ve been able to escape the city a few times this summer. Here are two paintings from a trio I painted on-site by a wonderful stream in the Catskills. The third is on my easel getting some touch-ups.

Drying Off By Waterfalls, oil on canvas, 12 x 16 inches

Swimming Hole, oil on canvas, 12 x 16 inches

Once the third one is finished I’ll add them to my website.

“A River Runs Through It” Extended thru Labor Day

Just found out that the lovely plein air exhibition “A River Runs Through It” hosted by Windham Fine Arts has been extended through Labor Day weekend, and will now close on September 7, 2009.  It’s a perfect time of year to visit the Catskills – cooler than in NYC, that’s for sure! Visit www.windhamfinearts.com for details.

House Overlooking the Hudson

Don’t miss this painting as well as six others I have in this show, depicting Riverside Park, the little red lighthouse at the base of the George Washington Bridge, Tarrytown Marina, park in Buchanan, NY, and a couple of views from Peekskill, NY.  Visit EllaYangStudio.com to see the paintings (look in City and Country).

Summer’s Oil Sketches

This summer I decided to try doing some loose, relaxed oil sketches of scenes that strike me in some way as nice, and maybe possibilities for bigger, more finished paintings.  These are all 9×12 inches mostly on archival plein air painting panels from ArtBoards, a Brooklyn-based company. I’ll be adding them to my website soon – they’ll be well-priced, so stay tuned!

I painted these in the Catskill Mountains:

Red House by Woods

Lake Beach

And these I did in my neighoborhood in Brooklyn:

Brooklyn Botanical Garden

Path in Prospect Park

Central Park Paint-Out

Thanks to Passport & Palette (an art education series on PBS) and many forwarded emails and phone calls, some 50 plein air painters showed up at the Bethesda Fountain in Central Park today, including me.  We served as sort of a performance for the 1000s of Park visitors who were either bewildered by the presence of all the artists (“is this a class?”) or took on inspecting each artist’s work as a cultural obligation (albeit an enjoyable one). Luckily it turned out to be a beautiful day to spend in the Park. Here are my two paintings:

Morning at Bethesda Terrace, Central Park, NYC

I’m going to add some figures into this scene to make it more realistic!

In the afternoon I worked on this view from a western path away from the Terrace:

Late Afternoon at Bethesda Fountain, Central Park, NYC

Free admission to Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Earlier this week I took a stroll around Brooklyn Botanic Garden with my pochade box. It was lovely and quiet in the late morning, but a few hours later, the idyllic scene was upended by mobs of summer camp kids. Ah, well. What did I expect on a free admission day?! I managed to complete a loose oil sketch:

Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Lily Pond and buildings

It wasn’t easy to leave out the dozens of little kids in matching brightly colored t-shirts!!