Swiss Plein Air Workshop

Here are a few photos from my week of teaching plein air landscape painting in the valley around Les Plans in Switzerland. I was working for the Alpine Atelier based in Gryon.

Plein air landscape painting course in Switzerland

They are very unrepresentative photos as we only had a few hours of sun all week. Most of the time it was low clouds and snow. Nevertheless, the students managed to squeeze out a lot of great work.

Plein air landscape painting in Switzerland

It’s often the case that sparse subject matter produces better work while painting en plein air. In my experience, having too many wonderful views to choose from can be more paralyzing to the painter than struggling with difficult or meager subject matter.

Plein air landscape painting in Switzerland

Update: Here are a couple more off my phone.

Plein Air

Plein Air Fog

I also shot a video of the 40 minute demo I gave on the first day of the course. You can view it below or on my youtube channel:

Art In The Open Festival in Wexford, Ireland

 

I’ll be painting and teaching a couple of short workshops in early August at the Art In The Open festival in Wexford, Ireland.

I had a very successful plein air trip to Ireland years ago, staying at the Cill Rialaig artist’s colony in southwestern Kerry, and I very much looking forward to going back.

Chianti and Baratti Sketches

Daniela Astone and I just finished our back-to-back plein air courses in Chianti and the gulf of Baratti. We had 19 glorious days of sunshine during the two ten-day sessions. Here are a few of the sketches I managed to bat out during my time off from teaching.

Baratti Dawn. 20 x 30 cm, oil on panel.

Continue reading

Summer Plans

I’m off for New York for my solo show at the Grenning Gallery which opens on August 6th. You can download a copy of the catalog here.

I also have recent paintings at  Carteret Contemporary Art and Vision Gallery in North Carolina.

While in the US, I’ll be teaching a four day plain air workshop at the Hamptons Studio of Fine Art in Sag Harbor, NY from July 25th to the 29th.