Marc Dalessio

Since the days are so short here in Zagreb (and I’m losing my mornings to language classes), I’ve been trying my hand at plein air nocturnes lately.

The Bar at Zvijezda (2011). 20 x 30 cm, oil on panel.

Last winter I tried one nocturne of the small bar around the corner from my house. The idea was to sketch the composition in pencil and then begin the lay-in on site. However, for the bulk of the work, I had the painting upstairs in my studio and in the evenings (when I would walk the dog around the neighborhood) I would stop and try to memorized the view and then run back upstairs and paint from memory. It was like sight-sizing from a block away. The idea was based on the quote by Degas about memory drawing:

“If I were to open an academy I would have a five-story building. The model would pose on the ground floor with the first-year students. The most advanced students would work on the fifth floor.”

This year I’m more prepared. These new clip-on LED lights work very well, and have a much cooler light than the ones you could buy, years ago, when I last tried plein air landscape painting at night. The brand I’m using is Mighty Bright from Santa Barbara, CA and I have the two pronged ones they make for orchestra conductors. (Edit: As Jerry Campbell commented, these lights can be slightly blue. I also found myself compensating to knock down the oranges. Pushing the light right up to the canvas warms it up a bit, but if anyone one has a suggestion for a more neutral plein-air-at-night lighting solution, I’d love to hear it).

My set-up for nocturnes.

A second set of lights would be great as I don’t get enough light consistently across the panels and have to move the light to where I’m working.

Painting in the snow at night can be really cold. I wrote a post last winter on keeping warm, which you can read here.

Zagreb Cathedral Nocturne #1. 35 x 25 cm, oil on panel.

Zagreb Cathedral Nocturne #2. 30 x 20, oil on panel (unfinished).

The Central Train Station at Night. 25 x 35 cm, oil on panel.

More to come. In the meantime, here are a couple more from the heavy snows we’ve had this month in Zagreb.

Winter, Britanski Trg. 20 x 30 cm, oil on panel.

Mirogoj in the Snow. 30 x 40 cm, oil on panel.

Below is a short video of fellow plein air painter Ben Fenske painting a quick (2 hour?) oil sketch of the road to the farmhouse where I’ve lived in the summers for the last few years.

I filmed it a couple of years ago and found the footage today while organizing old files on my computer. A couple of people have written to me asking about Ben’s technique, so here it is in all it’s badly-color-graded glory.

Update: Some people were having problems watching the video, so I uploaded a new version.

Here are a few recent sketches from a trip to Lago Maggiore with Ben Fenske. We went up to the Simplon Pass for a day, but never made it back as the weather was uncooperative.

Evening at Verbania. 24 x 35 cm, oil on panel.

Feriolo. 25 x 35 cm, oil on panel.

Sunset Sketch, Ossola Valley. 30 x 20 cm, oil on panel.

Monte Rosa from the Simplon Pass. 25 x 40 cm, oil on panel.

Here is a short time-lapse video of the above sketch:

Towards Monte Leone. 30 x 40 cm, oil on panel.

Rain, Domodossola. 30 x 20 cm, oil on panel.

Evening Fog, Lago d’Orta. 25 x 35 cm, oil on panel.

Cutting Garden, Stresa. 20 x 30 cm, oil on panel.

Villa near Stresa. 40 x 30 cm, oil on panel.

The Promenade at Stresa. 40 x 30 cm, oil on panel.

Here are some of the sketches from the last month. We stayed in the little village of Pujols near St-Emilion (Bordeaux) in France, and then in Chianti near Tavarnelle val di Pesa.

My liver will need some time to recover.

Haybales near Pujols. 30 x 20 cm, oil on panel.

The Dordogne is especially interesting to paint as it is unusual to have tidal effects so far inland.

Boats on the Dordogne. 23 x 35 cm, oil on panel.

The Dordogne at Castilion-le-Bataille. 20 x 30 cm, oil on panel.

Petanque. 30 x 40 cm, oil on panel.

Branne. 30 x 25 cm, oil on panel.

Gate at Saint-Emilion. 25 x 35 cm, oil on panel.

Gensac. 25 x 35 cm, oil on panel.

Sketches of the Church at Pujols. 20 x 15 (ish) cm each, oil on panel.

We were in Tuscany for the anual Vendemmia, or grape harvest.

La Vendemmia. 25 x 35 cm, oil on panel.

La Vendemmia #2. 20 x 30 cm, oil on panel.

I’ll post the rest of the Chianti series later in the week.

As a follow up to the ‘into and out of effects’ post below, here is a short video of a plein air landscape sketch from this week. It was painting as the light moved from late afternoon into sunset into evening.

(Apologies for the quality, I need to upgrade the slow-as-molasses-in-winter netbook I do all this with while traveling).

The great thing about working from life, be it in landscapes or portraits, is that as effects or expressions change you can either add them or leave them. Many painters coming to landscapes from studio work find the changing effects challenging. In their studios everything is controlled. The trick is to see the constant mutations in nature as a blessing. Leave what was better before, add what improves.

I find this especially true in portraiture, where working from life allows you to capture fleeting effects such as the moment the sitter’s face lights up when a loved one enters the room. You also end up with a likeness that expresses a number of different facets of the sitter’s personality, as witnessed over the week of sittings.

In the painting video above, the final work becomes a montage of the best effects from the various changing light and cloud positions over the two hour session.

(Here is the final image):

Santa Maria Novella. 30 x 40, oil on panel.

Sunset on Korcula. 20 x 30 cm, oil on panel.

Here are a few of the sketches I did the past two weeks in Southern Croatia. The Dalmatian coast is stunningly beautiful. We had beautiful weather, the food and wine are great, and it’s still relatively inexpensive as far as European beach towns in August go.

Corner at Sveti Nikola, Korcula. 20 x 30 cm, oil on panel.

Bar in Korcula. 30 x 20 cm, oil on panel.

Rampada, Korcula. 35 x 23 cm, oil on linen.

Street in Korcula. 35 x 25 cm, oil on linen.

Jet-Ski Rental on Primosten. 18 x 25 cm, oil on panel.

Dubrovnik is especially beautiful, though the crowds in August are not for the faint of heart.

The Cathedral from Poljana Boškovića, Dubrovnik. 30 x 20 cm, oil on panel.

Gardens on Lokrum. 35 x 25 cm, oil on panel.

Umbrellas in Gundulic Square. 30 x 20 cm, oil on panel.

Church in Dubrovnik. 25 x 17 cm, oil on linen.

Street in Dubrovnik. 30 x 20 cm, oil on panel.

There are a few more that still need a lot of work. I’ll post an update when they’re finished.

Sunset on Korcula. 20 x 30 cm, oil on panel.

I’ve been painting the fleeting light of Southern Croatia for the last couple of weeks and thinking a lot about painting into, and out of, effects.

Landscape paintings usually depict one moment or effect of light. When painting outside, light effects change the whole time the artist is working. Part of the responsibility of the artist is to decide which of the various positions of the sun and shadows will be in the final image. Furthermore, when it’s the painter’s first time somewhere, it can be difficult to visualize perfectly what will happen with the light over the course of a multi-hour plein air painting session.

For the last few years, the light effect that has most interested me is the high sun at midday. My subjects are also often north-facing, and thus back-lit. It’s usually an easy route to take for plein air painting. The number of hues is greatly reduced and the values and shapes become more important. Though it would seem the opposite, I find it easier to get an effect of sunlight or heat, than working with the sun behind me. Most of my favorite historic plein air works are back-lit (it’s hard to think of a good Corot, for example, that isn’t). Also, the light changes very slowly in the midday hours. I’ve worked for up to six hours straight on a midday painting where the shadows and overall effect didn’t change a great deal.

When I first started painting outdoors, however, I really loved the late evening light. Charles Cecil taught me much of what I know about landscape painting, and his own favorite subject is the orange light of the Tuscan evenings, or ‘Golden Hour’. The problem with late light is that the effect lasts only a few minutes. In order to paint a sunset or sunrise painting, you either have to work for only 15 minutes a day, or paint into the effect. Painting into the effect simply means as the afternoon light turns to the golden evening light, the effect will become more and more what you’re after. (Presuming, of course, that the evening light is the desired effect. If the afternoon light is your subject then you’re painting out of the effect).

The trick to painting into an effect is to work on the drawing until the desired effect is present, and then change the colors and shadow shapes at the end. For painting out of the effect the opposite is true. You start with color notes and the shadow shapes, and then polish the drawing as everything changes.

In the sketch of Korcula at sunset above, you can see the blue around the palm tree from when I did all the drawing with the afternoon light. I then changed the whole color scheme when the sun set. I’ll later polish things up in the studio when the paint dries.

Understanding the mechanics of changing light and how to deal with it is an important part of plein air painting.

Here are some of my plein air sketches from ‘Europe’s biggest plein air painting festival’, the Art in the Open in Wexford, Ireland. It was my first time in a painting festival like this and I had a good time.

I’ve painted in Ireland before, so I knew what I was getting into weather-wise. Last time I worked a lot from inside the car. This time I bought a full waterproof kit and just painted through the showers. Both methods have their drawbacks.

Kilmore Quay. 25 x 35 cm, oil on linen (on board).

The Parking Lot at Kilmore Quay. 20 x 30 cm, oil on linen (on board).

Approaching Rain, Hook Head Lighthouse. 25 x 35 cm, oil on linen (on board).

Hook Head Lighthouse. 20 x 30 cm, oil on linen (on board).

Buildings at Hook Head. 25 x 35 cm, oil on linen (on board).

Main Street, Wexford. 20 x 30 cm, oil on linen (on board).

Boat in Wexford Harbor. 20 x 30 cm, oil on linen (on board).

Wexford Sketch. 20 x 30 cm, oil on linen (on board).

The Quay at Wexford. 25 x 35 cm, oil on linen (on board).

Huntington Castle. 25 x 35 cm, oil on linen (on board).

Enniscorthy Bridge. 25 x 35 cm, oil on linen (on board).

Sunday Chess Players in Britanski Trg. 25 x 35 cm, oil on linen.

Here a few sketches from this week in Zagreb. I’ve been inside a lot working on commissions, which is a shame since the weather has been beautiful here.

The Cathedral from Kaptol. 35 x 25 cm, oil on panel.

The Tram at Zvijesda. 20 x 30 cm, oil on panel.

Statue of the Virgin, Zagreb. 30 x 20 cm, oil on panel.

Market Stalls, Zagreb. 20 x 30 cm, oil on linen.

A few studio landscapes from the last six months. Most are enlarged from plein air sketches done over the last couple of years.

The Beach Road at Palone. 90 x 110 cm, oil on linen.

Poggio delle Corti. 90 x 110 cm, oil on linen.

Dawn at Baratti. 70 x 90 cm, oil on linen.

Wheat Fields in the Senese. 80 x 100 cm, oil on linen.

Cemetery at La Pieve. 60 x 80 cm, oil on linen.

Le Balze, Volterra. 90 x 110 cm, oil on linen.