I have a number of works in a new exhibit at the Grenning Gallery in Sag Harbor, NY. Check it out if you’re in the area. There is no opening due to COVID, but the gallery is open normally.
The paintings were all done either en plein air in California, or later in my studio from studies.
Here are some photos of the paintings, for those of you who can’t make it:
In a recent post I wrote about landscape painting in the Gers region of France. Here are the paintings from the rest of our summer trip. We bounced around quite a bit of the country as we had to be here and there for workshops and to work towards future exhibitions.
After the Gers, we traveled over to Bordeaux for a few days, then down to the coast between Sète and Agde for a week on the beach.
After the Gers, we traveled over to Bordeaux for a few days, then down to the coast between Sète and Agde for a week on the beach. Next we had to head up north for a workshop near Laon, so we stopped for a few days in the Loire Valley.
In Laon we had a workshop, so I didn’t get much of my own work done. We were on a beautiful property though, so I tried to paint as often as I could.
After Laon we had a couple of days to kill so we headed over to Normandy to paint in Honfleur. I’m always trying to find places where my favorite artists worked, and Boudin, Seago, Jongkind and Monet (among others) all painted in and around the small port there.
From Normandy we drove back down to the Dordogne, to paint local scenes for the V&A gallery in Sarlat-la-Canéda.
These are most of the paintings but the full summer’s oeuvre was posted at the time to my Instagram account.
Overall it was a great trip. The painting locations across France are varied and stunning, the food was amazing, and the people were wonderful and welcoming. We’ll be back again in the summer of 2020 as we have an exhibition and a couple of workshops.
Cliffs near Peniche. 25 x 35 cm, oil on panel.
We spent our September this year plein air painting in Portugal. It was the first time I had visited the country and we started from the north near Apulia, and worked our way south to the Algarve. We had great weather, with the exception of some fog on the coast. The food was terrific (and inexpensive) and the people were all really friendly.
Outside of the cities, Portugal and California look very similar. From the ubiquitous eucalyptus trees, to the cliffs looking down on an ocean teaming with surfers, to the rolling hills with golden grass and cork trees (which look like California live oaks), to the traditional whitewashed architecture which is similar to the Spanish colonial buildings, there were many times when I did a double-take to remember where I was. The light, like in California, is especially beautiful.
Villas in Sintra. 25 x 35 cm, oil on panel.
Bougainvillea, Évora. 20 x 30 cm, oil on panel.
Porto, the Waterfront. 30 x 20 cm, oil on panel.
Market Stalls, Porto. 25 x 35 cm, oil on panel.
Pavilion in a Park, Coimbra. 25 x 35 cm, oil on panel.
Street in Aveiro. 20 x 30 cm, oil on panel.
Igreja de São Brissos, Alentejo, 20 x 30 cm, oil on panel.
Street in Lisbon. 20 x 30 cm, oil on panel.
The light in the Algarve is stunning. Since the coast faces south, the sun is above the water most of the day. The area is more built-up than other coastal areas that we visited, but there were a lot of wonderful views.
Praia de Dona Ana #1. 25 x 35 cm, oil on panel.
Praia de Dona Ana #2. 20 x 30 cm, oil on panel.
Praia do Tonel, Sagres. 25 x 35 cm, oil on panel.
Evening Light, Algarve. 20 x 30 cm, oil on panel.
Praia do Camilo. 35 x 25 cm, oil on panel.
As pretty as Lisbon and Porto are, we didn’t spend a lot of time in the bigger cities as we were traveling with a dog and the smaller towns and countryside were more manageable.
Sycamores at the Belém Tower, Lisbon. 25 x 35 cm, oil on panel.
Igreja de São Domingos, Evening Light (Lisbon). 20 x 30 cm, oil on panel.
Windmills on the Beach, Apulia. 20 x 30 cm, oil on panel.
Street in Viana do Castelo. 25 x 35 cm, oil on panel.
Rossio Marques de Pombal, Estremoz. 20 x 30 cm, oil on panel.
This is another update in my continuing quest to build a lightweight and durable pochade box and mast system in carbon fiber.
I would first like to preface this post with the statement that I am not an expert in working with carbon fiber and, the truth is, I have no idea what I’m doing. When I was a teenager, I tried to make a skimboard out of fiberglass. While my project wasn’t all that successful, I did learn how to work with the resin and fabric composite system which is common to both fiberglass and carbon fiber. My recent foray was guided by that single experience 30 years prior, combined with online research and a few YouTube videos. This should in no way be taken as an expert guide on building painting equipment with carbon fiber, and there are almost certainly much better ways of doing this.
That said, I do now have a few working pochade boxes and a large format plein air easel, so I wanted to show how I did it. And with that in mind, here are all the parts I used for my box:
Materials for a DIY carbon fiber pochade box
And the method I used: First I covered my cut foam mold with released film.
Step 1: Foam mold covered with release film
Then I taped the wood veneer in place.
Step 2: Wood veneer taped around mold.
Next I brushed on epoxy and wrapped it with a couple of layers of carbon fiber. I added extra layers of carbon fiber, as well as the pre-made carbon fiber bits and wood slats in sensitive areas, such as where it hooks to the mast and where the hinges would go, respectively. (I didn’t photograph this stage).
Then I wrapped the Nomex honeycomb cardboard around that.
Step 4: Nomex honeycomb wrapped around the first two layers of carbon fiber.
Next I added final layers of carbon fiber (and epoxy), wrapped it with perforated release film and breather cloth, and and stuck it all in a vacuum bag.
Step 6: The box goes in a vacuum bag for 24 hours.
After the epoxy cured, I cut it the box in half with a Dremel, screwed in the hinges, and added another layer of carbon fiber to cover the hinges (not shown). Finally I cut the box in half again, cut holes for the mast-hook and my thumb, and sanded down everything.
Step 8: The box has just been cut in half with a Dremel, and the mold pulled out.
Cutting and sanding composites such as fiberglass and carbon fiber creates a great deal of dust which is very dangerous to inhale. While working on these projects I wore a bunny suit, respirator, gloves, and protective goggles.
For the mast, I wrapped carbon fiber around a balsa wood slat with an attached Arca Swiss camera plate and put it in a vacuum bag. I folded the extra carbon fiber from one end up over a small foam rectangle (wrapped in release film) to make the hook for the box.
DIY painting mast in a vacuum bag
For the panel holders I first wrapped tin foil around the mast to give some space, then wrapped that with release film, then wrapped carbon fiber again (with a bolt in the middle for the butterfly screw) and stuck it in a vacuum bag.
Panel holders tubes on my DIY carbon fiber mast.
Finally, I covered the panel holder tubes with carbon fiber layers and epoxy, and attached it to a mold with the shape I wanted for either panels or canvas or both, and put that into a food-storage vacuum bag. I switched to the food-storage vacuum bags so I could make a few at the same time. It works as well as my regular vacuum pump.
Making smaller carbon fiber mast clips with a food-storage vacuum bag
For the attachment on my Senz umbrella, I similarly wrapped both the cut-down umbrella shaft and the mast in carbon fiber, stuck them both into a vacuum bag, and then sanded everything down.
Custom carbon fiber mast attachment for my Senz umbrella.
As I mentioned last time, I’m not convinced this set-up is all that superior to a cigar box attached to an aluminum tripod easel, but I have a working system now so I’ll stick with it. Here are a couple of shots of my set-up in the field:
Small carbon fiber pochade set-up in the field.
Carbon fiber plein air painting system with a Senz umbrella.
The one area I have had great success with carbon fiber equipment is for larger, relatively lightweight easels. The one I currently use is shown in the photos below. It packs down small enough to fit into my suitcase, but expands to take up to a 47″ (120 cm) vertical stretcher bar. It attaches to a large Gitzo tripod via a heavy-duty ballhead. I also built a larger folding palette that I can both use in the studio, and then carry into the field and hook it to my smaller mast on the Sirui tripod. This way I’m always using the same paints, whether I’m working inside or out.
Larger carbon fiber easel design.
My kit on site in Maine.
To make the larger easel, I cut the shape of the masts in balsa wood, and wrapped them with carbon fiber and Nomex honeycomb. The top and bottom wedges to hold the canvas were wrapped around a mold to get the shape. I did it in three steps to get the parts to fit together.
Larger carbon fiber easel in a vacuum bag.
After the second stage of building a large carbon fiber easel.
The finished easel. Brushes for scale.
My carbon fiber half of the easel weighs in at around 2.5 lbs (1.2 kg), and I attach it to a very sturdy Gitzo GT2541EX which is 4.1 lbs (1.8kg). I got a tripod with the column that can be set at any angle with the hopes I could avoid buying a ball head, but it hasn’t really worked out. To get enough height in some situations I need the column up pretty high and have to use a ball head to keep the easel perpendicular to the ground.
My next customization will be to attach webbing and a buckle system to both the easel and my backpack, so I can quickly attach and detach it, as well as carry my large canvases on my backpack. The two camera tripods fit into the pockets on my backpack.
Overall, it’s been a lot of work to get this system going. A few people have asked me to go into production with these but, for the moment, it’s too much work for me to produce even one working model. Maybe if I can find a partner to make them, I’ll look into it. In the meantime if anyone wants to use any of my ideas for their own projects, go for it. As I said earlier, you’re not missing out not using a carbon fiber easel, but they are very lightweight and (I think) they look pretty cool.
This is an update to a post from a few years ago. I’ve been interested in developing a lightweight set-up for plein air painting and I feel I’ve finally achieved my goal. At the moment my backpack with gear for a day of plein air painting has a base-weight of around 8lbs, or under 4kg. For painting in rain, at night, or if I’m expecting variable weather I can add equipment as needed.
You can see the set-up in the images below:
My ultralight plein air painting kit.
My kit with everything opened.
Everything in the backpack. Small dog for scale.
Here is the key for the numbers, with hyperlinks (some are referral):
Most of my gear is normal painting equipment but I’ll go over some of the things.
1. New Traditions Gatorfoam panels with Claessens linen work very well. The glue never comes undone, even if the panels are left in a car window in August (I’ve tried it).
2. Kunst & Papier sketchbooks have the best paper of any I’ve found, and the paper binding makes them lighter than hardcover sketchbooks.
5. I use a Canada balsam/sun-thickened linseed oil mix for my medium, and lavender essence for my thinner. These aluminum bottles aren’t great as they start to leak after a year or so. I’m still on the lookout for a better system.
6. My set-up would be much lighter if I could learn to use fewer brushes. There are some very good painters out there who use one or two brushes for an entire oil painting. I don’t know how they do it.
7. Cadmium paints last a week on my palette, so I only bring tubes of the three blues I use (cobalt, ultramarine, cerulean), ochre, and titanium white. I go through a lot of those colors.
8. I probably use the Leatherman Skeletool once a year, and most times don’t carry it. Same with the allen key, once I get the proper tightness on the legs of the tripod I don’t really need it.
9. Most of the time the weight of the backpack and a water bottle is enough to keep the easel steady while I paint. In high winds the tent pegs work great. If I can’t get them into the soil I tie them to rocks or even lampposts or signposts in cities.
10. My next blog post will be on making a custom carbon fiber pochade box, mast set-up, and panel carrier (#12 and #17).
11. The Sirui t-025x tripod is the lightest tripod I could find that had decent stability and got up high enough for painting equipment.
13. For a rain jacket I really like the new Gore-Tex Shakedry jackets as they still breath even when you’re drenched in heavy rain. My previous jackets would ‘wet out’, meaning the face fabric would get soaked with water and keep the membrane from breathing, and the jacket would feel stuffy and suffocating in warm rain. This one breathes so well that I’ve even worn it in the summer as a bug jacket. The downside to the Arc’teryx version that I have is that the zipper leaks in really heavy rain. Other brands make them with better zippers. My umbrella is a Senz storm umbrella with a custom attachment that I made for the mast of my easel. It keeps the rain off of the painting and the palette, but unfortunately dumps it onto me while I work.
14. For carried clothes, the fleece/down/windbreaker jacket combo works great. Obviously I only take what I think I’ll need, but for shoulder seasons and places where the temperature can change dramatically (cough * the California coast * cough) the three layers give me a lot of versatility. Also, the dog gets cold quicker than I do, so she usually sleeps wrapped in one of the layers. In the past I carried a down vest rather than a jacket and I think vests are great for painters as allows for more mobility with our painting arms. And on the subject of shoulder mobility, climbing clothes are usually stitched differently so the sleeves can be raised easily. I find they work better than city or street clothes with the sleeves stitched in the ‘arms down’ position where you fight the fabric to raise your arm. It’s not a huge deal, but something to consider. All my shirts, jackets, and hats are black, dark grey, blue or dark blue so as to not reflect a confusing color back onto my painting when working contre-jour.
15. My current phone is a first generation 5″ Google Pixel. I wanted the larger storage (128GB) for shooting video while I travel, a high quality camera, and I prefer a headphone jack to the bluetooth-only design of newer phones. A powerbank is very useful for charging my phone when I forget to charge it at home, and the stylus works as a backup pencil if I need to sketch. In reality I almost never use it.
18. The KS Ultralight backpack works very well, but it’s not 100% waterproof. My worry with backpacks is that my medium will leak out, not that water will get in, so I’ve added an inner liner to the outer pocket where my pochade box goes.
This is still a work in progress, but I have arrived at a point where I don’t feel I can improve on anything in particular for the moment. Everything works great, and weighs as little as possible. My next goal is to get a similar set-up for carrying and working on very large plein air landscapes and I’ve almost got that working as well, so stay tuned.