Plein Air Article

by
Armand Cabrera


This will be a short post this week after skipping last week, I will be back to my regular schedule next week.

I am happy to announce the current issue of Plein Air Magazine (February/March 2012) has a three page article about me and my work. I was interviewed by editor-in-chief M. Stephen Doherty for the piece and it includes images of five of my paintings.

Painting with Electronic Media

by
Armand Cabrera



I’m going to rant a little; my comments are about process and fad, not about the quality of the images that are made or the ability of the artists making them. The medium has people who are great at it and those who aren’t, just like in traditional media.

The “new” craze is to take your IPad, other tablet pc or laptop and paint either outdoors or in a studio setting like life drawing. My reaction is why bother? Unless you work in an industry where the facility gained painting on a computer translates to your job, there is no upside to it as an artist.

 It isn’t even that new. When I was an in-house production artist we started painting with our computers in the early 90’s. I have been painting with my laptop since the early 2000’s. The industry and to some extent illustration has been digital for at least 15 years now. The fact that my aunt now has an IPad and paints with it, doesn’t make it new or very interesting. If you think finger painting on an IPad is difficult try painting with a mouse in index color using Deluxe paint.

But it’s cheaper than traditional media

Not really. A tablet computer will run you $400-800 for the tablet alone; double that for a usable laptop. Then make sure you add a 300-500 for some decent paint software and maybe a stylus with pressure sensitivity. If you have a laptop you will need to buy a drawing tablet like a Wacom Intuos, add 300. You will need an extra battery on your laptop after it runs out so add that second battery cost to the hardware section. The IPad doesn’t have a replaceable battery. So you have 5 hours of practical battery life for each charge. With traditional painting you can recoup the cost of the materials by selling the paintings when you’re good enough.

Where’s the image?

Oh yeah, right, there isn’t an actual painting. You could print out the image you do and make a giclee of it but those are just poster quality reproductions with no real intrinsic value to them. First you would have to buy a printer and inks and paper to print it on. Remember the file would have to be a high enough resolution to make the print acceptable. You might be able to get 20 bucks for it.

People are claiming that digital is closer to true color and light because it is additive, not subtractive like painting. Untrue, for it to be additive it has to produce white when you mix the colors together. All paint programs on a computer mimic subtractive painting; so it’s even dumber than painting with real paints because it takes an additive environment (the monitor) and makes a false subtractive output (the paint program) which is code written by people who aren't artists so other people can use it to paint with.

Don’t quit your day job

The biggest problem I see for practitioners is digital art leaves nothing tangible for the effort; no chance of selling it for any real money, which forces digital outdoor work to be a hobby or just practice. I think that mindset affects the outcome of the work. Part of the destruction of design, production and illustration wages can be linked to this attitude.

Digital image creation is geared for disposable art and massed produced and cheaply made prints. It has to do with the marketplace and the value of physical originals over prints that lack uniqueness. For it to be taken seriously digital artists must overcome that idea and create a paradigm shift in the thinking of collectors. I personally don’t see that happening in my lifetime.

                                                          All digital  images used in this article werre created by Armand Cabrera copyright 2011

Translating the Idea

by
Armand Cabrera


I constantly see people in my classes and workshops struggling to find the right approach to painting from life. In my demos I try to stress the importance of good drawing and accurate color and value relationships. These tools allow you to make the marks you want to make when and how you want to make them. This is facility but facility only gets you so far. Many people think if they can just copy what they see the painting will be successful. The problem is you can’t copy, ever. What you can do, once you have the facility to make the marks you want is translate what you see into an intended arrangement of shapes.


Translating is the key to a successful painting from life. Everything you do, no matter how tightly or expressively you paint when working from life, is always translating.

Translating is turning 3 dimensional objects into 2 dimensional marks on your painting surface. What separates the more successful artists is the ability to only use the information that enhances the painting and doesn’t detract. This is easier said than done.

Everything is relative- color, value, shape and edges. All must be used in service of an idea that you hold in your mind for the finished painting. Translation requires more thought and ability than copying which is why so many artists struggle with painting from life successfully. You must understand that you are trying to fool the eye for the viewer and at the same time be aware of the marks you make and how they relate to the whole as just marks of color and value. It is this last part that gives the viewer the emotional response to your work. This is especially true for outdoor work.

When you paint outdoors you are always keying the color and value. Keying is limiting the range of color and value available to you in pigment and observed in nature. It is your exaggeration and sublimation of the information presented by you in an intelligent way that leads to a finished painting with clear intent.





No one is an artist unless he carries his picture in his head before painting it, and is sure of his method and composition. Claude Monet

Tom Thomson

By

Armand Cabrera

Tomas John Thomson was born near Claremont Ontario Canada August 5, 1877. One of ten children he was raised in a rural area on a farm where Thomson developed a love of the outdoors and nature.

Thomson tried different jobs during his twenties apprenticing as a machinist for a short time , attending business school and working as a commercial artist. He tried to enlist for the Boer war in 1899 but was refused because of his health.

It was in 1909 after securing a job as an engraver for Grip LTD that he began to paint in his spare time. The other employees included Franz Johnston, Arthur Lismer, Frank Charmichael and Fred Varley. These men would later form the Group of Seven along with AY Jackson, JEH Mac Donald and Lawren Harris. Though Thomson painted with these men he was never officially part of the Group of Seven.

Thomson continued to work as a commercial artist until 1913 when he decided to try and paint fulltime. He never realized his goal and found side work as a guide, fire fighter and ranger to help supplement his income. Thomson painted many outdoor sketches of the untamed northern wilderness. It is this raw and rugged aesthetic that he is best remembered for. His strong graphic design and bold, sometimes crude brushwork captured the spirit of the places he painted.

Thomson died unexpectedly, in 1917 at the age of 39, of a possible drowning accident. Since his death his art has come to stand as Canada’s first national art with little connection to Europe and its influences. The work of Thomson and the Group of Seven still has a powerful influence stylistically on Canada and its subsequent generations of artists who respond to its bold honesty.

Bibliography

The Group of Seven and Tom Thomson
David P. Silcox
Firefly Books 2003

Quote

The source of our art then is not in the achievements of other artists in other days and lands, although it has learned a great deal from these, our art is founded on a long and growing love and understanding of the North in an ever clearer experience of oneness with the informing spirit of the whole land and a strange brooding sense of Mother Nature fostering a new race and a new age... ~Lawren Harris

Thomas Worthington Whittredge

by Armand Cabrera

Thomas Worthington Whittredge was born in 1820 on his family’s farm near Springfield, Ohio. His father was a retired sea captain. The family had moved from Massachusetts in 1817 and settled on the little Miami River. Whittredge’s education was extremely limited; most of his time was spent working the farm as a child and trapping animals for their pelts. Whittredge asked his father to leave home at 17 and with his father’s blessing he moved to Cincinnati, Ohio to serve as an apprentice house and sign painter to his sister’s husband.

As a sign painter he learned to draw and letter and was soon creating pictures for all types of signs and banners. He later tried his hand running a daguerreotype studio in Indianapolis, Indiana, to disastrous results that left him broke and sick and was taken in by Henry Ward Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe who wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin. For helping him recover, Whittredge painted portraits of the Beecher family members.

In 1843 Whittredge decided to pursue landscape painting, and secured lines of credit against the paintings he would make abroad. In 1849 he traveled to Düsseldorf, Germany, to further his training at the Düsseldorf Academy. He received informal training from landscape painter Andreas Achenbach and became friends with Carl Friedrich Lessing. Whittredge travelled through Europe and sketched with Albert Bierstadt staying for 4 years in Rome where they were joined by Sanford Robinson Gifford and William Stanley Haseltine.

In 1859 Whittredge returned to America to live in New York City. He rented a space in the now famous Tenth Street Studio Building. Whittredge sought a unique approach for his American landscapes. He turned to nature and he began painting the Catskills and along the Hudson River with his friends Sanford Gifford and Gervis McEntee. Other painters were also pursuing an American aesthetic they were John Frederick Kensett, Richard Hubbard, George Inness, Alexander Wyant John Casilear, James Hart, William Hart and of course Frederick Church Asher Durand and Albert Bierstadt. These artists came to be known as the Hudson River School.

Just before the outbreak of the Civil War in 1860 Whittredge was elected to the National Academy of Design and becoming a full member in 1862. Whittredge tried to inlist in the war but was turned away. During the war he worked to help raise money and make clothes for the troops. He became President of the National Academy of Design from 1874 to 1877.

In 1865 Whittredge accompanied General Pope on a tour of the Missouri Territory, the Eastern Rockies and New Mexico. Worthington married in 1868. In 1880 bought some land and built a house for his family in Summit, New Jersey. In the 1890’s Whittredge began writing his autobiography which he completed in 1905. Thomas Worthington Whittredge died three months before his ninetieth birthday in 1910.

Bibliography



The Autobiography of Worthington Whittredge 1820-1910
Edited by John I. H. Baur
1969 Arno Press



Techniques of the Artists of the American West
Peggy Samuels
1990 Wellfleet Press

Quote

A landscape painter is only at home when he is out of doors. It matters not whether he is an Impressionist or one of the older schools who dwelt with more rigors on form and outline.~ Thomas Worthington Whittredge

Maine Workshop

by Armand Cabrera

I will be teaching another workshop in Maine again this year at the Acadia Workshop Center on Mount Desert Island. The center is close to Bass Harbor, Southwest Harbor and a short ride from Bar Harbor and Acadia Park. It will be a fun intense workshop and a chance to paint some of the most beautiful scenery on the East Coast. I hope you will join me. The workshop is from Sept 19-23 2011 and is limited to a maximum of 12 students. The weather is usually mild that time of year and we have a big professional art studio if inclement weather does occur.  I hope you will join me.

For More information contact Gail Ribas at the Acadia Workshop Center

Gail Ribas
Workshop Director
Acadia Workshop Center
7 Bernard Road
Bernard, ME 04612
207-460-4119
awcmaine@gmail.com

SourceTek Products

by
Armand Cabrera

From time to time I get questions about the type of materials I use and where to buy them. For my panel supplies I use SourceTek. It is a small company in Scottsdale Arizona that handcrafts their panels from the highest quality materials. JoAnne and Will Pierce are the owners of SourceTek and they are dedicated to excellent customer care and service.

SourceTek panels are the best panels on the market. I’ve been using them for almost ten years now. I just wanted to bring some of their new products to your attention. They have expanded their panels to include archival hardboard and a less expensive Academic Line that offers the same handcrafted professional quality of the other lines. The Premium line oil primed linen panels are made with Claessens linens. They also use Claessens acrylic cotton canvas for their Universal Line and the Academic line uses a medium weight polyflax canvas.

SourceTek offers three different substrates, Baltic birch, gatorboard foam and archival hardboard. These substrates are available with or without canvas and linen. They now offer more than 350 different panels.

Other products include the Silver Brush Grand Prix line of paint brushes and Holbein and the Che Son Painting Knives. Che Son knives are manufactured in Italy.

SourceTek has always been about providing artists with solutions for their painting needs. For years they have consistently maintained their quality when everyone else is cutting corners. If you are in the market for quality artist supplies and panels I recommend you give SourceTek products a try.



Website:

http://www.canvaspanels.com/

Email:

General Information: Info@CanvasPanels.com
Sales: Sales@CanvasPanels.com
Service: Service@CanvasPanels.com

Telephone:

(480) 483-6883, Arizona and Canada
(800) 587-5462, Toll-Free Within the United States
011-480-483-6883, International

Mailing Address:

SourceTek
P.O. Box 14765
Scottsdale, AZ 85267-4765

Village Square Demo

By Armand Cabrera

I had a great week of painting with my friend Paul Vosper who was out visiting from the Seattle area.

One day we drove up to Winchester and painted in Old town there. It was a beautiful spring day.

We were both drawn to this café scene of the Village Square Restaurant. They were just opening for the local lunch crowd so we set up and got right to painting.

First I made a relatively careful drawing of the scene. Scenes like this one require a more careful approach than your usual outdoor landscape painting. I decided on the placement of my larger shapes and marked those on the canvas.¬

Next I placed the elements in relation to my initial drawing.

Since most of the scene was in shadow I started blocking in my darkest shapes so I wouldn’t paint the rest of the shadow planes too dark.

I then proceeded to work around the canvas to establish the big color shapes of the various elements. Usually I just focus on the value and colors aspects at this stage having already locked in my drawing but in this case because the drawing was so complex I am correcting small errors in size shape and angle as I go.

As the lunch crowd arrives I place them for interest before going on with the rest of the painting. While patterns of light move through the scene I pick and choose their placement to enhance a sense of movement.

I finish with the trees and background buildings and tighten up the people. I let edges go where I think it is appropriate. The complete painting time is three hours. This painting will be the basis for a larger studio painting of the same scene.

 The village Square 12x16 oil on linen