Plein Air Weekend Show

A site dedicated to a continued effort to create and share my art. I create pen & ink drawings using mainly the stippling technique. I also paint in oils and am influenced by the California Impressionist school of painting.

Thomas Van Stein with demo painting on the left and one of his framed works on the right.
After the presentation was finished we all went outside where Van Stein had his easel set up for a demonstration of nocturne painting. This was great and allowed us to see how Van Stein works his magic. Van Stein chose this night as it would be under the Hunters Moon. Earlier in the evening before sunset the moon had risen and was quite the sight to see.
I took this photo from the backyard shortly before heading over to Los Olivos for the presentation. The Hunters moon was showing it's dominance over the landscape and why so many of us artists are drawn to painting it in our nocturnes.
Van Stein was very gracious and allowed us to ask any questions we wanted while he painted. The painting was completed in about 30 or so minutes to a level he deemed enough to finish off the small details later in the studio. I was amazed at how fast he was able to block in color and then refine the painting all with a minimum of light. Van Stein uses two book lights mounted to the easel and a Maglight mounted on the cap he wore. After the demonstration we all went back into the studio to see the painting in better light.
Here is a close-up of the Demo painting...not a very good photo because you can't see the detail and color work in it. Sorry about that.
It was a beautiful brightly lit night that was perfect for this demonstration. I had a great time and was able to speak to Thomas who is a very cool guy. I learned a few things and saw some deadly nocturne paintings in his presentation so it was a very good night. I wish I had remembered my camera in the car to show more pics but I was busy drooling over the nocturnes.
Click here to see more of Van Steins Work

The piece of wood with the divider strips is 3/4" thick and 4" wide. The length was cut just over 12" long to allow for panels not cut exactly at 12". Once you build these two ends you then put in a panel and that tells you how wide your sides will need to be cut. To get the length of your sides you just add the thickness of your lid and bottom to the length of these end panels. My ends were just over 12" so I add the bottom (1/4" thick) and the top (1/4" thick) and you come out with just over 12, 1/2".
My plan was to paint while Linda was inside of the place she needed to go to up there. We figured she would need an hour or more so that gave me time to do a simple painting. Turns out where I parked the truck there was nothing of interest to me....the side of a house across the street, the back of a hamburger stand, an intersection and part of a parking lot. I like urban art scenes but I don't paint them very well and didn't feel like it was lesson time given the short time available to paint. Instead I used my memory and plunked this one down in a little over an hour. This was where I had to stop since I had to give her back her seat. The wind had her hair looking like it was possessed.
Linda came out before I could add detail to the trail and flowers, some shading on the mid ground so I did that once I got home. I painted this sitting in the passenger seat and using only imagination for reference. I'm still working on painting better grasses and this was a good one to work on that....also gave me more practice with the oak tree. A fun little painting, not really a plein air painting, but something constructive to pass the time while waiting for Linda. Here is the final painting.....
"Wildflowers"
9" X 12" Oil on panel