Landscape Art Semi-abstract Viewer Reference

Reference Point

 When painting my small semi abstract landscapes I feel a need to find a place where the viewer can access my plein air art.  Where can the eye of the viewer find a reference point to start looking at the painting?  The main way I try to achieve this is through the use of perspective.  Even when I paint abstracts invariably there is a line.

 Why the Line

 Years ago I used to wonder why I felt a need to create that line in my art – either realistically or abstractly.  Why the line across the canvas?  Even if there is disruption of the line broken up with objects or other lines, behind those intrusions there is the line.   In my case one would have thought that should be easily figured out.  I say that because since I was a small boy I have seen the ocean almost every day of my life.  I lived either with a direct view or a block or two from the beach.  Even the years when I was in the armed services I couldn’t escape the ocean as I was in the Navy.  And for seventeen years my studio had a full on, white-water ocean view. And for fifty years my home had a ocean view.

 It all seems so obvious now but one time I was sitting on the beach, looking out at the ocean and there it was.  The line I had been seeing every day.  The blue sky – the blue ocean. The horizon was right there slashed across my view.

My Process of Painting

How I Paint

had received a couple of emails with questions about my landscape art that is on exhibition at the Wildling Museum in Solvang, Ca that will be on exhibition until September.  Mainly they wanted to know my process.

 I’m not sure if the people wanted to know the technique for physically creating the pieces, (tools, materials, etc) or the mental process.  I’m just going to what may be the most importance to me.

 Generally speaking the paintings are created plein air.  I take my easel and other supplies and find a nice spot to paint in some relatively private place and set up camp.  I am not looking for something specific to paint but I do want to be in an environment without many distractions except for what I see and feel in the outdoors.  No studio walls.

 Now that I am set up I look around for shapes and design that catches my eye.  Again, I am not looking for a specific scene to paint.  I don’t look and see a tree or mountains or sky but I am only looking for lines.  I am looking for the chaotic black outlines of the different objects and shapes I see.  I paint those lines onto the canvas.

 Then I start to fill in the blanks- meaning I put paint on the canvas without reference to what I was looking at.  I am not copying what I may see by looking up.  I am just working from the process of putting paint on canvas where I feel a need to put paint.   I do not set up paint colors on a palette.  I look at my tubes of paint and decide what color I want to start with.  A certain color feels like it should be here, in this spot, on the canvas – and there on the canvas.  I put that color down and pick up another color and put it on the canvas in different places.  And one color at a time I paint.

 Rhythm and Action

Decisions are made during the working process one tube and one color at a time.  I do not look at the scenery around me.  I could be anywhere painting anything.  There is a certain rhythm to the movements and action.  I continue on putting color on where I feel it needs to go.  I layer paint on top and work it in and push and move it around until It is done.  How do I know when it is done?  At some point I just don’t want to put anymore paint on that canvas.  I’m worn out.

 When that happens and I still have more time available to paint I just pick up another piece of canvas and start on another one.  And so forth and so forth until the day is done.  And then the next day I will get up and do it again.  I do this in my studio.  I do this in my yard.  I do this at the beach.  I do this in the foothills.  I do this in fields.  I do it anywhere and it does not make a lot of difference where I do this as there are black outlines everywhere.  My big disappointment is that I do notice I return to certain themes of shapes and colors – and my big challenge to try and change that up.

Impressionism Art Wildling Museum Exhibition

I like to go out into the countryside and create these small impressionism paintings. It’s a true busman’s holiday to take tine away from studio painting to do other paintings.  That is what an artist’s life can be like.  What I do for a living is also what I like to do for fun. It is a good break away from the demanding large scale sports paintings that I created in my studio.  

  Wildling  Museum Art Exhibition

 Currently the Wildling Museum in Solvang, Ca. is showing 65 of my small landscapes and seascapes paintings in a group show called “Bio/Mass'” Quote from the Wildling Museum; “Our upcoming exhibition, 'Bio/Mass' will feature an inspiring group of eleven contemporary artists who have transformed their fascination with deep observations of their individual environments into works that help us to see the beauty in the details of our world, celebrating both quiet and dramatic moments in nature”. My wife, Lynn Hanson @indigopond on instagram is included in the show.  Currently the museum only has public walk-In hours: Saturday - Sunday, 11 A.M. - 4 P.M but, hopefully they will soon be opened on weekdays too. 

 I live close to farm fields and rural countryside so I like to go out and create “en plein air paintings” and as others refer to my impressionistic painting, alla prima. Alla prima painting is described as technique in which the painting (usually painted from life) is completed in one sitting or while the paint is still wet. Painting in this manner is a break from the art created in the confines of my studio