Painting Creation Workshop June 11th-13th, 2021

Last summer I just thought about what still is, what brought calm. For me, it is always the outside—the mountains, the water, the air, the sky, watching Pippa run. I have painted this land, this Virginia for decades now. I have painted the Allegheny Mountains, Lake Laura, the Springs, the Wildflowers every year. Each summer I pack up and go to paint what I can find and each year I am rewarded. It does not change. I can be assured that it is bigger than me and yet gives me enormous comfort. It renews my soul and for that day I forget despair.
     

Shrine Mont’s Painting Creation Workshop was back and packed with eager people needing to get out into all God’s Glory, God’s Church. We had the highest enrollment we have ever had, there were so many students. Every level came—those who haven’t painted since school days and those who paint on a regular basis. People came on their own, people came with family members. We painted Lake Laura from the dam and we painted the beautiful garden just outside of the Shrine. There was frustration and there was success.

©Photo by John Carten

On the first day, we painted distance and reflections; something that is very hard to get from most any photo. There really is no matching what the human eye can see. One can separate the distant mountain from the midrange, from those in front. There is the color change but also the value change and the texture. On the second day, we did detail. Each student was asked to pick one thing to paint in the garden: one leaf, one flower, one stone. If they had time they could do two things. Out of the two exercises, detail was by far easier to approach and yet a full scene is but many details.

     

For those who have not tried it yet, painting from life outdoors is undoubtedly one of the most exhilarating painting experiences. There is never a lull in painting subjects; there is never a moment where a hundred don’t shout out for attention: pick me, paint me, I am here. There is the dancing river with bouncing light, there is the distant wingstem wild and yelling I’m so pretty; there is the calm of the ancient mountains and the sky covering us and following us everyday. There is moss and stone and cold water. There are grasses and wildflowers.
      

Even when you are the only painter you are never alone. There are visitors: the butterflies, the bees, the birds. There is the wind. The longer you paint the more visitors come. The louder it gets. Once we painted by a pond and soon all the bullfrogs started believing we had left not knowing we were listening to their entire conversation.

     

There will be more opportunities. We will have a drawing workshop in the fall. And we will return to Shrine Mont next summer. You are invited to come, to look, to paint all of Creation.

Painting Creation Workshop June 12th-14th, 2020

What better way is there to enjoy the fresh mountain air than exploring the natural world through painting! Join me for our Painting Creation workshop this June 12-14th. Choosing oil or watercolor, you’ll join students at all levels painting "en plein aire" (painting outdoors) in the beautiful mountains surrounding historic Shrine Mont. Students will start with the basics and work through the process of creating a painting. Each day will take you to a new location. It begins with an introduction to the workshop, to each other and a review of painting materials and general techniques. Each day we focus on a different aspect of nature: reflections in water, skies, distance, or gardens. We travel to areas around Shrine Mont either on foot or by car. With each local, we review different approaches to different subject matter. Sharing with each other is encouraged and the workshop is designed to inspire.

     Shrine Mont is a place where you can release creative energy, commune with fellow artists and with nature, rest, exercise in fresh mountain air and eat nourishing food. Orkney Springs was originally a place that people went to take the waters from the seven springs that fed the area. There is an enormous old hotel, the Virginia House built in 1873 where meals are still served, where there is a lobby one can sit and look at the work of the artist and illustrator John Douglas Woodward, uncle to the original founder. Shrine Mont is located in historic Orkney Springs, Virginia just 2 hours from the Washington DC area.

June 7th-9th, 2019 Painting Creation Workshop

Every year we head out to enjoy the mountains, the water, the trees, surrounding Shrine Mont. It is magical. It is inspiring. Orkney Springs was originally a place that people went to take the waters from the seven springs that fed the area. There is an enormous old hotel, the Virginia House built in 1873 where meals are still served, where there is a lobby one can sit and look at the work of the artist and illustrator John Douglas Woodward, uncle to the original founder. 

Come join us and explore the natural world through painting at this year’s Painting Creation Workshop at Shrine Mont in Orkney Springs, Virginia. Do not worry if you are rusty or have never painted out doors, this workshop is not about perfection; it is about seeing creation, the earth, hearing nature's voice. Choosing oil or watercolor paint, you’ll join students at all levels painting "en plein aire" (painting outdoors) in the beautiful mountains surrounding historic Shrine Mont. Students will start with the basics and work through the process of creating a painting. Each day we focus on a different aspect of nature: reflections in water, skies, distance, or gardens. We travel to areas around Shrine Mont either on foot or by car with each day taking you to a new location. With each local, we review different approaches to different subject matter. Sharing with each other is encouraged and the workshop is designed to inspire. Meals and board are provided. We welcome everyone. To sign up: https://shrinemont.com/event/painting-creation/

Flowers in December

I love painting from life. Everything is so clear and there is never any question of the light source or the form. The colors are genuine and the reflections accurate. The artist literally has to take a three dimensional subject and create a two dimensional painting. It’s challenging, exhilarating and most of the time satisfying. 

This piece, “Flowers in December” was first painted as a small 7 x 10 inch work. The flowers were fresh, a gift I received from my sister this past Christmas. It was stunning and I didn’t want to leave it while we went out to our mountain get-a-way. We packed it up and took it with us.

I put them in front of a window I use for still life set-ups and fell in love. I loved the way that the pine cones are treated in the arrangement. They are on the same level as the lofty roses and lilies. Pine cones are flowers, not the showy, snooty made-for-pictures roses, but an everyday beauty. The beauties that no one notices, except of course designers and artists. I loved the red and green against the cold mountain and the warm white of the lilies against the cold, cool white of the snow. I loved the challenge of painting the long pine needles, the short spuce needles and the carnation that sat center stage. I loved the simplicity of the shelf with the blue reflection against the complexity and noise of the arrangement.

The small painting took only a few days. The large work, much longer as I reflected on each and every petal. But then that’s how I like to paint. Ideas can be fast but the more I look, the more I see and feel. Enjoy.

Painting Creation Workshop July 17-19, 2015

Painting en plein aire at Shrine Mont.

Come join us! The workshop is designed to help students see and explore the natural world through painting. Beginning with the premise that learning to see is intertwined with learning to explore, and ultimately to express, this class will take students out in the field to paint in “plein aire”. The students can choose between watercolor or oil paint and will start with basics and work through the process of painting a complete work. This year our Painting Creation Workshop will be one weekend, starting on Friday afternoon and ending on Sunday. We will meet Friday and scout out the places we will be painting, taking notes on possible color schemes and compositions. Saturday morning we will head out to our first spot and dive in. Evenings will be spent relaxing or listening to the music from the Shenandoah Music Festival. Shrine Mont is a place where you can release creative energy, commune with fellow artists, worship, rest, exercise in fresh mountain air and eat nourishing food. How can you beat that? To sign up: http://www.shrinemont.com/v.php?pg=26

About Nature

For years I have wanted to combine my paintings with words from others that have influenced my work. People of like minds who speak about the connection between God, nature and creating; people like Robert Henri, Mary Rogers, Cezanne and Winslow Homer; people like Mary Oliver, who see the beyond the ordinary, in the ordinary.

This morning, at waterside, a sparrow flew
to a water rock and landed, by error, on the back
of an eider duck; lightly it fluttered off, amused.
The duck, too, was not provoked, but, you might say, was
laughing.

This afternoon a gull sailing over
our house was casually scratching
its stomach of white feathers with one
pink foot as it flew.

Oh Lord, how sing and festive is your gift to us, if we
only look, and see.—Look and See, Mary Oliver

My goal as an artist is to be a visual poet in the manner of Mary Oliver. To see “beyond the the obvious to hear the song that is all around us, every day.

In this book, “About Nature”, I focus on the connection between my work and these influences. It’s divided into season sections that repeat, forming a continual revelation. The work is largely drawn from my home state of Virginia but not limited to one area. It shows the wetlands of Belmont Bay and the lilies from the Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens. There is of course, much from the western Appalachian area that draws me outside every summer. And there are my bird paintings, which started as a way to simply learn what I was looking at. There is very little cultivated landscape, mostly wilderness. It is there, when I am on my own, early, that I am transformed time and time again.

Nature's Voice

There is a place where it is cool even though the air is hot. A magical place, full of freezing cold water that comes up out of the earth. A special gift to us who have labored all week in 90-degree temperatures trying to capture the world around us. Seven springs literally come up out of Great North Mountain and flow down stream forming an ideal swimming hole. The water is ice cold and as clear as glass. You can drink it. This has become one of our favorite places to paint.

We recently finished our latest painting workshop at Shrine Mont. It was—as it has been for the last fours years—simply wonderful. It is this sense of place that we are looking for. We look for connections to the landscape—connections to the mountains, still waters, rock formations or to color. Some things speak more loudly than others.

It is always part of the workshop objective to achieve a “state of mind” when painting. The painting becomes a witness to that state of mind. Or really, the various states of mind one experiences when painting like this. The picture itself is secondary.

There is a state of mind when discovering. Something spoke to me and I listened; I explored; I looked and I felt. What spoke to me? What did I hear? What do I feel? What do I want to share? Things reveal themselves. There is no question that some places demand your attention and others do not. There could be meaning in the sound of moving water: a memory. It could be the magnitude of the mountains: the age, the vastness of one’s surroundings. It could be a reflection or the way light falls on a tree.

"Painting from nature is not copying the object, it is realizing one's sensations." (Cézanne)

This connection of the artist to the landscape, of the artist to the specific landscape, is one you find through out art history. Georgia O’Keeffe didn’t paint just any landscape but a one that spoke to her, that worked with her vision and sense of place. Cézanne had his beloved Mont Ste-Victoire. Homer, the coast of New England. Neil Welliver, the woods of Maine.

In this case though it isn’t just any place that speaks. It is also this place, Shrine Mont, in Orkney Springs, Virginia that fuels our endeavors—a place that people have been coming to for well over one hundred and fifty years for respite and rejuvenation. A place originally of tourism and now enriched with spiritual meaning. It is a place that also sits in one of the most beautiful areas of Virginia.

Shrine Mont adds a dimension to this landscape that removes us from the ordinary to the “extra ordinary”. It takes us away from the commonplace and everyday and allows us to hear nature’s voice. Things are discovered that may never have occurred had we only spent a day outside. Shrine Mont has no television, no air conditioning. It is old and worn and very special.

“At such times there is a song going on within us, a song to which we listen. It fills us with surprise. We marvel at it.” (Robert Henri)