PleinAir Magazine August - September 2016
Get your PleinAir Magazine digital subscription today and join tens of thousands of artists and collectors who have joined a new plein air movement. Rooted in a deep history, each bi-monthly issue, edited by Kelly Kane, chronicles important events and spotlights today’s master artists, their techniques, the collectors who follow them, as well as the historic artists who came before them.
in this issue
plein air heritage
The Pennsylvania artist Alfred Bendiner created drawings and prints that made fun of society, prominent individuals, and his fellow artists from the 1930s through the 1950s. He was a social realist with a great sense of humor who observed the lighter side of life during a time of rapid change and widespread anxiety. In this lithograph, Bendiner pokes fun at plein air painters and Modernists by showing a nude, middle-aged faun posing in a field while an artist paints a Mondrian-style, abstract impression of her body. A shocked and critical bull looks on, perhaps representing Bendiner’s own sense of puzzlement about the increasing dominance of Modern art after World War II. In addition to being a printmaker, Bendiner was an architect, archeologist, and plein air artist. In 1937, he served as…
how to become a master painter & the myth of 10,000 hours
In his book The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, author Malcolm Gladwell asserts that to become an expert, one must devote 10,000 hours to mastering a subject. His evidence is very compelling, and there is no doubt that one cannot help but master something after 10,000 hours of experience. Unless, of course, one is getting 10,000 hours of bad experience. But is Gladwell’s assertion true in painting? We’ve all been told that brush mileage is the best way to learn painting. But I have to admit that I know a lot of painters who have decades of experience but whose work does not do anything for me personally. I know painters with lots of brush mileage who may have mastered the technique and the style they use…
beauty reaffirmed or discovered
When I interviewed Tim Kelly for an article in a recent issue of PleinAir, he pointed out that he seldom paints subjects that are innately beautiful, like gardens of flowers. Instead, he gravitates toward locations the average observer wouldn’t expect to be painted. Those discovered subjects would include the highway overpass Kelly painted, the piece that won the Best of Show award in the 2016 Wayne (PA) Plein Air Festival. John P. Lasater IV also likes to discover what others might overlook, and he recently won the Grand Prize during Easels in Frederick (MD) with a scene that included abandoned trucks, trains, and lumber. Clearly both Kelly and Lasater search for undiscovered beauty in the towns where they are participating in plein air festivals and events. But many other plein air…
8th annual grand canyon celebration of art september 10, 2016 — january 16, 2017
Plein Air at Grand Canyon Saturday, September 10 - Friday, September 16, 2016 Quick Draw & Auction Saturday, September 17, 2016 Grand Opening Sunday, September 18, 2016 Exhibit and Sale Sunday, September 18, 2016 – Monday, January 16, 2017 2016 ARTISTS Mitch Baird Joshua Been Amery Bohling Royden Card John Cogan Michelle Condrat Bill Cramer Robert Dalegowski Cody DeLong Robert Goldman Bruce Gomez J. Brad Holt Michael Chesley Johnson Susan Klein Ron Larson James McGrew Marcia Molnar Tim Morse Peter Nisbet Julia Seelos Matt Sterbenz Dawn Sutherland Paula Swain Michael Trcic James Trigg Mark Weber Visit www.grandcanyon.org for the calendar of events and additional details. TIM J. MORSE Moab, Utah overlookgallery@yahoo.com timjmorse.com 435.260.0738 Historic Kolb Studio, Grand Canyon Village, AZ Framed Image Fine Art, Moab, UT Plein Air Moab, Moab, UT AMERY BOHLING GCA, OPA, CAC, ISA Phoenix, Arizona info@amerybohling.com www.amerybohling.com 602.616.8837 Amery Bohling Fine Art Gallery, Scottsdale, AZ Mountain Trails Galleries, Sedona, AZ Abend Gallery Fine Art, Denver, CO J. BRAD HOLT GCA Cedar City, Utah lathurberk@juno.com jbradholt.com 435.590.4808 The Mission Gallery, St. George, UT Artisan’s Gallery, Cedar City, UT DAWN SUTHERLAND Flagstaff, Arizona dawn@dawnsutherlandfineart.com dawnsutherlandfineart.com 928.593.0604 Sedona Arts Center, Sedona, AZ Historic Kolb Studio, Grand…
james browning wyeth (b. 1946)
As a child growing up in Maine and Pennsylvania, James (Jamie) Browning Wyeth was strongly influenced by the adult artists in his family, including his father, Andrew, his aunts Carolyn Wyeth and Henriette (Wyeth) Hurd, and his uncle John McCoy. It was clear to his parents he was destined to be a professional artist, so after he completed the sixth grade, Jamie was tutored at home in English and history, and he spent afternoons studying art with his Aunt Carolyn. In the photograph shown here, young Jamie is sitting cross-legged in the yard beside the home of Christian Sanderson (1882-1966), a collector of historical memorabilia and a friend of the Wyeth family in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. It’s likely the boy developed this way of working outdoors when he saw his father…
trains, planes & automobiles
In their search for beauty among unexpected painting subjects, artists wander around airports, under railroad trestles, into junkyards, and around abandoned vehicles. They consider these subjects in terms of both abstract elements — shapes, values, colors, and edges — and realistic content. We offer a sample of paintings of trains, planes, and automobiles as identified and presented by outstanding artists from around the country.…
