Karen and I went to Stockton on the 15th for the outdoor painting demos. The day was sunny and balmy as we watched about 20 painters paint the old waterfront. John Cosby started with mostly midtone grays as he painted an old dock and crane. But Randall Sexton
began with colorful midtones: a naples yellow sky, a pale red violet silhouette of the distant Stockton hotel, and cool red shapes of the nearby buildings. While Kathleen Dunphy began a painting of the shipworks more traditionally with colorful darks. Gil Dellinger worked in pastel on burnt orange card stock, while Ray Roberts did several oil sketches of a model. So many talented painters working all within a short walk of each other! Each with a different palette and approach. One thing I did notice they all have in common though – once they lay a stroke on, they leave it alone. No futzing, no mutzing. But while their painting techniques were impressive, it was refreshing to see that they don’t all get it right the first time. I saw them fighting with dark holes in the middle of their paintings and areas that were scraped and repainted because it wasn’t working.
Afterwards we visited the Knowlton Gallery and the Plein Air Painters of America exhibit at the Haggin museum. Excellent exhibits and well worth the visit. Many of the painters we had just witnessed at work were on exhibit. We were struck by how some of our favorite paintings had either extremely high or extremely low horizon lines. Still am not sure how something that draws your eye to the edge can work so well. I know some of you are going up this week, so enjoy!