Category Archives: Landscape

Asheville Workshop Schedule

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Special effects...sky & trees

Make it Real!  Studio Workshops Here in Asheville     

Learn more about these special techniques in oils

  • Studio Composition
  • Nature’s Texture
  • Painting Atmosphere
  • Expedition to Cold Mountain
  • Color, Paint & Pigments

Join me for one or a series of weekend painting workshops in my studio or on location. These are affordable and convenient classes here in Asheville beginning in March.

Summer workshop studentView the schedule and descriptions with information on how to sign-up. These are small classes for 6 to 8 people and are in my studio. Easels are available. You can bring your lunch (we have a limited kitchen, coffee, microwave) or take time to visit local area restaurant.  One class will be a special expedition to paint Cold Mountain.

Please contact me if you have questions or need more information.

 

 

Study in Contrast – February

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Winter brings opportunities for extremes.  Two paintings here, both painted in February are work I completed on location. Both are small, both painted in February.  One on panel was painted in Florida over about a 3 day period, returning daily to paint along the inlet, with an eye on the osprey nest on the mainland. This painting is more highly finished and typical of why I like painting on traditional gesso on panel. You can capture a surprising depth of color from layer the oils in mediums.

The winter scene painted in here in the mountains near home is heavier layering, and painted on traditional gesso on archival, watercolor paper.  It has a heavier impasto and much more quickly painted. It was cold!  I generally stand on an old rug or piece of plywood, wear fingerless gloves and duck in and out of the car, mostly to warm up the paint. I did not linger longer and painted quickly.

Both extremes of heat and cold are a challenge and impact they way paint can be applied. Oil paint is versatile and lends itself to both rich layering and heavier applications, and February is provides an opportunities to explore both!

Late Winter? Early Spring…

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John Mac Kah Copyright 2002

 

Cold Mountain, Spring was completed in the winter of 2004 and finished just as the trees began to bud out. Some species take on a peculiar red-brown tone in certain light.  Later as leaves emerge, they gray and turn green. Maples are particularly vibrant, deep red and take on this color early as they produce blooms.  Some trees’ are actually as colorful at this time of year as in fall, but its subtle and the season short,  more ephemeral. It is very hard to capture in paint, by the time you notice and get started, the effect is gone.

Available as an archival reproduction, 20 x 30″ on canvas or paper. The original is in a private collection.

Back in the Studio

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Just back from J.C. Campbell Folk School, in Brasstown, NC. www.folkschool.org.

Turned out to be a mixed media class, with two students using acrylics and one textile collage artist painting her fabric with light sensitive fabric paint and three oil painters. Students went from 4 x 6″ to as large as 3 x 5′ working from photos, drawings and value studies meanwhile learning some new techniques in their medium of choice, new applications and with great results. As soon as we have the photos sorted, we will have them here so you can see the results.