Lisa McShane Art

Sunset in Georgia. George Inness. 1890. Oil on canvas board. Thanksgiving weekend my husband and I visited the Milwaukee Art Museum and tucked away on the 1st floor were 3 Inness paintings. A very nice collection. For those of us concerned with stray bristles, bits of our wool sweaters or pet hair in the paint - Inness' later paintings are full of that texture. Closeup of Sunset in Georgia , Inness. Autumn by the Sea . George Inness. 1875. Oil on Canvas. Close up of Autumn by the Sea , George Inness. Closeup of Autumn by the Sea , George Inness. Sunrise , also known as Sunset and The Rising of the Moon , 1888. George Inness. Oil on Canvas. Closeup of Sunrise , also known as  Sunset  and  The Rising of the Moon , 1888. George Inness. Oil on Canvas. Closeup of  Sunrise , also known as  Sunset  and  The Rising of the Moon , 1888. George Inness. Oil on Canvas. Closeup of  Sunrise , also known as  Sunset ...

On Friday our workshop group hit the road and went to the exhibit , The Hudson River School, Nature and the American Vision , at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth Texas. It was about a 3 hour drive from Deborah Paris' home and studio in Clarksville, Texas. The Hudson River school exhibit was very good and I especially liked the work of William Hazeltine. Because it was a traveling exhibit, we weren't allowed to take photographs. However the museum's permanent collection is terrific and I took photos, including closeups of several key paintings. Here is Martin Johnson Heade, Marshfield Meadows, Massachusetts, ca. 1866-76. And here are the closeups I took because I'm working on a painting with rain: Tomorrow: more paintings

Skagit After Tryon. Oil on Linen Panel. 9 x 12. Early this spring I was driving a group from the High School Debate Team to a debate in Snohomish County. Driving along at 65 in the giant, rickety high school van I saw an incredible scene to the west that looked exactly like a Dwight Tryon painting. There was a row of bare trees, gray clouds and a band of cold yellow light below the trees. Given the circumstances, I could only glance but this is what I remember. I'd been studying the tonalists at that time, which was why the scene hit me with such force. A day or two later I stumbled on this wonderful blog post by Loriann Signori where she discussed the Tryon paintings she'd just seen in D.C.! Shortly after that I started this painting. You can see an early version of it on my blog here . It's taken quite a while to paint this - adding things, taking things out.

Underpainting for After Tryon: Skagit Dike. 9" x 12". Oil on Linen Panel. Dwight Tryon. Dawn, 1893, Collection of the Smithsonian In March I drove south on I-5 through the Skagit Flats south of Mt. Vernon and was struck at a gorgeous scene to the southeast: yellow sky, gray clouds and a row of trees. It looked like a Dwight Tryon painting. I'd been studying Tonalism and reading the extraordinary book, Like Breath on Glass , about Whistler and the Tonalists. While the book has but one Tryon painting reproduced, I looked others up online. Then a day or two later Lorian Signori had several posts about Tryon on her blog here and here and also here. Last Friday the weather was lovely and my husband and I went to Skagit so I could look again at the row of trees. They're lined up on the Skagit River dike, which is why it's just one row with so much light coming through them. Gorgeous. Then to Edison for Fish and Chips and beer. Tasty.

Two Trees, Fog. Oil on Lead Primed Linen Panel. 12" x 9". SOLD . Winter shadows and fog. Those are currently my favorite things to paint. Oh, and nocturnes.

/> Original sketch for Anacortes Gap. I visited the area in December in preparation for the painting. The other sketches looked like they'd work as paintings but didn't. Underpainting for Anacortes Gap. It was very dark and so I sanded it down aggressively and chunks of paint came off. I decided to start a second to experiment with the same glazing, only with different values in the underpainting. (Values are the relative lights and dark.) This is now the one I call Anacortes Gap 1 and it's 14" x 11" on stretched canvas with 3 coats of acrylic gesso. Underpainting for Anacortes Gap 2. As you can see, it's much lighter. This one is painted on a lead primed fine linen panel which posed it's own set of challenges as the painting went on. This is Anacortes Gap 2 after about 3 or 4 layers of glaze. You can see it's darkening quickly despite the light underpainting! This is Anacortes Gap 2 today. Dark and mysterious. Anacortes Gap 1, after several initia...

Cherry Point, Alder Grove. Oil on Canvas. 11" x 14". This is the third painting of Cherry Point this month. I do love the long shadows of the winter sun. When summer comes, that's one thing I'll miss.

This is the second glaze of Lake Samish, early morning. I have a lot of history with Lake Samish and think about some of that when I paint it. For 5 years I directed a Girl Scout Day Camp at Lake Samish. That was crazy fun and probably the most challenging and rewarding job I've ever had. I loved every moment of that. And by job, I mean I was a volunteer. Every Thursday night at Day Camp the oldest girls would stay the night in tents. When everything was sort of quiet, I'd walk around the camp to make sure all was well and look at the lights across the lake. Then 9 years ago, when my husband was on the County Council, there were plans in the works to develop the hillside on the west side of Lake Samish with two or three houses per acre. He led the way to change the zoning so that it would always remain forested. I'm very proud of the work he did to right the past wrongs of intensive zoning in our most sensitive rural areas.

Trees in the Fog. Oil on Lead Primed Linen Panel. 12" x 9". Why emphasize the priming of my substrate? Because it's had an extraordinary influence in the direction of this painting. Lead primed portrait linen is somewhat unforgiving: it's slick-smooth and hard. Every touch shows and it's hard to soften the edges. Exactly the challenge I need in my quest to learn a softer touch in my edge work. This is one I shared weeks ago on the blog right here and yes, I've worked on it every single day since then. More transparent glazes, more semi-opaque areas of sky, back and forth between the sky and the branches, back and forth between the lit leaves on the forest floor and then the lovely transparent glazes that darken them too much. I'm not sure why I shared my sketches and underpainting of this painting last month. At the time, I was certain this wouldn't turn out. At all. A warm, deep forest floor, the small rise with the trees, the thicket of forest behin...

Skagit Morning. Oil on Linen Panel. 8" x 10". This is another painting that is part of my exploration into Tonalism. Simple painting, soft and indistinct edges. One of the important qualities about Tonalism is soft edges. This is a style that followed a hard edged period in art and in contrast, the artists used an exceptional softness in their paint application. I've always used hard edges. Early on in my painting I was most influenced by Wayne Thiebaud and I love his built-up edges, often highlighted with bright colors. Cadmium red! Cobalt blue! I was attracted to the emphasis and lack of subtlety. But this past couple of years, when I visited museums what I photographed most were the lovely, interesting edges. The depth of the soft transitions between planes. So I'm thinking about my edges now and experimenting with a softer approach.

March Point at Dusk. Oil on Linen Panel. 9" x 12". This is a view of March Point at dusk, looking across the frozen fields of Skagit County. For those of you from northwest Washington, this is a classic view. I've always found it to be beautiful. I painted this while taking my class on Tonalism and it was created with many, many layers of thin glazes. This is indirect painting with transparent glazes and I find it to much more challenging than direct painting with it's quicker, more vigorous (luscious! buttery!) opaque paint. These are layers of thin paint, barely tinted, that sit on the surface and after many layers, build up to a dark, simple yet deep paint. The smoke, lights and sky are scumbled with semi-opaque paint in order to give it the contrast I wanted. You can see the earlier versions of this painting here and here .

3 more paintings in progress, all from my ongoing class I'm taking from Deborah Paris on Tonalism. The top one is my first pass at color on the underpainting. It's of fog near Alger and the hill we see is Blanchard Mountain. I'm working to combine fog effects with the limited palette and approach I'm learning in my tonalism class. I've never looked so closely at fog before but love the abstracted patterns it makes on the hill. The second is the painting March Point, nearing completion. I've posted this to my blog before here . Yesterday I painted the sky again and continued to darken the foreground. My next step is to add the lights and steam of March Point. The bottom is also nearing completion and that's Similkameen Valley. This was also on my blog here and here where you can see the sketches and underpainting. Yesterday I repainted the sky and today softened the edges, especially at the horizon. I'll add a blue glaze to the hill on the right and th...

Three of my paintings making progress with glaze after glaze. They all still have a ways to go before they're complete. More color, more depth, all in transparent glazes. These are a few of the paintings I'm working on in my class on Tonalism.

Studio Shelves in the afternoon light It's been an exceptionally busy couple of weeks in my studio, what with the Daily Painting Challenge with Ruthie V ., the class from Deborah Paris on Tonalism , and an upcoming show. Yes! A show of Local Landscapes at the Blue Horse Gallery. Very excited about that. So I thought I'd take a breath and show you what I've been working on. Because of the nature of indirect painting, I have many works in progress. Some are quite promising. Over the next few days I'll post some photos of my work so you can see what all I've been up to. First up is a shot of my studio shelves, above. Yes it's not a great picture but you can see where I put all my many wet small panels and canvases. It's a mix of recent Daily Paintings and the panels in progress for the class. Yes, some are upside down, some are sideways, some are in front of others. But it's functional.

Underpainting of Alder Grove, Cherry Point. Oil on Canvas. 11 x 14. This month I'm taking a fantastic class on Tonalism from Deborah Paris. It's an online class and at first I wasn't sure how it would work. It works great so far. We get assignments, post them on a blog, and get thoughtful, informed and helpful feedback. At the same time I'm spending hours preparing sketches for my underpaintings then reading and staring at books of George Inness, the Luminists and Stephen Hannock. So far I'm happy with this one. I can't wait to share the finished painting. But with indirect painting, it may be awhile!