Lisa McShane Art

I just finished an 8 day workshop in Clarksville, Texas with artist Deborah Paris. It was my second Texas workshop with Deborah and in some ways, even better than last year's. Writing up a workshop is a challenge. First, there's simply no time while you're in the thick of things. You paint all day, enjoy your meals with the other artists and then some of us paint again until bedtime. I had good intentions of taking time to write, reflect and take long walks. That didn't happen. I painted a lot. At this workshop, when I had a spare moment I looked through Deborah's collection of art books. She's got a great library. So I'll take this piece by piece and start by setting the stage. Here we are: the 2011 Texas Workshop group with Deborah Paris. The only person missing is Deborah's husband Steve Whalen. He is a remarkable cook, kept us all well fed and - bonus - is fun to hang out with. Left to right: Deborah Paris , Phoebe Chidress, me , Sara Lubinski ...

I'm at a painting workshop in Clarksville, Texas! This is a close-up of Deborah Paris ' palette during a paint mixing demo. Greens! We've had a great time here despite a bit of weather. More later.

Last week I went to Chicago with my husband and son and we went up in one of the super-tall skyscrapers twice to see the views and have tasty adult beverages (that last would be me.) I was struck by the horizon. It's an unbroken line in every direction. I'd seen Chicago on a map but never really thought that it's essentially a city on the plains. How does this impact your view of the world?  We loved the city - the architecture was stunning, the people warm, the winds cold and the food delicious - but I was unsettled by the horizon.  We talked about it awhile because our son is planning to spend the next four years at a small college in Wisconsin far from the ocean and mountains that establish our internal compasses every day of our lives. He/we thought it may seem disorienting.  Flatness. When he goes for a walk how will he know which way is north?  From where I sit at this moment, in my corner office on the second floor of my house I can see the Pacific to the...

George Inness. Catskill Mountains. 1870. Oil on Canvas. Chicago Art Institute, Edward Butler Collection. In the American Wing in the Chicago Art Institute, first floor, there's a little room that you walk through to get to the larger gallery. On one side is the Gifford and on the other, three Inness paintings. The first day I visited I spent time on my knees in front of this painting so I could see the application of paint up close. To the right of this is an older Inness and I could see the weave of the canvas clearly under the entire painting. On this one, the weave was rarely visible beneath the thicker application of paint. The second day I sat on the bench in front of this painting and sketched it to think through the paint application, the composition and the arrangement of values in the painting. I was trying to figure out how he conveyed the atmosphere. It looks as if he painted a milky, creamy glaze over a blue background and wiped it back in areas. Naturally I took...

Sanford Gifford. Hunter Mountain, Twilight. 1866. Oil on Canvas.  Chicago Art Institute. Terra Foundation for American Art. Daniel J. Terra Collection. Just back from a spring trip to Chicago where I spent a couple of days looking at paintings in the Art Institute. Of particular interest to me were the treasures in the Terra Foundation for American Art collection. There were two in particular I spent time studying - this by Gifford and the one immediately behind it by Inness (more on that later.) It was Sanford I was following when I began paintings this winter with a burnt sienna base. He used that warm base to achieve a luminous effect in his landscapes. And of course this one has a composition that I'm drawn to. However, in my eyes Gifford's surface texture lacks interest or subtlety. While the quality of light makes them sing from a distance, up close they're flat.

Across the Fields. ©2011 Lisa McShane. Oil on Linen. 16" x 20." Just back from a quick trip to eastern Washington where the sun and light were - as they often are - amazing. I drove up to the top of McBee road in the Horse Heaven Hills to see dawn on the face of Rattlesnake Mountain. But it was good to be back in the studio and put the last glaze on the grasses of this painting of Skagit county, looking west late in the afternoon.

Closeup of Rattlesnake and the River with burnt sienna ground. T his winter I read in several sources that Sanford Gifford first stained his surface with burnt sienna.  I first read about this on Philip Koch's great blog  in a post titled Bold Power Hiding in Subtle Colors . And of course the next day an artist friend, James Lourie , forwarded me the link to Philip's post knowing how I'd love it! Loriann Signori wrote about it on her blog here , saying " Sanford Gifford stained his white canvas with burnt sienna, drew in white chalk and then glazed more rapidly. He would paint non-stop from sunrise to sunset when he began the color part of his painting. He had already worked out his color idea in his oil sketches. Gifford kept working and blending his glazed layers while they were wet. " David Dunlop, in a blog post titled Luminous Skies has a great, brief explanation along with images. (BTW: his blog is great, deep with information and his own wo...