Trying To Keep Up

I’ve been painting a great deal of the time since I returned from Easton and, in fact, now have a number of new images I’d like to share with you.

“Sea Cliff” 11 X 12.5 oil on canvas was painted this morning in the lovely village of Sea Cliff, NY. This was a kind of scholastic homecoming of sorts for me as I studied with Mr. and Mrs. Stevenson just around the corner from where this was painted. Despite the mounting August heat I was very comfortable while painting this one because I was able to get a parking spot beneath a tree and the parking space was so wide that it accommodated my car, my self and my easel. You can see by the foreground perspective that I am standing in the road. “Sea Cliff” is available for sale.

“Hempstead Harbor” 8.5 X 14 oil on canvas was painted this past Saturday morning down at Garvies Point in Glen Cove. I began at 7 AM and was finished at about 9:15. I tell you this because I want to help you get a picture of an artist standing alone working on the somewhat quiet, still morning beach…where I was approached by a Jehovah’s Witness who attempted right then and there to save my lost soul! I realize that I am out working in public and people are interested in what I do and I genuinely don’t mind taking the time to chat. But do not interrupt my work to try to push your religious views on me. I will be very rude to you! “Hempstead Harbor” is already sold.

“A Walk On The Beach” was painted on a very hot day on the northernmost tip of Caumsett State Park. It is what I feel is a typical view of what the North Shore of Long Island looks like and is still available for sale.

“Sunday Morning Field 5” 11 X 14 oil on canvas was painted last Sunday down at City Stadium in Glen Cove, NY. I was riding around in the plein air mobile looking for something to paint when I was taken by the red uniforms of the kids (yes, both teams wore red) against the green trees. I spent a great deal of my youth down at this stadium playing Little League baseball and am always amazed by how little the place has changed in 45 years. It is always such a nice feeling to be there. This painting is sold.

“Front Lit” 9 X 12 oil on canvas was done as a demo for my regular Thursday night class. It was done quickly and very loosely and I was very happy with the result, in particular the warm feeling of the light on the green foliage. “Front Lit” is still available.

Weather permitting I plan to head out tonight for my first nocturne of the year down at the Long Island Rail Road station in Locust Valley and, weather permitting again, might head out to the Hamptons tomorrow to do a small commission and try to get in some other painting while in the area. Check back soon to view these pieces. And thanks, as always, for your interest in my work.

Plein Air Easton 2011

(Warning…long blog post…but a good one!)

Photograph of me working on "Old Point Dawn" which appeared on the cover of "The Star Democrat"...a local Easton newspaper.

Easton! How I love the sound of that word. Every year the town of Easton, Maryland hosts the biggest, most popular and well run plein air event on the East Coast. 2011 was the 7^th year of the event and the Avalon Foundation has every aspect of running this mammoth undertaking down pat. No issue is too large or too small for this great organization.

Plein Air Easton is a competition with a $20,000 prize fund so it attracts some of the best painters from around the country. This year even included two wonderful painters from the UK. Admission is juried and I am proud to have even been juried in to the event for 2 years in a row.

The artists arrive on a Sunday evening and have their panels stamped. As I said before, this is a competition and any paintings that are to be considered for an award must be produced during the 4 days allotted for painting and must have a competition stamp. Actual competition begins after the panels are stamped and some artists could certainly be found out on the street on Sunday night!

(Please note that some of the images that follow were taken with my cell phone camera which is not the greatest quality camera but they are the only decent images that I managed to get from the event.)

The competition began for me early on Monday morning at a place called Tilghman Island which is a working fishing village at the end of the peninsula. I started painting at about 7:30 and 2 hours later had my first canvas packed up in my wet panel carrier.

“Crow Brothers III” 12 X 12 oil on canvas.

This was a good start for me. At last years event I scraped off both of my Monday paintings but I was pretty happy with this one. A number of people make their property available to the artists to paint on and, from Tilghman, I took a short drive to one such property, the magnificent Grafton Manor. Here I battled the rising afternoon heat and managed to come up with my 2^nd painting of the day.

“Monday Afternoon” 9 X 12 oil on canvas.

Easton MD is on what is referred to as the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Plein Air Easton runs during the 2^nd to last week of July and, as such…it is HOT…and it just keeps getting HOTTER! Temperatures were in the high 90’s with humidity around the same and dew points in the mid to upper 70’s! My plan, which I was somewhat able to follow, was to paint early in the day, head back to my host family’s home during the mid-day hours and then head out again in the evening.

Tuesday morning found me back early at Grafton Manor to have a look at a quintessential Eastern Shore motif which I had stumbled on the day before but felt would look better in the morning light. It seems that everyone along the shore has erected osprey nests just off of the shoreline and these ospreys barely tolerated my presence for the 2 hours it took me to paint them.

“Eastern Shore” 14 X 11 oil on canvas.

My plan to paint a stand of pines along the Choptank River on Tuesday evening was thwarted by Mother Nature dropping a strong thunderstorm on me. Ah yes…the vagaries of painting out of doors.

Wednesday morning found most if not all of the artists taking advantage of an invitation to paint at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum which has a wonderful collection of old working boats and buildings just begging to be painted. I arrived early enough to still have the sunrise in front of me casting warm orange glitter on the calm water.

“Old Point Dawn” 12 X 16 oil on canvas.

No rain on Wednesday night so I managed to grab my pines which I loved in the late day sun. (Unfortunately, this is probably the worst photographed image of the lot but it is the best that I have of what I felt was my favorite painting of the week).

“Trappe Pines” 9 X 12 oil on canvas.

Painting within the Easton town limits was a requirement on Thursday and, fortunately for me, this field of banded Galloways is just within the Easton town limit. I remembered some paintings of the cows from last year and had ridden past them a day or two earlier, excitedly making a mental note to stop and paint them on Thursday morning.

“Banded Repose” 9 X 12 oil on canvas.

The event hosted a lunch for us on Thursday at a facility called Londonderry which boasts a picturesque river, manor house and some lovely gardens. Unfortunately I do not have an image of the painting which I did there.

Plein air events such as these are made possible by the very generous hospitality of local people who are kind enough to open up their homes to us for the week. I have stayed with the same couple for the past two years who call a magnificent waterfront estate home. I was particularly fond of their herb garden which lines the fence along the driveway. I have never seen rosemary like this in my life!

Every day when I left I lightly rubbed my hand over the tops of this bush for good luck and for the added pleasure of smelling the fragrance on my hand for the rest of the day! It is traditional for artists to leave behind a painting for their hosts as a token of appreciation. I painted the sunset from their lawn and left that behind for them. Unfortunately I do not have an image of this painting because it was my second favorite of the week.

Paintings are delivered to the Academy Art Museum on Thursday evening for the competition which opens during the collectors preview on Friday night. There is a great feeling of relief returning from the drop off as most of the week’s work is complete. We are allowed to submit ten paintings for the show (I only managed to get seven done). Two of the ten are chosen by us as our competition pieces. These are hung one above the other and in alphabetical order by artist through two rooms. I think there were 56 artists which means there were a total of 112 competition paintings hanging! The judge then makes his rounds of the room selecting from the displayed work which he feels deserve the awards. As these paintings are sold they are immediately taken off of the wall and replaced with another from our stock which were stored in two libraries upstairs.

The opening commences at 6PM on Friday night when the artists and their guests arrive. This is the first time we all get to see what we all have produced during the week and we are asked to vote on what we feel is the best piece produced by a colleague…The Artists Choice Award.

At 6:45 un-ticketed guests are asked to leave and the collectors (who have bought tickets costing $150 a piece!) are allowed in. Next to Christmas Eve this has become my most favorite time of the year. The people of Easton love this event and are very generous in their support of it. Red dots, which denote sold paintings, begin to explode all over the walls. My competition pieces sold simultaneously at about 7:15.

By the end of the first night I had sold 4 paintings!

Saturday is the Quick Draw. We have from 10AM until 12 noon to paint within a specified area of town. The Quick Draw is another very exciting event for the artists and the locals who can wander around and watch us work. For the second year in a row I am proud to say that I sold my Quick Draw before it was finished! At 12 noon it is brushes down, get the painting in a frame and rush over to Harrison Street where we all set up shoulder to shoulder for the paintings to be judged and awards handed out.

“Green Market II” 12 X 12 oil on canvas.

I am sorry to say that I was not able to equal my success at the Cranford event by winning an award. However I am very proud to say that my last available painting sold from the Academy on Saturday night! Eight painting in five days and all sold. I believe that I was the only artist who sold out which meant I didn’t have to wait until 5PM on Sunday to pick up any that were left over. I went to the hosted brunch at another magnificent estate on the river, returned to the house to fetch my belongings and bid farewell to my hosts and was on the road back to NY by 1PM on Sunday afternoon.

Plein Air Easton 2011! There is nothing to compare to it and I hope to be able to return next year for PA-E 2012!

Cranford

I am just back from participating in Cranford New Jersey’s “Paint The Town 2011” Plein Air Event and I won’t drag out the suspense until the end…I was awarded the competition 3^rd prize! More on that later.

The Cranford event this year boasted a very strong roster of accomplished award winning artists from all over the East Coast and as far away as MN. We arrived on Tuesday afternoon, checked in at the event HQ, got our canvases stamped and then checked in with our host families.

Wednesday was the first day of painting and it was a hot one! It was the first of two “Extended Region” days which meant that we did not have to paint in the Cranford area. The organizers arranged for a bus to take us in to New York City. The bus dropped us at 77^th Street and Central Park West. Almost all of the artists gravitated toward Central Park. Below is my painting of Bethesda Fountain which is just about in the middle of the park off of 72^nd street.

Thursday was “Extended Region” day 2 which allowed us to paint at numerous locations on the Jersey Shore. It was even hotter on Thursday than it was on Wednesday and I arrived on the Asbury Park boardwalk at 7 AM in the hopes of finding some shade and some cool breezes off of the ocean. That part of my plan worked well. What I did not anticipate was the presence of many hungry horse flies that had a particularly strong appetite…for me! I managed to stick it out for two and a half hours painting the view looking north along the boardwalk. I titled it “Greetings from Asbury Park” after the Bruce Springsteen album. This is the painting which won 3^rd prize.

After finishing up at Asbury Park I headed north a bit to Belford which has a lovely harbor full of working fishing boats. This is a 12 X 16 that I did as quickly as I could because the heat was becoming too much to bear!

Saturday was the “Quick Draw” where we were given 2 ½ hours to complete a painting in a small radius in downtown Cranford. Those of you who know me well know that 2 ½ hours is a long time for me to complete a painting on site. We had to deal with the first rainy day of the week but I managed to get a nice result painting the spire of the Presbyterian Church against the gray sky. The painting sold before I could get a photo of it but a local man shot it for me and will email it to me. I’ll include it in a later post.

All of the above paintings are available for sale from my website www.paulbachem.com.

Dancing Trees

Spring! Is there a more welcome word for someone who paints out doors? While I did do my share of painting out side this past winter, and did enjoy it very much, there really is nothing like the prospect of bright colors and warmer temperatures to get the heart beating a bit faster.

Two weeks ago I was interviewed with regards to a plein air event where I will be participating in Cranford, NJ. We thought it would be nice to get a couple of pictures of me set up outside with my gear while flailing a brush around. We took a two minute drive to Bailey Arboretum which is basically around the corner from my house. The idea wasn’t for me to actually paint but to just get some posed plein air shots.

It was a pretty gray day but I was immediately taken with the fresh bright moss at the base of the trees along the pond and made a mental note to return the following week. I went back late in the afternoon on a bright sunny day and loved not only the bright moss but the shadows moving across the tree trunks. I have already posted this painting to my Facebook page and many people commented that it looked as though the trees were dancing. I like to think that I am always open to suggestion so “Dancing Trees” it is!

Note that all of these small sketches are available for sale directly from me via this website. Simply click on the “Paintings and Prints” tab and then on “Available Paintings”. The price includes shipping costs.

Primary Ingredients

A word of warning…never set up to paint the ingredients you plan to use for dinner that night!

I have grown to really love cooking. I love all of the shapes, colors and textures of the ingredients and the feel of the tools. I love all of the preparatory work and the act of cooking and then sitting down to eat what I have made.

It occurred to me that a “food” still life might be just the ticket. Everything is gray and brown out doors and after looking for someplace to paint on Saturday and early Sunday I decided to instead move indoors and set up a still life.

I had already been shopping for what I was going to make Sunday night and had many different ingredients to choose from. I grabbed my cutting board, my old Chicago Cutlery knife, some fresh parsley and a lemon, a tomato and garlic and set it all up in my studio.

The problem was that I had intended to get the painting done “alla prima” or in one sitting thus making my ingredients available later for dinner. Unfortunately this was not the case but I thought this was OK as all I really had to replace was the lemon. I ran to the local food market just as they were getting ready to close, bought my replacement lemon, and headed for home confident that my troubles were over.

Wrong again! I started to get set up when I remembered that my cutting board and favorite knife were still set up downstairs and could not be disturbed. So, no problem, I can improvise. I used the back side of my wooden pizza peel as a cutting board and my less than favorite inexpensive Sabatier knife. Everything was moving along fine until I came up about a tomato short of the required 2 cups of diced tomatoes. As the local market was now closed I had no choice but to raid my still life for the necessary ingredient.

Monday morning found me at the market early to purchase my replacement tomato and the painting was finished without further inconvenience to either my self or any of my “models”.

The title of the painting, “Primary Ingredients”, refers to the fact that the three so called “primary colors” red, yellow and blue are all present here at full strength.

Note that all of these small sketches are available for sale directly from me via this website. Simply click on the “Paintings and Prints” tab and then on “Available Paintings”. The price includes shipping costs.

Alone On The Beach

Here I am pushing winter aside again on a day when I hear that some of my FaceBook friends in Vermont are suffering through 2+ feet of snow! There is nothing like that happening here today but it is still not ideal outside painting weather.

This painting was started last summer during a one day trip to the Fire Island National Seashore. It was a great day with an even greater sky and I love a sky full of summer day cumulous clouds. The conditions didn’t allow me to finish it on site that day but I finally had the chance to get a little more paint on it as well as pick out some of the sand particles that had blown into it while on site.

My family and I used to vacation on Fire Island when I was younger and, in some ways, I think I have been painting this particular view in my mind for many years. It’s nice to finally see it on canvas!

Note that all of these small sketches are available for sale directly from me via this website. Simply click on the “Paintings and Prints” tab and then on “Available Paintings”. The price includes shipping costs.

Winter Recedes

The winter of 2010/2011 marks the first time I drummed up the courage (and invested in the clothing) which allowed me to get outside and paint in the cold and snow. And we had cold and snow this past winter…plenty of both. All in all it was a great experience and I don’t regret a single moment of it.

But I love to see the grass come through the melting snow! The promise of warmer weather; no more snow shoveling, no more cold, getting the herb garden going and grabbing my gear to head out to paint while feeling the warm sun and the warm breezes and breathing the fresh un-frozen air. Plein air painting is a year round pursuit and I love every aspect of it. I just happen to prefer the warmer weather.

We are not there yet but the accumulated 30+ inches of snow that we received this past winter is melting, leaving wonderfully juxtaposed patterns of cold white and warm fallow orangey greens. It is nature’s annual promise of better things to come.

This wonderful view is not a bucolic farm field in upstate NY. In fact it is far from it. This is just off of the South Service Road and within sight of Route 495 better known to us locals as the Long Island Expressway. The LIE bisects Long Island horizontally and runs straight from the Queens end of the Midtown Tunnel (which runs under the East River straight into New York City) all the way out to Riverhead which sits in the crotch of the North and South forks of the Island. One of those little jewels of old Long Island farmland which now overlooks one of the busiest highways in the country.

Note that all of these small sketches are available for sale directly from me via this website. Simply click on the “Paintings and Prints” tab and then on “Available Paintings”. The price includes shipping costs.