There has been a resurgence in Plein Air painting in the recent past which has been fueled mainly by the activity of Tony Robinson and colleagues from the Plein Air Group in Wexford. Their successful annual Plein Air ‘festival’ in Wexford in August has spawned Plein Air groups which now can be found all around the country. Details can be found on the Plein Eire website listed on the website links section.
The two Oil Painting DVDs reviewed here should be of particular interest to this new cohort of Plein Air painters. Both are by Australian Plein Air artists and their work is exhibited widely, both in Australia and abroad.
Maxwell Wilks paints in a style which is similar to Ken Howard’s. As evidenced by the title he is strongly influenced by capturing colour and light in the landscape/seascape. The DVD demonstrations are initially painted in the UK. The first painting is of a jetty with boats against a background of buildings. The second is of boats in an inlet and the third is a view of Whitby town at sunset. For the last painting he returns to Australia and the landscape painted would be similar to an Irish landscape.
In approaching his subject he draws the image in loosely, with a brush, to determine the composition. He then establishes the main darks and lights and the masses are painted very broadly. The edges are constantly fused by rubbing the newly applied paint with his hand. He has obviously little regard for health and safety! He removes sections of paint with a cloth to allow him to introduce detail. He finally adds in detail but the painting still remains very much in the impressionist style and he warns about ‘working a painting to death.’
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| The above paintings are by Maxwell Wilks (and are not taken from the DVD) |
Herman Pekel paints in an even looser style than Maxwell Wilks. His dialogue in conformity with his style is much more brash than Wilks. He uses turpentine as his medium and has a small number of brushes in use which he does not clean , the result is that he produces on the canvas a series of harmonious greys. There is obviously a danger with this approach that you could produce ’mud’ but he skilfully manages to control this. The paint is applied thickly and interestingly he uses a credit card as a ‘painting tool’ to apply thick layers of paint. I noted that it was a Gold Card! Where detail is applied he uses a rigger and skilfully manages to get a definitive application even on a heavily painted surface.
Pekel paints, in this DVD, only in Australia. The first two sessions are in the landscape around Melbourne. The sites he chooses looks particularly uninspiring both in tone and structure. But he manages to interpret the landscape to create harmonious paintings with strong composition. For the third painting he tackles a beach scene and while the subject looks like a typical Plein Air subject again his approach is interesting. The third subject is a dock scene at Melbourne and presents an interesting challenge as an industrial scape. Lastly he paints a jetty but this time he paints in oil on folded watercolour paper to emphasize that you can modify your painting surface.
Both of these artists highlight the immediacy of the Plein Air experience. Their approach to painting and the supporting commentary given would be of particular value to the novice Plein Air painter. However, these DVDs will be also of equal value to the more experienced Plein Air painter by ensuring that they always remember to go back to first principles, to capture the changing light and colour quickly and not to ‘work the painting to death’
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| Paintings above are by Herman Pekel (and are not taken from the DVD) |
These DVDs are available from APV Films in the UK. Prices and short trailers are available at www.apvfilms.com
1 comment:
It's great to be able to sit back and watch another artist paint. It gives great inspiration and motivation to get going again after the christmas holidays. Thanks for sharing these great dvds Tom.
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