Plein Air Landscape Painting - Summer Instensive
Plein Air Landscape Painting - Summer Instensive
IN-PERSON CLASS
SUMMER 2023
Rob Zeller, Instructor
Two intensives to choose from:
July 24-27
Aug 14-17
Mon-Thurs (10-12pm)
There is a limit of 6 students to each summer landscape intensive
Plein Air Landscape Painting -Summer Intensive will provide strategies in how to tackle the unique challenges of painting outdoors. Painting outdoors is wonderful, but one of the difficulties of plein air work is knowing how to gather sufficient information in a limited timeframe. Factoring in the lack of controlled lighting and changing weather conditions, things can get frustrating quickly for both experienced and inexperienced artist’s alike.
In this class, students will be introduced to a simple and effective approach to capture a landscape effect in a short period of time. The class is limited to 2 hours, as the light shifts quickly out-of-doors. If it rains, we will meet indoors at the Teaching Studios and work on studio landscape projects.
Basic elements of landscape painting will be covered such as: how to use your materials in the easiest and most efficient manner, how to select a subject, and how to develop a study from start to finish. Zeller will explain the use of thumbnail drawings to design a composition and then turn these thumbnails into oil paintings.
The class is open to beginning through advanced artists but some previous drawing experience is highly recommended.
Students will need to have their own portable, outdoor painting easel for this class.
Painting outdoors is wonderful, but one of the great challenges of plein air work is knowing how to gather sufficient information in a limited timeframe. Factoring in the lack of controlled lighting and changing weather conditions, things can get frustrating quickly for both experienced and inexperienced artist’s alike.
In this class, students will be introduced to a simple and effective approach to capture a landscape effect in a short period of time. The class is limited to 2 hours, as the light shifts quickly out-of-doors. If it rains, we will meet indoors at the Teaching Studios and work on studio landscape projects.
Basic elements of landscape painting will be covered such as: how to use your materials in the easiest and most efficient manner, how to select a subject, and how to develop a study from start to finish. Zeller will explain the use of thumbnail drawings to design a composition and then turn these thumbnails into oil paintings.
The class is open to beginning through advanced artists but some previous drawing experience is highly recommended.
Students will need to have their own portable, outdoor painting easel for this class.
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Artists can work in oil or acrylic in this class. I will teach in oils, but its all the same thing in the end.
Paints:
Titanium White
Yellow Ochre
Transparent Yellow Oxide
Raw Sienna
Burnt Sienna
Alizarin Crimson
Venetian Red
Transparent Red Oxide
Mars Violet (or Indian Red)
Cad Red Light
Black
Raw Umber
Viridian
Cinnabar Green Light
Terre Verte
Sap Green
Ultramarine Blue
Manganese Blue Hue
Medium and Solvent
For oils:
Odorless mineral spirits (get whatever is on sale)
Stand or linseed oil OR
Alkyd Medium (for faster drying times)For acrylics:
container of water for mixing and painting
acrylic fluid medium for more fluid effects and slower drying times.Brushes
Please bring flats or rounds, no brights A mix of Bristle brushes and sable or synthetic (small and medium sizes)
6-8 Red Sables ( or Kolinsky sables) sizes ranging from #’s 0-15. Synthetic sables will do, if money is an issue. These are usually white in hair color, and are a little stiffer. They do not last as long, but that is a reasonable compromise for the price difference.
For massing-in large areas- 5-6 Bristle Brushes ( I recommend filbert shaped) sizes ranging from 4- however big you want to go.
Painting Surfaces
4-6 Gessoboard or Acrylic Primed Canvases
Sizes between 9”X12” or 11”X14” The max size you should work is 16 x 20, but I don’t recommend it. Stay small!
Special Note about panels- please have them primed at least 2-3 coats of acrylic gesso.
Misc. Supplies
Pad of Drawing Paper
HB pencils
Kneaded Eraser
Mixing Palette- Please avoid paper palettes. Use either plexiglass, or wood. If using a clear palette, tape a piece of grey construction paper to the back of it.
Brush Cleaning jar to fill with solvent (no glass)
Cups or jars for storing mediums (no glass)
palette knife (metal)
Cloth rags
Paper Towels
Plein Air Easel Suggestions (the school will supply studio easels in case of rain, but you will need a portable easel for the out-of door sessions).
French Easels are great, but heavy. If you bring one, I’d recommend a “half-box”
Pochade Boxes are popular because they are so portable. Just make sure that you carry a big enough backpack to carry your paints and brushes, as these will likely not fit inside the pochade. You will need a tripod to stand it on- the two components are usually sold separately.
Tripod easel- Very portable. Another great option for people who want to travel light. Can be flimsy though.
Plein Air Umbrella :
These are often useful, as It will be hot and you will want protection from the sun. They attach to your easel. But be careful! They can act as a sail and carry away your easel in the wind! If you don’t want to use an umbrella, use sunscreen and a baseball cap of some sort.
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Robert Zeller founded The Teaching Studios of Art® in 2009. He received a BFA from the Boston Museum School and Tufts University and an MFA from the New York Academy of Art. He is the recipient of two Posey Fellowships, a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant and he has curated and/or exhibited at galleries in Los Angeles, Houston, Paris, and New York.
Zeller is both a visual artist and a writer. He has written two books on art for The Monacelli Press/Phaidon — the upcoming New Surrealism: The Uncanny in Contemporary Painting (pub 2023-2024?- still in production) and The Figurative Artist's Handbook (2017). He also wrote the chapter on the permanent Surrealist photographic collection of The National Gallery of Victoria/ Melbourne Australia for the catalog/book accompanying the upcoming exhibition Photography: Real and Imagined (2023), which opens this fall. He has also written opinion pieces and exhibition reviews for The Brooklyn Rail and other online art magazines/blogs.
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