December 31, 2010 Happy New Year

Happy New Year! This painting is most likely my last for the year. I am posting it, but it still needs time to age and in the aging sometimes things are seen or discovered that need to be thought about, maybe changed. Because it's the end of the year, however, I decided to go ahead and post this now as it...


'Sunny Bottoms' - oil - 30x36 © Marc R. Hanson '10
I see a theme developing in my titles... maybe that will be the first thing I change on this one? Then again, it's a painting, painted from a painting, that was painted in May. Enough 'p's for now.

This time of the spring is an electric time in the woods. The foliage is young, 'spring tender' pale green, and creates a staccato array of light catching and reflecting planes that meet the eye with an almost dizzying effect. The small twigs and branches of the trees and under-story all reflect a brighter light than at other times of the year. Spring is their time to shine! I love to paint this from life and in the studio its an exercise in sharp, brilliant little strokes and touches played against the softer diffused depth of the woods. The subject for this is from inside the heavier woods looking out into a low bottom area, meanings a slightly wet patch of woods, where the trees stay smaller because of the moisture.

Here's the study that this one was painted from. Obviously my head is full of the memory of this time of year because there isn't this much information in the study. But the spirit of the study is what I wanted to build the larger painting from.


'First Green Of Spring' - oil - 8x10 © Marc R. Hanson '09

Cape Cod Museum of Art paintings

As part of the Creative Convergence show at Addison Art Gallery in Orleans, MA each artist is also submitting one or two paintings to the Cape Cod Museum of Art in Dennis, MA.

I hadn't decided what to paint for that part of our show yet as of last night. This morning I went into my studio with a sudden awareness of what and how I wanted to paint for the CCMA show. The two pieces below are the two I painted today to be shown.

Time was of the essence as it's time to frame and ship the work to Addison and to the Museum. Hope you enjoy these both.


'PTown Pier At Night' - oil on board - 11x14 © Marc R. Hanson '10
While on the trip, I didn't spend a lot of time on the pier painting. But at night it always caught my attention as a beautiful display of lights, warm and cool notes and all of that being reflected into the harbor waters. That's what I decided to paint for the first of the two pieces today.


'Night Coming On' - oil on board - 12x9 © Marc R. Hanson '10
While on the Cape in Provincetown we all spent a lot of time walking the streets into and back out of town to the houses where we were staying. The walks were always a real treat right at dusk, when the lights of the stores and town would come on and create a brand new visual treat for the eyes. When the skies were clear, the contrast between the bright sky and the dark corridor of the PTown houses and businesses were a painting in waiting.

December 17, 2010 "Foggy Top"

"Foggy Top" oil on linen - 30x36 © Marc R. Hanson '10
A recent painting finally finished... I think... of a woodland interior. I'm planning a number of these type of large woodland scenes at different times of the year. I really enjoy getting involved in the spots of color that the foliage provides me to paint. And I love to put myself into the scene, wandering around the tree trunks, up into the canopy, along the ground in all of the clutter. Can't do that on an 11x14, you need to open the window up wide and wider is sounding even better to me lately. Thanks for looking.

December 6, 2010 'Scarlet Sunset'

'Scarlet Sunset' - oil on stretched canvas - 14x18 © Marc R. Hanson 2010
I painted this one yesterday, the first of what will probably be several paintings using my September Nocturnes as inspiration and the starting points for larger pieces. Nice thing is that since they were only 5"x7"... anything is a lot bigger!

Not to be misunderstood... this was painted yesterday in the studio from a study done last September, not from life yesterday.

December 4, 2010 'Waiting For The Glow'

I'm working on a larger scale woodland scene in the studio right now. But it needed to be set aside for a little bit for a couple of reasons. One is that it needed to 'dry up' a little bit for the next stage of work on it.

More pressing is something that's going on with me right now... I have images pouring into the well, even getting me up at 2a.m. this morning and not letting me get back to sleep! The images are vague, full of mood, and are resulting from the many field sketches that I am surrounded by in the studio. I'm seeing these images based on the studies but they are 'not' the studies. This is a lot of fun. I'm seeing new ways to interpret the work from my past into something new, maybe even completely different than what I attempted to do in the original sketches. I'm not sure why this is happening, but it's driving my engine right now so I'm going to run with it.


'Waiting For The Glow' - oil on panel - 20x24 © Marc R. Hanson 2010
This is the first one, painted yesterday but tidied up about 3a.m. this morning. It's loosely based on a couple of studies I did in Sarasota, FL last May and June. What I wanted to play with was the gorgeous color that I witnessed while there. I've chosen to just include a few figures for compositional reasons, but the beaches were full of people sitting and looking out towards the water. I couldn't figure out why so many people showed up just before sunset... the beach was almost empty until then. I've been in the midwest for a long time now and had no idea about the "Glow" at the exact moment of sunset. That's what the people on the beach were doing... not going skinny dipping at night as I sort of suspected they might be getting ready to do!

A slightly blurry detail of the figures...