2009 Workshop Schedule

I have set my workhop schedule for 2009. This link... 2009 Workshops... will take you to the information for each one.

Here are the locations and dates-

April 17, 18, 19 - 'Pastels in the Studio' - Stillwater, MN

May 22, 23, 24 - 'Landscape from Life' - Taylors Falls, MN

August 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 - '3rd Annual Taylors Falls Landscape' - Taylors Falls, MN

(More details soon on this New York workshop)

August 24, 25, 26, 27, 28 - 'Landscape Painting at Tilly Foster Farm' - Brewster, NY

Hope to see you at one of these!

February Thaw

"February Thaw" - oil on panel - 9x12 © Marc R. Hanson '09

I haven't been exercising anything lately but my will to rid myself of another winter bug that I picked up last weekend. I've done that now. This is the first day that I've been painting since Friday, can't believe it. Good thing is that there can't be too many bugs left that I haven't had already this year... maybe I'm safe now???

I spent today working on a larger studio painting which should be finished in a few days. I'll post that one on my 'other' blog when I'm done. After working on that one I decided to paint what's happening outside right now. For the last few days we've had a major thaw, leaving us with almost no snow left AT ALL. Yesterday I felt good enough to get in the car and just drive around looking at what the countryside looked like sans snow cover. I was moved by just how rich the color was despite everything that I was looking at being either dead or dormant.

In the spirit of my reason for this blog, I opened my mind up to absorbing as much of the landscape as I could, it's mood, color, atmosphere. I would have painted on location if I felt better. Or at least photographed what I was looking at on the drive. I did neither. I'm happy that I didn't. I feel that this piece really captures my memory of what I was seeing. It's a summary of the impressions left by all that I saw.

It's not a true "imagination" painting I guess... Hey... there are no rules!!!

Pink Morning

'Pink Morning' - oil - 11x14 - © Marc R. Hanson '09

My idea this morning was to paint the soft relationships between the elements on a very cold winter morning with just a slight bit of warmth showing in the awakening sky. This is the result.

I decided to limit my palette to Alizarin Crimson, Viridian and Yellow Ochre light, plus white. It was a good challenge. The painting is very thin, nearly a stain though opaque. I'm not sure the photo is capturing the subtlety but what's new?

This venture is interesting. I've been worried about how long I can continue this. Would my memory and conceptualization of an idea result in images that are more than generic 'cartoons' of reality? I'm impressing myself, sorry, with just how much there is within to draw from. I've only done 5 of these now, but I'm starting to feel very comfortable with the process. It's a real high to be painting an 'idea' vs rendering reference be it from life or photos.

Summer Memories

"Summer Memories" - oil - 9x12 - © Marc R. Hanson '09

Another thought from today. Basically, I'd like to be here on this day and in this light.

Butter Sky

'Butter Sky' - oil - 10x12 - © Marc R. Hanson '09

I'm realizing that this exercise in using the imagination is not an easy one to undertake. I think that I've been away from being a child for way too long :-( and am realizing that I am trained, practiced and mentally organized into "needing" to have a reference in front of me of some sort to "think" with paint and brush. All the better reason then to continue with this idea.

When I teach I emphasize the need to have a thought, a 'CONCEPT' before starting any painting. IF YOU DON'T... understanding what it is you want to say, what your point of view is, what is it that was so interesting to you, what the mood is in the painting that you want to portray, what was it about the idea of painting the concept that was most interesting to you?????????? I feel that you need to know the answers to these questions or you will not get the most out of yourself or your work.

This is what I tell myself by the way. Others will disagree, there are plenty of other philosophies about painters and painting.

As far as I'm concerned, and as far as my work is concerned, I'm the only one who counts. :-)

Okay, on to this one. Last week we experienced a slight warming, up into the mid-twenties above zero. The warming caused a lot of moisture to be lifted into the atmosphere. The resulting weather effect was spectacular lighting with the sun being very diffused. On Thursday it was as beautiful a day in the winter as I've seen in a long time. I was on the road that day with a friend and our cameras. Everywhere we turned we were greeted with breathtaking "buttery" colors all very high key in relationship. For the first half of the day hoar frost covered everything. The second half of the day the frost had mostly burned off but the moisture from that caused the diffusion and atmospheric perspective to be a wonder to experience from a painters point of view.

This painting is an exploration of the color and mood of that day. That's all that I started with here, to try to recall that day and the color and mood that we experienced. As I painted the figure/land elements emerged more as a calligraphic balance to the rest of the image than anything about anything specific. I think that the single 'figure- like' element speaks to the feeling I had that day of the land being quite, very little activity. Enjoy.

Evening Song

Another from today. Of course these "imagination" paintings will have their genesis in my past experiences, no getting around that. But my point in doing these is to paint completely from within; to be more intuitively responsive to what I want to do with each painting, removed from any photo or life reference, based on what happens to it as it's painted.

For instance in this one I started with the idea of using some lead primed linen, very fine, and Flake white paint. Other than that, I wanted to have fun applying the paint. The design, the color, the texture were not pre-planned, they happened.


'Evening Song' - oil - 10x8 - © Marc R. Hanson '09

Landscape 1

This is the first of the 'out of my mind' (probably more implied meaning behind that than I realize), paintings. I don't know where it came from, why I chose what I did in terms of color, etc., and I don't really care. This is really liberating.
I think that I'll do another one.


'Landscape 1' - oil - 8x10 - © Marc R. Hanson 09