Monica Kubitskey

Landscape Painting

Monica Kubitskey

Day 1:

 Before this class I have never painted outside landscapes against the many degrees and elements that nature can deploy. I never imagined the challenging task it takes to capture the essence of the beauty I viewed in the upcoming days. I was very thankful for the overview of the past, present, and especially the modern twist of artwork that was presented. I was also appreciative of the experience of our professor and her eloquent way of teaching us how to mix, value, shade, compose, and apply the media in our work. 

Day 2 and 3: Carroll Road

Carroll Road 36 x 24 Mixed Media

I planned on using mixed media, and recycled scraps to create the "canvas." I also wanted to add an element of "peek-a-boo" and accentuate the area I felt my eye ws lead to. I wanted to abstract the feature by changing the color, texture, and materials,that made it very difficult to complete this piece. I was very excited about the color and the texture but I noticed that I had not captured the atmosphere and the variations of color all around. The canvas was too large and I felt panicky about the composition and made me question my ability. Thiss is still my favorite piece.

Day 4: Borrows Harbor

Borrows Harbor 20 x 30 Mixed Media

I decided to work a little smaller and try to concentrate on the horizon line "marrying" the colors so that it was more believeable. I found that hatching was a good techinique to blur and break the hard edge. It developed and completed the overall picture of the water , earth, and sky. When I blended the oils too much, it defined shapes and lines of the trees flattening the composition. I wanted to showcase the big, vast sky, like the ones we had viewed.

Day 5: Light House Park

Lighthouse Park 20 x 30 Mixed Media

I used the same hatching technique to try to get the oil on the boards quickly. It seemed to be going very well, but as the heat increased the oil pastels melted all over. My shapes were hard due to the use of blue to begin. Its presense was unable to be eliminated and I had to use the palate knife to scrape through to apply the next color. The distance and compostion needed help with space. Nora showed me how to blur the edges with a rag. It made it appear dreamy and adding lights and darks in large block strokes seemed to help the shadows casted on the rocks. The addition to smaller rocks gave the larger ones weight and grounded the piece. I did work on this longer that evening. This piece had me reevaluate my materials and structure. I went home and concentrateed on perspective drawins using the basics, pencil, charcoal, and chalk. I drew all night and felt refreshed and ready to tak on the next day.

Day 6: Chateau Chantal

Chateau Chantal 18 x 24 Watercolor and Chalk

I feel this was my turning point.I drew with watercolor pencil in one direction of the fields, concentrating on using a view finder to find space, composition, and value shades of color. When I felt the composition was best and acheived the degree of color I stopped so I would not over think and over work the piece. I decided to conquer the opposite side of the the grape vines and rolling hills in pencil. I completed this piece foe homework. I feel these two pieces, although not as exciting, explored the concepts i really wooulfd like to build upon. They were successful in composition, value, and atmospheric space.  

Homework:

I worked each night at the beach with my three kids. While they played, fished and swam, I observed the scenery of two primary places. Good Harbor Beach, a personal favorite, and Shell Beach, the fishing hole.  I used pencil, chalk, and watercolor pencils to produce these. All completed on 18 x 24 heavy weight paper.

Shell Beach 18 x 24 Pencil and Chalk

Shell Beach  18 x 24 Watercolor

Good Harbor Beach 18 x 24 Pencil

Good harbor Beach 18 x 24Chalk

Chateau Chantal 18 x 24 Pencil

Value study for Carroll Road 9 x 12

Thank you Professor Nora Venturelli. I plan to work extensively on landscapes and incorporate the elements I struggled with in upcoming pieces. I feel tis class forced me out of my comfort zone and developed skills that I will be more aware of in the future. I will create the "locks" but will have an impressive compostion to work with. I will take this class again. See you next summer.

Monica