Painting Demo: St. Augustine Lighthouse

This is what I painted during a recent plein air day in St. Augustine by the lighthouse. I've taken progressive snapshots of my painting process, below:

Above - here's the location where I'm painting - I'm on the beach at the St. Augustine Florida lighthouse, next to a big wide palm tree. In the foreground is my paint box and where I've set myself up in front of a lovely sailboat. Below, you see a close up of the very beginnings of my painting - here, I've done the initial drawing, added a few greens, and blocked in the darks:

 

It's about a half-hour later, and I've added the blue of the sky, a few pops of red, and have started to bring in some textural detail in the foreground.

And below is the finished piece. I've added the rest of the detail in the plants. I also added more paint, and at the very end created the lightest lights and redefined the darks:

"Palm by the Lighthouse" 8 x 10, Mary Hubley

To see more of my paintings, go to www.maryhubley.com.

I'll be posting more of these painting demos soon! Thanks.

--Mary Hubley

Ready, Set, Action: On Location with a Film Crew

Plein Air Painting on St. Augustine Beach

Here are a few photos from a very special plein air painting session I taught yesterday. Special, because we were met on location by a film crew taping a promotional video. They met us on the beach to film us -- me, Sheree, Nancy, and Ellen -- painting on the beach.

The weather couldn't have been better. As luck would have it, the fog had just lifted and it turned out to be one of the first beautiful warm days of the year. The sunshine drew the sunbathers out - they were busy soaking up the rays. We painted that deep blue umbrella, seagulls, and people playing by the waves.

Close-up of my quick study of the beach

The cameras are at the right, taping us as we're painting. See the Beach pier in back of us.

As we painted, we moved, we stopped, and we started on queue from the filmographers. They took views of us as a group, with the luscious blue sky and bright beach backdrop. Then they moved in for some closeups of my hand adding paint to the canvas, scanning out to the scene I was capturing in front of me. Eventually, the film is intended to be part of a promotional video for the St. Johns County Cultural Center.

Janice and Donald Jones, our videographers from CycleHereMedia

It was fun! Thanks so much, Janice and Donald Jones, our videographers from CycleHereMedia! Hope the day's filming makes it to the final cut!

--Mary Hubley
www.maryhubley.com

Art Opening: Paintings of The Monterey Coast

Monterey's Fisherman's Wharf (c) Mary Hubley

Paintings of The Monterey Coast by Mary Hubley

 

Introducing a New Series of Paintings at GNG Gallery

 

We had a wonderful opening! Thanks to everyone who came, browsed, and had snacks!

When:     Saturday, January 10, 2015, from 6 to 8 p.m.

Where:    GNG Gallery,  11 A Aviles Street
                 St. Augustine, Florida 32084

Here are photos from my art reception showing my new Monterey series.

Rachael Bennett and Mary Hubley, with "West Coast Color" - SOLD!

Elise T. and Mary

Mary, Rachael Bennett, and Andrea Samuels

Diane Vespucci and Mary Hubley

Dan Hubley and Joel Bagnel

Mary Hubley, "Coastal Color" with Dennis and Marjorie Bernhardt

Mary Hubley with Nancy Willoughby

5 Common Misconceptions About Painting Color

"Coastal Color" (c) Mary Hubley

An orange sky? Purple weeds? "Coastal Color" breaks some color rules, huh? I know the rules. Too boring. I choose to break them. What a feeling of release. I feel like a kid sledding down a steep hill with abandon, laughing all the way.

Guess what? My paintings immediately got more interesting.

Here are some of the rules I've broken - misconceptions, it seems, that were drilled into me by my earliest teachers. Things that are helpful to know, but absolutely revolutionary to remove from my painting life:

Misconception #1. The sky is always blue. It's not blue during sunsets or on overcast days. Purples hug the ocean horizon and orange skies can happen on hazy days.

Misconception #2. Color rules are inflexible. I have a big whoppin' book that explains color theory. Yikes. I barely made it through the first chapter. I've spent a lifetime working with the traditional theories - hue, value, intensity, secondary, complimentary, ad infinitum... But I ditch 'em when it comes to painting. Instead, I go with what nature suggests.

Misconception #3. Paint the colors you see. A good rule for realists. But I ain't no realist. I love orange skies and purple grass.

Misconception #4. More colors the better. Too complicated. I limit my palette. I work with about 6 colors and mix the rest. 

Misconception #5. Color is the most important thing. Composition is everything. Color is just an after-thought. A sepia painting that's well-composed is more interesting than a throw-up of a badly-composed colorific disaster.


This painting is available - please contact Mary Hubley for details.
 
Genre: Landscape
Painting Name: Coastal Color
Size: 24" x 24"
Media: Oil on Canvas


--Mary Hubley
www.maryhubley.com

Installation of Beach Bike Painting

Beach Bike (c) Mary Hubley

Beach Bike was a wonderful commission painting, which I installed in a private home last week. The new painting happily sits in the new owner's guest bedroom, overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.

I started the project by preparing a mood board, which matched a basic photoshopped photo of this scene to the colors and patterns around the room. The key colors were coral, beach sand white, and sage green, and you can see some of the patterns that were on the pillows, above. I painted the bicycle in the coral colors, and interspersed these colors in the sage and white dunes. The bike sits against a sand dune fence, and the grassy dunes are in the background.

It was remarkable to see the painting installed. View the painting and turn your head to the windows on the left, and the colors perfectly matched the home's beachfront and dunes.

Beach Bike (c) Mary Hubley

Beach Bike Installation
33" x 44"
Oil on Canvas
SOLD

--Mary Hubley

Painting a Monterey Cypress

Monterey Cypress (c) Mary Hubley

Plein Air in California

I recently took a plein air painting holiday in California. What a concept.

I sat at the edge of the cliffs overlooking the Pacific ocean. Hard to get to the painting when I was overcome by the jagged rocks and dark Monterey Cypress trees hugging the rugged coastline. This is scenic to the max. A painter's dream.

 Painting Monterey Cypress

This small painting, called Monterey Cypress, was started somewhere between Pacific Grove and 17-mile-drive, in Monterey, California. The Monterey cypress is almost black. The tree-tops are often flat as a result of the strong winds in the area.


Genre: Landscape
Painting Name: Monterey Cypress
Size: 10" x 8"
Media: Acrylic on Canvas


-- Mary Hubley

Using an Artist Viewfinder

 Painting Large Spaces

It's not all that easy to stand there, at the edge of the surf, and consider doing this as a small painting. You're looking at large things - a great blue sky, long beach, and immense ocean. Vastness is intimidating. Many of my art students are too overwhelmed with the expanse of ocean, surf, and beach to try to capture it at all, yet alone doing it on a small canvas. It's just too big.

But it doesn't have to be intimidating; there is one trick that makes this do-able. When a landscape is too big, I use a viewfinder to quickly figure it out.

Using an Artist's Viewfinder

An artist's viewfinder is kind of like using a camera lens; you hold it up to the subject, squint and look through one eye, and move it around until you frame the perfect composition. Instead of taking a snapshot, you paint what you see through the viewfinder.

With this painting, I used my viewfinder to crop out much of the sky and the ocean, making the beach the largest element in the foreground. I could have done the opposite - cropping off much of the beach, leaving a great blue sky and larger body of water. I liked this view better.

--Mary Hubley

Another Great Shell

Another Great Shell (c) Mary Hubley

I paint lots of children on the beach. I live at the beach. It's where children are left to their own creative play. They run, pick up seashells, build sandcastles, while parents watch from a short distance away.

Genre: Figure
Painting Name: Another Great Shell
Size: 16" x 20"
Media: Oil on Canvas


--Mary Hubley

Salt Marsh

"Salt Marsh" (c) Mary Hubley

Salt Marsh is a view of a small boat dock through the marsh that you can see from the 312 Bridge in St. Augustine, Florida. The marshes change color all year long, from green in the summer to soft browns and golds in the winter.

Genre: Landscape
Painting Name: Salt Marsh
Size: 12" x 12"
Media: Oil on Canvas

--Mary Hubley

Seeking Fish

Seeking Fish (c) Mary Hubley

I love watching the white ibis in the marsh - their long, curved beaks seeking meals of small fish and marsh creatures. While working on this painting, called "Seeking Fish," I was on the edge of a St. Augustine, Florida marsh, watching a number of birds wade in the mud and find a catch.

Genre: Animals
Painting Name: Seeking Fish
Size: 5" x 7"
Media: Oil on Canvasboard
SOLD

--Mary Hubley 

By The Dock

By The Dock (c) Mary Hubley

A dock holds such promise. Go there to see tidal changes and the beach that sits underneath.. At high tide, it's all water up to the green grasses. At low tide, you can wander on the sand, under the pilings, looking for little crabbies and mussels.

This is a moody day in St. Augustine, a rare event, yet even in the most overcast days, it's still a bright lovely place to be. I come here often, near the lighthouse, with camera and sketchbook in hand. This is a place where there are pictures to paint when you look 180 degrees around you.

Genre: Landscape
Painting Name: By The Dock
Size: 5" x 7"
Media: Oil on Canvas board


-- Mary Hubley

Ortega Bridge

Ortega Bridge, Jacksonville (c) Mary Hubley

The Ortega Bridge is one of the most beautiful bridges in Jacksonville, Florida, a city that's at the intersection of the St. Johns River and the Atlantic Ocean. Jacksonville is a city that is marked by many bridges, and is a mecca for sailboats. You can't get around Jacksonville without crossing a few bridges. While we stood in a small park on the west side of the Ortega Bridge, we watched several quick bridge openings as sailboats made their way through. There were boys fishing up past the grasses on the left, close to the bridge, and we enjoyed watching them cast their lines and pull in the local catch.

Genre: Landscape
Painting Name: Ortega Bridge
Size:10" x  10"
Media: Oil on Canvas
SOLD

--Mary Hubley

Seaside

Seaside (c) Mary Hubley

The edge of the waves.
Activity.
The birds,
The people.
The water and sand.

This is an overcast afternoon at the beach, a rarity in my sunny patch of Florida. These kids stopped walking as the seagulls hovered.

Genre: Seascape
Painting Name: Seaside
Size: 24" x 36"
Media: Oil on Gallery Wrap Canvas


--Mary Hubley

First Light: St. Augustine Lighthouse

First Light: St. Augustine Lighthouse (c) Mary Hubley

St. Augustine's lighthouse has black and white stripe that swirl around the building, and a bright red top.

Genre: Landscape
Painting Name: First Light: St. Augustine Lighthouse
Size: 12" x 12"
Media: Oil on Canvas


--Mary Hubley