New Summer Paintings and Video's

I always try to get the best images of my work as I can, but a photograph of a painting will always leave something to be desired. If you would like to see my summer paintings in person, please set up a time to visit my in my chicken coop studio, or plan to visit me on the 2019 Fall Art Tour which is October 18, 19, and 20. 

Ableman Road Farm golden hour 11x14" Sold

Early Summer Irises 16x20" $550
This was a fun afternoon of painting. These irises are in my neighborhood, and they only lasted a few days before they wilted in the June heat. I found them one morning while walking the dog, and painted them in the afternoon. The video below will give another perspective of the painting.

Ableman Road Farm Late Evening 11x14" Sold

Afternoon Clouds and Cows 11x14" $400

Baraboo River and St. Joes Church 12x16" $500
This was painted in early May. It was one of the first nice evenings of the year, there were buds appearing on the trees for the first time and great golden light. For me, this meant that I was seeing colors in the landscape that I had not seen for some time. I painted this from the parking lot of the new Baraboo police station, in the shadow from a huge quartz rock that they excavated when they were digging the foundation for the police station. 

Vernon County Farm 16x20" $550

I set up my easel in Vernon County a couple of weeks ago and painted this farm in a valley. There is a little stream running alongside the pasture, and several layers of hills in the distance. Vernon county is just far enough away that I don't paint there very often, but when I do get there it all feels new. I also filmed my painting session, and the video is below.

Belter's Cows 24x20" Sold
I drive past these cows every day on the way to Baraboo, and have painted the farm several times. On this day, the barnyard was flooded, and the water made for an interesting blue shape at the bottom of the canvas. One cow in particular became very interested in me, and I became interested in her as well. She sort of stole the show on this one.

The Neighbor's Farm 12x16" $400
This was a demonstration painting that I did for my plein air workshop in June. The workshop group and I stood in a freshly planted corn field,  under a shade tree while I painted this. The focus of my demo was on shapemaking and simplification. I filmed the demo, and put together a short video of the painting's creation below.

Carl Beth's old Farm 9x12" $250
This farm is just down the road from my place under late light.

Door County Still Life Demo 11x14" - $350
The still life with oranges and blue glass bottles was painted at the Peninsula School of Art in June. I had 12 great students in the class, and this was the demo on the first day. The class focused on painting still life, and I set this still life up outdoors and encouraged the students to do the same.

Lautenbach's Orchard Country Winery in Door County 9x12" $250
I was in Door County to teach a workshop in early June. We had a late spring in Wisconsin, so on June 2nd I was painting cherry blossoms. I painted at Lautenbach's during the 2017 Door County plein air festival, and they were happy to have me paint the spring colors.

Late Evening Cows 16x20" Sold
There is a smell in the air at this time of night on the backroads. This reminds me of the humid air that is cooling as the sun sets. 

Lemonade Still Life 20x24" $750
This was one of those afternoons, during the dog days of summer, that called for lemonade.  I captured some shots of the  painting session, with my dog at my feet, and made a video of it below.

HWY S Farm Late Light 12x16" $450
I taught some youth classes at UW Richland this summer, and painted this farm on the ride home. In this version, the trees to the left of the canvas were casting a shadow onto the barn, while the background fields were bathed in golden light. 

Golden hour on Tim Harm's Farm 11x14" $400
This was painted on my driveway, looking towards the neighbor's farm. The freshly planted corn field foreground falls into shadow while Tim's barn is illuminated by the late evening sun.

Spring View from the North Bluff in Baraboo 11x14" $450

The Peninsula School of Art in Spring 9x12" $250
This was a demonstration painting that I gave at the Peninsula School of Art in June. The building depicted is the School/Gallery and it is a very interesting structure. It is sort of like a double layered round barn with a cupola. The gardens at the school are always well done and on this day there was a blossoming tree that I could not resist in the foreground. 

Summer Peony Still Life 20x16" Sold

Roecker Farm 16x20" $550

Late Spring Farm 12x16" $400

Terrytown Bales 16x20" Sold

Mud Season Farm 11x14" $400

Golden Hour Thunderhead Study 6x9" Sold

July Thunderhead 16x20" $500

Wilson's Ice Cream Parlor in Ephraim 12x16" $450
Wilson's is one of those places that makes Door County special. I had such a nice time painting it, with the red and white striped awning and afternoon light hitting the facade, that I wonder why I hadn't painted there sooner.

Workshop Materials List

I have two spots left for the plein air workshop at my farm, on June 22 and 23. The cost of the class is $200. If you would like to register, please email me at: kylemartinfineart@gmail.com

The class will be from 9:30 - 4:40 on each day. I will start each day with a marker sketch and plein air demonstration painting. The focus of the demo's is composition, values, and color. I have some special tools that we use that will help you to paint the light. After I demo, we will break for lunch, and then it's time for you to set up your easel and paint. We will cover a lot of ground, you will take home some new concepts. Most of all, I want to show you how you can make better paintings and have more fun when you are painting.

Please follow the link below for the supplies list.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/12LGrv5TKCzTz2SStmG6tHLcd90EZwNAV_XCaorkaqH0/edit?usp=sharing

Sunset behind the Chicken Coop Studio 11x14" $450

This piece was painted on an April evening, standing in the corn field to the east of my studio. I found it hard to look directly at the sun, so I relied on a mirror to look at the scene backwards for much of the information that I needed. As the sun set, it's intensity obscured outlines of the shapes of buildings and added color to an otherwise muddy scene. 

Plein air painting is always a discovery. Had I gone out on this day with a pre-conceived notion of what I wanted the painting to look like, something quite different would have emerged. I teach a way of painting that enables you to see as a painter, and how to use your perceptions as a point of departure into your creativity. Painting is one path to finding beauty in everyday, seemingly-unimportant experiences, and I hope to share in that with you.

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Happy Spring! I'm pleased to announce the dates for my plein air painting workshop.

The two-day workshop will be on Saturday June 22 and Sunday June 23, from 9:30 am to 4:00 pm on each day. The workshop will be held on my farm, located at:

S3749 Schneider Rd. 

Rock Springs, WI 53961.

If you would like to register for the workshop, I can accept payment online via paypal, or you can put a check in the mail. Either way, drop me a note at this email address and I will put your name down! 

I will also be teaching two painting classes at the Peninsula School of Art. The June 3 and 4 class is FULL.

June 3, 4 https://public.peninsulaschoolofart.org/public/WorkshopSelect.faces

September 13, 14 https://public.peninsulaschoolofart.org/public/WorkshopSelect.faces

Thank you for allowing me to share my paintings and my classes with you. I look forward to seeing you soon.

Thanks,

Kyle Martin

 

2019 Workshops

Hello, Spring is FINALLY here! It is my favorite time of year, there are so many nice days ahead of us! I am getting ready for a workshop at my farm in June.  Painting outdoors is a great and worthwhile activity. There are so many reasons that artists love to work directly from nature, en plein air. Nothing beats setting up your easel in front of nature, mixing colors on your palette and working on a canvas. The birds sing to you while you mix and paint the vivid colors of the landscape. As you make brushstrokes on your canvas the country air refreshes you, and at some point you realize that you are truly living in the moment. I teach classes that will give you the skills that you need to confidently get outdoors and paint. I have worked with so many amazing students over the years, and have seen them create striking paintings. I have had people come to my chicken coop studio who have not painted since their school days, that left with tears of joy because they never thought that they could paint. It just took a class to show them that they could. I want you to succeed. I have put together a curriculum that shows you what you need to pay attention to, and allows you to forget about everything else and immerse yourself in your artwork. My workshops are perfect for the absolute beginner, who wants to try out plein air painting for the first time because the concepts are easy to grasp. The classes are also perfect for advanced painters, because the concepts can be infinitely built upon. If you are an beginner, and do not have supplies, I am offering a supplies package to use one of my easels and all the supplies you need for the weekend class for only $25. This is a great opportunity to give it a try! I want to check in, about some calendar dates, with those of you who are thinking about taking a class. If you have any interest in taking one of my workshops, at my farm in Rock Springs, could you please send me an email to kylemartinfineart@gmail.com with which weekend works for your schedule?  June 15 and 16 Or June 22 and 23 I will also be teaching classes at the Peninsula School of Art. These dates are set, and the June 3 and 4 class is FULL. June 3, 4  https://public.peninsulaschoolofart.org/public/WorkshopSelect.faces September 13, 14 https://public.peninsulaschoolofart.org/public/WorkshopSelect.faces Thank you for allowing me to share my paintings and my classes with you. I look forward to seeing you soon.

New Paintings

I got a new camera, and used it to shoot images of a bunch of new work that I created over the winter. Some of them were created in the studio, but most of them were painted directly from nature.

One challenge that I had this winter, was not being able to use my umbrella. The umbrella that I use has to stake into the ground, and because the ground was frozen, I couldn't use it. In the past couple of weeks, we have had too much wind to paint with an umbrella, so I still have not had a chance to use it. 

The best days are yet to come. Spring is always my favorite time to paint. If you are interested in any of the work posted, would like to see more images of a certain peice, please email me at kylemartinfineart@gmail.com The prices that are shown include framing and shipping. 

Thanks for checking in with me!

Kyle

P.S. The settings that I used to get a good exposure for these shots were ISO 100, APERTURE at f/8 and compensating for shutter. I had the paintings on an easel, and the camera on a tripod. It was a sunny day, and the paintings and the camera were both in the shade when I took the shots. 

The photographs were then cropped and color corrected in photoshop, but they needed very little color correcting with those camera settings. When I zoom in on the images, I can see individual brushwork. It's been a journey to learn how to get good photo's of paintings, but this seems to work for me. 

Winter Forrest 16x20" $500

Autumn Bales - 11x14" $350

Door County Farm - 24x30" $800

Early Winter Sunset 9x12" $200

The First Day of Spring 12x16" $400

Winter Hoarfrost 5x7" Sold

Winter Morning 6x9" $125

The Last Day of Winter 12x16" Sold

Doty Street 20x24" Sold

Winter Farm 9x12" $200

Springtime in the Studio - 14x18" Sold

Sunflower Still Life - Pastel - 24x18" $550

Sunflower Still Life - oil - 24x20" $700

Oranges - 24x18" $600

Devils Lake Studebaker 9x12" $200

Winter Bales 9x12" - $200

Winter Farm 9x12" - $200

Schneider Road Moonrise 9x12" - $200

The Neighbors Place 9x12" $200

Hoarfrost - 9x12" $200

Hoarfrost Effect 9x12" - $200

Winter in the Spring Green Hills 9x12" - $200

Dark Skies 9x12" - $200

Dusk 9x12" - $200

Snowpile 9x12" $200

Sunset over the Eagles Nest 9x12" - $200

February Sunset 11x14" - $300

Dusk in February 11x14" - $300

The Neighbor's Tractor 9x12" - $200

Tractor Shadows 9x12" - $200

Winter Woods 9x12" - $200

Winter Forrest 12x12" - Sold

April

Terrytown Barns

It's a new month and a new beginning. April is my favorite month of the year. The painting above was created last April. I can remember painting that morning. The grass was green, but the air was still cool. Today it snowed all morning, and it is very muddy outside. By the end of this month, spring will be beautiful and I will be outside enjoying the nice weather.

After The Flood

In my last post, I was getting ready for a flood. The water did get high, but my house or my studio did not flood. I am feeling fortunate, but I know that some other people's homes probably did flood, and I also know that flooding on the Baraboo river is just the way that it is now.

I have been filming my experiences painting over the past couple of weeks. I'm putting the video's up on youtube. Here is one of the first, I'm looking forward to some nice painting weather to film my video's because this day was cold and windy. The light was nice though.

Flood Warning for the Baraboo River in Rock Springs

I am getting ready for another flood. The Baraboo river borders my farm. In 2008, we got a huge flood, which at the time was dubbed a 100 year flood. That meant, it was a flood that was supposed to come only every 100 years. Well, the floods are becoming more frequent.

In 2008, the flood water was inside the farm house, on the main level of the house. Last August, the flood water touched the bottom of the floor, and soaked the whole thing. The floors and furnace had to be replaced. 

Last year, I moved all of my paintings into the hay mow in the barn. They were safe and dry. However, I had a trunk of older paintings, stored in a shed, that I did not remember to move. These were paintings from 2008-2013. They all got ruined. 

Tonight, I am going to start preparing for the high water. I'll go into my chicken coop studio, and move everything into the hay mow. Then I'll make sure that there is nothing important in the milk house or the basement. I don't think I'll have to move much on the main level of the farmhouse, because I don't predict that the water will reach that height, and also, there's no place to put most of it upstairs. 

Who knows, maybe this will make for some good painting?

The Baraboo River is predicted to crest at 25.7 feet, which is a major flood.

On 6/11/2008 the river crested at 28.73 feet. On 8/31/2018 it crested at 27.60 feet. This Saturday, the Baraboo river flood is predicted to be two feet lower than last August.

This is the neighbors farm, in September 2018, after the flood already started to recede.

Here is my neighbor, Tim Harms, coming to pick me up in a canoe.

Tim Harms and I grabbed some paintings from my studio, that I took to Chicago during the flood.

I painted the flood last august. If you look closely, in the background, you can see the intersection of HWY 154 and 136 under water. This is downtown Rock Springs, which is pretty much vacant these days as it has been hit with floods several times in the past 10 years.

IT still looks like this outside, there is still snow and ice everywhere. However, the sky's are dark and it's pouring rain. I guess we will see what happens!