I had the opportunity to listen to a talk by painter Elizabeth Flood through the Mount Gretna School of Art a few weeks ago. Here are my notes from her talk:
- (in discussing outdoor painting one is) highly aware of the sensation of the weather
- when painting outside there is a feeling of connection to the place, and the other people who have been in that particular place.
-"works attempt to survey complex layers of usage, movement, violence and occupation which make up a particular site and anticipate future impact"
- painting the sensation of light and wind through urgent mark making and color
- adding pumice powder to oil paint- the paint is harder to move around the palette, the resistance of the material feels like digging, excavating, scrambling over the terrain
- Charles Burchfield painted the sensory experience- he would paint the weather over the course of a day and call them his “all day paintings”
- painting is a tracking of observations
- painting at night in low light- requires use of other senses
- sometimes paint multiple horizon lines, vantage points, and elevations to give a more real sense of being there and moving through space.
- went to Gettysburg to paint thinking “what does it mean to make a painting standing where so many people died?"
-At Gettysburg while painting, armed alt-right militias on July 4, cycle of violence and hate visible in the land and the actions around it.
- landscape painting can be important as a picture witness to the land