Paint Colors and Palette

Hello there~

I want to share what paints I use on my palette and what kind of palette I use.

I lay out my paints around the edge of the palette and use the same basic palette each time I paint.  I limit my palette to a small selection of warm and cool primary colors plus white.  Then I mix everything from these basic colors. 

The colors I use on my palette include:

Titanium White laid out in the two front corners of my palette.  One white is for warm colors and one is for the cool colors.
Cadmium Yellow Light - one for mixing with the reds and one for the blues.
Cadmium Red Light
Cadmium Red Medium
Ultramarine Blue - one for mixing with the reds and one for mixing with the yellow.
Primary Red-Magenta
Cerulean Blue

Here's my palette in the middle of working on a painting. 

I use a parchment paper palette that I make myself from paper I buy in the baking section of the supermarket.  I used to be able to buy the  parchment paper palettes from Tara when they made it in Georgia a few years ago.  Unfortunately, they wanted to focus 100% on canvas and discontinued all their other products including the parchment palettes.  I have looked high and low and even had a major supplier look into getting it, all to no avail.  I see where it is available in Europe and Australia but I cannot get it here in the USA.  I love the way the paint mixes and makes the parchment paper "glow".  I like the little bit of "give" on a thick pad of the parchment paper.  I tried other paper palettes with the waxy finish and found them totally unsuitable.  The wax eventually comes off in nasty balls while mixing the colors with the palette knives.

Thanks for tuning in.  I appreciate you following along!

Cheers,

Charlene

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Lilies and Coneflowers 112815 S 12x12

Lilies and Coneflowers

Today I am sharing how I made this lovely little 12" x 12" flower painting featuring lilies, coneflowers, and wildflowers from my garden.  I start with a tinted panel and then loosely sketch out the scene I want to paint.

Then I begin by painting darkest darks of the forest, trees, and green leaves of the flowers.  I pop in some of the color of the flowers.  I want the colors of the flowers to vibrate against the greens.

I start to add the lighter greens in the background and middle ground while adding more flowers and stems.

The lightest leaves are added in the foreground.  I mix up the sky with Titanium White and a bit of Cerulean Blue and block that in last.  I use a bit more of the same blue in the water that reflects the sky and put that in at the same time. 

I loosely criss cross the panel with stems and branches using the edge of a palette knife and a rubber tipped implement.  I add more leaves and stems and more details to the flowers.  I work quickly and intuitively adding flowers and dancing fairies to the painting.

I continue to work over the entire painting, pulling foreground flowers forward and pushing background elements back while adding more branches and leaves and flowers.  I step back often to see how the painting looks from a  distance and make adjustments accordingly.

Here is the finished painting:

Lilies and Coneflowers, oil on panel, 12" x  12", c. 2015, by  Charlene Marsh.  SOLD

Happy trails!

Charlene 

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Happy New Year 2016 Musings

Happy New Year!  Wishing you and your family many blessings in 2016!

Romanesco cauliflowers dressed up with raspberries to make mini Christmas trees.

I hope you had a fabulous holiday season and were able to make and share many happy memories with family and friends.  I know I did.  In fact, today, taking down the Christmas decorations, it was with a bit of nostalgic sadness.  Some years, I am relieved to finally take down the decorations, open up the space, and get back to normal.  Back to business.  I would get frustrated over the holidays when my suppliers and contacts were out of their offices and closed for days on end.  Not this year.  This year, I embraced the holidays and didn't even try to do any business. 
 

Picture from 2014 - so far no snow this winter!

I seem to have amassed a small collection of deer ornaments and this year decorated my tree, albeit a small tree, exclusively with the deer. As I packed them up, I wanted to find a place to put them out on permanent display.  I also imagined how they would make lovely little paintings for the next Christmas season.  And how wonderful and special it will be when I unpack them next year.  And so I kept packing them up in their box for now.

I tend to look forward more than I look back.  This fall I took two online marketing classes now that I am finally on high speed internet and have learned so much!  My brain is still processing and absorbing all the information!  I am so excited about the possibilities of how to structure my art business to better serve my collectors and would be collectors.  I am also excited to expand the possibilities of art to create and places to travel to paint.  

For the past fifteen years I have traveled extensively throughout the USA to art shows to exhibit and sell my paintings.  I love doing the shows and will continue to do so this year and in future years.  But it is hard to get back to every city every year where I have collectors who want to see the newest and latest paintings.  And it is hard to combine painting on location and exhibiting in the shows in the same trip.  And the shows take a lot of time and energy away from painting.

I have a farm with animals and gardens back home and am not one of these vagabond artists who likes to leave home for weeks on end.  A week away from home is about my maximum although there are times I have been gone longer.  Truth be told, I am a homebody.  So I am hoping, as the future unfolds, I can increase the availability of my paintings to my collectors, both new and old, via the internet. 

I look forward with excitement to 2016 and hope all the best for you and your family!  Eat good, healthy, fresh, organic, raw fruits and vegetables, get out in nature, in the fresh air, detoxify your home(yeah, I mean all those aerosols, scented candles and plug ins, bug repellents, toxic cleaners, air fresheners, etc.), do what you love and love what you do!  Take time to pray, think, and meditate.  And, last but not least, spend time with good people, both family and friends. 

I appreciate your encouragement and support over the years and value your friendship.   I look forward to seeing you again in 2016 either in person or online.  Thanks so much!  

Cheers,

Charlene

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Wet Panel Carrier Boxes

Someone recently asked:

"This is very amazing, how you create "en plein air".  I have a question, though.  Since you use oils, how do you transport your beautiful work back home without smudging, smearing, or downright destroying it?  Looking forward to your answer."

Great question!  I have special carrying boxes made by Raymar that have slots to slide the wet panels into for safe return home.  They come in all sizes and I have most, if not all, of them. The boxes are made with a water repellent foam core type board with air cells and are very sturdy and lightweight.

Each box can carry several panels but the weight will add up.  I only carry what I want to use on that painting expedition.  Many artists use the boxes while traveling and fill them up.  

A well used Raymar box.

I also just bought a new kind of carrier, ezPak, from ArtWorkEssentials.com, that is a thin wood frame with a 1/4" thick dividing rabbet.  Two wet paintings, face to face, can be carried.

ezPak wet panel carrier

I also made an 18" x 24" carrier myself from foam core because no one makes a box that big.

18" x 24", Artist made box.

18" x 24", Artist made box, open, with a panel inside.  Kelty backpack in the background.

Many of the boxes and frame carriers can accommodate more than one size. 
For example, a 12" x 16" box, being 12" wide, can also carry 12" x 12" or  9" x 12" panel.  Raymar came out with a 9" x 12" box that is smaller since it is a popular plein air painting size and reduces the bulk and weight of using a 12" x 16" box. 

The smaller panels and carrying boxes will fit inside my Kelty backpack while the bigger ones I carry by the strap slung over my neck and shoulders. 

Some pochades also come with slots on the backside for carrying wet panels but I prefer a separate box for the panels.  The slots can be limiting and add extra weight to the pochade.

I'd love to hear if anyone has experience with a different kind of carrier.  I know there are some other brands out there  that are more suited to specific needs like getting your paintings home when traveling by plane.

Wishing you a very Happy New Year and many blessings in 2016!  

Charlene

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Hollyhocks, Echinacea, Lilies, Daisies, and Queen Anne's Lace Code #121515 S 12x12

Let's end the year with a lovely flower painting! 

I first make a panel by cutting the hardboard into the size I want then sealing the panel with GAC 100.  I apply two coats of gesso to the front and back sides of the panel.  Then I tint the panel with a napthol crimson red acrylic paint.   Using alizarin crimson and cerulean oil paints thinned with cold pressed linseed oil, I sketch the initial drawing on the panel staying very loose with the drawing.  This preliminary sketch is used to place where I want the flowers and pool and birdbath to go and the basic structure of the painting.

I start with the darkest darks of the background trees and the foreground space.  I also pop in the pure reds and pinks of the flowers.

I have a rubber tipped implement -- looks kinda like an eraser tip -- to loosely add branches and tendrils.  I also put in the birdbath.  I work back and forth between the foreground and background as well as all over the entire surface at the same time.

Flowers are added and then pushed back or painted over and even painted out, in an ongoing "back and forth" play throughout the entire surface.

The finished painting, "Hollyhocks, Echinacea, Lilies, Daisies, and Queen Anne's Lace" next to a gold fish pool.  Oil on panel, 12" x 12", c. 2015. Code #121515 S 12x1.  SOLD.

I want to wish you a Happy New Year and many blessings in 2016!  I appreciate you very much!  You are the reason I continue to paint and create beautiful artwork to enrich our living spaces and lives!  Thank you for your interest and support over the years!  I plan to make 2016 the best year ever with more fabulous paintings!

Please be sure to sign up for my email newsletter in the upper right box so you can get a once a week email with new paintings in progress and also when they become available as well as upcoming shows, news, specials, info about classes and workshops, tools and gear, and fun insights into the life of an artist.  Thanks!

Cheers,

Charlene

Dad in Brown County

Loren Marsh on the front porch of his cabin in Brown County, Indiana, 1946-48.

Blog updated 12-22-15.

At a family gathering this past weekend, my sister gave me a packet of photos that had been stashed in our uncle's barn.  At first she tried to tell me this picture with our Dad was from the Philippines during WW II but I knew right away from the log cabin, the trees and the hills in the background that it was from my home, Brown County!  I was very excited to find this photo of my Dad, Loren Charles Marsh, sitting on the front porch of his Brown County cabin where he lived while attending law school one county over in Bloomington, Indiana.  Despite the numbers "44" written on the back, the photo must have been taken sometime between 1946 and 1948.

I got this email from my brother with updated and corrected information:

Hi Charlene,

1.  Dad tried to join the Navy after Pearl Harbor, but was rejected due to eye sight.  He graduated from University of Chicago in June, 1942 and was drafted into the Army after that.  He was not considered I-A.   I think he was I-B because of his vision.

2. He taught radar, which was secret and highly classified, in Norfolk, Virginia his first two years.  He told me that the army forgot about his classification sometime in 1943 or 1944 and shipped him to New Guinea and then the Philippines.   He said when they were at sea, they had to be very quiet and keep all the lights out.  Dad said he should have stopped smoking and used the cigarettes to start a laundry. He said he could have made a lot of money.  <<Side note:  Mom wouldn't marry a smoker so Dad quit before they got married.>>

3.  Dad did have appendicitis in the army.   I think it was around 1944.  I'm pretty sure he was not sent home.

4.  He also told me he got one combat star as he was on an island that had action on the other side.  I think I have it and some of his other WWII stuff.  In a soldier's parents' homes, a blue star was displayed for active duty and a gold star for a son killed in action.

5.  There were 16,000,000 men from the US in WWII and 250,000 were killed, which is around 1400 per week or 5600 per month.   Obviously, this was not advertised widely.   Grandma and Grandpa were very worried about Dad being killed in the war.

6.  He also told me that generally the Marines would go in first and the Army followed.  If the Army saw action, that meant the Marines were losing.

7.  He returned in January,1946.  He said he returned to the "world" by sailing under the Golden Gate bridge in SF.   He said the first thing he drank was milk and it was great.   Of course he had a beer after that.   He said it took months to get everyone out of the army.  After he landed in CA, he took a train home to Indiana.

8.  After he returned, he signed up for the GI bill, was admitted to IU Law School and went 2 1/2 years, graduating in 1948.  After graduation he returned to Muncie, met Mom, got married, started a law practice, and had us.

8.  As you may know, I have videos of Grandpa discussing WWI and Dad discussing WWII.  I need to get them edited, maybe with John Marsh's help.

9.  Dad died in 2007 and is buried at Butler, a military cemetery in Springfield, IL, dating back to the Civil War.

P.S.  Dad's favorite poet was JW Riley and artist TC Steele.

James Whitcomb Riley (October 7, 1849 – July 22, 1916)

Theodore Clement Steele (September 11, 1847 – July 24, 1926)

Love, Keith

Dad would speak fondly of his time in the Brown County Art Colony where he enjoyed hob nobbing with the artists and seemed to be particularly fond of Jack (Georges) LaChance.  He also knew Marie Goth, V.J. Cariani, and C. Curry Bohm, among others.  I am very proud to continue the legacy of Brown County artists that my Dad always spoke so highly of and was thrilled to be a part of in the hay day of the 1940's.  As far as I know, this is the only picture of him in Brown County during this time period.  I do not know who took the picture.

Loren Marsh in either New Guinea or the Philippines during World War II.

Sometimes I wonder if Dad retreated to Brown County to decompress after the war.  Commuting to Bloomington every day could not have been easy back then given the bad roads and distance and winter weather.

My Dad was a gentle, kind, friendly, sensitive soul so it doesn't surprise me to see all the photos of him socializing with the indigenous peoples and even holding their babies.  Growing up, whenever I would hear people disparage and joke about cut throat lawyers, I was always a bit mystified because my Dad, a lawyer, was such a good guy with more integrity in his pinky finger than most people have in their whole body! And it wasn't just a naive, starry eyed daughter's opinion.  Many folks have come to me in later years to tell me what a great guy my Dad was and all the wonderful things he did to help them.

If anyone has any additional information or corrections please contact me.  I plan to update this blog as I get new information.  

Please be sure to sign up for my email list (top right of this blog) or at www.CharleneMarsh.com to get updated info about shows, new paintings, exclusive offers when new paintings are available, work in progress, and fun stories like this one. 

Thanks for reading!  Happy Trails and Merry Christmas! 

Charlene

Poppies 112215 S 12x12

Poppies

I start the painting on a panel tinted with naphthol crimson and sketch the basic elements using a brush dipped in linseed oil and a cerulean and magenta mix.  I use a very limited palette when I paint and will cover that in another blog.

I paint 99% with a palette knife once the initial sketch is drawn.  The knife is great for mixing colors and applying the paint to the panel.  The panel provides a sturdy support for the vigorous knife work. 

I paint in the dark shapes first then the bright pure color of the flowers.

I cover the entire support with the basic colors and values before I go back in with details and fine tuning.

I add the final details and pull out any foreground elements.  The final painting:  Poppies, #112215 S 12x12, oil on panel.