Aurene Lane West, Corning NY - SOLD

Aurene Lane West, Corning NY
acrylic on wood panel 3/4" thick (cradled)
9"x12"
Chris Breier © 2017

What I like most about visiting the glass museum in Corning NY is watching live glass blowing demonstrations. On my last trip to the museum, I realized that the demos at the end of the day were more elaborate than usual. I don't know if this was an official program or something the glass artists did to alleviate the boredom of making simple vases all day long. During one of these extended demonstrations I watched two of the glass blowers collaborate on making a very large platter that contained a lot extra details. Glassblowing is a fascinating medium, there are numerous inventive techniques for creating shapes in glass and I'm always surprised at how they arrive at the final design.

Watkins Glen

Watkins Glen
Pen and ink, and watercolor on paper
8”x10”
Chris Breier © 2017

Watkins Glen is a great place to visit during the summer. I like to eat lunch by the water and then take a boat tour of Seneca Lake. This drawing is of the boats docked at the marina. I used pen and ink for the drawing and then applied washes of Payne's Grey watercolor. I used the Payne's Grey because it has a slight blue tint which I thought would be more interesting than the neutral gray that I get from ink.

Main Street Canandaigua

Main Street Canandaigua
Watercolor
8”x10”
Chris Breier © 2015

The original painting is for sale. It was the thin slivers of alternating shadows and sunlight that first caught my attention when I was walking down Main Street in Canandaigua NY. The buildings in this area are historic and they contain a lot of interesting shops. As I was walking I noticed painting in the window of an art gallery and spent a few moments contemplating how the artist painted it.

This painting was challenging because there was a lot of detail in the original scene. I placed most of the emphasis on the sidewalk and the shops on the right. I was tempted to add more detail to the cars but I realized that would be a mistake because they would compete with the rest of the painting.

An Afternoon at Canandaigua Lake

"An Afternoon at Canandaigua Lake"
Ink on watercolor paper
5”X7”

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I have painted the historic boathouses on Canandaigua Lake before but I thought I would try working in black and white this time. I enjoy drawing in ink because it allows me to exaggerate the tonal ranges more than I can with color. I left the white of the paper for the plastic chairs and I used this as an effective counterpoint to the pure black shadows of the boathouses on the right. 

There's a time lapse video of the entire drawing process below (click read more). You’ll notice that I start drawing directly and ink and don’t bother with sketching it out in pencil. I don’t worry about making mistakes because I just draw right over them. These corrections can make the drawing more interesting because of the additional lines but sometimes the the mistakes are covered up by the subsequent washes of ink. 

 

Boathouses (SOLD)

These boathouses were built in the 1850’s and are a historic part of Canandaigua. This painting is almost like two paintings in one because the bottom half is a mirror image of the top half, although it’s wavy and distorted. Architecture is usually more difficult to paint than nature images because the proportions and shapes have to be accurate. Add a reflection beneath the architecture and then you’ve got yourself a challenging painting!

Canandaigua Lake

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This is a view of Canandaigua Lake from Kershaw park. It was right after it rained and there was a lot of moisture in the air which made the distant hills appear fainter. I was lucky because the storm passed through quickly and then the sun came out.

Some interesting facts about the lake from Wikipedia are: it’s 16 miles in length and 1.5 miles wide, the average depth is 127ft and the maximum depth is 276ft. Also, Humphrey Bogart spent a few summers there at his parents cottage when he child.

Boats, Seneca Lake

Boats, Seneca Lake
8”x10” Acrylic on Paper
Chris Breier © 2014

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When I started this painting I knew that it was going to be difficult because of all of the complicated boat shapes. What make them difficult to paint is that they’re all white or off white which means that I have to create those shapes with a limited range of values (the value of a color refers to how light or dark it is). It’s much easier to define shapes if there’s a sharp edge with contrasting colors and values, such as a dark blue shape next to a bright yellow.

Watkins Glen Boat Harbor

Watkins Glen Boat Harbor
Acrylic on paper
8”x10”
© Chris Breier 2014

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I’ve painted Seneca Lake many times and I never become bored with it. I think the clouds are the most successful part of the painting. I got the colors of them just right with the muted blue/purple and the brighter warm whites on the tops. The sky can often be the most difficult part of a painting because sometimes there’s nothing interesting going on in the sky and I have to exaggerate or fabricate what’s there. The other problem is that the clouds and color gradations have to look spontaneous and not too fussed over.

Some of the motivation for creating this painting was an experiment to try to give the impression of a boat harbor without going into all of the minute details of every single boat. I did pick out a few of them and some details. This is always the challenge- to keep the painting spontaneous and yet capture enough detail to make it look believable.

Seneca Lake

Seneca Lake
Acrylic on paper
3.5"x2.5"
©Chris Breier 2013

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This was fun to paint because of the colorful reflections in the water. There’s enough contrast between the highlights of the boat and the dark greens of the trees that it makes the water look shiny and reflective.

There are some industrial buildings in the background, I’m not sure what those are used for but there’s a boat dock in front of them. The red and blue sails of the boats add some contrast to the duller colors of the buildings.

I took a number of pictures of this building and a few of them had boring compositions. I don’t like it when there’s a horizon line exactly in the middle of the painting. It’s better to divide the space up into unequal parts. The rule of thirds is commonly referred but I think it’s better to aim for asymmetry of any kind.

Greg Alberts' book The Simple Secret to Better Painting covers this concept in great detail. The secret is to never make two intervals the same. While this may sound simple the author covers how it applies every aspect of painting. I have used these principles to find and correct weak areas in my paintings.