Category Archives: Painting Trips

Ireland

The updates have been slow lately, as it’s been an extremely busy couple of months. I was a visiting artist at the Pennsylvania Academy of Art in Philadelphia in March, and spent early April preparing for a 6 week artist residency in Ballycastle, Ireland with the Ballinglen Arts Foundation.

After worries over airport closures due to volcanic ash, and the long trek from California, I made it to Ireland and finally to County Mayo. It’s such a lush and beautiful country. The colors are rich and deep, and full of atmosphere and drama so different from the stark, sharper light of California. The skies are constantly changing, revealing subtle color dynamics as whole portions of the landscape drift in and out of view and in and out of focus.

I arrived in Ballycastle to a great little cottage just up the road from the studios, and did a bit of drawing, but really just took a few days to explore and soak up the environment, the light and the color before getting out in the landcape with my paints.

It’s only about a 2.5 mile walk to the Atlantic ocean from the studios, past pastures and a graveyard down to empty beaches and up to the great sea cliffs at Downpatrick Head.

I’ll be posting paintings and drawings here over the next couple of months, but until then I’ve posted a few random photos on my Flickr site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/25783201@N05/

The Lebowski paintings are coming along, with one painting painfully close to being finished before I left for Ireland, but it still needs a bit more work when I return later in the summer.

More soon…

Big Sur

Big Sur, Noon looking North • Joe Forkan 2009 oil on panel 13" x 8"

Big Sur, Noon looking North • Joe Forkan 2009 oil on panel 13″ x 8″

In late October, I had the opportunity to take a painting trip to Big Sur with Andrew Dickson and Eric Merrell, two Southern California artists also interested in landscape painting. It was four solid days of painting, camped less than 50 yards from the bluffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

Big sur joe forkan

Big Sur, Midday Fog • Joe Forkan 2009 oil on panel 15.5″ x 8″

It’s interesting to paint with other artists, seeing how they approach the same subject – technically, formally, and also in terms of how they see. Each of us was using the interpretation of the landscape to explore something different.

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Rough Surf, Big Sur • Joe Forkan 2009 Oil on panel 15 x 7.5

Film critic Roger Ebert once wrote, “it’s not what the film is about, it’s how it’s about what it’s about.” I think that is also a fairly concise way of speaking about the challenges of perceptually based painting. The subject can often be confused with the content, and the intent of the painting (the conversation one is having about the subject, about perception and process – the act of painting). I actually find painting in beautiful places to be more difficult, as the tension and balance between picture and painting (between what and how), can be more difficult to maintain.

Europe 2009

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Chateau Blonay, Switzerland • Joe Forkan 2009 Oil on panel, 10 x 10

I took a painting trip to Europe this summer. These paintings are two of several that I finished on site while there. Chateau Blonay was painted over the course of many days from the balcony of a friend’s place in Blonay, outside Vevey, Switzerland. The weather and light change very quickly in this area as it sits in the Alps just above Lake Geneva. You have to be very patient, and constantly ready to flee the rain while working.

Outside Siena was painted in an olive grove looking across a valley in Tuscany. This painting was more direct and painted in a single session. The variations in light and color were remarkable. The colors in Italy were much warmer, and very different from the cooler light in the Alps. It was interesting to watch the shifts while taking the train from Switzerland south to Italy.

Outside Sienna • Joe Forkan 2009 Oil on panel, 10 x10

Outside Siena • Joe Forkan 2009 Oil on panel, 10" x 10"

There are about 20 more small paintings in the studio that I began in Switzerland and Italy that I am still reworking .