Plein Air Class,The Value of Starts,Smoked Salmon Canapes

Painting of the Day



Santa Fe River Cypress
4x6 inches
gouache on acid free mat board
Mounted to 5x7 for easy framing

40.00
2.00 shipping

Today is my Plein Air Monthly class. I'll show you some photos tomorrow. I always look forward to this time with my students. We use a variety of mediums on location. I have acrylic, watercolor and oil painters. Once in a while I even get pastellists. I'm going to take my gouache out for the class. I'm giving them a serious test run before the Epcot Paint Out. I am considering taking the gouache to Epcot as my only medium. It will be quick and easy, with fast drying. I thought I would take the 4x6 mat panels with me and just turn out a few little paintings each day. This year we are to be allowed to sell them right off the easel. I think that I will be more likely to sell small water based paintings than oils. Too messy. I can just slip the little panel in bags and it will be easy transportation for buyers. I have the flat brown bags like stores use, so they should be very safe that way. I may even cut 5x7 too. They would make a nice little keepsake for some one's trip to Epcot.


Today we are going to focus on "Starts" for our plein air lesson. I believe that starts are sorely neglected in painting. Everyone has a tendency to rush through the start of the painting, trying to get to the good part with lots of pretty details. I tend toward the opposite method. I like to take more time on the start and composition than the end of the painting. My thoughts on starts are that they are the skeleton/structure/design of a good painting. If you don't take your time with the beginning, you can't have a good ending. That is one reason I'm a better studio painter than plein air. In the studio, I have time to think it through and analyze the possible options before I get too far into the painting. That is so much harder to do, especially during the pressure of a paint out.


One of the ways to improve on location is to get into the habit of doing starts regularly. There are other wonderful advantages to this habit. I travel a lot and often see beautiful places, with little free time to paint. I have learned to start multiple paintings at various location in my travels. The trick with starts is to record just enough information to get the composition, direction of light, value structure and basic local color and temperature/atmospherics. This can all be done quite quickly if you are concentrating on making a road map for yourself rather than thinking about doing alla prima painting. You will also get much more production out of your painting trips by doing starts. I might get four starts on paintings in the time I would take to complete one alla prima painting.


I don't see alla prima as optimal. I would much rather do partial paintings to finish at a later time in my studio. Really, the only time I do alla prima work is at professional paint outs. It is important and necessary to handle wet paint well at paint outs, and so I use paint outs to study alla prima technique. Since I don't really like alla prima, the paint outs force me to study that method, so that's a good thing.

Today's Recipe


Smoked Salmon Canapes

This is a pretty easy recipe and it looks very impressive. It was one I used as a caterer.


Ingredients
3/4 cup unsalted butter
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for rolling
1/2 teaspoon salt/ dash of cracked black pepper
1 large egg plus 1 egg yolk
3 to 4 tbsp. ice water
5 to 6 oz. smoked salmon
8 oz cream cheese mixed with chopped dill and or chopped, seedless cucumber
2 1/2 tablespoons brined capers, chopped ( Optional )


Preparation
1. Cut butter into 1/2-in. cubes and freeze in a single layer until very cold, 10 to 20 minutes. In a food processor, whirl flour,pepper and salt until blended. Add butter and pulse on and off just until bits of butter are about the size of peas. In a small bowl, lightly beat egg and yolk with 3 tbsp. ice water. Add egg mixture, about half at a time, and pulse just until evenly moistened and holding together (you may need to add 1 more tbsp. ice water as you're pulsing).

You can make this dough by hand the old fashioned way like making pie crust. I don't have a food processor so that's the way I do it. Just make sure butter is cold from the fridge, not frozen.

2. Flatten the dough into 2 rough squares, each about 6 in. wide. Wrap squares in wax paper. Chill until cold, at least 1 hour and up to 3 days.

3. Preheat oven to 350°. Remove dough from refrigerator and let stand 5 minutes. Unwrap and, on a lightly floured surface, roll dough halves into 1/8-in.-thick squares, 10 to 11 in. each.

4. Transfer each square to a rimmed baking sheet and prick all over with a fork. Bake until medium brown, 25 to 35 minutes. Cool on pan, about 30 minutes. Spread with cream cheese mixed with a bit of chopped dill, Chopped cucumbers can be added as well,dividing evenly, and top with smoked salmon and capers. Cut into 2-in. squares.



Yield
Makes 25 servings