Nickelodeon Universe

Last night while my wife Heidi was taking a class at the Apple store I did a little painting in Nickelodeon Universe. Nickelodeon Universe is the theme park in the Mall of America. It is a great place to paint. It's indoor but mostly naturally lit by a huge glass skylight. It feels like painting outside without the challenges of the elements. I was sitting at a table on the second level looking down on the park. It was not real busy probably because it was a Monday. One of the best parts of painting the park are all the wonderful colors. Colors that I don't see when painting outdoors. Usually I need to dial back the vibrance of the colors when I paint outdoors to make the painting believable. Here I had to pump them up. This is the second time I painted in the park. The first was over the Christmas break of last year. I painted with my daughter Leah. The results weren't as good. Half way through the painting the park lights were turned off. Since it was evening I had to try to finish from memory. I am pleased with this one though. I did miss the company of my daughter though.

Approx 8"x10", Casein

Challenge Complete

12 Paintings in 24 Hours. Here are the 12 paintings I painted yesterday. I started at 6:30 am, Saturday and finished around 1:30 am, Sunday. All were completed in Scott County, Mn in less than 24 hours. They are all Casein on paper. 

7:05 am Murphy Lake

7:53 am Frosted Sunrise

9:33 am Green House

11:33 am Edge of Wetland

12:09 pm White Barn

2:06 pm Depot

4:14 pm Bargain Betty

5:08 pm Sunset on Hills

6:51 pm Store Front

8:41 pm St John The Baptist

10:20 pm Late Shopping

11:38 pm Factory Steam

12 Paintings in 24 Hours

Tomorrow, Saturday November 26, I will be doing a 24 hour painting challenge.
At 7 am I will start a 24 hour plain air painting session where my goal is to paint 12 paintings. I will be staying in Scott County and try to paint in the cities of Prior Lake, Savage, New Prague, Jordan and Shakopee. 

I don't have a schedule of the places I will be at, Im' hoping to work my way from town to town stopping at places that catch my eye. I might chose a spot hoping to be able to paint two views. That may be hard though. I have several places in mind but won't limit myself to them. With travel time and setup I will have to paint quickly to complete the challenge. One painting on average every 2 hours is a bit ambitious. I think my best day out painting on the North shore was 6 paintings in a day, but that was in oil and for an easel. I plan on painting in casein and mostly from my car.. I'll stay in my car since the weather is not ideal for painting with a water based paint like casein. As the temp approaches 32° the paint will stiffen up and could freeze.
As the sun sets I will need to find places that are interesting and pretty well lit. I am thinking factories, grain elevators and shopping areas might give me the best options.

I love to paint so I am excited for this challenge but worry as the day ends I will get a little burt out and be quite tired. That will either decrease the quality of the paintings or force me to be more direct with my brush strokes and prevent me from over working a painting. I hope it will be the latter. With some luck I can gat a little ahead on the painting count during the day so I can be a little more relaxed for the evening. Not too relaxed, though, I don't want too fall asleep.

On Facebook I will be posting photos as I go of paintings and possibly locations all through the challenge. https://www.facebook.com/greg.preslicka

Also check back here for photos of all the paintings after I am done. Thanks

Studio Open House Painting Preview

Over the past several years i have been working on large studio paintings based on my plain air work.  December 2, 5pm to 8pm and December 3 10 am to 4pm I will be having a Studio Open House. It is a great opportunity to purchase view and purchase some of my latest work. These paintings are of places that made an impression on me. Some are places I have visited many times while others were once in a lifetime locations. While they were based on plain air paintings I adjusted the compositions to best convey the feelings I had when I painted them. Below are several of these paintings.

Quick Night Painting

I had an hour to kill while my son had basketball. Instead of making two trips I waited at the school and painted a quick painting. I really enjoy night painting. It adds another level of challenge to plein air painting. I painted this one in my car so I had some light from the interior lights. That helped greatly because usually I try to set up under a street light or lighted sign which have really bad color temperature and make the paints on my palette look off. That makes painting at night an exercise in painting warm and cool. Since I can't trust the colors I see on my palette or painting I paint cool areas with cool colors and warm areas with warm colors. Night paintings tend to be very high in contrast so it is important to get the values correct. I am happy with how this came out. I think I got an accurate representation of the street light lit corner. The subject is a little simple and the placement of the stop sign in the center aren't ideal but I am happy with my effort.

Corner Nocturne, Casein

St. Croix State Park

I might be biased but I think Minnesota has one of the best State Park systems in the country. This last weekend I went camping with my father-in-law and brother-in-law and a bunch of kids. We try to make it out a couple times a year and we typically camp at a state park. Having been to most of the parks in southern and eastern Minnesota I had never been to St. Croix. It was somewhat by accident we ended up there. I had wanted to go to Banning but it filled up before I had a chance to book a site. So we headed to St. Croix, which is just a little west and south of Banning. It must be one of the largest parks in the system. We drove over five miles into the park to just get to the campground and from there toy can drive over ten miles to the fire tower or lookout points on the St. Croix and Kettle Rivers. St. Croix State Park is home to many WPA built structures including: shower facilities, lodges, water towers and ranger stations all built with logs and stones. This painting is of one of those structures.

St. Croix WPA Building, Casein, 9"x12"

Montgomery and Lonsdale

This morning I was fortunate to have a little time to enjoy the beautiful day painting. I again headed south to familiar areas. Montgomery, the "Kolacky Capital" was my first stop. I have painted here before but it has been a little while. I love the old buildings that line the main street. It has a timeless look. Accept for the car this painting could have been painted fifty or sixty years ago. I painted in the car because I left my tripod in the studio, which was fine, but I forgot that with the car I was in the lights stay on if the keys are in the ignition. So when I was done, a couple of hours later, the battery was dead. With the help of a nice elderly woman I contacted Dave's Cafe and Garage and got back on my way.

Ash Av., 9"x12", Casein

Next stop was in Lonsdale. Every rural southern Minnesota town seems to have a grain elevator of feed mill that look like these with the grey metal sides. I think they are the architectural equivalent to the 'grout-fit'.

Feed Mill, 8"x10", Casein