Tennessee River Serenity

To celebrate his 46th wedding anniversary, Tommy Thompson decided to do some plein air painting while his wife, the writer, wrote this blog post. In rural Lauderdale County, AL, we are blessed with many creeks (like the Cypress and Shoals Creeks), lakes (like the Wilson, Wheeler, and Pickwick Lakes), and the Tennessee River, which provide an abundance of subject matter for plein air painting excursions. We remember well the sage advice of the master painter, Ned Mueller, during the 2003 Scottsdale Artist School/Plein Air Painters of America workshop in Old Lyme, CT. Mueller said, "It does not matter what subject matter you choose to paint; what matters is your perspective--the idea you are conveying."

In other words, when you paint like Tommy Thompson, you begin with one compelling idea or theme and focus on that. For example, he studies the effects of light on the subject. The play of light on elements of a landscape--trees, marshes, water, bogs, grasses, and reeds--can be extremely dramatic. As a painter advances in his painting skills, he is compelled to capture not an entire scene but only that portion of a scene that "tells" his story.



"My purpose in painting this scene was to capture the serenity, the quiet mood of this river scene," Thompson says. "There were no sounds other than those of the buzzing of insects and the bubbling water created by splashing fish and geese. I focused on the patterns created by the light on the trees and the large mozaic patterns of algae on the water's surface."


When you squint as master painter Kevin Macpherson teaches, you can see the main "puzzle pieces" of the composition of this painting. This attention to the large masses is the foundation of all good landscape painting. The "puzzle pieces" of this scene are similar to a marshy area that Thompson painted in Old Saybrook, CT, near the home of the late actress, Kathryn Hepburn.

In creating "Tennessee River Serenity," Thompson painted "thick over thin" using a palette knife, with his Open Box M stationed near a rusty old iron bridge overlooking a tributary feeding the Tennessee River. The marshy area in this scene is home to a family of Canadian geese that were swimming about almost oblivious of their human observers.





To order this painting, click on this link: "Tennessee River Serenity." To see other paintings by Thompson, click on http://www.tommythompsonart.com/

"Beer Sellar"

"Beer Sellar" represents a little nook in downtown Nashville that caught the artist eye of Tommy Thompson. His wife Marie at first could not see what the artist saw in this almost nondescript building until she remembered a statement from Ned Mueller, whom they had met in Old Lyme, Connecticut, at a Scottsdale Artist School Workshop, conducted by the Plein Air Painters of America. Mueller cautioned the artists not to dismiss any seemingly insignficant object or part of an object as the subject of a painting. He said that they should consider painting a portion of a building or a window or doorway. The famed artist John Singer Sargent once said that everywhere he looked he could see a painting. "Beer Sellar" was one of Thompson's contributions to the Tennessee Art League's exhibition, "Seeing Nashville Through Different Eyes."

Tommy Thompson--"Morning at Maggie Valley"

Maggie Valley, North Carolina, is located near the Smoky Mountain National Park. It is known for the 318 curves on the road through the Valley. It was on this road that we found this rustic barn and silo. "Morning at Maggie Valley" is a studio piece that was created using a field study painted onsite. The field study was critiqued at Old Lyme, Connecticut by Plein Air Painters of America (PAPA) artist, Ned Mueller , who praised the small painting's "color harmony and its good use of principles." I created the studio piece using the smaller field study and reference photographs. I used a simple pallet of red, yellow, blue and white (cadmium yellow light, cadmium red light, alizirin crimson, ultramarine blue, and titanium white).In his book, Landscape Painting: Inside and Out, Kevin Macpherson emphasizes what I have also found to be true. "Color harmony is almost automatic when you use a limited palette," says Macpherson. "Once they (the primaries) are mixed, it becomes possible to find harmonies among the mixtures." This 16 x 20 oil on canvas painting sells for $950.00 and can be purchased at this link.