Painting All Over, Here and There

Weekly, weather permitting, John Mac Kah and a group of dedicated students, meet to paint on location from the French Broad River to the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Mac Kah has painted views of Cold Mountain in Haywood County over 30 times since 2000 when he moved into his studio on Riverside Drive, at Cotton Mill Studios.

“Once you identify Cold Mountain’s peak, it’s hard to miss. It keeps cropping up, but sometimes it’s inaccessible and hard to find a place set up. I’ve driven all over looking for vantage points. Sometimes, it seems as if the mountain is playing hide and seek.”

Plein-air painting, originally studies for larger work, came into its own with new pigments, tube paints and better brushes in the early 18th century and is often equated with Impressionism. In practice, it began earlier. The term simply means in “open air.” Train travel got artists out and away from smoky cities, and American painters were documenting the New World using techniques of observation and rendering in the Dutch tradition. A landscape might serve as a window full of light that would glow in lamplight.

“He was accustomed to emerge… carrying a large easel… and then suddenly to plant himself down nowhere in particular, behind a barn, opposite a wall, in the middle of a field. The other painters were all astonished at Sargent’s never ‘selecting’ a point of view, but he explained it in his half-articulate way. His object was to reproduce precisely whatever met his vision without the slightest previous ‘arrangement’ of detail; the painter’s business being, not to pick and choose, but to render the effect before him, whatever they may be.”  ~ Sir Edmund Gosse, on John Singer Sargent (1856-1925)

Hudson River painters were equally interested in the technical issues of atmospheric effects and the new colors but handled oils in a different way. Their goal was to create luminescence building layers and glazing. Sargent and Whistler, both Americans in Europe played an important part for both sides of the Atlantic in the later evolution of moody, smoky and expressionistic effects of Tonalism.

With the Civil War and the recession that followed, southern paintings were relatively rare. Winslow Homer travelled to Florida and Cuba. Sargent was invited to the Biltmore House and painted portraits of the family and of Frederick Law Olmstead who designed the grounds and gardens in 1898. It is a sympathetic portrait of an old man leaning on a cane, blending into the rhododendrons and mountain skyline.

In John Mac Kah’s studio and plein-air classes, students are encouraged to learn ‘the painter’s craft’, the DIY of oil painting. They prepare oil-varnish mediums, their own panels and canvas and to fuse oil and acrylics for some special effects. The intent is to take advantage of oils longevity and luminosity.

“Some people have asked me if oils are toxic. All paints can have components that can be harmful. I teach good practice in use of traditional materials all derived from nature…sourced from wood, earth, plants and animals. Safe handling is common sense. We recycle and dispose of waste materials with respect for the environment. And when we paint on site, we don’t leave trash or trespass.”

He maintains a busy weekly schedule of studio classes in all levels from drawing to still life, and weekend workshops. Saturday is plein-air day and open to all levels. We are excited to have Alisa teaching after-school classes for children over 10.

To view Kah’s paintings, drop by The Grand Bohemian Gallery, 11 Boston Way in Biltmore Village, or visit www.grandbohemiangallery.com. For a complete class schedule and portfolio, visit www.JohnMacKah.com

John Mac Kah
Cotton Mill Studios, River Arts District Asheville
122 Riverside Dr., 28804
828 225-5000, www.johnmackah.com