American Artist’s Weekend With the Masters Workshop & Conference will be arriving on the sunny shores of Southern California this September 22-26, in our second-annual presentation of this four-day event. Workshops, demos, lectures, panel discussions, and evening events from more than 25 instructors will be held at the Laguna Cliffs Resort & Spa, and plein air classes will take place either at nearby beach locations or on the grounds of the resort itself.

Photographers have coined the term “The Golden Hour” to explain the ideal lighting situation that takes place during the first and last hours of light each day. Plein air painters have an equal admiration for this time of day and find the quality and character of light to be well worth the challenges of trying to quickly capture it on canvas. Here is an overview of the scientific explanation of what is happening during the Golden Hour and some tips for painting it.

California landscape painter Frank Serrano is a popular instructor of plein air painting, generously sharing his knowledge and experience with students and helping them develop a foundation in the fundamentals of painting outdoors. Here we present two step-by-step demonstrations, taken from his book Plein Air Painting in Oil (Walter Foster Publishing, Laguna Hills, California), as well as a downloadable PDF of an expanded excerpt from the book. 

Our Plein Air: Showcase Your State competition allows artists from all over the country to share paintings and personal sentiments about the landscapes they love with the American Artist online community. We are now accepting entries for the state of North Carolina, and finalists will be announced in July.

New York artist Edward Minoff wrote an article that will appear in the July/August issue of American Artist on his approach to creating a large-scale landscape in the style of the Hudson River School painters. The resulting painting Waves is presented here, along with some of the artist’s commentary.

American Artist is now accepting Showcase Your State submissions for artists residing in the state of Massachusetts. The submission deadline is April 31, and finalists will be announced in May.

Joseph McGurl grew up under his talented father’s artistic tutelage while cultivating a passion for boating and a love of the sea. This early influence, coupled with years of hard work and practice, have made him one of today’s foremost landscape painters, and in this interview he shares his knowledge, experience, and insight on the art of painting nature.