Rolling into Spring

Unfortunately, I won’t be able to run the DRILLS/Alla Prima classes this Spring, but I am excited to be hosting another Landscape Painting Workshop here in Santa Fe in May.

The main workshop will be five days of Plein Air Painting (May 5-9) as we venture out into beautiful locations in and around Santa Fe. For those interested, there is an option to stretch out the workshop for an additional week (May 12-16).

Click here for more info & registration.

The Kitchen (Ghost Ranch) | Oil on Linen 2025

Art Santa Fe | Works For Sale | Autumn Landscape Painting Workshop

For most of my painting education/career I wasn’t very interested in painting the landscape (strange, given the awe I have always felt for nature’s sublimity). My first attempt in Santa Fe during the winter of 2008 found me cursing my frozen fingers and a particular tree that seemed to get a kick out of dropping snow on me and my palette. It wasn’t until a decade later when I met my (now) wife Jillian - and when I found out it was something she enjoyed doing - that I started to get into it. I had to pull out all the stops if I was going to gain her favor. My love for landscape painting grew as I fell deeper in love with Jillian (It’s several years on, and now our 20 month old daughter Sylvie paints outdoors with us occasionally…and she loves it - I’m sure she’ll have more Instagram followers than me in no time).

Plein air painting became a particularly great activity during the pandemic, and all that time outside (diving into a 100 landscapes project) was a great opportunity for me to get better and to balance out my overall studio practice. Needless to say, a collection of sketches, studies, demos and dust have been building up in my studio over the past few years. I decided to blow off that dust, mount, sign, varnish the paintings, and re-open a storefront gallery here on my site (Each piece for sale is floated in a wooden handmade frame, thanks to my dad… In truth, “thanks” isn’t nearly enough for all the beautiful work he’s done! I should probably take him out for lunch). I will be offering signed, dated & numbered limited edition giclee prints for several of the sketches as well.

Handmade Frames by my dad, Dwayne Hall

ART SANTA FE | July 12-14 2024

For anyone who is interested in seeing this ensemble of work in person (always ideal!), I’ll be exhibiting the landscapes in booth #128 at the Santa Fe Convention Center from July 12-14. Click here for tickets, and more information about the show.

Painting is the fun part. In general, I’d much prefer numb fingers and falling snow to having to promote myself and my work, but it’s certainly an aspect of my career that needs some balancing out as well. Wish me luck… and come say hi!

Argentonnay Sketch 2019

…And lastly, I’ve finally decided on dates for my Autumn Landscape Painting Workshop here in Santa Fe:

Part 1 | En Plein Air - November 7-11 & Part 2 | In the Studio - November 12-16

We will be spending the first five days painting the landscape from various locations in and around Santa Fe. The focus will be primarily on creating color and compositional studies that will inspire our second five days of in-studio paintings. Enroll for each session separately, or sign up for both parts (and save $200).

Follow the links above or visit the Workshops page for more info and registration, and be sure to visit the Calendar page to find out about other upcoming courses.

Finally had a little time...

…to wrap up this studio painting of Argentonnay in France (Home of Studio Escalier, where I’ll be teaching figure drawing and painting again this Autumn). The project was an opportunity for me to celebrate a place that I have deep reverence for, and to start producing more ambitious studio work. Speaking of which… peering out from behind the homasote is another project that I’m eager to get back to.

Beyond the studio walls, I’m eyeing the week of October 28-Nov 1 as potential dates for the next Plein Air Painting workshop (in and around Santa Fe). I’ll do my best to make that official and to get registration up on the website ASAP.

2024 Plein Air Classes

I’m excited to announce that I’ll be teaching several plein air painting classes in 2024:

First off is a weekend getaway in Del Mar, CA hosted by Sicily Artist Retreats (March 1 - 4)*. I absolutely loved my time with them in 2022, and am honored to have been asked to teach for them again in California. Visit the Sicily Artist Retreats website for more info & class registration (be sure to check out their other courses in Sicily as well!).

Note* This workshop has been postponed (new dates TBD)

Next, I’ll be offering five days of landscape painting in and around Santa Fe, NM (March 11-15, 9:30am - 4:30pm …bring your own lunch/snacks!) as we begin our transition from winter into Spring. Follow this link for more info & class registration.

On the horizon is an Autumn landscape painting workshop here in Santa Fe (dates TBA - looking like early November).

(…and visit the 2024/25 calendar for more opportunities)

Updates

Once again, it’s been a while since I’ve updated my website (half a year?!)…

I recently returned from a lovely work/honeymoon in Sicily with Jillian, some dear friends & Sicily Artist Retreats (honored to be teaching for their pilot painting workshop) - hoping to get back there in the future for more site seeing, plein air painting & (course after course of) incredible food.

I finally updated my teaching calendar as well - Online and in Person workshops coming up!

75 of 100 Landscapes 2020 | Paintings for sale

My current count is at 75 paintings - I was maintaining my stride through July, but the project has had to take a back seat to a number of other priorities since then. My goal is still to reach 100, but I’ve decided to grant myself a little more flexibility with the self-imposed January 1st deadline.

The real joy has been getting out and spending time in this amazing landscape (occasionally, I’ll even return home with a painting I’m feeling proud of). So… for now, I’ve decided to sift through the 75 and just showcase my unsold favorites > see them here

Half way there

(plenty of work for sale) http://www.mtobiashall.com/100-landscapes-1

I’m halfway through my 100 Landscapes project - basically, something I’ve been doing on the side… an excuse to spend time meditating on this awe inspiring Land of Enchantment. I was hoping that I’d be able to do a number of studies from France this summer as well, but I guess the global pandemic had other plans. For now, I’ll keep chipping away at these quick sketches and savoring the fresh high desert air. I’m not sure if, or how, the project will evolve over the next months (I’m definitely feeling an urge to work bigger and to take some of the landscapes further). Regardless, I’ll continue to updated my progress.

(For those of you who have already bought a piece, I should be getting some aluminum panels so I can mount the paintings soon - thanks for your patience with me!)

Turbulence (Part 2)

I’m happy to say that the Turbulence Project raised over $1000, and the proceeds have been donated to various organizations that are fighting to end racism and to lift us all through awareness, community and activism:

Black Lives Matter
Black Visions Collective
NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People)
NAACPLDF (NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund)
G.L.I.T.S (Gays and Lesbians Living In a Transgender Society)
Advancement Project
Campaign Zero/We the Protestors
Black Table Arts
ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union)
Sybrina Fulton Campaign

But it goes without saying that this fight for a better and more just world will take a lot more of our collective awareness and action. With conscious effort, we can all engage and contribute to a more beautiful whole.

I will leave the project open, painting and posting clouds from time to time in honor of all who continue to face racism, discrimination, and violent injustice on a daily basis.

My most sincere thanks to those of you that helped me raise the funds and also to those of you who are making an effort for positive cultural evolution.

A (Small) 2020 Project

As a small side project for 2020, I thought I’d challenge myself by making a commitment to doing 100 landscape painting sketches. Painting outdoors has become a favorite part of my overall painting practice over the past year, and I’ve noticed that its slightly more visceral and spontaneous requirements have positively affected other aspects of my creative experience.

As further incentive, I thought I’d make the studies available to purchase here on my website. I’d like to keep the paintings as consistent as possible (oil on linen, mounted on panel, 5”x7”ish, $250 ($2020 seemed a bit much) + tax & shipping).

Another thought I had was that a painting could be bought in advance (I’ll be numbering each of the 100 paintings, so for instance, some adventurous spirit might want to call dibs on #47 prior to my painting it. I’ve seen this done before on other blogs/websites… and I really like the idea).

It will be fun to see what happens… I should get to work.

Happy New Year!

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