(bright music) - Welcome to "Eric En Plein Air."

I'm Eric, and we're in Montclair, New Jersey, at Van Vleck House and Gardens.

I've actually been here many times before and it's one of my favorite places to paint, but I'm very excited to be back and to learn more about this beautiful area.

Let's go paint.

(bright music) We're all set up and ready to paint here at the Tennis Court Garden at Van Vleck House and Gardens.

And with every painting, we're gonna start with some drawing, and I'll talk more about the drawing, and then we'll start painting.

I have a 9 by 12 pad of watercolor paper.

We're gonna be working with watercolor.

And watercolor has a specific paper, so that's important to get squared away before we start.

We're gonna start with some sketching to map out the major areas of the composition and then we can start painting.

So the scene today is a beautiful fountain with running water and some beautiful green greens, pink flowers in the back.

It's early fall, so a lot of the flowers are not as in bloom as in the summer, but we still have some beautiful color and some beautiful scenes that we can get started with.

The first thing I'm gonna do is map out where to put the fountain, because the fountain is really our focal point.

It's good to have a focal point with a painting to map that out and then to build around that.

I have on my pencil an extender.

And this extender helps me to get more length on my pencil so that I can hold the pencil a little farther back.

I'm just trying to get the shape right of that fountain fixture, the proportion of it, and to try to get it looking accurate before we start painting.

And remember, if something isn't right, change it.

So if something doesn't feel right, erase it and then change the placement of it.

Those proportions look good.

You can change it a little bit when you're painting, but really try to get the drawing as accurate as you can so that way it will save you time once you start painting.

I have the fountain mapped in and now I'll add some of the greenery.

This is a very peaceful area and I love the sound of that fountain trickling.

I'm keeping my pencil kind of loose and holding it lightly.

You know, when we hold pencils for writing, a lot of times we hold them towards the point.

And that works great for writing, but when you're drawing, hold it a little bit looser and that way you'll get more of a feeling of looseness with your drawing.

(gentle music) And there's a tree, there's a large tree in the background.

And I'll just sketch that.

(gentle music) Okay, so that feels good for the drawing.

Now's a good time to take a break.

And let's learn more about the history of Van Vleck and the Montclair Foundation.

- Well, we are absolutely thrilled that the Van Vlecks chose in the late 1800s to come out of Brooklyn, where they were living and working, to what at the time in Montclair, was a vacation respite.

And they bought the land here, built the first house in the late 1800s.

The one that, Van Vlecks House now is from 1916, I think it is, that it was built.

But the family then lived here full time after that.

They left the city.

Montclair at the time was the place to go.

It's kind of like the Jersey Shore is now, I would say.

Howard Van Vleck was actually quite the horticulturist himself.

- Really?

Wow.

- Planted many of these trees and had his own vision for how it should all look.

And we've tried to respect that.

- Our organization, the Montclair Foundation, was founded back in 1979.

- Okay.

- And it was founded by three widows who had no heirs, and they wanted to give back to the community.

So they met with an attorney and formed this community foundation where we would give grants to local nonprofits twice a year.

And we've been doing that since.

For 45 years, we've granted over $3.8 million to over a hundred organizations.

And then back in '93, the family of Howard Van Vleck gifted us this beautiful house and six acre property.

- [Eric] Wow.

- [Anita] And we've been keeping it free and open to the public, 365 days a year ever since.

- One of his granddaughters got married here this summer.

So the family still comes around.

- Yeah!

- It's still important to them too.

- Yeah, of course, of course.

- [Catherine] And it's very, very nice for us, yeah.

- It is a very special place to the Montclair community.

Sometimes it's called the best kept secret.

(gentle music) - So I have a atomizer or mister bottle, and I like to use this to wet my paints.

And also you can use it to wet your paper before you put paint down to help it spread a little bit easier.

Right now the paper is very dry, so when you paint on it, sometimes it can feel a little bit sticky.

But I like to also use the atomizer on my palette to get my color starting to get a little bit fresher.

(mister hissing) So I'm starting with a large brush.

And I'm using a large brush because I want to cover a large area of paint.

So using a larger brush helps you cover a larger area of paint.

I have my paper towel in hand, and then that way I can use, if my brush gets too wet, I'll just dip it into my paper towel.

Sometimes with a painting it can be tricky to know where to start.

A good rule of thumb is to start with the larger areas.

So if you're starting with a sky or a landscape, start with big areas and then work towards detail.

A good mindset is just to think kind of big to small.

So I'm going to start with the fountain and then move to some of the green around it.

So I'm going to mix up some colors just to try to capture the colors that I see on that fountain, which is a blend of colors.

(gentle music) (water trickling) And I spritzed the paper so it's a little bit wet.

(gentle music) And I'm using a big brush, but that doesn't mean that I don't have control.

I actually have a lot of control because I'm using just the tip of the brush.

(gentle music) And I see some greenish tones, some brown.

(gentle music) And this is just the first layer.

So remember, we're gonna be building over top.

Remember to keep your brush kind of clean.

With watercolor, it's very important to have a clean brush.

If you don't know what's colors in there And then you go to make a mark, it will usually not be the color that you want and it will make your painting end up looking kind of muddy.

I'm still using the big brush and covering a lot of area at once.

And this is just kind of a grayish mixture.

It's more towards a black.

(gentle music) And with watercolor, we have the advantage of the transparency of the paint.

And we can go right over top of it.

I'll add a little bit around the fountain.

And watercolor dries pretty quickly.

But make sure that the paper isn't too wet when you go into other areas, because then those areas will bleed together, and that's not what you want because it can be kind of unpredictable.

All right, at this point, I'm going to switch from the big, big brush to the slightly smaller brush.

It's still pretty big, but I want to be able to get a little bit more control.

So I'm going to be using a slightly, a slightly smaller brush, but still pretty big.

And I'm gonna be using one of my favorite colors, which is Viridian green.

And Viridian green is really good for getting those deep green tones that we see in a scene like this.

So I'm using green and then I'm gonna use some yellow to mix into it.

And we're gonna test it out and see how it looks.

That looks pretty good.

And the foliage has sort of a spiky appearance to it, so I want to try to capture that using the tip of my brush.

(gentle music) Remember, keep thinking big.

Think of big shapes.

Don't worry about detail at the beginning.

(gentle music) And if you wanna change the color a little bit, just reach down into your palette and change the color.

(gentle music) And I'm thinking of the green shapes as one big shape, not individual shapes.

(gentle music) (water trickling) All right, that starts to get some of the green on the painting.

There's a lot of different types of green, so I want to try to get a variety of green.

And the way I can do that is by mixing more green or more blue into my mixture.

(gentle music) I just got a little bit of a drip, so I use my paper towel to correct it.

(gentle music) (birds chirping) We have some nice birds that are singing for us.

(gentle music) (birds chirping) (gentle music) Something important that I'm doing right now and I'm focusing on is using the brush to carve out what's called negative space.

So we have a fountain, but there's a shape around the fountain that I want to try to capture that space around the fountain by using the background to kind of sculpt the shape of it.

(gentle music) (birds chirping) There's also a bench, a wooden bench right behind the fountain.

And I have a choice, I could leave that in or I could take it out.

I think I'm going to take it out and create the scene without that bench because it's a little bit distracting in the painting to have a wooden bench directly behind the fountain.

And I love the shape of this fountain, so I really want to try to preserve that shape as best as I can, and try to be a little bit careful with it.

(gentle music) And I am just mixing the colors that I have on my palette, and I'm mixing them and changing them slightly.

If it needs to be darker, add more color.

If it needs to be lighter, add more water.

(gentle music) (water trickling) Remember, the light is going to change, so it's good to work at a good pace.

You don't wanna rush, but you definitely want to try to remember that the sun's gonna change and you need to work at a certain rhythm.

(gentle music) I'm going to switch to a smaller brush in a little bit, but I can still use this big one for the background.

(gentle music) Where we are now is what I would call the finished block-in.

So it's very loose.

It's not specific.

There's not really any detail.

But at this point I can go back and build on that detail by getting more specific, adding details, and then really developing the painting.

At this point, we'll take another break and we'll learn more about the educational programming here at Van Vleck and the Montclair Foundation.

And also, a really interesting kitchen garden that provides resources for a local food bank.

- We have grown, particularly actually since COVID.

Because people were looking for a place to go that was safe to bring their families.

And we started offering a lot of outdoor programming.

And our education classes have just blossomed since then.

- Here at Van Vleck we run programs for all different ages and abilities.

From pre-K3 all the way up.

We have a senior program as well.

Our programs really focus on nature and the environment and horticulture, and also, the arts and wellness, using the gardens as sort of an inspiration.

For our children's programs, we have field trips with different schools, we have family programs, preschool programs, scout troops, homeschool groups.

They come to the property to learn about different science, life science topics.

For our adult programs, we have a plein air painting class where they're out in the garden painting.

We have several different wellness classes: yoga, meditation, mindfulness, Qigong.

And then we also have different horticulture classes that we partner with different organizations to run.

This area right here is actually our outdoor classroom.

- [Eric] Wow.

- And our Butterfly Garden.

So in this spot over here, this is one of our teaching gardens.

So we talk a lot about pollinators, life cycles, pollinator gardening, the importance of the different plants that we have planted in here.

So the kids are out here with their magnifying glasses and their field guides, and, you know, really learning about all these topics by watching and observing.

(screen whooshing) - Our Kitchen Garden is a wonderful area for us to grow a lot of produce.

And you'll see some other plants that are symbiotic for some of the produce to grow too.

But our horticulturalist, Laura Roberts, has the greenest thumb ever.

And she has really cultivated this over the last few years to be able to harvest quite a number of vegetables and herbs and a lot of elements that we collect for our local food pantry.

Tony's Kitchen food pantry at St.

Luke's Church is a wonderful resource.

They started out as a very small grassroots group and have just blown up in terms of like how many people they have to serve.

So Laura will harvest this and bring it over.

And it ends up being about two to 300 pounds of vegetables and herbs a year, 'cause we have a lot of plant diversity across the whole entire property.

But it's nice to see also a lot of diversity in this vegetable garden as well.

- But it's just a wonderful spot, really.

There's so many nice little areas that they can, you know, find inspiration in.

- Yeah, and just, you know, I think one of the, kind of the main themes is that nature is sort of the ultimate teacher.

And just being able to study it in different ways, you know, horticulturally, artistically, creatively, and even kind of like spiritually in a way, just through meditation and the things you talked about too.

- People just really come here just to feel good.

When you're out in nature, you sort of forget about everything else.

- So I've switched to a smaller brush and comparing to the other brush, it's about half the size.

So I can get much more detail and much more specific with the smaller brush.

(gentle music) (water trickling) And that fountain is pretty dark.

The dark part underneath is something that I want to capture.

(gentle music) In painting, we use the term value, which means light and dark.

So it's a darker value underneath at the base of it.

(gentle music) And this is the point in a painting where you can really start to have fun.

The busy work of covering everything and creating a foundation is set, and now we can have fun developing the details.

But remember with watercolor, try not to overwork it.

A lot of times the beauty of a watercolor has sort of an unfinished quality to it.

(gentle music) So the fountain looks good for now, I might add a little more, but I'm gonna work more on the background foliage, the greens around it.

(gentle music) Using that smaller brush really helps, trying to get the specific shapes of the greenery.

(gentle music) And add some darker green in the background (gentle music) just to add a little bit more depth.

(gentle music) Once again, I'm using the background to adjust the shape of the fountain.

I'll go back and add a little more detail to the fountain, just using that small brush to get that shape right.

And now, actually, I'm going to switch back to a bigger brush and get more of the background in and then see where we are.

And try to wrap it up in a little bit.

(gentle music) There's a large portion of kind of a shrub that goes into my scene.

And I'm gonna put that in because I like the composition that it will give me when I add that.

So it's sort of a bold move, but we'll just put that in.

With painting, a lot of times you don't know how it will look until you actually do it.

So sometimes it goes according to plan and sometimes it doesn't.

But I like the way that looks, so I will keep that.

And then there's another one on the other side, which I can also add.

(gentle music) All right, now let's go back and clean it up, add some final details and make it look nice.

And then I think we'll be just about done.

(gentle music) (water trickling) (gentle music) Still using that small brush now, just to add some of those nice details that I see.

And then what we can do is use a little bit of gouache, which is opaque watercolor, to add some splashing from the water.

We're also gonna add some touches to the flowers using gouache.

And we'll do that once our background is all finished.

I'm just cleaning up.

With watercolor since we're working on white paper, sometimes you'll find these little spots where your paint hasn't touched yet.

It's good to go around and clean some of that up.

You can leave some of them, but if they are getting in the way, go back with your brush and start to clean up some of them.

It will help the painting look more finished.

(water trickling) (gentle music) The birds in the fountain.

That's a goldfinch actually.

There's a goldfinch right now at the top of the fountain that's enjoying the water from there.

All right.

(screen whooshing) So I have my gouache, which gouache is opaque watercolor.

So watercolor is transparent, and if you add white to it and make it opaque, it turns into gouache.

This is white and I'm gonna be using it to make the rest of my paint a little bit more opaque and to add the flowers and also the trickle from the fountain.

So the water trickles over the edge and then falls down and gives us that nice splashing effect.

And just a couple touches, I'm gonna try not to overdo it, but just a couple touches here and there to give that effect of that water.

(gentle music) So I'll mix up some pink.

We'll see how it looks.

If it's not quite right, we'll change it.

But I do see these touches of pink in the background.

And I really like the way they look.

And it's the little finishing touches on a painting that really bring it together and make it complete.

(gentle music) And these flowers have a little bit of a lighter yellow center, so kind of an orangey color.

And I'll add that too.

Some little touches to the center of these flowers to kind of accent them and finish them off.

(gentle music) (water trickling) Almost done with the painting.

Just these last little touches.

Okay.

I'm gonna stop there.

I really enjoyed painting the scene, and trying to capture the beauty of this particular area.

But there's so much to see here at Van Vleck, and you could really explore a lot of different areas.

I've been here many times before, but it's always great to return to a place at either a different time of year or maybe there's a special event.

It's sort of like rereading a book or re-listening to a song.

You can learn a lot by going back and rediscovering a place.

(screen whooshing) I hope you've enjoyed our visit to Van Vleck House and Gardens.

I'm Eric, and I'll see you next time "En Plein Air."

(bright music) - [Announcer] Visit us online at ericenpleinair.com to learn more about our program, Workshops with Eric, or to purchase original works of art and prints featured in this series.

Thank you.

(bright music)