Summer’s Last Days

Don Osterberg, who provided the wonderful gallery photos (see below) said, “What a fantastic lesson we had this morning in painting with oils at Mills River Park. Eddie Morris had us transfixed for 2 and 1/2 hours as he explained his recently learned techniques. This approach most likely can be used with almost any painting medium. Thank you Eddie for a great morning. …” (Note you can see about 20 minutes of the great demo by going to bottom of this page.)

Eddie himself added: “We had a lot of fun yesterday at my demo in spite of wind knocking everything down! Here is the painting (at left) after an hour or so in my studio today to finish it up. Don has a pretty good picture of the block in (see below) from yesterday. Today, I anchored the shadows and added some variety in the light areas and some half tones being careful not to upset the unity of the painting.”

Morris also provided the visual at the right with this comment: “As promised, here is a photo of my color/value chart I went over during the demo. Just remember average vertical and horizontal planes for value in the shade and light as a starting point.. This is a compressed value scale with no white or black on the ends.

Note: An article about Edward Morris appears in the September 2019 issue of the local magazine Bold Life.

Edward Morris • Oil

Paint-Out Location: Mills River Park

Edward Morris is an artist whose style is rooted in representational painting and realism.

Over the past several years, his work has appeared:
ArtScape 2016, 2017 and 2018 – Arts Council of Henderson County
AAPL 88th Grand National Exhibition, Salmagundi Club, NYC
Featured in James Gurney’s Art Blog about sketching
Painting published in “International Artists Magazine” in an article
about creating glow in painting

He is a member of the Oil Painters of America, American Impressionist Society, Arts Council of Henderson County, Asheville Plein Air Painters and a signature member of the Western North Carolina Plein Air Painters.

Artist Statement:
I strive for the selective use of values, colors and strategic accents that can delight and stimulate the viewer so a scene may appear to be truer to the spirit of the subject and seem to be more real than a purely photographic reproduction. I humbly try to have my paintings be alive with tactile brushwork and atmospheric lighting that seems to breathe.

A strictly detailed copy of anything, whether it is nature or a photograph of nature say nothing about the painter, his relationship to his art or to his life and environment.

Please see his website for contact information. Eddie Morris

Questions for the Artist

What do you feel is your greatest strength as a plein air painter?
To be able to see the values as they are in the scenery.

What are three tips that you have gained that have made a difference in your painting?
1. Learn to see so you can learn to paint better.
2. Make an effort to improve your vision and craft.
3. Work from life as often as you can..

What are you working to improve upon?
Learning to see color as value using the prismatic palette method.

Cool Morning

Morning Sun

Will Henry Stevens Bridge

4 Short Videos

Summer’s Last Days

Ed Morris has started a new journey this year. He’s concentrating on improving his plein air painting techniques. To do this he mentored with Joe Paquet (http://www.joepaquet.com) who is a proponent of using the Prismatic Pallet. This sparked Morris’s curiosity and he believes employing these ideas have taken his paintings to a whole new level. If nothing else he says it has given him tools to get moving in the right direction, so that he can now really enjoy the experience of painting out of doors.

Morris has found, after over a year with Paquet, he is more confident. He is better at self-critiquing, is a more deliberate painter and by simplifying, is actually faster. He says that the prismatic pallet is not just about seeing color – it is also about seeing value (perhaps even more than color). If you get the value right, all else falls into place.

On September 5, Morris shared what he’s learned on his journey so far with the Asheville Plein Air Painters. He demonstrated at Mills River Park in Mills River, NC. Although it was a clear day, it was blustery as Hurricane Dorian was situated just off the coast of the Carolinas and the outer bands were just grazing our mountain community.

The Demonstration was well-attended and captured the attention of the APAP group. The following four videos were created from footage taken by Sue Dolamore. They each have valuable tips shared by Morris. and there is even a bit of drama at the end–due to the weather!

Video One – Learning to see & introduction to the Prismatic Pallet.