Winter Pasture 2002, oil, 30" x 30". Private collection "I toned the canvas with yellow ochre to give the scene an all-around warmth. I allowed this color to show for highlights and accents in the patches of sky, the orange tree on the right, the roof of the barn, and highlights on the cow. I painted the composition in with gray, a nice cool contrast to the warm background. Then I massed the big shapes with color and correct value, saving the details for last."	American Artist, November 2004: "Interpreting and Conveying Mood en Plein Air" by Peggy Arenz When landscape artist Molly Martin moved to Wyoming, she found that painting outdoors, rather than inside a studio with reference photo, made an enormous difference in her work. "Light and mood are my biggest inspirations," she declares. "I've changed a lot because of painting outdoors-painting from life. Before, I was living in cities, and on trips to places like Jackson Hole, Wyoming, I'd take photographs and work from them at home. But now, it's all right in my back yard. I have the luxery of going to beautiful places and painting on the spot instead of taking quick photos." Martin, who excelled in advanced art classes in high school and then went on to earn a degree in fine art at UCLA, describes her early style as surrealist. In retrospect, she says her early paintings lacked an understanding of the importance of varying edges from soft to hard. After taking plein air workshops with Wyoming artists Scott Christensen and Greg McHuron, she found that she loved painting outdoors. Settling in Jackson, Martin has taken on the many challenges of braving the weather to interpret the landscape
in her own way."I love to paint trees and water," she explains. "The streams are often peaceful, and I like reflections. It's kind of a spiritual thing for me. And now that I live here in Wyoming, I've become intersted in painting the old barns that are slowly disapearing from the countryside. Wonderful things happen when light hits the barn wood. I see temperature variations, with cool purples in the shade and bright yellows in the sun. And aluminum roofs reflecting the sky, have accents. Also there is a human element; when you look at a barn you feel a connection. A barn can tell a story. Of course, pure landscape, the way a tree is shaped, or its reflection, can tell a story too."
Martin believes that a sense of the artist's emotional touch is necessary for a painting to be more than a pretty picture. "For me," she explains, "art is showing what I feel about a beautiful scene. I'm painting my expression of that beauty. In plein air painting, it's much easier to bring out that emotion." To start a painting, Martin first determines her focal point, placing it off-center on a pre-stretched gesso-coated Fredrix canvas. "The center of interest must be correct in its position in the composition and in form and value for everything else to fall into place," she says. "If it's not correct, I'll continue to struggle with the entire composition until I think it's right."	Fading Winter, 2003, oil, 30" x 48"
When that problem has been resolved, other decisions must be made. "I'm like a filter," the artist notes, "keeping some things and omitting others. Whatever supports the center of interest, I'll leave in. Whatever detracts from it, I'll leave out." She works with close color values to avoid strong contrasts that would pull the viewer's eye away from the primary focal point.
Hoback Winter, 2002, oil, 36" x 48"	Using yellow ochre, Martin draws the main elements on her canvas. "Then I'll fill in the dark areas, usually with more yellow ochre to make a value statement," she explains. After that, I'll go in with color. On a canvas that is toned with yellow ochre, especially in a winter scene where there is a lot of white in the image, that yellow underpainting will give it some warmth." Because morning shadows shorten as the light increases, the artist establishes shadows first when she paints early in the day, but does the opposite if she's outdoors in the afternoon. She usually paints the sky last. "It's much easier to paint light over dark that dark over light," she says. "I'll use the sky color on the edges of a tree to get tonal variations and soft edges." Martin's palette includes titanium white, alizarin crimson, cadmium yellow light, cadmium lemon, yellow ochre, manganese blue hue, cobalt blue, ultramarine blue, and sometimes cadmium orange. Alizarin crimson and ultramarine blue yield purple tones.
Yellows, mixed in varying combinations with manganese blue hue, make vibrant sunny greens; if that mixture seems too green, Martin adds yellow ochre, cadmium orange, or even alizarin crimson to warm it up. She also creates greens with mixtures of yellows and ultramarine blue, but not cobalt blue. It has almost a graying effect," she remarks. She no longer uses viridian, which she felt had become a crutch. Burnt sienna mixed with ultramarine blue makes a good black and
adding white provides a gray tone. To this dark mixture, Martin explains, " I can add a third color: cadmium yellow for a wonderful green you see in evergreen trees, and a cadmium orange for a dark brown." She keeps a separate palette, a Soltek easel, and other equipment ready to go outdoors at any time. With a wealth of beautiful settings in easy reach, Martin is most attracted to the effect of light, and she wants to be prepared if something strikes her. " I'll see a shadow, or a color that comes out," she says thoughtfully. "And a composition, of course. I like a sense of perspective, a place for your eye to travel and then to rest. If the central focus is there, I can make up the rest, if necessary, to support it. The artist's plein-air paintings range from 8" x 10" to as large as 40" x 40". When back in the studio, she sometimes decides that a painting needs more development. She will often turn it upside down to make a nonbiased judgement. You can see what needs to be worked on when you turn a paiting upside	Flat Creek in Spring, 2003, oil, 40" x 40"
down," she explains. "It helps me focus on the whole picture and not just one detail." But she tries not to make too many changes. "When I'm outside in natural sunlight, I'm making intuitive decisions. The light's changing, the weather's changing, so I'm forced to paint fast. In the studio, with a lot of time, I'm constantly judging, critiquing, and thinking things don't look right."
The Old Barn, 2002, oil, 15" x 30"	To create a large studio painting without losing freshness, she limits the time she spends during any one session. "I'll paint for an hour, listening to loud music," she says. " You have to work fast and large on a 50" x 60" painting. But, I rarely develop a large painting from a smaller one. If I have already captured the scene, I lose the motivation to do another one. I want to move on. In any case, a big painting will never be the same as a small one. A plein air study would be a departure point, just like a photo, so a studio paiting would be a new picture, with enough elements to make it interesting."
As for artists she turns to for inspiration, Martin admires, the work of California impressionists such as Elmer and Marion Wachtel and William Wendt. She also likes the landscapes of George Inness, describing then as poetic translations of what he saw. Martin's work has been included in many invitational shows, such as the Wyoming State Museum's Governor's Capitol Art Exhibition, in which she won a purchase award, and in several California plein air shows. She exhibits both large and small works regularly at the Kneeland Gallery, in Sun Valley, Idaho, and at her own gallery, Molly Martin Gallery (now known as Trio Fine Art) in Jackson, Wyoming. -Peggy Arenz © American Artist Magazine Southwest Art, January 2003: "Artist To Watch" Autumn Color, 2002, oil, 40" x 40" Molly Martin After years of West Coast living, Molly Martin is now realizing a longtime dream: to live and paint in Wyoming. Born in Berkeley, CA, in 1972, Martin was raised on the scenic Monterey Peninsula. After majoring in fine art at UCLA, she worked as a graphic designer in California while frequently traveling to Wyoming to visit her mother. She got hooked on plein-air painting when she took a class with Scott Christensen during one of those visits. Just over a year ago, Martin decided to move to the state, where the scenic beauty and the camaraderie of other artists never fails to inspire her. "I really feel like I'm in harmony with what I'm doing," she says. "I'm driving by (potential painting) locations all the time, seeing things from morning to night." Though she's new to the state, she won a purchase award at the 2002 Governor's Capitol Art Exhibition at the Wyoming State Museum in Cheyenne, and her work can be seen in local restaurants. Being able to paint the landscapes near her new home energizes her. " I love being in nature and painting from life," she says. "It's really inspiring to me to be surrounded by changing weather and light, to hear the birds and the wind, and transfer all that to canvas." From January 19 to 26, Martin participates in Desert Plein Air: A Celebration of Outdoor Painting, sponsored by the La Quinta Arts Foundation in Palm Springs, CA. She is represented by the Kneeland Gallery, Ketchum, ID, and www.mollymartingallery.com. -AH © Southwest Art Magazine