by Jill Stefani Wagner

“Mill Creek Morning”    Plein air landscape oil painting    12 x 16 inches     See Pricing Please contact me if you are interested in this or similar artwork. One day during my wanderings at Wayne Plein Air Festival  I ran into a little mill creek at the junction of two roads. It was a perfect site with parking, shade, light, water and woods. My idea of a good time. I painted the piece above early in the morning from the banks of the rock-filled stream. I was working on unifing color and capturing moving, sunlit water…which was a real challenge.   After a little break, I turned [...]

Plein air landscape oil painting    12 x 16 inches     See Pricing Please contact me if you are interested in this or similar artwork. While I’m at Mountain Maryland Plein Air Festival, I thought I would finally post some of my work from Wayne Plein Air Festival waaaaay back in May. This is an amazing event located in a little town on the Main Line right outside Philadelphia. They have a well financed art center, a great director and tons of experienced volunteers who pull off a great festival year after year. And they bring in art buyers…Bonus! I’m always honored when I’m juried into this show!   I [...]

Interior oil painting    12 x 12 inches     See Pricing Please contact me if you are interested in this or similar artwork. During the summer months I paint almost exclusively en plein air. But when the weather is bad or I don’t have enough time to head out for three hours, I always have a painting on my studio easel. And more often than not, its a restaurant interior. I love the little narratives that come out of capturing these intimate scenes. I saw this couple having dinner recently while at a plein air festival in Annapolis, and I wondered, “What’s their story?”   Speaking of [...]

“Lava Beach”  Plein Air Watercolor Painting  5.5 inches x 8.5 inches After 5 days in busy Athens, we headed out to Santorini, a beautiful island off the coast of Greece. We relaxed in the relative quietness of the place and spent a lot of time on the lava beaches created from a long ago volcano. I painted little sketches again with my Cretacolor Aqua Briques and relished the gorgeous views.   “Beach Party”  Plein Air Watercolor Painting  7 inches x 5 inches “Lava Beach Too”  Plein Air Watercolor Painting  8.5 inches x 5.5 inches [...]

“Ancient Corinth”  Plein Air Watercolor Painting  5.5 inches x 8.5 inches I’m back from a wonderful trip to Athens and Santorini, but am still fighting a fierce case of jet lag. That 7-hour time difference really played havock with my system!   I didn’t have much time to paint but I did bring along my little Cretacolor Aqua Briques to experiment with. I’d never used them before so I was looking forward to playing with them. These blocks of color can be wetted and used as transparent watercolor, or more opaquely like gouache. But you can also draw with them, like a crayon or pastel. I [...]

  As you read this I may very well be walking up the stairs to the Acropolis in Athens. My sisters and I are taking a leisurely vacation and I’m bringing along some CretaColor Aqua Briques to experiment with. I’ll be taking a break from art blogging during my trip, but I’ll be back in action later in September! We’ll catch up then… [...]

"Down Pine Street" Pastel Plein Air Cityscape Painting  9 inches x 12 inchesPlease contact me if you are interested in this or similar artwork.   It was the last day of Paint Grand Traverse and I was up at dawn to paint Traverse City. It was cloudy with a bit of fog and the sun was just coming up over the bay. I found a sweet street view near downtown which I painted on a board prepared with pastel ground. The random brush strokes create texture and dynamics to an otherwise quiet scene. My wonderful hosts, Debra Van Leen and her husband 'T' [...]

"Elk Rapids" Pastel Plein Air Landscape/Waterscape Painting    12 inches x 16 inches    See PricingPlease contact me if you are interested in this or similar artwork. Thursday was Elk Rapids day at Paint Grand Traverse Plein Air Festival and I zeroed in on the bridge at the Kids Pond near the harbor. Of course, at least 10 other artists did too. We all had different views of the scene and very different colors and techniques. It's so interesting to see how other painters process a scene and make it their own.   "On the Bay" Pastel Plein Air Waterscape Painting  8 inches x [...]

"Fountain Point Daze" Pastel Plein Air Architecture Painting  9 inches x 12 inches   See PricingPlease contact me if you are interested in this or similar artwork. Midweek Paint Grand Traverse Plein Air Festival held a Quick Paint event at the historic Fountain Point Resort. Little white cottages and boat houses dot the grounds on Lake Leelanau, and the whole place has the comfortable feeling of times gone by. There were 40 professional and 60 emerging artists participating along with hundreds of viewers and guests. I arrived late to find my spot and decided to forgo the water scenes at the crowded lake [...]

"Mawby Horizon" Pastel Plein Air Landscape Painting  20 inches x 16 inches   See PricingPlease contact me if you are interested in this or similar artwork. Another day, another beautiful vineyard at the Paint Grand Traverse Plein Air Festival ! The painting above (one of my faves!) was painted at Mawby, a gorgeous winery on Leelanau Penisula. I decided to go big again on this one. First (always!), I did a sketch to get down my view and values. Working on a tan piece of Ampersand Pastelbord , I blocked in a dark purple pastel underpainting which I brushed down with alcohol to [...]