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The
problem with moonlighting when you're a plein air painter is
that you need
sunlight.
Plein air, after all, is about capturing the light outdoors on
canvas.
Working
days indoors as an illustrator and feeling the conflicting
desire to
spend
more time outdoors painting. Michael Obermeyer, buoyed by
several affirming
nods
from the art community, made the break last December to do oil
painting fulltime.
Today,
the 40-year-old Aliso Viejo resident is one of the area's
fastest
rising artist. This year, he took first place in the Carmel Plein
Air Painting
Competition,
and the La Quinta Arts Foundation chose his work for its
Impressionaire
2000 poster. A second-time exhibitor at the Laguna Beach
Festival
of Arts, Obermeyer was recently honored when the Laguna Plein
Air
Painters Association invited him to join their ranks as a
signature
member.
Museums and corporations have also taken notice of Obermeyer's
work,
which romantically captures the varied landscapes of
California
the way
we'd
like to see them, or at least remember them.
Both
the Orange County Museum of Art and
Bowers
Museum
in
Santa
Ana
have exhibited his work, and his clients include Disney
Studios,
The
Irvine Company, the Orange County Register, Warner
Brothers,
and
McDonnell Douglas as well as many private individuals.
Good
thing, too, because he has a family to support. "I guess i
don't have to go
work
for the Highway Patrol," quips the husband and father of
two daughters.
The
Pasadena-born Obermeyer received his bachelor's degree in
illustration
from
Cal State Long Beach, then studied at the Art Institute of
Southern
California
in
Laguna Beach
.
People
familiar with plein air painters, say his work is
reminiscent
of
Sam Hyde Harris, Edgar Payne, and Elmer Wachtel, all
California
artist
who
were working during the early part of this century. "they
definitely influenced
me,"
says Obermeyer, as have French impressionists Claude Monet
and
Mary
Cassatt.
He credits California's diverse topography for the
variety found in his paintings,
which feature canyons, fountains, deserts, beaches, and bungalows.
He often
finds his next subject by driving around in his car with a canvas in the back.
Obermeyer's chief enemies are the elements-especially wind.,
rattlesnakes, and bugs that get in the
paint, and sadly, developers.
"It seems every
time I discover a new area to paint, I learn it's about to become
a toll road
or a resort. It's even more important for me to paint fast now,
before
the areas are all gone.
After he's captured an outdoor scene striving to get the light just right,
which means painting fast before
it changes, he takes the canvas back to
his
Laguna Beach studio to refine it. To best capture that moment
that moment
of
light,he keeps his color palette narrow a trick he learned from Sebastian
Capella,
a master of color theory
with whom Obermeyer studied in La Jolla.
Obermeyer paints with
just seven colors on his palette plus black and white,
which keeps his colors feeling fresh. He also organizes
his colors in the same
order on
his palette, so he doesn't lave to look down to find them.
He can simply paint
fast, like a trained pianist who already knows where
he notes are.
Though his success is deserved, no one is more appreciative than he,
"I never take for granted that every day
I get to make my living
sitting outside painting in a beautiful place."
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