- Welcome back to "Eric En Plein Air."

I'm Eric, and today we're visiting The Celery Farm Nature Preserve in Allendale, New Jersey.

I'm going to set up my watercolor paints, and then we'll speak with today's guest to learn more about this beautiful area.

Let's go paint.

(exultant orchestral music) Okay, we're here with Jim Wright, a Marsh Warden, Author, Journalist, and really an expert about this area, nature, and wildlife.

Jim, thank you so much for being here.

- My pleasure.

- I think one of the most important things is the history of this location and why is it called The Celery Farm.

- Yeah, it's pretty amazing.

It originally was a swamp, and Native Americans lived here and called it Wolf Swamp.

- Hmm.

- And when the settlers arrived, they decided to mine the swamp for all the peat, it was a peat bog in those days, they mined that, and put it on a railroad train to Patterson to heat the buildings.

And after that, we had a big hollow peat bog here, and there's a guy from Switzerland who learned how to farm old peat bogs.

And so, we turned this into a huge celery farm; there's actually three or four celery farms right here.

And then later on, after the farms went bust, the town bought the place, stopped the water from being pumped out of the bog, and the lake appeared and The Celery Farm Natural Area was formed.

- Wow.

Yeah, that's very interesting.

And what is the name of this lake?

This is Lake Appert, named after the owner of one of the celery farms.

(air whooshing) - Today we're gonna be working with watercolor, I have my watercolor set up.

But before we start painting, it's important to do a little bit of drawing as a foundation.

Anytime you're working with a painting, it is a good idea to start with some drawing just so we have a foundation in place before we can start putting paint down on the paper.

So I'll start with that, and then we'll start painting.

Our scene today is including water and land.

So we do have some structure of the land, but most of it's going to be reflections of the sky on the water, which is an effect that will be really nice to capture.

(serene orchestral music) Anytime you go on location, spend some time finding a spot that really speaks to you, and that way, it'll make the painting more enjoyable.

(serene orchestral music continues) So I have the structure of the tree, and I'm keeping it very simple, it's good to keep it very simple when you first get started.

The structure of the tree, which is reflected down into the water.

(serene orchestral music continues) And spend your time on the drawing, you don't have to rush it.

As soon as you start painting, that's the point where the painting will really develop, but the preliminary stage of drawing is very, very important.

(serene orchestral music continues) So I have a focal point, which is this tree, and it's a good idea with painting to come up with a focal point.

If you're doing a scene like this, it might be a tree or it might be water, or it might be something else, depending on what you choose to focus on.

(serene orchestral music continues) So that feels pretty good for the drawing; it's very simple, I don't wanna make it too complicated right away.

I'm going to start painting; and as I paint, I wanna talk to you about the mixing process, how important value is, and the other elements of art that make a painting successful.

Okay, so, as we begin painting, I have my structure in place from the drawing, but there's a couple things that I'm going to think about in terms of value and color.

Value means light and dark; so we're working on white paper, which is the lightest value we can get.

So we're going to be going down in value.

But the other element, which is so important, is color.

So color and mixing color is something that we can really have fun with, value is something that's a little more concrete.

So those two elements together along with the shapes that we're working with will make this painting more representational of what we're seeing.

So I'm gonna start by mixing some tones for the sky.

Today is kind of partly cloudy, but there is some nice blue sky peeking through.

(serene orchestral music continues) So it's a relatively simple color mixture of blue, cobalt blue, which is a grayer blue.

And we're gonna test it, and if it's not quite right, we'll change it.

(serene orchestral music continues) That looks pretty good.

I'm thinking about the value, I'm thinking about how dark and light the sky is.

(serene orchestral music continues) Oh.

(serene orchestral music continues) If it starts to drip, keep your paper towel in hand.

So I'm working the sky down, and something important for watercolor is layering.

So as we work on a painting, the layers will begin to develop; it'll dry, and then we can work on top of it.

(serene orchestral music continues) So I have a bluish sky in.

There is a little bit of cloud, so what I could do is take a paper towel and wipe out a little bit of a cloud, but I will let it dry, and then I'll start working my way down on a painting.

This is something that's a little bit different.

If you're gonna be working with oil painting or acrylic, your layering process will probably be a little bit different.

But with watercolor, laying in a sky, and then working your way down is really a great way of getting started.

So my next sort of step will be a landmass that cuts through the center of the painting, and then I'll put in some water down below.

After that, I can start to build it up and get more detail.

(serene orchestral music continues) I am mixing up some yellow ochre, which is an earth-yellow, and it's a good color for mixing.

And I want to put in this landmass that cuts through the center here.

There are some greens there too, which I can put in.

(serene orchestral music continues) And I am trying to get the shape of this landmass as accurate as I can.

(serene orchestral music continues) And with watercolor, another important thing is just thinking about how wet or dry the paper is.

So, right now, because I just painted this, it's pretty wet, but I can let it dry and then keep working over top of it.

As I mentioned, there is also some green in there, so I can put some green down as well.

I'm mixing a green just using viridian and yellow.

There's also some green incorporated with this band of land, and I wanna incorporate that.

So this is a little bit drier, so I can put in a touch of green now.

(serene orchestral music continues) It goes just along the bank, it's probably where the water reaches up and touches.

There's some nice shadows too that cross over that land, but I'll wait to put that in for just a little bit.

The next big section of the painting is down here, and this is water with the reflection of the tree.

So, I'm going to put that in.

And with watercolor, we have the opportunity, while the paper is wet, to put in strokes of color and then it'll diffuse a little bit.

So I'm going to try to get that effect.

Another good tip for watercolor especially is to mix your color before you put it on.

If you mix and don't have enough, that means you'll run out of paint while you're painting.

(serene orchestral music continues) (serene orchestral music continues) So I'll cover in this water.

And it's still pretty wet right now, so I have some opportunity to put in some strokes that'll diffuse.

(serene orchestral music continues) I am mixing a dark mixture.

Keep thinking about value, value is really, really important for a painting.

(serene orchestral music continues) And you'll see because the paper is wet, that it'll diffuse a little bit, not too much, it won't spread around haphazardly.

(serene orchestral music continues) I'm still thinking about shape, and the shape of this reflection.

(serene orchestral music continues) It's very quiet here, and really a nice place to paint.

(serene orchestral music continues) There's another tree or a set of trees over on the right that have their own reflection, but I'm still thinking about focal point.

So really, my focal point is still this main tree, so I don't wanna distract from it too much.

(serene orchestral music continues) Okay.

So we've got the big elements of our painting set up, it's sort of like the foundation if you're building.

So you set the foundation, and then you can work your way on top of it.

(serene music continues) (birds squawking) I'm including some of the distant trees, which are going to be a little bit farther away, so they'll be a little bit lighter.

(serene orchestral music continues) And I'm working a little bit quicker because the sun is starting to change.

(serene orchestral music continues) So at this stage, I always like to kind of put a percentage on my painting, from zero to 100% would be finished.

I'd say probably right now, I am maybe at the 60% mark.

The foundation is all sort of set, I still have the large trees, which are going to be darker in value, and then some details in the water just to show some more of the reflection and to get sort of the feeling of the sky reflected down.

So I'll work on this large tree, and then beyond that, we'll just sort of put in some other details, and then we'll wrap it up and enjoy the rest of our time here at The Celery Farm.

In terms of the wildlife and the natural plants and things that are growing, could you tell us a little bit more about that too?

- Well, one of the great things about the lake is, it also has a lot of fish in it, we get all kinds of osprey and herons, we got egrets out there right- - Yeah, we just saw 'em.

Yeah, yeah.

- Yeah.

And mink, mink love the fish as well, and that attracts all kinds of birds.

And as Bergen County got more and more populated, places like this became rarer and rarer.

So this is a great stop for migratory birds in the spring, for example.

And it's just a great place for bird watchers as well.

- Mm-hmm.

Yeah, it's amazing.

I mean, just seeing the egrets and, you know, the other birds around.

I also saw on your YouTube page a snapping turtle that was crossing; is that more of a rare thing or do you see those?

- Oh, we see 'em all the time.

- Wow.

- And, yeah, they actually lay eggs here and in my yard across the creek there.

- Wow.

- And they'll cross the Franklin Turnpike as well.

And we put up a big turtle crossing sign every May to make sure people don't run over these.

Some of them are the size of a hubcap, so it's pretty cool.

- Yeah.

The one on the channel looked quite large.

- Yes.

- Yeah, and then in terms... As we walked around, I saw that there's some native plants and trying to maybe regrow them, and they've been sort of impacted by deer population.

- Yes.

- The local plants and growing those, what could you tell us about that too?

- Well, the place was once a farm, and then when it stopped being a farm, all the invasive species, like phragmites moved in.

And then the deer moved in and ate most of the native plants.

- Oh, okay.

- And, for some reason, the deer don't like eating invasives.

So there's an effort now by some great volunteers, and this whole place is run by volunteers, volunteers are now repopulating the plant life with native plants.

- Wow.

- It's really quite an achievement and quite an endeavor.

- Wow.

Yeah, it's really interesting.

I mean, just thinking about the history of a place like this and then carrying it forwards to the future generations, as you said, native areas or natural areas are sort of harder to come by.

- Yeah.

- What can you tell us maybe about preserving places like this?

What's important to know as a town or as a society, what should we know about?

- Just that these places are incredibly valuable, and as we get more and more populated, these places get more and more crowded.

Be respectful of a place like this and enjoy it, and stop, look, and listen, and you'll be amazed what you'll see.

- Thank you, Jim, thank you for your time.

- Sure.

(air whooshing) - So this tree is pretty dark, I still have my sketch in, and we'll try to capture the shape of it as it's reflected down into the water.

(serene orchestral music continues) (geese honking) (serene music continues) And for the more refined areas of the tree, I'll just be using the point of my brush.

I could also switch to a smaller brush, but I feel like the point of the brush will do the job that I need it to.

(birds chirping) (serene music continues) Okay.

So there's some more trees, which I'm going to also put in with the same color and a little bit lighter in value.

(serene music continues) (birds chirping) So I'm gonna add more details to this area of land, and some more details down in the water, and then I'll see if there's other things that I can add up above to the upper portion of the painting to balance the composition.

(serene orchestral music continues) I have my greenish mixture to add some more definition.

I'm cleaning my brush pretty frequently, it's a good idea with watercolor to keep your brush as clean as you can.

If you have to change your water, change your water, and just keep that brush clean.

Okay.

So at this point, I'm going to switch to a smaller brush.

I was using a fairly large brush before, but I will be switching to a brush that's maybe about half the size.

And we'll get some of these details, and we'll wrap it up.

(serene music continues) (birds chirping) You know, a tree always has so many branches, and you could really spend a lot of time getting them all, or you could try your best just to get the effect of it, you know, a lot of painting is about effect.

(serene music continues) (birds chirping) I am always going back to my principles of shape, value, and color.

(serene music continues) (birds chirping) And as you paint, you'll see more, you know?

When you're painting, things will sort of emerge, and then you'll say, "Oh, I didn't even see that at first."

But as you're painting it, you can sort of have it come into view.

I'm going to keep working on these reflections, but I don't wanna overwork it, that's something also with watercolor.

Try to leave it in a happy place, don't overwork it too much.

(serene music continues) (birds chirping) (serene music continues) (birds chirping) So as I'm continuing to develop this painting, I'm going to go a little bit slower just because every brush stroke I make now is a little bit more important, but it shouldn't make you fearful to make a brush stroke late in a painting.

(serene music continues) (birds chirping) I am just continuing to develop the reflection and then a few more touches up above.

(serene music continues) (birds chirping) (serene music continues) (birds chirping) Sometimes it can be tricky to know when to stop with a painting, but when you're painting something, and especially if you're on location and things are always changing, the sun is changing, reach a point where you really can kind of find a happy spot to stop, and then enjoy the painting just as a snapshot of that moment.

When you're painting outdoors, appreciating the moment and just being in a natural setting like this is really enjoyable.

And when you look at your painting, it will remind you of that every time.

(serene music continues) (birds chirping) Okay.

Okay, I reached a point where I'm happy with my painting, I really enjoyed being here.

The colors came together, I worked on the sky, I worked on the reflection, I have sort of more of a focal point of the main tree, but this will be a really nice memory, and it'll be something that I can keep or share with others.

(air whooshing) Today's visit to The Celery Farm here in Allendale, New Jersey, taught me a lot about the history and importance of this nature preserve, and that we can all play a significant role in helping to preserve natural areas like this.

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

(exultant orchestral music) - [Narrator] 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!

(exultant orchestral music continues)