Sketching Trip to Valley Forge National Park

My brother Chris and I went to Valley Forge Park Saturday morning to do a little sketching.

This would be his first time working with oil paints so it would be a relaxing session learning how they can be handled.

We were hoping for the early morning sunlight but it never showed except for a minute it peeked out while I was doing a demo for Chris (top picture).

We did a little searching around the park looking for a spot that would provide a range of values (lights and darks) for his sketch. On an overcast day the values are closer together so you have to look a little harder to see the differences in value and color shifts.

The second picture shows Chris working on the scene in front of him. And the third picture is his completed sketch,which turned out pretty good for his first attempt at painting on location.

I wanted him to get used to seeing values when looking at scenes to paint.

We took a drive to Marsh Creek State Park to look around and Chris did a sketch of a point of land sticking out in the lake.

Chris's son Eric couldn't make it today because we started out at 5:00am, but he has been going with us on our sketching trips. Eric shows alot of enthusiasm for art and a desire to learn everything he can about painting, not bad for an 8 year old!