Saturday, September 29, 2012

To Paint or not to Paint

I went out this morning to paint but I was in a neutral mood, like do I really want to paint this morning. I love being out at sunrise whether I'm painting or not, when the early morning sunlight has that orange glow to it.



I went to the park looking around for a spot with good lighting but the clouds were moving in thicker and the sun was having trouble getting thru. I couldn't find anything interesting to paint (which happens when I am in a neutral mood) so I figured I would take one more look around and finally settled on this spot with the red cedar tree which I have painted in the past.



I used a 5x7 panel and simplified the scene omitting the group of trees on the right and excluding the big section of dull grey sky.


This is the completed painting from a morning of indecision.

To protect the wet painting I use a 5x7 piece of masonite and four wood plugs that I position on each corner of the painting. Tape the four corners together and you are ready to go.

Sunday, September 23, 2012

Early Morning at the Lake

Went to the park early Saturday morning, on the drive in I saw this beautiful sunrise but because I got a late start I was witnessing it on the drive in instead of being already set up on location. I took a few pictures and rode around to where I was going to paint.
More clouds had moved in as I set up and the sun was playing hide and seek. So I figured I would just make the best of it. A couple of fishermen took up position on the point of land so I got some pictures of them for reference for later. They ended up moving out of sight 20 minutes later anyway.


I painted this final version combining the sky I saw coming in with the location sketch. I'm thinking of putting some figures in after the paint dries a little, there is a lot of glare from the wet paint.


Monday, September 17, 2012

Etsy Treasury

One of my Aceo's (Art Cards) was featured in a treasury on  Etsy.

http://www.etsy.com/treasury/NzA0NjQyMHwyNzIzMzA3Mzcw/small-fall

The curator of the treasury has two wonderful shops worth visiting.

http://www.etsy.com/people/boxerlovinglady
http://www.etsy.com/shop/SweetVirgil


I was out yesterday enjoying the weather and did a 5x7  plein air painting of a group of people having a picnic
 I must have been painting slow because this spider had time to build a web on the lid of my paintbox. I saw him crawling on my palette earlier but didn't pay much attention to him.
If you click on the picture you get an enlarged view. His shadow looks more menacing than him.

I'm in the process of painting in the fish on the aquarium picture from the last post.