Backyard Maple - Plein Air

Took my wife in to Dr. appointment (everything's okay) this morning, brought her home, tucked her in to catch up on some sleep and did a quick plein air in my backyard while she slept.  This was fast and dirty, but I kinda' like it!

6"x 8" canvas board

Plein Air Evening

Wow!  This evening was absolutely perfect for painting outdoors.  Grabbed my easel and collapseable bucket and headed outside. This is the same setup I'll be using at Thomas Kitts Plein Air workshop coming up Aug. 15.    This view is from my backyard toward one of our favorite neighbors, Dennis and Mary.  What caught my eye was the white fence framed by those two large trees and the old rusty burn barrel.

I started out with plenty of light, but by the time I got to the details the light was pretty low.  Can you guess how the painting looked when I came inside and put it under the lights....yep, a bit on the light side.  I tried using a few things I've learned from the Richard Schmid November DVD I've been watching.  The collapseable bucket worked great for hauling various items outside and then doubled nicely has my paper towel trash can.  Thanks Kevin MacPherson for that tip!

So here's tonights effort.

6"x8" canvas board

No Painting, but a nice addition to my easel

So I've been wanting more space to set things on with my French easel and spotted this nice little shelf up on Jerry's Artarama. I ordered it just got it today. It's the George Hensen's ShelfHelp...and frankly, I'm impressed. The shelf is 16"x10.5" and comes apart so that it can be packed up within the French easel. Comes with a nice little holder for some brushes and the lip on the right has a number of grooves for keeping your brushes from rolling away. It feels pretty sturdy, too.

I've also been reading through Carlson's Guide to Landscape Painting by John F. Carlson per Thomas Kitts suggestion in preparation for his workshop coming up in August. It's a bit of tough read as Carlson is very "wordy" and they simply wrote a bit different back then. However, I can already see myself in some of the statements he makes about the things beginners tend to do and things I've struggled with in my short time as painter.

So it's been a busy week with no painting :-( but I'm looking forward doing some more painting soon. Gotta' practice up before the workshop and get some thoughts and questions for Mr. Kitts down on paper. I'm looking forward to getting as much from his workshop as I possibly can!!

House with a View

Today I painted this little 6x8.  Was also very excited to get two Richard Schmid DVDs from SmartFlix.  Stayed up way too late watching them, but it sure is amazing watching a master "sculpt" an image with brush and paint.  I'm not thrilled with the picture quality.  You'd think with four camera's in the house I could find one that works, but one's packed up for my daughters trip to summer camp, two have dead batteries and one is torn apart from me trying to fix a lens that would open.  Soooo...here's my lovely iPhone pic...iPhone 3G that is, doesn't even have one of the better camera's :-o

6x8 oil on canvas board.

Oregon Coast Sunset - WIP

So whenever we're on the Oregon coast I come back with a gazillion sunset pictures.  My wife makes fun of the fact that I have a hundred pictures of the same sunset, and a handful of the family (slight exaggeration, I think)!  So tonight I started painting one of these sunsets.  The struggle is not to blend the heck out of it.  In fact, as I develop this one further I'm going to try and keep or move more towards a "painterly" approach where the brush strokes are defined and add interest and motion to the painting.  It's still very blended right now, but I've got lot's more to do.  I like the start though!  9"x12" archival quality canvas.

Evening's Plein Air Effort

Grabbed my easel as soon as I got home and headed outside this evening.  This is just one of the views from my backyard.  As the sun sets it strikes that tree just right and sets bark this bright golden color.  Certainly didn't do it justice, but so some improvement over my last plein air attempt so I thought I'd post it.  6"x8" canvas board.