A Painting A Day

I'm tired of trying to second guess the art buying public and so decided this weekend to just get back to my roots and paint what I want to paint - which is people.

So did this painting of a boy fishing. It reminds me very much of my brother when he was young. I didn't start it until like 5:30 last night, and I never hooked up my lamp so it was hard to see the colors. I didn't realize how purple the rock was until I looked at it this morning. Maybe I need to work without light more often! Haha - because I love the colors.

This is a large piece - 30x48. I wouldn't have been able to finish it if there had been more detail. I spent a great deal of time on getting the green color right on the lake. I still had the light while working on it. I started off using viridian in the mix but quickly abandoned it and just mixed my own with ultramarine blue, lemon yellow and cad red light.

Plein Air Memphis had an outing this morning at the Botanic Gardens and I chose this little spot along the creek with the pretty cherry trees in bloom. But my painting was really awful! I wiped it off when I got home and did a quick do over. The composition is much the same but I tried to simplify and tried to capture the long shadows from the trees. Not really happy with the second attempt either, but it is better than the first. Landscapes continue to be so very challenging for me. It's difficult to process so much information and so many colors.

 I spent most of today reading Brian Keeler's book, "Dramatic Color in the Landscape." I'm so glad I did. He's a fantastic artist, and because I am on a mission to improve my landscapes, I thought some instruction was in order. I was planning on painting in the late afternoon, but I went out and took reference photos instead.

So around 10:30 at night, I started this. Not sure what size the painting is, I think a 20x20, but it's definitely larger than what I usually do. This is the result - Keeler style!

 Today I ran out late in the day for an hour or two to paint. I looked online and found a nice park nearby. It had an amazing fountain, but it was the light of the green grass in the distance and the interesting colors in the water that drew me to this spot. My technique was very messy and I had to leave very fast when a sudden thunderstorm sprung up but overall I was happy with this effort.

 I felt very in tune with my painting. My palette was so simple. I used alizarin red, cad yellow, ultramarine blue, white, permanent green light and burnt umber. I had also bought myself a round brush and experimented with the thin lines of the tree branches.

Spent the morning out at Shelby Farms in the good company of Denise Rose for the March Plein Air Memphis outing.  Wonderful location! I was pretty happy with my colors today especially the reflection of the trees in the water but not so happy with the trees. I imagine it's just going to take a while and perhaps the right kind of brushes to get the trees right, especially the big thicket of trees in the foreground. I didn't have any brushes for thin lines - must work on that! I do think I got closer to a focal point. My eyes are drawn to the trees beyond the lake, but my intention was for the thicket of trees to be the focal point - so I accidentally succeeded! Haha

We had a break in the rain for a short period today... and I took the opportunity to get out of the house, go to Shelby Farms, and paint! I have a long way to go on my plein air work. I don't know why my landscapes are so blurry. I guess I get impatient and don't focus enough on details. A painting needs a focal point, and I must find a way to put one into my plein air paintings!

Today we spent a relaxing day on the beach on the Sea of Cortez side of Cabo. I painted this while drinking a Mango smoothie - what a vacation!

Painting in Cabo! Painted this at Cerritos beach the other day - then today I found this rock formation on the beach that looks just like a cat monster so had to paint it! Rumor has it the house behind this rock belongs to Bill Gates!

I was able to find some time today to paint the mountain here at Pedregal at Cabo San Lucas. It has these wonderful big sandstone rocks and all sorts of little caves and holes in them. They were a challenge!!!  

I had such a good time this morning painting with Plein Air Memphis. We got together at the Wolf River and spend about 2 and half hours painting. Afterwards we met up and got a group photo. Such great artists - they are an inspiration to me!

So this is my effort from today. For the most part I was happy with the values. So much green! So many variations of green! I used a limited palette simply because I was too lazy (or maybe too hot) to get some more. So I was proud of myself for achieving these colors with just ultramarine, viridian, cad yellow light, cad red light, black, and white.

This is my third time going on a paint out, and I can tell I'm getting a bit better. Trees are so incredibly hard to paint!