Tag: Landscape Painting

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Landscape Oil Painting Outdoors/Landscape Painting Photos Plein Air

Shorebird Marsh in Corte Madera; new oil painting

Shorebird Marsh, Corte Madera, Oil painting, 9x12"
Shorebird Marsh, Corte Madera, Oil painting, 9x12"

A few weeks ago my plein air group met on a blistering hot day at a little shadeless park alongside a marsh that was right next to the noisy highway and a block from an upscale shopping center (Village Shopping Center in Corte Madera). Some watercolorists in the group set up at the shopping center but were kicked out for taking up outdoor tables meant for food court customers.

Reference photo
Reference photo

I was tempted to leave. The scene didn’t appeal to me, I was tired, it was hot, there was no shade or other facilities and the noise of the traffic was terrible. But I decided to give it a shot, and of course, as I started drawing I got more enthusiastic (“such cute hills” I said to myself, and listening to music with headphones helped block out the highway noise.

Initial sketch on panel
Initial sketch on panel

I stopped taking photos after the one below because I was trying to finish quickly as the temperature kept climbing. I nearly completed the painting on site before I started  feeling like I was getting sunstroke and had to pack up and head home, without even waiting for the critique.

Starting to block in color
Starting to block in color

I worked from the reference photo a bit in the studio but then just started addressing the painting’s needs instead of what was in the photo. I tried not to mess with the hills and trees that I’d painted on site because I liked the way they were loosely painted in.

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Art theory Landscape Oil Painting Outdoors/Landscape Painting Places Plein Air

Now I Am Having Fun!

View from Old Borges Ranch; Plein air, Oil on panel, 9x12"
View from Old Borges Ranch; Plein air, Oil on panel, 9x12"

I’m celebrating a bit of progress I saw today when I painted plein air at Old Borges Ranch in Walnut Creek. I painted at this site a year ago and had a terrible time, titling the post of the awful painting I did that day, “Am I Having Fun Yet? Uh…no!”

Today was a lot more fun. I started the painting with a plan (described below) and stuck with it until I started rushing to wrap it up in time for our group critique at 1:00 when I muddied things up a bit since the light had changed in the scene from when I first started at 10:30.

When I put the painting in the line up with the other 14 paintings, I didn’t even cringe or feel embarrassed. It helped too, that I now understand that my plein air paintings are sketches, not finished works of art.

Here are the steps I took that seemed to work for me:

Continue reading “Now I Am Having Fun!”
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Landscape Oil Painting Outdoors/Landscape Painting Plein Air

I Lied!

Dish soap Version 1
Dish soap Version 1

I thought it wasn’t good enough and so mucked with it some more (below) but now I wish I hadn’t. This is the theme of today’s post. Lesson learned: Leave well enough alone, or as my boss always says, “It’s good enough for jazz!”

Dish soap and sharpener
Dish soap & sharpener, watercolor 7x4"

And here is another poor retread, worked over and over.

Sibley Final Revision, 12x9" Oil on panel
Sibley Final Revision, 12x9", Oil on panel

I’m not sure whether it’s better to start a new painting or push one that isn’t working to try to make it work. I know I said the SIbley painting was finished, final revision, moving on…but I lied. I spent a couple hours trying to change the composition so that there was more of a path into the scene. That meant getting rid of the wall and while I was at it, I added a little more warmth.

I promise: now I’m really done! And you know what’s really funny? When I scrolled down and looked at all the different versions I like the very first one best!

Frustrated at wasting time and getting nowhere I tried doing a quick watercolor (above) before bed. I should have just gone to sleep since I don’t like it either. Oh well. Tomorrow (well actually today, since it’s after midnight) will hopefully be a fun plein air day.

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Landscape Oil Painting Outdoors/Landscape Painting Plein Air

OK, Now I’m really done!

Sibley Finally Done!
Sibley Finally Done! Oil on Panel, 12x9"

I’m persistent if nothing else. Now I’m really moving on!

Update 9/15: Katherine posted a really helpful comment yesterday about the real problem with this painting, which is that putting a wall (or any “fringe” at the bottom of a painting) is generally does not make for good composition. She helped me to see that the real problem with the painting is the existence of the wall at the bottom which can’t be solved by painting or repainting the wall.

She asked whether I’d done compositional/value study thumbnails first. I did do one but should have done more than one, with and without the wall. In the original thumbnail, the front of the wall and the two trees were the darkest darks but when I painted it that way it looked wrong.

I’m so grateful for our wonderful international art group with so many brilliant artists who can I ask for help and who are so generous to share their wisdom!

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Art theory Landscape Oil Painting Painting Plein Air

Sibley Take Two: Better?

Sibley Take 2, Oil on Panel, 12x9"
Sibley Take 2, Oil on Panel, 12x9"

When I took a peek at yesterday’s painting this morning I was disturbed by the color of the foreground wall (“YUCK!” I said out loud when I walked in the studio). I worked on it some more and now it’s closer to how I actually saw it.  I also touched up a few things here and there.

I noticed that I’ve broken a rule of composition: avoid placing two of something, better to have three. For some reason human minds prefer three items to two: two is boring three creates interest. Also avoid two shapes of the same size because contrast is what makes the painting interesting I’ve got two trees the same size, though one is a little further back; two bushes; the wall is split in two, etc.

So what do you think? Is this better than yesterday’s version? Am I done? I’m still bothered that the road and the top of the wall are nearly the same color, but they actually were just about identical and pretty close together.

Advice always greatly appreciated!

Categories
Art theory Landscape Oil Painting Outdoors/Landscape Painting Plein Air

Painting in the Dark for More Colorful Paintings

Sibley Park View from Visitors Center, Oil on panel, 12x9
Sibley Volcanic Park: View from Visitors Center, Oil on panel, 12x9"

OK, it wasn’t really in the dark, but I was in deep shade and could barely tell what colors I was mixing. Yesterday I went to a non-painting event in 105 degree heat and blinding sun and came home with a migraine. I just couldn’t take another day in the sun today but wanted to join my Sunday plein air group. I set up in the shade of the visitor center at Sibley Volcanic Regional Park in Oakland where we were going meet for our group critique at 2:00.

Bicyclists and hikers stopped by all afternoon to eat lunch in the shade, get water, or use the restrooms. Two hardcore women cyclists spent their entire lunch discussing in great detail their recent fruit purchases. Another woman cyclist in full cycling gear told her cycling buddy that her ex-husband married her ex-best friend. Then she dated that woman’s ex-husband. But when her ex-husband and ex-best friend divorced, she and former best friend fell in love and recently got married thanks to California’s same sex marriage law. They rode off before I could find out if the ex-husbands fell in love with each other too.

The rest of my plein air group painted the amazing vistas along the roadside on Skyline Drive and Grizzly Peak Boulevards but they had to put up with the heat and direct sun. I was perfectly happy with this lesser vista and the lovely shade.

Painting in the dark
Painting in the dark

I discovered an interesting phenomenon. When I paint in the bright sun my colors look really nice and bright, but once out of the sun, the painting looks duller and dark. Just the opposite is true when painting in the shade. The colors look much dull and monochromatic in the shade (see above). But in the light they’re bright and colorful. That also seems to happen when I wear gray tinted sunglasses.

In the same way that squinting (reducing the light coming into your eyes) removes the color from the scene, allowing you to see values better, painting in the shade or wearing dark glasses reduces the perceived intensity or saturation of the colors you’re mixing. That in turn tricks you into mixing more brilliant, saturated colors. Or at least that’s what happened to me today. I was pleasantly surprised each time I carried my painting out into the sun to see what it really looked like.

Me enjoying the shade at Sibley
Categories
Art theory Landscape Oil Painting Other Art Blogs I Read Outdoors/Landscape Painting Plein Air

Dry Wetlands: Where’s the water?

Shollenberger Wetlands, 12x9", Oil on panel (click image to enlarge)
Dry wetlands sketch, 12x9", Oil on panel (click image to enlarge)

Shollenberger Park is normally a watery paradise where you see swans, herons, egrets, pelicans, geese, turtles, frogs, lizards and the occasional harmless snake. But when I arrived there this morning with Camille Przewodek’s class, we were surprised to find cracked dry soil where the watery marsh used to be. Camille said she’d been painting there for years and had never seen it dry before. You can see many of her marsh paintings on her website here.

She set up for her demo in the hot sun, on land that used to be under water. Seeing her paint is like watching a magician, the way she creates the illusion of space, depth, atmosphere, weather, even time of day, all done with color relationships.

The smell from the dried up marsh was making me nauseous but nothing phases Camille when she’s painting. She never complains, whether it’s hot or freezing, windy or smelly; she just gets in the zone and paints. Her students know better than to whine about weather or anything else; or as one student pointed out:

“It’s called ‘PLEIN Air’ NOT ‘Complain Air’!”

About the paintings:
Both of these 1 to 2 hour plein air sketches were done at the marsh, trying to work on getting the big shapes and color relationships. I think my easel must not have been level today; the horizon seems to be slanting downhill on today’s sketch above.

Shollenberger Wetlands sketch, 12x9", oil on panel (click image to enlarge)
Shollenberger Wetlands sketch, 12x9", oil on panel (click image to enlarge)

When I got home I tried to find out what happened to the water at Shollenberger but couldn’t find anything online. I did learn some interesting things about wetlands and what a valuable and important resource they are on the Petaluma Wetlands site.

I know we’re having a drought in California, but I don’t see how such a large body of water could dry up that quickly from being full just a few weeks ago.

I hope all the birds and fish and froggies are OK.  If you know what’s going, please do tell!