Saturday Plein Air - Battelle Darby Creek metro park

I've been painting each Saturday, but posted on my Facebook Artist page instead of here. Sorry!

This week, we were at Battelle Darby Creek metro park near the nature center. It was way too hot to hike to find the buffalo, so most of us stayed in the shade at the nature center. I was looking through this opening to paint the couple of sycamore trees along the trail:

It has been a few weeks since I worked in pastels, so brought them today. I was using a piece of Pastelmat paper which was previously toned with gouache in a golden color.

It came together pretty quickly. I like it!

Saturday Plein Air - Velvet Ice Cream Olde Mill

We painted in Utica at the Velvet Ice cream factory, Ye Olde Mill. I worked in pastel on a Pastelbord, and although I shy away from architecture, I gave it a shot. Not too bad, but it needs more work. Not sure I will finish it though, as it is not a subject I will frame.

But we had really nice weather, a nice size group, and we had lunch/ice cream inside the mill. I stopped on the way home at Branstool orchards for Coral Star peaches which are huge! Never had this variety before. Can't wait until the one on the counter is ready to eat!

Friday Studio Play

I took today off work to wait for the delivery guys with a new clothes washer, and also the dryer vent cleaners. The dryer vent guys got here early - yeah! But the delivery service gave the dreaded "4 hour delivery window". In between, I watched a couple painting videos and then got into the studio.

I've been using black/white paint for working on my brush work in oils. Last week, I painted the scene below using 9 steps of values:

I commented on my Facebook page that I felt I could probably use fewer steps, so today I tried five steps:

 Yeah, that was hard. But then again, the value changes in my subject of peaches was more difficult to decipher.

Not great, but a good exercise!