Columbus Landscaping Association Garden Tour

Our group was asked to paint in the gardens on the Columbus Landscaping Associaton Garden Tour today. I chose a beautiful house in a gated community off Orange Road. What a beautiful home and wonderful landscaping! I painted two paintings while there. What a great experience!

Studio Work - Heron Pond

I worked in the studio several evenings this week. For this painting, I first used the Gamblin FastMatte Alkyd for the first layer to block in the basic shapes. The next night couple nights, I used my normal Gamblin standard oil paints. I really like the feel of working on top of the FastMatte. I am not sure it if was the dry texture of the Alkyd or just because the paint was dry. I am so used to working on a painting alla prima wet on wet. I also worked larger (11x14) then my normal plein air size of 8x10.

acrylic wash

FastMatte

regular oils

I thought I was done but the 2nd heron was distracting
and also made some other changes

"Heron Pond", 11 x 14, oil on hard board

yART–Art at the MAC

I painted from a photograph while at the art fair. It was a nice day and lots of nice people came through. No sales on my part, but I did sell one of my older pochade boxes to a fellow painter. It got hot and sticky mid-afternoon, and I packed up and headed home.

While at the fair, I got some suggestions from my oil painting teacher and worked on it a little bit after coming home. My underpainting was a golden color and bright red. You can see a bit of it in the first photo below.

The photo I used was underexposed on purpose so that I wouldn't try to copy it exactly. 

"Woodlot"  8x10  oil on hardboard

yArt in the Park

If you are in the Columbus Ohio area, please stop by tomorrow at the MAC and visit with me and the Central Ohio Plein Air group. We will have art for sale and will be painting!
http://www.mcconnellarts.org/wp/archives/6181

Plein Air Saturday–Prairie Oaks Metro Park

We painted at Prairie Oaks today. It was really overcast and drizzling when we arrived. I setup in the shelter house because I was using pastels today. Because I bought a new pochade recently for my oil painting, I decided to gear up my older Guerrilla Painter box for pastels. I already had two of the pastel trays, so bought two more and the palette extensions this week because Judsons had lower prices with free shipping! By the time I was trying to finish up my painting, the sun came out and every cloud disappeared! Talk about chasing the light! I like my finished painting.

Prairie Barn, 9 x 12, pastel on Pastelmat

Palette Cleansers

Just a couple quickie sketches to use up the paint on my palette.

Saturday Plein Air–Glacier Ridge Metro Park

We painted at Glacier Ridge Metro park today. I turned out to be a lovely day. After weeks of 95 degrees and high humidty, today was humid, but in the low 80's and overcast with a nice breeze. I decided to try putting a little video of my progress on the blog today instead of individual photos.

I have a new laptop, and learning about Windows 7 and Windows Live options. Some of it is pretty nice! I like the photo editing package real well, and have most of the options there figured out. And I do like using it to create a blog post.

"Glacier Ridge View"  8x10, oil on panel

I have rigged up a new way of photographing my finished paintings too. I read online about homemade photography tents for lighting objects. I made mine with foamcore board, packing tape and tracing paper. I use clamp-on work lights for lighting. I have finally figured out all the options on my Canon SD1200IS Digital Elph camera and now set white balance and adjust before taking the photos.

Saturday Plein Air–Galena

We painted in Galena today. Everyone was feeling pretty sluggish from the heat and humidity, even though we start early in the day. Several people just couldn’t take it and went home early. The rest of us soldiered on and we got together for our group critique early, about 11pm. Most of us then went over to the Mudflats Bar and Grill for lunch. They have great food and cool AC.

I’m not real happy with my work today, so I am not showing a closeup.

 

Thursday Studio Work

Well, I still had paint on my palette so I gave the wild under-painting technique another go. This one was on a gesso hardboard, so it was a much smoother surface. I used very little solvent and because the paint was several days old, it seemed to have a lot of sheen – which I don’t like. I noticed it most with the titanium white. Is that a problem with that white? Should I try a zinc/titanium mix?





The final painting is just ok. It doesn’t have the pop that the one last night had. But I am learning a lot.

Wednesday Studio Work

I haven't been real happy with my oil paintings lately. They have been just blah.... I know what I WANT to do, but getting the paint and the brush to do it is another thing. The application process has always been difficult for me. I tend to over-blend, use too thin of paint and mix dull colors.

I found some artists online whose work excited and motivated me. I noticed they use very colorful under-paintings, don't try to cover every bit of it, and have thick, clear, clean color. The brushstrokes are very deliberate. So last night, I made a few wild under-paintings. Tonight, I sat down to play, so I could use up the paint on my palette from Saturday. I had a GREAT time and am really happy with how it turned out! I have HOPE!!!

Saturday Plein Air - Goodale Park

We painted at Goodale Park today. Painters among the Segways, Labradoodles, squirrels, joggers and homeless people. It was so hot and humid that there was a haze even at 9am. We painted quickly and headed home by 11am to camp out in the AC.

I can't seem to get a good photo of my painting, but hope you can see it well enough.

Leftovers

I wanted to use up the paint on my palette last night, so decided to just play on one of the mat board panels. I loosely based this composition of the last painting. I gave myself a rule not to squeeze out any new paint. Yes, it is a blurry painting, but I kinda like it. It could be used for an under painting, but I will probably just move on to a new one.

Plein Air Saturday - Red Bank Marina

We painted at the Red Bank Marina area of Hoover Reservoir, Westerville Ohio today. We have painted here many times. We had a large group today and I elected to park over by the boat dry storage area. There wasn't much shade, so I decided to setup at the back of my mini-SUV. I put a large golf umbrella over the back door and setup my new painting set. The light was still reflecting badly, so I finagled my cotton shirt over the edge and clamped it down. It was quite the setup! The back of my car is the perfect height for me to sit on the edge and the back end gives me lots of space to spread out the stuff around me! Here is a picture of the "Paint - Mobile":

Paint-Mobile

Here are pics of the view. Unfortunately, as often happens, someone decided to park their vehicle right in the middle of the view! So, several times, I had to walk across the parking lot to take a look at what was hidden and rush back and try to paint it.

And the finished painting is below. I touched up a couple things after I got home. I am trying to work on some specific issues in the field, such as keeping the paint clean and fresh and using deliberate brush strokes. Eventually I would like to go a bit more abstract, but feel I need to work on the foundation issues first.

"Dry Storage Mid July", 8x10, oil on hard board panel

Playing with Grounds

I've been experimenting with grounds, size, and gesso. I had been given a huge pile of mat board cutouts and wanted to try to use these for my oil or pastel paintings, since I am not a fan of canvas. I recently tried the approach of using PVA size on the boards, followed by oil painting ground. Both of these products are by Gamblin. I use Gamblin oil paints exclusively and love the quality. I tried using the ground by itself on panels, but felt the paint 'lifted' as I was painting. So I figured I might need to size the panels first. It didn't seem to make much difference.

The painting below was a quickie painting done on one of these boards. This scene is at Bremerton from my trip in June. I used the Fast Matte oil paints last night. I really didn't like the feel of this surface at all and was going to give up on this one, but today with left over regular oil paints, I finished this up. I think the Fast Matte paint works well for an underpainting, with the regular oils on top. Although it isn't a spectacular painting, I feel I learned a lot from my experiment, both about the surface preparation and the paint. I think I prefer the feel of gesso.

Bremerton - High Tide,  8x10 oil on paper panel

Tide's Out

Just a quick 6 x 6 playing around with the Fast Matte paint. I was able to mix some nice browns with these. Still working out the hues of greens though....and was pretty stingy with the paint! Sometimes it is hard to work smaller.

Test Drive

I stopped at Blicks today to get some Gamblin Fast Matte oil paints. I wanted to give them a try as they dry really quickly. I intend on using them when I travel so that my paintings dry enough to pack them for the trip home. I like to make a quick color wheel test of paints I am not familiar with and was happy with how it turned out. I use regular Gamblin oil paint, and these were very close to those. A couple of the colors seemed a bit stiff but others seemed to leak out the binder oils. I mainly used Gamsol to get the consistency right, but also used some Liquin. 

I usually have a hard time painting flowers, but thought these hydrangeas I bought at Costco might be simple to paint. Yea right. And this is the last time I will try to paint that vase! There is something about that shape and color that I just can't get right. I have tried to paint the vase several times in the past. This is not one of my favorite paintings, but it actually looks better in the photo than in real life, so I thought I would post it.

I gave my new pochade box a test drive for this painting too. It worked well and I did get a bit of paint on it to initiate it.

New Pochade

I just received my new EasyL Pro pochade box. I really like my Guerilla box for local painting close to the car, but I wanted a slimmer box to be able to pack it inside a suitcase for travel. Of course, I have no plans to travel with it until next spring, but I was itching to get it so I could use it en plein air this summer too! Several people in my painting group use this brand and the company has a good selection of different sizes to choose from. It is very well made. I considered several other brands but this one had the options that worked best for me.

That is an 8x10 painting panel mounted as you would to paint - to show scale. The whole thing is about 11 x 14 and 3" thick when closed. The back side (where the strap is hanging down) adjusts and will hold several different sizes of wet panels, so you can carry the whole thing without worrying about messing up a wet painting. I bought the tripod as part of the kit. It seems to be a pretty good one.

 

Now it will be difficult to get started painting on it. Kinda like driving a new car and worrying about getting that first ding! I may spray more Polyurethane on the inside before I do anything else. Some people get a piece of glass cut to fit and seal it in to use as the palette, but because I intend on putting this in a suitcase on a plane, I am afraid to use glass. For now, I will probably use disposable palette paper, and later get a piece of plexi-glass cut to fit.

Plein Air Saturday - Hocking Hills Bees

Plein Air Saturday - Topiary Park

We painted downtown at the Topiary Park. I decided to use pastels today. We got done about 20 minutes before the rain started, and then it poured all day long.

Bremerton Trip

I flew out to Bremerton Washington for two nights this weekend to see my niece graduate from Olympic College, with honors! Congratulations Claire! Stayed in Silverdale at a hotel that was right on the water. Lovely.

Here are a few pictures:

 Anyone know what this bush is? They were everywhere along the roadways.