marsh geometry and some chickens

When I went back to finish this after two days of rain the light conditions were totally different so I just brought it back to the studio and went from there. I have a little more to do but it has to hang on the wall for a bit so I can see anything that bothers me. The trees aren't completely finished yet but I have to let the colors in the "sky holes" set up a little. I am leaving some of the initial drips at the bottom because I like them.

I am still working on the chickens a little - thought that the background was too light so I darkened that and need to finish their faces and may lighten the front chicken since I think she's still too dark.

process for loosening up........24x12" plein air beginning

I have been trying to begin my outdoor work in a more "inside out, gestural" manner. Sometimes it can be hard to put into words but I look for the center of shapes, their gesture and how they relate to one another rather than so much drawing a composition.

This example of the beginning of a plein air study I did the other day is kind of an example of that. Because I started late in the day, I ran out of light in about an hour and a quarter and it was too late to get an accurate photo of where I stopped. The past two days have been downpours for the most part and I would really like it to clear up so I can get back out there in the afternoon tomorrow!

Happy Thanksgiving!

This 24x12" plein air took me three sessions of an hour each so far - I'm pretty sure I will have some refining to do but it's mostly complete. Because the days are so short now, there's a very small window of time before the light and composition change drastically. I do love the light this time of year and it startled me to realize just how much it had changed between Monday and today - I was fortunate that the weather stayed just about the same. I hope y'all have a wonderful holiday.

really limited! - 12x9"

I did this yesterday at the boat landing down the street..........as I mentioned before I am using a very limited selection of colors. I used ultramarine blue, cadmium yellow and cadmium red (plus white) for this painting. Until last week I have sort of considered that a warm and cool of a red, blue and yellow plus white and earth tones (primarily burnt sienna) was a limited palette - boy, do I feel dumb right now. I am also surprised that I was able to paint this scene effectively with only what I used............another huge surprise was that I used very little white paint. I have to thank James Gurney's challenge on his blog for getting me to really try this.........he had a challenge to paint a graveyard scene using only three colors - in the spirit of Halloween. Though I didn't actually enter it, I did begin a painting for it and stuck to the rules.............unfortunately I didn't hear about the challenge until a few days before the deadline and couldn't finish the painting in time because it was raining so hard that my paint wouldn't stick to the panel and my palette was completely impossible. Despite all that, when I realized what was happening with my colors, I felt this huge sense of excitement and liberation! I will write more about this in the future because I am just blown away by how simple this is.

Horse Island Road - 12" square

 It's wonderful that it's cooling down a little here.............makes getting out a lot more enjoyable! It was pretty gloomy when I went out but we had one of those "coastal flood/full moon" high tides so this spot was much more interesting than it usually is.......there's typically very little water in this spot. Some of the roads were actually flooded and I was unsure if the tides was still coming in or not so I had to find a place where I wouldn't get trapped.

edge of the tide (and new baby chicks) - 18x14"

This is the beach near my house.......the tide has quite a range at Coffin Point and the difference between high and low tide is pretty big. Even though there are few waves due to it being somewhat protected by Harbor Island (in the distance) and Edisto Beach (on the left but unseen in this painting - six miles by boat but close to two hours by car), the tide coming in can be pretty dramatic as it washes over the marsh grasses. I only started this yesterday and probably would have finished it except.......................

the baby chicks arrived at the post office!!!! They only hatched five days ago but already seem to have grown since yesterday. I spent way too much time just watching them and they are super cute.

clouds on the water -12x12"

I did this plein air study yesterday (for the most part)......the light changed and the tide came in so I had to work on it a little bit more today. It was pretty hot so I worked in the studio for the most part - it took me an hour to get the studio down below 90. I believe summer is here!

the middle of nowhere - 16x12"

I'm not sure where I was when I painted this on Wednesday- the GPS didn't even have a name for the dirt road I was parked on. I love painting in spots like this, no traffic, no people, nothing.......probably about 12 miles from my house. I've been having some trouble posting to blogspot recently - I think I have to install the updates that Mac keeps bugging me about!

to the bay - 18" square

I figured I had better get posting a bit more! I just started this one from a plein air study I did years ago along with some photos I took at a different time of the same spot. Believe it or not the color that is predominant in my mixing is cadmium orange. I think I have it roughed out pretty well and hope to finish it before the paint loses it wetness and I have to put it aside for a bit...................this will be complicated by the fact that I am doing my yearly accounting blitz in preparation for tax prep. Damn, I tell myself to do this earlier every single year! 

finishing stuff

Thought I would intersperse text with the pictures this time! At any rate, the weather has moderated a bit (though still unseasonably cold) and I have moved back to the studio after spending several days working in the living room while the "storm" raged. I decided that I would finish some of the paintings I had put off for a period of time. Obviously the boat in underpainting is a new one.............it's 30x24" and I can't wait to get started on it. This boat lives about a mile and a quarter from me at the Gay Fish Co.

The "clouds over the marsh" hasn't been hanging around for too long and I soon figured out that I had put it aside because of something I didn't like - it seemed too cold -I warmed it up and resolved some of the transitions and am much happier with it now. This painting is 20x16" and the photo isn't too great but it is the best I can do till the weather improves a bit (way too windy today to take it outside).

This 18x24" painting has been hanging on the drying wall for nearly a year while I figured out what I was doing wrong..............I think months of doing crappy plein air studies at the marsh has helped me even though I can't really say it in words..........sort of an understanding of the structure of the land masses that the grasses grow on and the way the colors transition from their roots to their tops...........also how the groups of individual grasses form little groups of their own and merge and cross into one another.............see what I mean? It's not quite finished yet but I know where I am going now and that's half the battle!

Taste of Beaufort tomorrow!

Tomorrow is the "Taste of Beaufort" festival at Waterfront Park..........I would love to tell you more but I'm unsure of what it is exactly. I'm pretty sure that it's a showcase of the many restaurants that exist in Beaufort......unfortunately it is supposed to rain all day. The reason I am sharing this with you is that a group of us plein air painters will be painting at the waterfront for much of the day.............so, if you are close, come visit. I am prepping myself for a rainy day! At any rate, I have finished the girl at the beach painting and have begun another painting of the view I see when I look across a large marsh (near my house) at a small white house on the other side. I have been pondering how to compose this picture for months since it looks totally different depending on the time of day and the level of the water.......sometimes the view is quite boring. Both paintings shown are 18x24," a size I am really comfortable with.

broken dock - 14" square

 

Well, I got trying a yellow underpainting out of my system............I have been fighting it every minute that I can see even a bit of it! My impression that I could leave a little of it showing and that would add a certain warmth was incorrect. You can see only small patches of it left and that is only because I haven't completely covered those areas yet and even those portions are driving me nuts. I just wanted to get a photo before the light faded completely.

experimentation! 14"square

 

 

 

I had to put the top painting aside again after making a bunch of progress (with the values) because it was simply too wet to finish up. I have been trying to experiment with the way I begin a painting for  some time and (for some reason) have wanted to use a yellow wash on the white canvas. I tried it once but used pure cadmium lemon yellow which bled into everything I put on top of it...........today I decided to try Graham's Azo Green which can go pretty yellow when diluted. Couldn't take a photo outside due to it being rainy and windy so it looks a little yellower than it is but it's still pretty yellow. Now that I am involved a bit I am beginning to like it but the first few strokes put me totally on edge....we shall see.

winter marsh (Gay Fish docks) - 24x12"

At least you can see where I am going with this painting in this photo........realized after I posted the last time that it was impossible to tell what I was painting! Funny, but as an artist you can get so involved in your own thoughts/reality that you forget that others aren't there with you. I am quite pleased with how this is turning out and will hopefully finish it tomorrow.

marsh color study - 11x14"

 

I am probably going to do more on this but it's so wet right now that I can't........I really felt like fooling around with color today so the marsh in my backyard served my purposes well.

kris' marsh - 10x8 - study

This is the first plein air study I have done this year that I have felt like posting. I met my friend Kris at her wonderful studio on the marsh and did two that I didn't wipe off. The place is full of bird life - ospreys, swans and various shore birds - just awesome!

marsh study - 8" square

The weather is amazing here today.........really heavy rain and wind. My basement is semi-flooded and the backyard looks like a lagoon. I took a break from large things today since the light was god-awful and decided to do a study of Seapowet from memory (mostly). I used the palette knife for much of this.