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!

lady's island plein air - 16x12"

Just about time to try a few still lifes since there is so little color left this time of the year outdoors. Today and yesterday were absolutely beautiful outside..........warm and kinda sunny but, despite that, the environment is pretty low color at the moment. It was still awesome. I do find myself craving a little more color in my life now that the days are so short and the landscape seems to be resting.

the other side of the beach - 24x12" - plein air

This painting took two sessions of about two and a half hours each. Luckily the conditions were pretty much the same for two days. I'm still using and enjoying the very limited palette. The title refers to the location of this site...........the State Beach is off to the left of the painting about a mile or so and the road to the beach runs through a slice of deep semitropical forest between the beach and this area of marsh that edges the Harbor River. 

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.

summer clouds plein air - 16x12"

 The weather has been extremely stormy here recently and I almost felt like I had cabin fever or something - it was great to be outside painting yesterday. The clouds were great so I concentrated on them. 

marsh green - 12x10"

It was cloudy, gloomy and relatively cool (in the 80's) the other morning. The colors of the marsh are especially appealing in this kind of light around here........the green took my breath away. It was quite impossible to get rid of all the glare in this photo but I tried. 

a real quickie - 16x12"

I did this in about 30 minutes in the late afternoon..........I find that using an old, paint-encrusted panel relieves my anxiety about "wasting paint." I have gotten a lot better about this neurotic mental tendency by playing games like this with myself! The glare on the painting illustrates just how much old paint is underneath. I was feeling trapped in the studio the other day, it was beautiful but beginning to be late afternoon and I simply had to get out; so I did. Not perfect but doing this made me totally happy.

late day - 12x10" plein air

This is a study that I finished in the studio.......I've been trying to get out to paint later in the day. This is no small feat since I tend to get up pretty early and usually go out in the morning, returning to paint in the studio in the afternoon. Habits are hard to break but this time of year with the sun setting early makes that a lot easier...........I don't have to wait until 8:00 when my eyes are just too tired. 

a couple of things......

I have been out painting plein air nearly every day in the past two weeks......the top photo is 16x12" and not yet completed. I have often been spending 2 days for the larger outdoor paintings (especially if the location is close) so I need to get back to that site again. The bottom painting is 12x10" and was done mostly on site. I was kind of happy with it but then decided I could make it better....and I did. This is the first time I can really say that that has happened so I guess the tons of hours I have been spending is beginning to pay off! 

green line of the marsh - plain air 12x10"

It is simply worth it every time that you go out to paint.....even if there is a heat warning or an imminent thunderstorm. We had a heat warning on Monday and it was totally oppressive by 8:30 in the morning but I went anyway. When I got to the boat landing it was hot but there was a breeze of about 20mph. and it was wonderful! The humidity made the landscape seem more solid somehow (without diminishing the color which it does sometimes)...........the water was at my back when I painted this and I focused on that tiny little stripe of green/coolness that appears between the horizontal tabletop of the grasses and the vertical of the trees!

Horse island View - 14x11" & some birds - 12x12"

I really love bird groupings and have been experimenting with them....this is nearly done but in all the heat, even the M. Graham oils I use have been getting sticky really fast; so, sometimes I have to wait a little to finish something because it's not wet enough to do wet into wet but too sticky to work as if the paint is dry. That's what happened this afternoon.

As long as I am painting by 8:30 or 9am, I can usually get in a couple of hours outside.....any earlier and the humidity is awful (it seems to increase overnight and then level off before the heat hits) - plus, the mosquitoes are still feeding. I've been trying to get out at least four times per week since it makes me so much happier than working in the studio! Horse Island doesn't really look much like an island and I was actually standing on the low conduit-style bridge to get this view.....there are a few wild ponies wandering about and every once in a while I see one!

plein aire in the heat! - 12x10"

When I got in the car about noon, the temperature read 95 degrees! I can understand why lots of folks don't paint outdoors much in the summer around here......didn't really feel it till I got in the car and learned the actual temperature. The clouds were great, though, and you don't tend to get them unless it's hot.

plein air season in the south!

Well, the weather has finally softened, the windows are open and there aren't too many bugs yet! Our fledgling plein air group in Beaufort is beginning to take off and we had more people than ever this week. I did the following 12x16" study yesterday - didn't quite finish it but know that I wish to (have to fix the road and adjust some values). A storm front was moving in and I just made it back to the car before the rain arrived.

Also, here's an update of the 18x18" landscape I have been working on in the studio................turns out I didn't get much done on it during the week-long task of getting ready for my accountant/tax prep appointment (who was I kidding).

riverside study - 14x12

Well, it took me only a few minutes to get the image up today so I suppose I'm making progress! The weather was very changeable today and by the time I got to this site it was pretty much fully raining.....it did slow down and I managed to get this study done. 

marsh stuff

 

It was so damn nice that I decided to go outside to paint today rather than finish the painting I have been working on (bottom) inside. I decided to work on a larger canvas (top - 16x12") than I have been using outside and was really happy that I did since it felt so much more "correct" than the smaller canvases I have been using. Sorry about the little shadows at the top of the photo............I took the photo outside on site. The "Taste of Beaufort" festival this past weekend was pretty much a wash-out since it was raining so hard that the paint wasn't even sticking to the canvas and I used nearly a roll of paper towels sopping up the water on my palette (while under an umbrella!).......some days are simply not meant for plein air.

winter docks - begun again - 24x20"

 

I finished the lower horizontal painting of the winter afternoon light on the docks and shrimp boats of Gay Fish Co. - I entered it in the local competition at the Beaufort Art Association's Spring Show. Boy, was this a hard painting to photograph! I must have taken 30 pictures in every possible light in my yard....looks a little dark here but at least there's no glare. Then I decided I would finish the painting at the top which has been languishing on my drying wall for months and months.....also of Gay Fish Co. A place which is not only picturesque, has great shrimp all year and is close to home; but appeared in a tiny portion of the movie "Forrest Gump." As I looked at the picture over the past months, I realized that the values were off so I knew where I had to go. I will end up painting the entire picture over again but the drawing was accurate and I like the concept of it. I began again with the important relationship between the light washed docks and the white building in shadow........hopefully, I will finish it with this pass and not have to put it back up on the drying wall.

storm on the marsh - 14x11"

It has been very stormy here recently but I am loving it. I almost lost this one to a powerful gust of wind........had to do a little repair but it landed face-up.

off red bluff road - 14x11"

I am beginning to discover new painting spots..........it really takes a while after you move to know what places work at each time of day and the like. This spot is near the Broad River where I had planned on painting - it turned out to be rather boring in the morning so I moved on and found this place which I loved. The group of egrets hung around for over an hour which was nice.

boats on a marsh study - 10x8"

This is a study from my trip to Cape Cod last fall...........have not felt like posting updates of larger things and realized that I hadn't posted this one in all of the confusion of moving. This week has been busy because I had to buy a new car. I realized that I had spent a fortune last year on my 2001 Rav 4 when I added up my expenses for taxes and wasn't willing to spend another dime. I was also becoming stressed just waiting for something major to happen - the car had 215,000 miles on it. So........I bit the bullet and am now the proud owner of a 2012 Prius!!!! It is so damn quiet, kind of spooky but it's beautiful.