Going out for some Plein Air

I was explaining to my brother how plein air painting is the fancy name for heading outdoors to paint, and how I hadn't been doing this for a while preferring to make decisions with less nature pressure.  So over the weekend I headed down past Carmel since the weather had cleared up, but was still cold.  What was the surprise was that there were enormous waves and really strong winds which would toss sand up in my work despite the fact that I set up behind a 15' high boulder in the sand for protection.  Needless to say my shorts were not enough, and I only managed about an hour and a half before needing to call it a day.  However, it was one of those days which make the paintings of the California coast that really show it's glory.  Between the waves were gorgeous changing colors of aqua water, some with yellow highlights, some with the sand showing through, smashing on the rocks and all the foam turning violet as the sun set and turned the coastline a warm peachy tan.  I am working on my painting, a small 11"x14" now, with some ideas on how to be more comfortable in such harsh winds next time, but it was worth every minute.  No painting to share yet, it's coming.

Garlic Bulb Painting

6"x6" oil on linen on board oil painting of garlic.  I like the color of the thin semi-transparent skin of the garlic and this particular bulb had a lot of rosy colors in it.  Mine was placed on a black shelf, side lit in the afternoon with an extra 'daylight' bulb and a sample of pink mottled wallpaper propped up to be the background. 

Valentine's Day Roses

  

 



Today, for Valentine's Day, I tried to work out a section of Franz Bischoff's "Roses in a Tall Glass" painting from 1917.  I have been carrying around a couple of books on his work for months appreciating his colors and china painting and today finally set about mixing colors from this particular painting to make a small, 6"x6" oil painting on a linen covered board.  Happy Valentine's Day!

2 sketches

 

 

 

 

 

I bought a few linen covered boards to work on and wanted to sketch up my plastic skull with some clementine slices as a reminder that time does run out.  The poppies were just bought for my garden and while potted up I photographed them backlit in the afternoon and from the video it's pretty clear that there were several decisions made in the process.  The idea is to do a large size version of a similar design and this was to be a base sketch to test out the plan. 

 

 

 

 



Orchids "Dancing Angels" painting

 

 

Seems I dove into this one without thinking the hazards out fully.  White orchids were pretty straight forward, but the spotted ones were something new.  Here's how I tried them, for anyone reading this who is painting or just curious:  as the video shows I worked on forming the base shape of the fuscia spotted orchids relying on the color between the spots to form the shape, next I added in the variety of fuscia (alizarin mixed with either cobalt or ultramarine, some cad. red, some thalo red rose, and up to titanium white) spots, then took a sable brush and blended (not in video) lightly here and there to soften the spots, then back in with the background color, and lining and shaping again, pretty much just around and around.  It has, to me, a shaky feeling about it, between the value changes colliding, the wide spread composition, and all those little dots, and so the angels are dancing.  Enjoy!