What A Wonderful World

I see trees of green,
red roses too.
I see them bloom,
for me and you.
And I think to myself,what a wonderful world.--Wonderful World song lyrics

With 74 as today's high, it is most definitely a plein air paint day! 

Pops Of Color! Fun!

The plants and flowers are blooming happily this summer, it felt like a gorgeous spring day outside. I saw color all around in flowers of pink and orange and lots of light bright flourishing greens. The sun was shining and there were very few clouds in the brilliant blue sky, again it sure seemed like Spring and I was happy with that!

What I loved most about this view was the bright colors of the foreground - pink roses and orange flowers. I left the pink and orange colors pure when I applied them as they are the center of interest and I did not want muddy colors. I liked the contrast of the blue green brush against the orange flowers. I saw quite a bit of pink in the sunlight today. The path to the bridge was bright and very light (pinkish) and there even seemed to be a bit of pink along the water's edge in the background. Another feature of this painting includes the impressionistic brushstrokes - I enjoyed making and finding little patterns along the way. Probably, I could use more dull and more green, but this was painted outside alla prima - I can make a note and have a greener painting next time.

I also discovered that I love my new sky blue color - which is called Manganese Blue Hue. Previously I have mixed or applied Ultramarine, Cobalt or Cerulean Blue to get a good sky blue. Manganese and a touch of Titanium White really color matches to the color of the summer sky.

Strong on the brights and maybe too pure in color--still a wonderful day, a wonderful little painting.

Working Quickly And Staying ArtBusy

A One Day Portrait Workshop

One Eye is rather nice

Last week I had a one day Landscape Workshop, now this week I had a one day Portrait Workshop. Intense! We had a live model for the Portrait class.

The Instructor started with a value demo of the model, using only black and white (his work not pictured here). His value demo was very quick and he did not go into detail, more of a light and shadow pattern - I would call it "massed in."

With my first value study, I struggled. I was not happy with the Canvas Paper -- the paint would not move around and the paper felt dry and it was hard to apply my paint. I think we had 30 minutes to complete this value study. I focused perhaps too hard on getting features placed on a new-to-me model. I also did not have a good view, too little of the right side of the face-that was a struggle.

Better Value Study

The next pose for a value study was much kinder to me, an almost full face frontal. I loved the shadow side of the face, there was a strong shadow from the nose onto the cheek.  I like the nose and mouth here too. A much more successful value study.

For the last pose of the day, we brought out the color! Finally! We used a Zorn limited palette which included Titanium White, Ivory Black, Yellow Ochre and Scarlet Lake. I was curious to try Scarlet Lake which was an Orange Red -somehow seemingly a bit brighter than Cadmium Red Medium.

A few nice areas, still imperfect.

Unfortunately I had the bad corner again and I struggled with the short shadow side of the face--I do not know why this tests me so!Ugh! I was happy with the left eye that I painted and with the colors I was able to achieve with the limited palette. I was able to achieve the glow of her red hair, the light skin tone and the orangey mouth color. Again, the time constraints on these paintings were incredibly limiting. This painting is not done. I do not have enough paint down, I do not like the top of head shape, that shadow side really bugs me. I may work on this a little bit to correct a few things, maybe. While I dislike the overall painting, look at the eye closeup, I think it reads well and is accurate in shape, form and color. So one teeny segment looks nice!

This close up is lovely, if only this eye section was the painting! 

Overall, and once again, a one day intense art workshop is good to kick start creativity and painting! I needed to go back to the basics of value studies and limited palette in order to move forward and I need to figure out that three quarter face view. If you are like me, a workshop will never lead to your best work but it is motivating and there is always more to learn!

Day By Day

Cloud Close Up!

A One Day Studio Landscape Workshop

Yesterday I went to a one day landscape painting workshop and even with the compressed schedule, I felt this was a valuable exercise for me! Every once in awhile we artists need these marathon paint challenges.

What does a one day workshop look like? Our instructor quickly showed us his landscape and plein air items - (value viewer, brushes, books, gesso boards etc.) and then did a quick value demo. Next we the students used our reference photos to create value studies on canva paper. Our value studies were created using only black and white paint. I was amazed at how well each of our value studies came out. We created the value studies in a very short time period, in about an hour.

B&W Value Study 

Limited Palette Painting

Next we posted our value studies next to our reference photos to create color studies - using limited palette. The limited palette I used was White, Cad Yellow Light, Alizarin Crimson, Ultramarine Blue and Black. I felt very confident in my color mixing skills - which really helped me adapt to the limited palette.

I was very pleased with my trees, a quick timeline helped me to create them and leave them alone (no overworking). Also, I thought the front of my barn house, that nice orangy color was perfect. Overall, I like the composition and feel of this painting.

My challenge was clouds which I have not painted before. For clouds, I put in the darks in a nice purple/blue ish first. I understand that clouds have the light top, mid-color  and then dark under --but it was still complex and a bit of a struggle. The time constraint of 1.5 hours was also an added challenge. I was very close to done when time was up! The last item of the day was a side by side review where we each showed our value study and color study (no one was completely finished). I was very impressed with how the compositions and values matched between the black and white and color studies for each artist! Amazing and obviously we were all good students! :)

At home I completed my painting by adding the orange foreground and the white around the barn windows. I also added a tiny bit of orangypurple to the dark area of the cloud which I think helps the overall painting.

If you get the paintportunity, I recommend a one day workshop challenge! Go for it!

Sweet & Sunny in High Key

En Plein Air

I've been wanting to find a plein air place that had not only trees but also a building or two. I recently found a park that fits the bill. I love the look of this historic house from the early 1900s. The sides and roof were dappled with sunlight-- since the painting is dominated with light this is considered a high key painting. The top of the roof line was a row of bright orange tiles and copper eave pipes had turned to an almost teal light blue-ish. The shadows were a purple-ish and I loved the shadows cast on the house by the trees. The house was surrounded by trees and flowers, a lovely and inviting summer composition.


With the light yellow-ish house color, the light flowers and greenery, and the expressive brushwork I feel that the house has a fresh and sweet sensibility - delicious!

My house is not straight lines because perfect lines were not my concern on this day. This day I am looking for value and pattern, the light and the way the light hits the form. The emphasis here is on the experience and the vibrancy of sunlight, the capturing of the moment. And, when working quickly painting outside, I wanted to cover the canvas and capture a lush imperfect fun little moment.