Plein Air: An Event Close To Home

Red Delicious & Bird Bungalow

Luckily I Didn't Have to Travel Far for This Plein Air Event

I always see the plein air ads in magazines that offer overseas plein air adventures; that sounds lovely but I prefer to have my plein air adventures closer to home. I am not a light packer, I do not know how I would get my gear overseas! My fellow artist friend, called me a "Girlscout" because I am prepared (and probably carry too much stuff).

This was my second year participating in the FRESH Milford Paint Out, which occurs in a town near me. It is a great local event and I am always incredibly impressed with the artistic talent in the area! WOW!

The Advantages of a Local Plein Air Event:

• I can scout the area ahead of time
  I made a list in order of ideal of painting locations
• I can invite friends/paint with friends
• I paint in the park weekly, I have favorite painting spots
• I can pack my lunch
• I know where the restrooms are
• I can go home at night to my comfy bed
• I can use frames from home and have assistance framing wet paintings (hello husband). If you read about my Eureka Springs Paint out, me doing the framing each afternoon was tough and exhausting, I would not sign up for that again for awhile.
  

Solitude

In the two day plein air event, I was able to produce 4 paintings. Two of them I was pleased with and put into the show!

Friday we started painting on a barn and farmhouse property, despite the threat of rain. The day stayed gray and overcast, but we got lucky and did not get rained on. I think we started painting at 930 (it took me while to get my composition placed) and stopped painting at 2, that was my first painting for the day. I did not take much of a lunch break as I had packed my lunch. Another reason it took me longer to paint was the fact that I used an 11x14 canvas which is larger than I typically use for plein air (I love 8x10 and 9x12). But the barn scene had so many interesting things going on--the light field and green trees behind, the stone wall in the front--just interesting! I could have stayed at this location all day, and had hoped to paint the farmhouse in the afternoon. One art friend was worried about the threat of rain, so we moved to one of our rain locations (we had scouted the local area for hours before the event). At the second location, the cemetary,  we took in the view from the shelter, which was not great. We all still painted near our cars, in case of rain. The sky did turn dark all around, but it did not rain on us. At 5 pm I had to stop, I was tired, my painting arm was tired. It had been a good day!

Fence & Flowers

On Saturday we woke up to pouring rain and even as I drove to the park, it was raining. I put black garbage bags over my gear as we walked from the car to the park shelter (a bit of a walk) in the light rain. I was very thankful for the shelter as it poured rain for several hours; hours that I painted comfortably. My first Saturday painting was a 9x12 birdhouse. I loved the light white of the birdhouse against the deep green trees and grasses, and the sky was dark with rain. I also really wanted to get in the pale pink flowers at the base of the birdhouse, they were lovely. Overall I am happy with the birdhouse painting, I took many photos and in the future may do a studio painting from them. Once again, my AM painting took longer. It took longer than I thought to get in the fences and the flowers.

Love this scene, but it may rain!

For my PM painting I chose a smaller 8x10 canvas and I had wanted to paint yellow day lilies against a fence post, this was more challenging than I anticipated. Another long but good day.

After painting all day I was happy but exhausted! I would go home, walk the dogs, take a bath, repack my art kit and make a lunch and go to bed early.

My favorite day was Sunday when we attended the art show and sale in which artists could take in 2 framed paintings created over the 2 day event. How fun to see all of the works created over the weekend. Wow! The talent in the local area is amazing! 

Go see the show at the SHAC on Main Street in Milford, now through August 21st!!! 

What's On Your Palette?

My Colors: Color Chart  

Sue, You've Got Me Thinking!

My friend Sue has just started Oil Painting and she has been asking many questions about colors, color mixing and palettes. Sue is a Professional Pastel Artist and she has only recently decided to try Oil Painting--she has done amazingly well! All of Sue's questions really got me thinking about my palette colors and how they have changed since I started taking Oil Painting classes.

After writing down my palette and re-reading Richard Scmid's Alla Prima, I decided to start making color charts.  Color charts take a long time and are a lot of work but I want to know what my colors can do. The first color chart is my palette colors across the top (horizontal) and then the top color mixed with an increasing amount of white (the vertical). Look at the beautiful bright color choices that I mixed! And, there are still color charts to make now of each color mixed with all the other colors...many more charts to do.

So, here is my current paint palette:

Sara Palette Summer 2018

Warm White (Gamblin)

Titanium White (Gamblin)

Radiant Lemon (Gamblin)

Cadmium Yellow Medium (Rembrandt)

Permanent Red Medium (Rembrandt)

Alizarin Crimson (Winsor & Newton)

Permanent Rose (Winsor & Newton)

Cerulean Blue Hue (Gamblin) *

Ultramarine Blue (Gamblin)

Viridian Green (Rembrandt)*

Pthalo Green (Gamblin)

Winsor Violet Dioxazine (Winsor & Newton)

Ivory Black (Gamblin)

*Denotes sometimes color (this is not always on my palette).

Play Colors: I own and use (but not always) Indian Yellow, Cobalt Blue, Sap Green, Yellow Ochre, Yellow Ochre Light, Naples Yellow.

Notes:

This is my current palette but this does change. Only since April have I been using Pthalo Green, it is currently what I would call a ‘Play” color. I want to see what it does and how it interacts with my palette. Right now I love the dark purple that I get when I mix Pthalo and Alizarin or Pthalo and Permanent Rose. Also, I like to mix my own greens, I don't use much "tube" green when I plein air paint.

I tried using Gamblin’s Cadmium Yellow and I did not like it, it was cheaper and less toxic but it did not have the same color or consistency (butter) as that of the Rembrandt paint.

In looking back at numerous oil painting class notes, my palette is most close that of my favorite art workshop instructor,  Vianna Szabo. I have removed from my palette the Burnt Sienna, Raw Sienna, Yellow Ochre, Naples Yellow, and most earth colors (which I had from previous classes and workshops). I have found that each Instructor will prefer different colors and mediums, but ultimately the artist has to choose and try what works for them. 

I have tried many colors and many palettes, this is where I am today--subject to change, of course. 

Plein Air Fest: What We Loved

Lady in Red, 9x12

One of my Mom's 'Gem Paintings', ah rocks!

Our painted works:

I felt that I painted two good works, with my hat storefront hat nocturne being my best work. My other favorite from the Train Depot, is the Lady in Red, I loved this little red car found in the train graveyard. Mom painted a small gem at the lake that had amazing rocks and water. And, I loved her colorful downtown street scene (we both would have loved more time to work on these paintings).

Downtown Nocturnes!

Our nocturnes together

My hat store nocturne

Mom and I agreed, our favorite experience was when we painted our downtown nocturnes. I don't know why, we just loved the quiet streets and painting in the dark; it was terrific fun. In hindsight, we should have gotten there earlier, as it was we got there at sunset (around 8 pm). We had to stop at 11 PM only because it was late and we had to get up for the next paint out early in the morning. Probably we could have stayed another hour! I painted like a madwoman to get the paint down-- to get the canvas surface covered. I did not use my light (except for here in photo), as I was under a pink light. I had fun mixing and putting the colors in under that pink night light.

Awards!

We loved meeting and talking to other artists and seeing their phenomenal work. Mom had met and taken workshops from several of the artists and they were incredible painters! We were just in awe of all the talent in the room each night at the show and sale, wow!


We would have given awards to:

This work amazes me, technical & perfect!

Brilliant composition

Perspective & a nocturne, wow!

I would have given this a TOP TOP Award! LOVE!

Mom really loved the lower painting here

One of My FAVES! Love the expressiveness!