Painting for June 22, 2006

"My Garden" 11" x 14" acrylic on canvas

Well, Thursday looked like rain, and I didn't want to get caught in it so I painted this one on my deck. It was fairly bright, but overcast, and as you can see a bright spot or so in the clouds. For this painting, I did a thumbnail in pencil using just two values with no detail, just flat shapes. Working from that thumbnail, I painted the colours on the canvas in the approx values of the pencil shapes as my guide.

Plein Air Painting Every Thursday

Thames At Windermere, acrylic on canvas 12" x 10" SOLD

This is the painting I did last night, Thursday June 15, 2006. The location is just about 5 minutes from my home. I arrived at about 6:45 pm and painted until about 8:45 pm. Back at my studio, I changed a couple of colour values, to make the painting read better, and that's it.
I started this painting with an full backgroung under coating of a light pink/ochre mixture ( more pink). Then I started to block in the dark shape with a burnt umber, I drew with the brush, no charcoal layout, I got right to it. I didn't want to run out of daylight, and I am just getting the feel for this outdoor "live" painting, so next time, I'll likely make a charcoal sketch on the canvas, then put in the darks. After the darks and some of the linear outlining, I started adding middle values in local colours. Then it was a free-for-all as I jumped around adding lights, and colour/shape recognition. The fast running water occupied most of my attention, as I wanted it to look convincing.
I had a great time doing this painting, and will be trying to post one every Friday (I hope that's not too ambitious for me)

--Rob

Art in the Village

"Art In The Village" 14" x 11" acrylic on canvas---SOLD

I paint in acrylic, and I now have a pretty good way of keeping the paint from drying out, and I was really happy with this session of using it. If anyone would like more info on my method of using acrylic paint, comment me, I'd be glad to describe it.

This painting was done last Saturday, June 10, at an organized event here in London, Ontario called "Art in the Village". Wortley Village is an vintage district of London, with boutique shops, like a village within a city. I had my exhibitor tent with some of my paintings, and I thought I'd try to offer a demonstration as well. I started the painting at about 9:00 am, but Saturday was a very unseasonably cold day, only 16 degrees C, about 60 degrees F, but there was also a nasty, biting cold wind blowing. The point I'm making is that this 11" x 14" painting took about 1.5 hours of painting time, but stretched out over 7 hours of the day--mostly because of the cold, (I was standing in the shade as well, and the trouble with a cool summer day is that you dress for summer, if it was early spring, or winter I would have been dressed warmer, and it would have been perfect).

In 7 hours, the light changes, and I had to keep reminding myself to ignore the shadows and translate everything I saw back to where the light was in the morning. I think it worked out ok in this painting, but I hope for a warmer day for my next painting, which I am planning for this Thursday evening.

But anyway, what I really want to relate here is that if you are an artist, get out there and paint outdoors...you'll love it, and you'll love what you create. If you are an art collector, you are not going to get a more vibrant, fresh work of art, so look for and support En Plein Aire art and artists' everywhere.
--Rob