Along Yellowstone Lake

At the Edge of the Lake, 5 1/2x8 pastel, copyright 2012

This painting is from the same spot as the last one, but looking along the shore of Yellowstone Lake instead of across it.  I'm still finding reflections in water a bit tricky.  The images of the closer trees and the clouds turned out, but it's the distant images that I'm struggling with.  Maybe I'm being too self critical, but they just don't quite read right.  Part of the problem perhaps is that the distant tree line is too regular.  Making tree lines regular and symmetrical, especially distant ones, can be hard to avoid.  It seems the eye (and the hand) tends to create patterns where none exist.  More yellow in the foreground shoreline would help too.

This is certainly a learn as you go process in which I am finding both where I am doing well and where improvements need to be made.  This is the last small piece completed to this date, so I need to sit down and do more.  Although I know I need to work on my reflections more, the idea of trying a few geysers sounds like a lot of fun.  Maybe they will help me to loosen up my painting a bit and not fuss so much over the details.  We shall see.

Lake Shore

Lake Shore 9x12 pastel, copyright 2012

This weekend the family spent a lot of time on the water at Leesville Lake, visiting and celebrating birthdays.  It seemed like a good time to practice plein air painting so I packed up all my pastels in a sturdy wooden box that barely fit into a backpack.  Most of them survived although a few smaller bits of the soft ones crumbled, and the pack was pretty heavy.  I'm hoping to lighten the load a bit next time.

Sunday morning I hauled it all down to the lake and sat on the pontoon boat for about an hour, painting the shoreline until the heat got to me.  It was a pretty rough painting, and when I took it home I discovered that I had overcompensated for the brightness of the sunlight and painted far too darkly.  The past two days have been spent trying to fix that issue.

I still haven't decided about the top third of the painting - the foliage of the trees just isn't working.  And it's very green, which is always an issue for the eastern half of the country in the spring - everything is green, making it hard to create a landscape that isn't too monochromatic.  I am pretty happy with the reflection though, so it is definitely worth salvaging even if I do end up cropping off the top third.

A stop at Lake Ontario

Clean Hands  6x6 oil, copyright 2011
NFS

A brief moment of sunshine, the first in almost a week, allowed me to finally get a decent photo.  The redhead and her hat return to the water, this time in Lake Ontario.  Between Niagara Falls and the 1000 Islands region, we stopped at one of the many state parks along the lake shore.  It has become a family tradition to make a sand castle on every beach we come to.  So far this has included three of the five Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean.  After building is completed, hands must be washed free of sand - my daughter came up with the appropriate title.

The hardest part of this one was getting the ripples right.  They were painted and wiped several times before they finally seemed right.  I've tried a few other scenes with water this past week that haven't turned out as well.  Ripples and waves and reflections all conspire to make a very challenging subject to paint.

At the Lake

At the Lake, Memorial Day 6x6 oil, copyright 2011
NFS

Went back to late May for this one.  A cool dip in the lake sounds inviting in the extreme heat we've been having this week!   Over Memorial Day weekend, the family headed out to a man-made lake in eastern Ohio where my parents have a small cottage.  Boating, fishing and swimming took up most of our time.  

Close to the cottage is an area for launching boats, and swallowtail butterflies gather at the edge of the water to drink up nutrients from the mud.   My daughter tried to see how close she could get, but they all took off at her approach.  I tried painting them flittering around her, but the painting is just too small - they came out just as blobs.  

I think this is the first time I have painted a figure in oil.   Slowly it's sinking in that careful measurements before painting make a big difference in the end.  And I have to add, that I am loving her hat - I think that might make a few more appearances in the future.