Early Morning Flight

Early Morning Flight 12x16 pastel, copyright 2012

I wonder how many of my paintings have been inspired by my early morning walks?  One of these days I will have to count them up, adding this one to the list.  What makes this one different though is that it is not based on a photograph.  I neglected to take my camera with me, and so had to stare and memorize the constantly changing scene, then quickly get it on paper before it was forgotten.  It's the first time I've tried working from memory, and I think it worked out well.  And of course you just can't go wrong with lots of blue.

Morning snow

Light Snow, Bright Morning 12x9 pastel, copyright 2012

It's hard to believe given the unusually warm weather we are experiencing now, but two weeks ago we woke up to a bit of a surprise: an overnight snow.  It was only and inch and was gone by midmorning, but it is the most significant snowfall we've had this winter.  Naturally I grabbed my camera and walked around a bit after the kids got on the bus.

Watching the light slowly creep over the trees and chase back the shadows has become a highlight of my morning, a justification for getting up before the sun.  While I can see this happening from my kitchen window, I realized that morning that I've never watched it in this particular field, which is in the floodplain of the creek and completely surrounded by trees.  It can't be seen from the road, making it almost a secret space, a little hidden surprise at the end of the lane.

January Sunshine

Bank Barn, January Sun 16x12 pastel, copyright 2012

I've been thinking about tackling the challenge of plein air painting a lot lately, building up the courage to try it again.  My last few attempts have ended in frustration.  The most difficult thing for me is finding a focal point.  Using photographs is so much easier because I can crop and shift the frame around until it suits me.  And the light never changes in a photograph.

But the light and the colors aren't 100% accurate in photographs and subtleties can get lost.  So I decided to try it again yesterday, taking advantage of what was most likely the last unseasonably nice weather for awhile.  Our bank barn is a natural focal point and one very familiar to me.  In the warm afternoon sunshine I sat out on our driveway for a little over an hour and painted this pastel while fending off a cat that wanted to sleep on the pastels and a German shepherd mix that thinks she's a lap dog.

Working quickly is essential since the light is constantly changing, so I left out a lot of details like brush and stonework and focused on basic shapes, light and shadow.  By the time I finished the shadows had shifted and were creeping up the side of the barn.  I was pleasantly surprised with how it turned out - the high contrast is something that probably would have been lost working from a photograph.  A few minor touch ups this morning finished it off, mostly just cleaning up the lines.  Now that I know that I can do it, I'll have to try again next time the sun shines.  Of course it may be awhile before that happens.

Warm thoughts

Midsummer Barn 16x12 pastel, copyright 2012

I hope everyone had a wonderful and safe holiday season.  We live fairly close to much of our family and were able to celebrate with them.  My many cousins and adorable little nephew are always good for smiles.  Needless to say, I haven't done a whole lot of artwork for the past weeks.

However, on the second day of the new year we had our first measurable (about 1 inch) of snow, and it got me wishing for warmer weather already.  I sorted through the many photos taken over the summer and fall, finally settling on this one.  If it looks at all familiar, this is the same spot and same barn I painted late last year from a frosty morning.

This one was more of a struggle for me as I had a lot of trouble getting the shadows of the trees to look right.  First they were too patchy, then too purple, then too solid.  And I had grasses with seed heads on the lower right, but found it too distracting and so took them out.  When in doubt, simplify!  Making the middle foreground lighter helped too - without that light area, the barn was far too strong of an element.  I think I finally got it right, and am pleased with the depth it has.  The road/field looks like it just keeps going off to the right - which it does.  One of these days I will get permission to walk down that way.  Once it gets warm again, that is.

Asparagus patch work in progress, part 2

And now to finish the painting...

Work continues on the details bit by bit.  This included darkening the trees with black and burnt sienna (a rusty colored brown) and redrawing some of the branches in the nearly finished trees.  I'm also pulling the sky down into the trees as I go.  Artists like to call the spaces in trees where the sky is visible "sky holes".

More blacks and purples in the shadows and more orange in the highlights.  I've also added more of a blue-green-grey to the middle tone areas.  Asparagus has a bit of this color in it, plus I wanted to de-emphsized the areas that weren't being directly hit by sunlight by making them more neutral in color.  Though it isn't obvious in the photo, a bit of salmon pink and lavender are going into the sky.  The trees on the left are more blended, again to de-emphasize them.  I really want to push the patches of sunlight.

At this point I got caught up in the "zone" and forgot to take more photos until it was pretty much done.  In the final piece, the trees got darkened quite a bit with black, burnt sienna, purple and dark green.  A lot of burnt sienna goes into the silo as well, and I toned down its highlights by using blue rather than yellow.  The yellow in the sky made it too washed out; bright orange and bluish purple made it both more intense and darker, and more in keeping with early morning.  Though I increased the contrasts in the background asparagus slightly with a few more blacks and yellows, it seems darker because the foreground is much brighter.  Various yellows, including just a bit of the palest yellow, add depth and texture.  It isn't obvious, but there are bits of the bright orange from the sky scattered throughout the asparagus as well.

Hopefully next week I'll have a newly finished piece to show you.  I also have receptions for two different shows next weekend, so keep your fingers crossed for me!

Asparagus Patch, work in progress part 1

I haven't posted lately partly because I've been pretty busy and partly because I honestly don't have any thing worthwhile to post.  I've made a few attempts in pastel recently, including a large sunflower, a plein air landscape and a still life with tomatoes.  None of them turned out, so I decided to switch to a larger sized oil landscape.  It's giving me fits as well.  I haven't abandoned it yet, but I did decide to set it aside for awhile until I feel like I can work on it without getting frustrated.

Meantime, I thought everyone might be interested in a series of photos I took of the asparagus patch posted a few weeks ago.

I started by quickly sketching the scene in black pastel to give me the basic idea of where everything show go and to lay out the foundations for the darkest areas.  I sprayed this with fixative so it wouldn't smear all over or blend with and dull the light areas.

Then I added color to the sky, followed by the trees, working from left to right to minimize smudging.  Highlights in the asparagus were next.

Purples and blues in the shadows followed, along with highlights on the little storage silo.  Then I started on the details of the asparagus and trees on the left, adding depth with more yellows and oranges to emphasize highlights and trying to work out the texture.  A bit of pale yellow was added to brighten up the sky as well.

Blogger seems to be objecting to my adding a whole series of images in one posting, so I'll finish it up tomorrow.

Painting Challenge

A dramatic soccer season has come to an end, just in time for a round of birthdays and the holidays, all while starting a new job at the arts center.  I did manage to finish a pastel last weekend.  I follow a number of blogs of artists I admire, and one of them is Bonnie Griffith.  Bonnie lives in the Northwest and her pastel landscapes have a wonderful depth and vibrancy to them that I am always aiming for.  She recently issued a challenge on her blog to paint a photo she had taken while on vacation in Montana.  We don't get outcrops like this in western Ohio and I decided I needed the practice, so I took her up on that challenge.  This pastel is the result:

Outcrop with Juniper 12x14 pastel, copyright 2010

photo from SE Montana, copyright Bonnie Griffith 2101

It's interesting to me to look at the two images side by side.  I see lots of changes I can make, but I think it might be best to leave it as is.  One of the most difficult things for me is knowing when to stop.  I have a tendency to get caught up in the details and end up overworking the piece.  This time I left the photograph on the laptop rather than printing it out, and blurred the image slightly.  I think that helped and is something I will try again.

Thanks Bonnie!