Yellow Canoe. Plein Air Painting at Ryland Lakes, KY

Yellow Canoe.  Watercolor.
About 10 x 8 inches.

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Chesapeake Bay Study IV.  Watercolor.
Approximately 5 x 7 inches

We're traveling right now, and staying at a cottage on Chesapeake Bay.  While the manly men we're out swimming, I was doing plein air sketches from a downed log.  This is the most realistic of the four I did....and, my favorite.  (It is a gray, gray day, and the sun was just barely trying to get out...the painting looks cheerier than the day, to tell you the truth)

We've seen osprey hunting, and spotted the same bald eagle twice.  Awesome.

Strathmore 140 lb paper (a sketch book), Daniel Smith phthalo blue red scale, raw sienna, and hansa yellow medium.

Cemetery On Ridge

Cemetery On Ridge.  Seen in southern Indiana.  4x4.5 inches.

Last weekend, I took a bike trip through southern Indiana with the Babes--a local cycling group. They're lovely women.  They are strong women. If you ever have a chance to ride with them, do. I brought some new paints with me (Qor by Golden), which were interesting, but I was having trouble hitting the values I wanted while painting plein air.  The paintings I tried were, meh.

I saw lots of scenes I wanted to stop and paint, and if you read this blog, you know I paint a lot from memory and feel.  I tried to remember. Here's a cemetery on a ridge--spotted while climbing a hill on my bike on a grey Sunday morning.  

Colors are carbazole violet, indigo, indian yellow, and undersea green all by Daniel Smith.  The painting is 4 inches wide by 4.5 inches tall on Fabriano 300 lb rough watercolor paper.  

You can see some of the paintings from last year's trip along the Ohio River in KY and OH, here.

Great Lakes Adventure

My family just returned from a two week tour through Michigan and Wisconsin.  We went up through Michigan stopping at Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes and Mackinac, and got as far north as Isle Royale.  Isle Royale is a 3 h ferry ride from Copper Harbor, MI on the Keeweenaw Peninsula.  We had flat, flat water on the ride out and then 2-4 foot waves on the ride back.  2-4 feet doesn't sound like much until you're on a ferry--whew baby.

If you haven't clicked through, please do--there are three more paintings.

Plein Air Painting at Spring Grove Cemetery & Arboretum

Yesterday, I traveled with a group of artists to Spring Grove Cemetary & Arboretum.  If you live in the Cincinnati metropolitan area and haven't been, it is worth a trip.  The cemetery dates to the mid-19th century, and they have fabulous grounds with numerous state champion trees.  

It's open to the public, so we wandered in and painted, sketched, drew, and meditated in an area of the cemetery that had ponds, bridges, and beautiful cypress trees with cypress knees.  

I cleaned out my bag before I went, so I was portable--one of the first posts I wrote for this blog was about plein air painting, where I got stuck at the parking lot because my bag was so overfilled.

A Plein Air Adventure

Last week, Clair Breetz,  my fellow studio mate from the Art Circle invited us to Ryland Lakes to paint plein air. It is a country club community, surrounded by cottages and summer homes.  It was so beautiful it qualified as bucolic.  I did a couple of plein air paintings, one of which, I'm showing the evolution of here. 

At the end of a long lake, sat a triangle house, nestled at the bottom of the hills and the edge of the lake.  Really.  Triangle.  And, it was framed in white.  On the left is my first attempt, and on the right is a second version.

I like the sky, and I like the water.  The middle section?  Not so much.  That house looks out of place, and where the shore meets the tree line is under defined and washed out.

What to do?  I went back in and weighted the shore line with darker colors.  When I rephotographed the painting, you can still see the house.  That is a powerful triangle.  (The inconsistent blues of the sky have more to do with my photography skills.  I'm working on it, but watercolors can be challenging to photograph, in my opinion.  See here.)



And, here's a picture of me painting the 1st version, taken by my +Connie Springer , who does lovely portrait photography.

Painting En Plein Air

The last few weeks have been absolutely beautiful, and my plan was to go outside and paint.  I wanted to visit Winton Woods, and capture the fall colors reflected in the lake.  But, I found I couldn't park close enough to see the lake without hauling my gear.  And, boy, did I have a lot of junk to haul.  Here is what I was carrying yesterday:

--palatte (large)
--brushes (about 10)
--paper
--water
--paper towels
--paint
--a drawing box
--pliers
--reference photos
--boards
--medium spray bottle
--watercolor crayons

Plus, as a bonus, I had a camp chair, a table, my ipod, a camera, car keys, and phone.  My goal for next week will be to stream line my bag!

I found a nice little picnic area, and did a small painting (11.5 x 7.3 inches) alla prima in about 45 minutes.  Sentinels.