A few from last week

This is another attempt with the Zorn palette, yellow orchre, Cad. red, ivory black and white. The rain in the distant moved through above me and leave me in a down pour for quite a while, it eventually moved away.

Reflections can come in many forms, most visibly affected by the wind. When it's very windy, the surface is not roughed up, so the reflection is broken up and the water only has diffuse reflection and appears rough. Sometimes the wind only blows on a patch of water and makes it rough whereas everywhere else is smooth and reflective. When there's no wind and no movement of water we have almost mirror reflection (from a low view angle anyway). In this painting, the look of the reflection changed through many phases and when it showed up as in the below picture, I decided I liked it best and kept it in the painting. It's one of the reasons why I like painting on location, it gives me many options and choices that I wouldn't have otherwise from a photo. I am not a very imaginative person so i require nature to give me her many faces.

Red Alder on Penzance beach - oil on panel - 9" x 12"

I still want to do more paintings using this palette, but preferably with the majority of the surface be yellows or reds, so the black would appear more blue.

When I first started. You can see that the reflection is not very appealing.

 

Here is a more cheerful spring painting. I wanted to paint the cherry blossom so bad I gave this tree cherry flowers even though it wasn't blooming. 

- oil on panel - 9" x 12"

I went back to Barnett park. It offers so many possibility. I added the bare dirt in the foreground to break up all that grass. I think it adds more interest. Have you found the robin yet?

A window at Barnett - oil on panel - 9" x 12"

I am liking painting with the pochade box on my laps instead of the tripod. It feels a lot more intimate to me. I do have to set it down every time when I get up and step back to look at the painting.

I love it when I don't feel rushed during painting. Here I was sitting near the water at Barnett park, with birds squabbling, mostly seagulls and crows, the robins were singing; a few people were casting crab traps near by, making slashes once in a while; and I was faced with the mirror like water and leaf buds on the birches in stillness, it was perfect.

The hardest part in this painting was to keep the birches dark. They were white, my brain told me they were white, but I had to paint dark browns and greens because that's what they were against the sky, not white. Fighting the convention with the truth that your eyes are telling you requires discipline that I am enjoying learning it.

Los amigos - oil on panel - 9" x 12"

The sun would come out every now and then.

Nightfall at Penzance

I really like painting at dusk or down, the logistic is always an issue. What looks good during the day may not does when it's dark, even if it is you have to adjust the composition to suit the different lighting and the new shapes it creates. When I set up to paint this, I didn't know what it'd look like in the dark, I had to make a decision based on the silhouette, and the overall mass of the darks.

One way to go about it more safely is to scout the location beforehand in the dark, and then go back to it the day after so you can have the precise composition planned.

Nightfall at Penzance - oil on panel - 9" x 12"

Dark oil paintings usually have the problem of having a lot of glare. For picture taking, I took it from an angle where there was least glare (not frontal), then in Photoshop I distort the corners to make it look normal. There are better ways than this such as using a circular polarizer. I do have one but it doesn't fit the lens I was using.

Penzance beach

This is very typical of my method. I like to find a place that has a lot of potential, and usually somewhat secluded so I can paint in peace, and I go back again and again until I pretty much exhaust the location. As seasons change, it becomes pretty much a new spot again to go back.

Penzance sketch noon - oil on panel - 5" x 7"

Penzance sketch noon - oil on panel - 5" x 7"

The beach is tidal, so before I leave I check the tide charts to make sure the tide is low and that I have enough time to finish a painting.


This one below was done using the Zorn palette even though apparently he didn't always use it, but the name has stuck.

He used white, black, vermillion and yellow ochre. I don't have vermillion, the genuine one is very toxic and I use Cad. red instead. Ivory black when tinted with white has a bluish tint to it, very subtle but when surrounded by yellows can look very blue. In this sketch there wasn't much yellow, instead it was mostly blue, so I shall use this palette again with a more suitable subject.

Penzance sketch gulls - oil on panel - 5" x 7"

I don't usually do vertical format and I like the wide expanse of the landscape. Though to show the vast sky and voluminous clouds I think the vertical format presents many benefits, though square ones can be very good too, gives you the best of the both worlds.
In this painting, composition and positions of the clouds were decided before I started painting, this way even though the clouds move away as I painted my design and composition would not suffer.

Green water - oil on panel 12" x 9"

2 Australian paintes

I stumbled upon 2 Australian landscape painters and I would like to share their work with you.

Arthur Streeton 1867 – 1943

Cremorne pastoral - Arthur Streeton

Still glides the stream, and shall for ever glide - Arthur Streeton

and Tom Roberts 1856 - 1931

A quiet day on Darebin Creek - Tom Roberts

One thing I like about their paintings is that they feel 'timeless'. Their work are not intentionally made to look 'classic' or 'modern', they just look like the artists depicted them based on what they saw, and not what their time and culture imposed on them and I like that. I may also feel this way because they were closer to my time, though I can't say the same for the Hudson River school paintings.

Both of their work seem to show some serious cracking, I wonder if it has to do with certain paint that they use such as Flake white?

Tiny plein airs

I ran out of my normal size boards and so did the art store, so I grabbed about 10 5"x7" boards to try out. I have seen people paint at this size but could never see myself do it, because I thought I would have to be incredibly detailed to get the painting to work. After trying out a few, to my surprise, they helped me to be more loose. I used a pretty big flat to block in the sky, hills and water, and since the size was so small I did not need to add additional details to make the painting read. Simple shapes with the correct drawing and values made the painting work.

Lone birch sketch - oil on panel - 5" x 7"

I did a couple more today, just as fun. I just put the pochade box on my laps and go.

View from the library sketch - oil on panel - 5" x 7"

Trees at Penzance sketch - oil on panel - 5" x 7"

The small size is also great for capturing the faster moving lights. It takes less time to cover, and less detail necessary to properly use the surface. There is also less investment you put in compared to a larger work, so if the light really moved too fast to capture you don't feel like you have wasted a lot of time. I hope to translate some of the experience to my larger work.

A couple still lifes

I have never been a fan of still lifes. They have always reminded me of art classes at school and I have tried to distant myself from them. Last couple days the weather hadn't been nice for painting outside and I have been reading the book "Alla Prima" by Richard Schmid. He dedicated a chapter on Edges. Edge is always something I was aware of but not paid attention to. Looking at his paintings you will see that he pays a tremendous amount of attention to them from studying his subject. The book has motivated me to better my ability to see.

So I decided to do some still lifes, since the light is more controlled (indoor with window light) and I am more comfortable to paint slower. As you can see from the photo these are tiny. (5" x 7")

The first one is our Cyclamen plant. I forced myself to study every edge in front of me, figure out whether it's soft or hard, and make a decision to address it.

Cyclamen study - oil on panel - 5" x 7"

Did another one the day after. These were exhausting, I spent more time painting them than I usually on the bigger 9"x12"s. I think they took about almost 4 hours each. They were exhausting because I had to pay so much attention to every stroke I did. I still painted over certain areas multiple time, instead of getting them right the first time. These exercises of learning to see better have been really helpful and I hope to do more.

Study of dove on fabric - oil on panel - 5" x 7"

Trail in Confederation park

This one has a lot of details! I had spent maybe an hour walking around looking for a spot and was getting pretty tired. This may not have been the most ideal but I wanted to just paint! There were a million trees in front of me and how to capture that feel with putting in every branch was the question. I ended up with more details than I ever had for my paintings, it's not necessarily a bad thing, it was just the only way I was able to portray all the trees.

Trail in Confederation park - oil on panel - 9" x 12"

 

Of course the light changed from sunny to cloudy to half way in between. One good thing from painting the woods is I am working up my confidence in tackling a complex subject.