A not so smooth week

  This one was painted on my birthday:

birthday painting - oil on panel - 12" x 9"

The past week hasn't been easy on the outdoor painting side. Many paintings had to be 'rescued' at home. I also did a studio piece based on a failed plein air study. The studio painting ended up being very tight. I was able to try out some new ideas on it but I don't think I want to show it.

The weather in the last week was just beautiful. There were picturesque clouds almost everyday, and lots of variety in a day. When I started this below painting, there was a chance of rain. It was dark and gloomy, I didn't have to worry about which way I position my surface. Half way through, the sun came out, shinning through the trees behind me casting dappled shadows on my surface, making it near impossible to paint. I had to move my easel to face a different direction.
Anyway,  it wasn't a very good painting when I was done, and I felt defeated. It took some time at home to bring this painting back to life. At least the design was sound. If it wasn't, I would not have been able to do anything to help it.

River side board walk with rhododendron bloom - oil on panel - 9" x 12"

I decided to redeem myself after the defeat above, and did a quick small sketch, I rushed in and the design did not work. I was about to scrape it when I got home, but decided to experiment on it. I fixed some major design issues; played around with impressionistic colours; and enhanced the design by adding a couple elements. At the end I think I salvaged it.

experiment - oil on panel - 6" x 8"

Iona beach has been absolutely beautiful, lot's of spring flowers in bloom, including lupine. Here I attempted a triangular design from what I have learned in Edgar Payne's "Composition of outdoor painting". The clouds were moving so fast, the only way for me to paint it was to quickly draw out the shapes of the clouds that I want to keep, then start defining volume by looking at the clouds in front of me that were in different shapes. There was some over-modeling in the clouds. When the painting was touch dry I applied a thin white glaze over it to lower the contrast.

Iona cloud formation - oil on panel - 6" x 8"

This one too was a disaster when I finished it on the beach. When I started it it was dark and rainy as you can see in the top of the painting, where I began the painting. When I got to the foreground the sun was so bright, bouncing off the sand and bleached my surface. Since I knew the light was changing fast, and that I wanted the painting to be loose, I did not do enough drawing before I began, so the logs were just a mess.

I came home and scraped all the bottom 2/3 off and re-painted from memory and photo, and again I feel that it's saved. I was able to maintain the same loose strokes, as well as using colours that I observed on the beach that were not present in the photograph.

Lesson learned (for the 10th time): Have the patience to do a good drawing for a complex scene.

 Day of change - oil on panel - 9" x 12"

Another painting that was started in the sunshine and finished in overcast. Though for this one I barely had to do anything back at home other than describe the red bush a little better and a couple other minor touches.

lane way cloud formation  - oil on panel - 6" x 8"