End of Gilmore

Sunshine!
The clouds were not hiding the mountains. I drove to the end of Gilmore and did the painting from a trail bench, it was a beautiful day with the sun shinning on my back... and the painting. I had to hold up an umbrella the whole time so the painting was in the shade. When painting outdoors, you always want the painting in the shade, because ultimately the painting will be displayed indoor. If you painted the painting in the sunlight, it would look way too dark when you brought it indoor.
So now I have used an umbrella for both rain and shine, maybe it's time to invest in an easel umbrella.

End of Gilmore - oil on panel - 9" x 12"

Fraser river timber rafts

It's always fun when the subject is different. This time it is the timber rafts on the Fraser river. All along the river you can see many of these, and sometimes a tug boat would be towing a row.
It was drizzling and I was home debating whether I should go paint. I had painted in the rain in the past but was always under some covering. People always said that it's fine to paint oil in the rain, so I went.
I set up along the river on a park bench. Right when I was doing the preliminary lines it started to downpour. I found I couldn't mix colours at all. Sure oil and water didn't mix, but the water acted as a separator between different oil colours, and I was not able to paint like this.
I took out the umbrella, held it in one hand and the brush in the other. By the time I was about done my umbrella hand was about to give up, and my brush hand was tremoring due to my illness. It was especially a pain for details that require precision such as the bridge and the branches.

"Fraser river at the end of Elliot" - oil on panel - 9" x 12"

Overall I find sitting down prevents me from back up more often to see the big picture but for now that has to do. This painting is a good candidate for me to try glazing since it has a lot of white. Looking at the paintings from Tom Thomson, I see that he seemed to glazed all of his paintings as a final stage, and it created a lot of texture.

Back to oil after 8 years

I got my pochade box last week. It's kind of wobbly on my cheap tripod, I need to stabilize it with the other hand if it gets too bad.

I did a couple paintings from my living room windows as try-outs, to test out the pochade box and get familiar with where things are. So the 2 paintings were horrible, and I scratched them. I remember I used to keep paintings that didn't work, but now I would much rather reuse the panel. I use a palette knife to scratch off all the paint, mix it up as a grey on my palette, wipe the panel down with turpentine, and it is ready to be used the next day.

For the first plein air painting with the Guerrilla pochade box, I picked a place near home, because I was feeling insecure and did not want to venture far. My illness now prevents me from standing for long so I found a park bench to sit on.

Carleton Ave. at Broadview Park - oil on panel - 9" x 12"

I used sight-sizing which Marc Dalessio explained here: Link
Sight-sizing worked really great for me, it cuts down the time that I need to get a perfect drawing done on the canvas before painting, it also makes it easier to compare values and colours as the painting and the view are side by side.

I tried to use very thin painting there, and with a dry brush other than for the sky and the road. It leaves some nice textures here and there. I thought about add some dramatics clouds in the sky. I don't want to change a plein air painting too much, so if I end up doing a studio piece with it I can do that!

A couple colour studies

I did a couple quick sketches from my home as the sun was setting. In the golden hours, light and colours change by the seconds. Unless you are prepared, you really won't have any time to capture the moment. In this case, I just wanted to jot down the colours that I saw, but even then, the view is very different when I started and when I finished each sketch.
I started the 2nd painting right after I finished the first one and you can see how much had changed. Sometimes you will be "chasing effects", meaning you see something you like and you try to capture it, but as time goes by what attracts you changes and you continue to try to capture in different places.
Many times what you end up with is a "composite" of the fleeting moments.

2014 01 22 b - 6.5" x 8.5"

2014 01 22 a - 6.5" x 8.5"

added links to 3 plein air painters whose work I admire

I really enjoy looking at their work and am very inspired by them.

I like paintings that are genuine and without forced romance.  Their paintings transform what's in front their eyes into pure poetry..

Joe Paquet

Skip Whitcomb

Marc Dalessio

3 Alexander St.

It was pretty difficult to create the small details on such a small piece of paper with blunt pastel sticks. The trick was to suggest the details and spend more time observing. Light moved fast, by the end of this painting, the whole side of the building was in shadow.

"3 Alexander St." -- 2013 05 08 -- 6.5" x 8.5"

So I am finally going back to oil painting. After years of "I wish... If only...", I just ordered a pochade box online and went to Opus today to get the rest of the oil painting supplies. This time I am more selected with the number of colours I will use. I picked up French ultramarine blue, cerulean blue, yellow ochre, titanium white, cadmium red and cadmium yellow. I used to carry more colours such as raw and burnt umber, lemon yellow and alizarin crimson, but after seeing how Marc Dalessio uses such a limited palette, I want to try as well. It will give me fewer decisions to make as well as a lighter backpack to carry, which are all very important for plein air painting.

Gloomy Monday

Let's start the new year with a typical Vancouver winter/early spring view looking north.
It's good to use contrast to suggest the scale of things. Contrast doesn't have to be in grey scale, it can be contrast in colours or in this case, contrast in details, or stroke size.
In this painting, if I had taken a picture of the painting in progress before the last layers of details were put in, you would see just broad washes of greys in the sky and water and deep blues in the mountains. As soon as small strokes were added to suggest houses on the hill, boats, and snow patches, the painting came to life and 'context' was created.

Small scale plein air paintings can look less grand in scale compared to a large scale studio painting, because with the larger scale you can put in even finer details to contrast.

2013 03 05 - 6.5" x 8.5"

the view

My setup

My set up is super basic. I just layout all my supplies on the tables and chairs. I also carry a damp rag to wipe my hands so colours don't transfer. I also use paper towels to dry my hands to they don't smear colours. Also I have my home made view finders, it's really helpful to close in on a composition. Lastly, I have a grey card punched with a hole, it's my colour picker. Maybe I will talk about these tools in the future.