Cape May yacht club

Sailing students.
(photo by Laura)

plein air, the red store

 

8x8

Our plein air group has been braving the 90-plus temps once a week.

Last Wednesday we met in Cape May Point for a morning of painting.

Worked on this too long, but it was still fun.

Plein air, 2nd ave., cape may

A pleasant morning out...last week!
These old wooden storage lockers on the beach caught my eye.
Have yet to finish for ground.
I don't seem able to finish a painting on location!

Plein air

Trying to get a little PA group together.
This morning's location was the Cape May-Lewes ferry terminal.
I arrived at 8:30 but was packing up by 10: too hot!
Still, I'm happy to have made the effort.

Salvage

Cleaning out my flat files, I found a couple of old, unfinished paintings that I thought I might be able to salvage despite their problems because there were passages in each that I liked.
Generally I don't like to work too hard on anything because I can't keep the " work" part from showing.
These still arent, and will never be, the best, but I'm happier with them now.

More flowers

A subject I never tire of.

Palettes

These are the two palettes I use most frequently, with my messy notes on what the colors are.
I also have two little plastic travel palettes that I like...they don't get all rusty like the metal ones!

Trumpet vine

Fourth of July weekend turned into Fourth of July week.
Did a little painting... These are trumpet vines I picked in an empty lot. I have a large vine in my yard, but it has never produced flowers!

Flowers and Smilla

I painted these last summer on the deck: very pleasant painting days.
In the third, unfinished, one, I'm really having trouble getting Smilla right.
At first, she was facing me, but I messed up her face, so I painted over it, as if she were facing away from me.
But now her body's too small fo r her head.
Hoping I can fix it.

Summer flowers

Had an unusual weather event here this week: a microburst, which, if I understand correctly, is a small area of dangerously high winds. My back neighbor's maple blew over into my yard; another neighbor's cedar was struck by lightning! I was lucky: my insanely huge and close to the house elm was unscathed.
Lost some deck furniture, and some deck, but otherwise, all's well.
Getting my exercise these last days seeing and hauling broken tree limbs.
A few flowers here and there in the yard.
Hoping to paint the lilies before there all done.

Birds

American goldfinch and scarlet tanager.
I actually had many goldfinches at my feeder this spring, first time. Have yet to see a tanager.

More fishing boats

These are hanging, along with four more of my paintings, in a group show in Cape May; the show opens tomorrow.

Fishing boats

I had always been afraid to paint fishing boats: all that stuff rising from the deck.
But I tried one--just trying to paint what I saw simply and without feeling I had to include everything--and now I can't stop.

Plein air

A day (half a day, actually) of plein air painting in Cape May, NJ. Cloudy and breezy conditions favored smaller paintings; these were done on a 12x18 block. Trying to get the curve of the shoreline to lie flat, primarily. Decided to avoid the issue entirely in my third sketch.

Bouys

I bought a couple of these glass bouys to paint. I love the color of the glass and the shapes and rhythms of the line.
Need to work on the transparency.

Sparrows

Have been wanting for some time to do a series of sparrows. Started with chipping and white-throated, two I often see in my yard.

Spring flowers

The daffodils are long gone, the irises nearly done.
Next, hoping for my peonies and lilies to come through.

Value studies

A few little value stdies I did in a tent class.
I'm not a great one for value studies, but doing these, more than helping me plan values, helped me simplify the subjects, which was extraordinarily hel0ful.

Delaware Bay Lighthouses

Entered this in a local juried show this weekend. No sale. :-(

Sparrows, Chickadees, Titmouses

Hello. It's been a long time.
I have been painting now and then, and often think of getting the blog going again and, as important, getting back into the blogger community.
I think my smartphone and Facebook have made me lazy.
I've been posting paintings on FB, in some painting groups there ... You get a lot of "likes" sometimes but it's very impersonal and so less gratifying and ultimately less interesting and purposeful.
Writing a blog post and interacting with other bloggers facilitated a lot of thinking about painting. I've missed it.

Here are a few paintings I did at the beginning of the year.

little still life

 

(6x8)

Patterns always give me trouble; too impatient, I guess. Maybe with more practice ...

I painted this on a little scrap of previously toned paper.