plein air: north cape may

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Did a little plein air painting with my friend Gina yesterday afternoon.

My "value" sketch wasn't much help with the values here: there's not much to them. But it did help me simplify a riot of dune grass and scrub into some discrete shapes that I could handle.

Another still life from my first watercolor class: from a lesson on glazes. I rarely--hardly ever!--use glazes, but I kind of like the effect.

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young woman

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A face from Sktchy. A lovely face and pose but I chose this photo because of the hair: it makes me think of a suffragette.

I was going to add a background but couldnt decide if it should be warm or cool, so I decided to do without it!

landscape class

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A scene from Gros Morne provincial park in Newfoundland, home to some of the oldest rocks on the planet--which was news to me. The reference photo was taken by the teacher, Bill Rogers.

Up until I was about 14 I wanted to be a geologist and was a rockhound. I still pick up rocks everywhere I go.

Gros Morne is now on my bucket list.

I struggled with this subject a bit and I was really surprised when I photographed it and saw the lack of variation in the greens! I thought I was varying them, using 4 or 5 colors. I think I may have been painting to fast, without stopping to assess what I was doing.

Putting this in the "try again" pile.

I was looking through my pile of paintings for a couple to submit to a virtual art show and came across a few paintings I saved from my very first watercolor class, at Cooper Union in NYC, circa 1996.

Here are my first two still lifes.

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chica

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Took a photo of this girl walking on the beach a few years ago ... finally got to painting it.

I have quite a backlog of reference photos!

I am considering adding some ripples to the water. But I'm going to wait and think it over.

coconuts

Did a little more to this, trying to add darks and move some of the warm colors into different areas.

I dont know if it's done--I feel it has places that need more definition, but I don't think I can go any further with it.

kayaker

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We came upon this boy (about 8 or 9, I'd guess) and his parents when we were kayaking in Florida. Nice family, they were having such a wonderful time, it was great to see.

I love the boy's stance in this photo--looking out over all the places to explore.

I'm afraid I didnt do him justice!

But this is just a trial run ... really too humid to paint today, like painting on a paper towel.

And I made a few mistakes, which I, contrary to my mantra--Don't "correct"--I kept trying to fix.

delaware bay

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Another sketchbook painting.

This one started out pretty good, but I kept dabbing at it--never a good idea but really not a good idea on cheap paper--because I couldn't get the values right.

I'm most disappointed with the sky; the upper left section works for me, but the rest? The cloud on the right mimics the shape of the land too closely. And, too dabby!

the meadows

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This is a sketch on not-so-great watercolor paper, one of those spiral-bound watercolor sketchbooks, which I often buy and never use.

But the way I approach landscapes is changing. All my classes are finally sinking in and I find myself taking time to draw or paint a little value sketch and/or to do a little "rough draft" painting in which I can, without the anxiety I might feel working on a "painting," work out a few things: colors and value, composition, and approach--wet? dry brush? 

When I do a larger version of this, for example, I'll extend the dark trees to the right a bit.

Also break up the stripes of back-, middle-, and foreground on the right.

Maybe some other things will occur to me.

And maybe (I hope) having done this I will be more ready for happy accidents.

cape henlopen

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Cape Henlopen, DE, is across the bay from me. The state park there has beautiful dunes, and wonderful bike trails that President Biden rides his bike on!

I let this get a little choppy; I let some darks get too dark without really thinking about how I was distributing them around the painting.

I think it might've been better if I painted all the grasses in one shape, in one midrange color and then went back and added more color and darker values.

Next time.

Delaware bay

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A scene from near my house.

Mostly trying to get the shoreline ... the wet sand, the shallows. 

As usual, I always think I should have left more white.

zoom landscape class

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From a photo the teacher, Bill Rogers, took in the Algarve, Portugal (which is #2 on my list of places I have got to get to! funny that everyplace on my list is on the Atlantic Ocean).

I was about to start delineating all the ways my painting deviates from the reference-- my "mistakes," in other words--when I could hear my first watercolor teacher, Marge Chavooshian, saying, They dont know what the reference looks like, and it doesn't matter anyway.

I painted this in what felt like a rush, telling myself the whole time, shoulda done this, shouldn't done that ...

But it turned out all right.

birdwatchers

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From a photo I took while birdwatching. Was struck by these birders' poses.

This is just a sketch, not much detail ...

But now that I've done this, I think I'd like to try another, maybe a few iterations, with more detail or finish.

zoom landscape class

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Peggy's Cove, painted along with teacher Bill Rogers, at Chesapeake Fine Arts Studio, using his reference photo.

I probably could have gone further, adding darks to the rocks (the lighthouse is already overworked imo) ... but it's very rainy and humid here today and I really do think its affecting my paper. (See my other attempt from this a.m., below.)

So I'm going to say it's good enough.

Extreme humidity is making my paper very absorbent today.

coconuts

Went a little further on the coconuts. But I quickly got to that point where I was almost mindlessly adding paint ... Good time to stop!

From here on it's going to take more thinking and less painting to finish.

1) The main thing may be to bring some of the purple that goes up the middle into another sector. Logically it should probably go to upper right ... but I like that area and don't want to ruin it! So it'll have to be the upper left. (maybe something dark next to the right-most coconut...)

2) Will do a little more on the coconuts; they don't have volume--but with the shadows and light on them, I may not be able to accomplish that. 

3) Add a little, a very little, variation to the green in the lower left? But that wash is pretty clean, don't want to mess it up; may leave it as is.

plein air: townbank

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More dune paintings. I could do one of these every day and never get the same result!

plein air: villas

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Couple of quick sketches of scenes along the Delaware Bay.

The paper is Saunders Waterford rough, and I really like it! The only place I know to buy it is online through Jackson's, which is in the UK, so the s&h is high. Next time I'll put an order together with friends so we can split the shipping!