plein air 2

Gina and I went out Tuesday morning and made two stops, Old Wildwood Blvd West, above, and Old Wildwood Blvd East, below.

I am hoping to find a way to be be bolder and more expressive ... Going to take some time!

sunflowers

Wet in wet sunflowers.

plein air 2

                              8x8

                            7x10

For our third stop we stood at the bottom of a dune. 

A catbird landed on an evergreen and I added him. Catbirds are one of my favorites.

We spent half an hour, then broke for lunch.

plein air 1

My friend Gina and I launched the 2025 plein air painting season yesterday with a drive to the causeway out to Stone Harbor, lots of views of marshes. 

I'm going to try to approach plein air differently this year: 1) Twice a week, short, say 2 hour, outings; 2) new mindset: sketches, not "paintings"--I'm hoping this will reduce anxiety and up enjoyment; 3) return to the same site; 4) try to learn something--about shapes, about simplifying, about color, about POV ...

I may even try bringing a very reduced palette with me, a few favorite yellows and blues, and burnt sienna.

These are, in order, sketches from our first two stops: spent about 45 minutes at the first stop, half-hour at the second. I did these in my Stillman & Birn Beta series sketchbook, which stands up to washes pretty well.

And a little watercolor, 6x12, done at our second stop,

Tomorrow I'll post the paintings from out final stop yesterday: half hour on the dunes.

continuous line

Continuous line drawings of some tulips using a Lame fountain pen a friend gave me.

Sketchers love the Lame because you can get thick and thin lines. But mostly what I get are inky fingers! I struggle to control the ink flow.

I got a big blob of ink and smeared it around to get that gray background.

But I hope to get the hang of it. The ink cartridges also come in colors!

transparency

  

.                              7x11

Tring to achieve better transparency ... More glow.

Don't really have any idea how to go about it, just trying.

birds part one

Pages done in an online workshop with Chloe Briggs of drawingisfree.org.

Chloe always has great ideas and exercises. I love that she's about the process and about being more intuitive.

I did the first page with a Tombow pen and the next two with Chinese ink.

snowy plover

                              7x11

Snowy plover painted via zoom with SaltyWaterArt through the Bird Alliance of Oregon.

Such a beauty, the snowy plover.

As usual, I couldn't wait for the paint to dry, and so got some muddled areas.

But I'm pretty sure I'll be painting this bird again.

apples?

                            10x12

When I first started painting watercolors, I painted sunsets and apples. The apples were not bad.

But somehow over the years I lost the knack for painting apples ... I feel like I have a hard time seeing the planes; definitely cannot get the volume ... I'm fussing to much over the colors, I think.

I should try to paint an apple in black and white every day for a week!

tulips

Yesterday my friend Gina came over to help me put together a raised bed.

After that and before dinner, we managed a little painting.

The Arbor Society sent me a crabapple twig many years ago; it's now sapling size--and bloomed for the first time ever!

forsythia

Several of the forsythia in my yard didn't bloom this spring-- such a disappointment!--and went straight to leafing out.

Hoping I'll get to paint a couple more sprigs.

brush painting

Straightening up the studio, hoping to get rid of some stuff by donating it to a local secondhand art supply store ... But instead I got distracted by a pad of rice paper.

practice

                            10x14

Something weird wrong with this paper, but I plunged on till the end.

Painted after a sky tutorial by Andy Evansen. He lives out in one of prairie states and the skies he paints are amazing.

Below is a small sketch from another of Andy's lessons: this one on connecting shapes. I think this would have been more successful if I'd used more water and really let the paint flow--i tried to control it.

Also: wish I'd grayed those blues.

daffodils

A little messing about yesterday, just freely painting some daffodils in my sketchbook.

Went a little too far on the daffodils above.

daffodils

                              11x15

Daffodils are beginning to fade.

.                              6x8

tulips

                            10x14

Planted tulip bulbs last fall because I love the tulips paintings of Elizabeth Blackadder.

They're coming up now.

Getting hammered by rain today: hope my daffodils and tulips survive.

more daffodils

.                            10x14

I haven't been painting enough daffodils!

Feeling a little discouraged: my daffodils aren't turning out very well.

But they are still blooming in the yard and I'm going to try to take advantage of that before it's too late.

Also have some tulips to paint!