Off to paint in Plein Air

Yesterday and today I am taking off from painting my daily paintings to go outside and paint. This is a pastel painted from the front steps of my parents porch. It is soft pastels on black sand paper. The scene is calming and I grew up seeing this everyday so I stopped and painted it. Today I'm going to try and paint a few more places I'm familiar with.

On a side note I got an email today from Melodie (http://www.photographicmelodie.com/) who runs the Southport art committee. Duane King (http://www.duaneking.com/) forwarded an article from Outdoor Painter that I made it into. Here is the link. http://www.outdoorpainter.com/featured-events/indiana-ohio-groups-paint-together.html. When I say that I made it into the article, I don't mean that my art made it in. I was standing in front of some amazing work by Ronald Mack. I wrote about the event previously. This is from the Richmond plein air paint out. Anyway it was a lot of fun. For those in or around Northern Indiana there is a paint out on August 5th & 6th on the Dunes. Check it out.

Behind SALI

This is a little creek that runs behind the south side art league building. The day this picture was taken the sun was blinding. Thankfully there are quite a few trees back there that shade part of the area. Before I started painting this I went over my guidelines and decided to add another item to the check list. I will only paint using a small travel palette. This keeps color choice simple and will help me get to know colors better. There is an initial wet in wet was wash followed up by darkening some areas. The trees were left white until I was done with the land and background. After that I put in the trees and dragged them down for a reflection. There are a few problem spots but it reads well from a few feet back.

Landscape Delineations

Last night I inked in these landscape plans and this morning rendered them. I use micron pens and sharpie markers for the line work. Typically the trees and buildings are thick line weights and the closer to the ground something is the thinner it's line weight. The coloring medium is chartpak marker. If you use a blender for the first layer the subsequent layers will have softer edges against one another and take on a watercolor like appearance. That is one of things that drew me to watercolor. The markers are limited in what you can do with them and how you deliver them to the paper. Watercolor is much more versatile and there are boundless possibilities in what you can do with it. Anyway these two drawings are from a large piece. If anyone would like their property designed or drawn and rendered in plan form feel free to contact me.

Red Barn

Today I painted a red barn that I saw out west of Indianapolis. It was a simple picture with not a lot going on so I figured it would be good practice for getting used to these brushes. There was water spilled on the left tree and the bottom layer of grass could have used more interest. The bottom should have been raised on one side and lowered on the other. For now on I wont let a straight line run horizontally completely across the page. It should be broken up or only go across part of the way.

Second Attempt

After looking at the first painting I wanted to play around with negative painting. I haven't set down and thought about negative painting for a while so this was a lot of fun. I realize there are problem areas but the process is a lot of fun. Where the road leads into the woods is way to dark currently. The second area of dark grass is too dark as well. Tomorrow when I am less tired I will add some more dark to the understory of the trees to see if I can get it closer in value to the dark at the road. Since that area isn't getting any lighter perhaps pushing the rest of the area around it back will help the foreground pop out more. Defining the power lines better would be good as well. The smaller power lines are difficult to keep smooth. One slight move or added pressure and it goes from thin to thick quickly.

I'm pleased with this painting so far. If it doesn't turn out well it will most likely be from me hurrying myself.

More Power Lines

Today I found a mop brush that I must have gotten when I first started painting and forgot about it. It was stashed away with some of the other art stuff that I never unpacked. What better way to follow my guidelines than to use something I didn't know I had.
The sky was done using the mop. It holds so much water. It should have been out being used before today. When I got to the bushes and power lines I used an old number 8 round that has no point. I flattened the end out and tried to use it that way. While there are parts that could be improved, overall I like the painting. It will be a good guide for its pastel counterpart.

The direction I want to go

After my painting today and thinking about where I would like to go with all of this, I've decided to set some parameters for myself.
For 30 days I will paint according to a set of guidelines that I have set for myself. At the 15 day mark I will review the previous days and decide to continue or slightly alter my guidelines for the rest of the timeline. At the end of the 30 days I will write a synopsis on the process as well as the paintings. Occasionally I will post extended views of 120 to 180 days.
My current guidelines are for the next 30 days I will be painting 15 photographs twice. These photos will be altered when I do value studies and color plans. The first 15 paintings will be watercolors and the last 15 will be in pastel. The watercolors will be done with materials that I am not familiar or comfortable with. The pastels will be done with techniques that I struggle with and only in hard pastels.
By the end of this time line if I like 1/3 of the paintings I will consider that a huge success. Within six months the plan is to have the numbers down to 1/2 to 1/2.5 paintings that I like.
The painting above is from back home. This is about 2 miles from my parents house. My dad farms the field I was standing in and the one I was looking at. With time I will paint all the farm ground and equipment.

Ride Home

Lately I have been trying to use any of my brushes besides my only sable brush which is a 10 round. This is the latest experiment in that endeavour. This painting was done with 3/4" synthetic angle brush that doesn't hold water very well. I like this painting  better than the one done yesterday. This one isn't as sloppy but only in the context of yesterday's painting. It is a 9x12 on 90lb paper. After painting this I need to write down my ideas on where I want to go with the blog.