First Brush of Spring

During this past week and weekend the First Brush of Spring happened in New Harmony Indiana. It was my first time at the event and I really enjoyed it. Artist were allowed to enter work that was done from Thursday morning up to Saturday morning into a contest Saturday afternoon. The winner of the show was an oil painting by Jeanne McLeish http://www.home.earthlink.net/~burkettmcleish/. The composition was killer and the color was amazing. I don't have a picture of it but hopefully she will have it up on her website soon. 

The whole experience was memorable. I had the chance to stay and paint with Larry Rudolech http://www.rudolech.com/ and also paint with Wyatt LeGrand http://www.legrandartstudio.com/.  I got meet two artist from arkansas, Jason Sacran http://jasonsacran.com/, and John Lasater http://home.centurytel.net/Lasater/home.html that I'd never seen before. They had some awesome work that I really enjoyed looking at. Those are just a few of the amazing artist there. Check out Indiana plein air painters website http://www.inpainters.org/ for some of the other artist there and perhaps photos from the show soon.

Anyway the painting above was done from the Indiana shore looking across to Illinois. The sun was going down and the scene had to be painted. The composition and color were something I couldn't have thought up better myself with all the time in the world. I had this piece and a few others stamped for next years field to finish. This will most likely be the entry for that show.

Time to get back outside

Welcome back! It has been a while since my last post.  This time of year is exciting for plein-air painters. The chance to get back out in the field without worry of losing grip of the brush and feet freezing to the ground. The last part is an exaggeration, but it certainly feels that way when its freezing outside and your wearing heavy boots. This was my second attempt at painting outside a few weeks back. There have been a few warm streaks so far this year and I made sure to take advantage of them. Now it looks like there will be a longer warm streak. I've been boxing up my still life objects and filling out all the paper work for paint outs. I will be posting regularly again now that I can get outside to paint. Also I was painting almost exclusively in oil during the winter months. Yesterday though was a day of re-arranging my pastel palette. Once I get outside the pastels will be good to have out again.

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.