Calm pond

J recently took me to the super peaceful weekend at Lovett's inn in Franconia, NH for my birthday! And ofcourse, going with my current obsession, I packed my basic painting gear.

However, after the eventful flipped canoe on Saturday, the only time I had was about 2 hours Sunday morning after Bella's walk and breakfast and before the checkout time. Unfortunately, as beautiful Franconia is, I had still not found a view that truly inspired me. I think it is the effect of peak summer. Everything is green.. and given the heat wave, there aren't that many flowers. Well, even if there were flowers, flowers are not really my thing when it comes to painting.

Anyways, when we were out on the walk in the morning, we met an elderly couple, who apparently had been married for 50 something years if I remember it correctly. They were playing with the inn owner's dogs and the wife mentioned that right across the street from the inn was a beautiful pond. We checked it out, and indeed... it was right across the street but hidden by bushes and flowers, and surrounded by tall trees on one side and and bushes on the other with a reflection of s faraway mountain making it even more pretty!

Unfortunately, my camera and both our phones had gotten wet in the canoe trip and the only camera we had left was J's film camera that he swears by as the best camera in the world. Unfortunately, not so much for me. This is the picture I pieced together with the pictures we developed.

According to J, some parameter was not set right! And her is the other view where you can see me painting.

Given the short amount of time I had to setup and that the sun had already started coming out and warming up the place, I did not get too far it plein air.

Here is the progress as I try to remember the actual colors and beauty of the view and put it on canvas.

Plein air easel

07/17/2013
After reading a bit more, I have realized that my current easel works for me for the ease of carrying it and for the size. All I need is a tripod painting shelf as show below.

The leftmost one is actually designed by someone and the rightmost one is sold by Cheap Joes's for $38.

I like this one the best for its larger size and if I can make it foldable by adding hinges in the middle, and a little cup holder hole, that would be perfect!

07/15/2013
Since my first attempt of plein air painting was so enjoyable, and I would like to do it more often, I thought I should have a good plein air easel.
I currently have a simple aluminum easel. It works fine. But the first day I was painting, I had to setup near a bench as I had not carried a table.. which sort of ended up defining my painting layout.. and the second day when I actually carried a little fold-able table I have home, it actually ended up being such a production, hauling the table, easel, my bag of paints, brushes, water and other supplies, that I haven't tried it again.

After a lot of online research, I decided that a french plein air easel fits my requirements the best.But these things are pricy and I am not sure if I will ever sell my paintings, so the expense is not exactly justifiable... except that, last week was my birthday and I decided that is what I want for a gift... and lo-and-behold.. Ocean state job lot had it for only $55!! Yey!!

 

Ofcourse I got it.. opened it up in the store itself to make sure that it was functional. Except that I got is home, and my paint tubes are too 'fat' and 'long to fit into the neat little drawers in the easel.. which means I will have to carry them separately, instantly removing the entire purpose of this  style easel especially give that it weighs atleast five times my aluminum one!

Hmmmm..... back to the drawing board...

When J and I were away this last weekend, I did carry my old easel with me.. and it is infact much easier to set up compared to the plein-air easel.. The only thing was that all my supplies were on the floor and I had to bend down if I wanted to add a color to my palette or wash my brushes. Now only if I can figure out an attachable tray or something to the right of the easel, that could solve the biggest requirement I have of a table.

P. L. Deshpande park 1

This is based on a picture of P. L. Deshpande park or Okayama friendship garden, a new Japanese style garden in my home town Pune, India by Ajay Adiya.

I really really like this painting. I like the effect of sunlight, I like the rocks, that I have been able to paint for the first time. I like the water and rocks in it. I like the bushes and distant trees and reflection of sun on water.. basically I am excited about this painting!

 

One thing I learnt was if I am laying down a background color, I better lay it down according to what my final image is gong to be in that area. E.g. The leafy area in the front has brown and dark green as background colors, but while laying down I kept the brush strokes as if I was painting leaves and not just as a random wash. That way I did not have to do too much work while building up the top layers.

Flower Meadow

This is an imaginary painting I did for a friend of mine. She wanted something springy or fall like.. but sadly (note heatwave!) its summer.

I started off with J's suggestion of a mystical feel.. But I couldn't get there, so I changed the gears and decided to go in the 'evening' route.

The day I was supposed to give this to her, I still was not a 100% happy with it. So I got up early, walked Bella and started adding flowers to it based on some photos I had taken on our walk the previous day.

I also added a vine based on all the vines that are covering most of the large tree trunks in my area.

But, it still felt a little empty. I added some more reds after this to get to the final version. And I have to say I do like it.