Plein Air painting: Elm park

I tried.. well, let me rephrase, started my first ever plein air painting today. I am only saying started because I hope to go back tomorrow and finish it plein-air.

But for today, I am only barely done blocking.

First of all, I did not go there at 10:00 am as I had decided previously. I started for the park at 2:30 pm.
By the time I got my green tea frappe and set up, it must have already been 3:30. But hey, the days have gotten longer and there is a lot of bright light all the way till 7 pm now a days. So no harm done there.

However, only after I started setting up did I realize a few of the main challenges.
1. I need a table or some sort of heigher surface to put my paints and water. Since I did not bring a table with me. I had to set up near a park bench. Which means I could not choose the view.
2. There are way too many trees and poles and sleeping people and baracaded things in between the view I wanted.
3. No matter how much I sprayed the canvas and the palette with water, the paint kept on drying on the palette (despite of it being a Sta-wet palette), or worse, the brush.
4. It is really hard to draw defined shape of a bridge free hand with just paintbrush. I got so frustrated, that I just decided against the full bridge and chose a different composition.
5. And finally, its hard to get correct colors mixed in bright outdoor ever changing light.

Despite all these issues, I have to say, I had a great time. Lot of nice people stopped by and cheered me on. The nicest were the kids. Some wanted to paint with me, others wanted to talk and tell mw what they like to do and all were super excited to see it. Now how can you not get excited when you hear "I am coming back to see the finished version" from a 10 year old,  with her younger sister chiming in "I am definitely coming back"!! :)

So I am going back tomorrow to see what the finished version looks like.

Day 1

Day 2

You can see how dramatically different the light on the two days was... Firstly because the first day I was there int he evening... the second day I was there in the morning! And secondly, the cloud cover was simply different..
When I was done with the second day, as I was trying to stay true to the colors I saw, it just started looking like a blob of green in the back.Also the little tree on the right had some weird dimensions and so did the one one the left.

So, I used some more of the dark green to reshape the trees and glazed the background trees with matte pthelo blue glaze. I like the way the bridge turned out. I am still not a fan of the left tree and the foreground grass.. it looks very different in style than the rest of the painting. But I guess, I don't mind the overall effect. And, I have learnt how a photograph does not do justice to what an eye sees. I can't go literal with the paint colors, but I have to pump them up quite a bit to get the feeling I got while viewing the scene.

Update: July 31, 2013

This painting sat there this whole time while I have been trying to decide what I do not like about it.

I  darkened the ground in the back. which though helped bringing the front trees to the front a bit, still felt off.. 

Finally I decided that I do not like the water and I do not like the grass on either sides of the front pathway either. I covered the water with more mossy dark green and started covering up the grass with bushes.

I need to add more branches at the bottom of the left green tree so it does not look so horizontal and add light effect similar to the main tree to the other foreground trees.

Backyard pond

We get these beautiful views from our bed room window. This is a backyard of one of our neighbors as seen from our window. An early spring morning, the red buds had just started sprouting and coloring the gray canvas that winter had left us. When I saw this view, I knew I had paint it.

Now at this stage I decided the fence should be a bit larger in case I decide to frame it. You can see the final version up top.

I darkened the house a little bit. 

But looking at the photograph, I see that I need to

1. Increase the density of red flowers on the back side, may be using a sponge

2. Increase the thickness of the tree trunks

3. Increase the density of yellow grass on back right behind the red flowers.

Update:07/11/2013

 I keep on thinking about where I start and at this point I think it will be better if I do a whole new painting from scratch based on this. I have neither the heart nor the energy to fix it. And given that it is painted on paper, I am not sure it that would be worth the effort either.

Red twig dogwood

I just finished this painting based on a photograph of a red twig dogwood I had snapped at the Tower Hill Botanic garden last fall with my parents and sis-in-law. At that time, I did not think it was that great a shot.

But looking at it from a painter's perspective, all the blues, and purples and bright reds and oranges against the bright white background just called out to me.
Unlike my usual process, I decided to follow what I had read about using the photograph only as a reference, making a few sketches and trying out the colors. It helped me decide which leaves to focus on, and which would only be a part of the background. It also helped me figure out which of the techniques would be better for this one. For example, painting the background image before the main leaves was making the leaves look duller as the background was shining through.
All in all, I love the brighter contrast I have in the painting. I feel I should make a larger version of this.

Birch tree

 

I stated this one because J wanted a large painting for his place in CA. But I do not like the final product. 

Free style abstract painting

In order to take a break from the sunflower field painting I have been working on, I asked my friend M from work if she wanted anything painted.

She gave me this painting she found online.

Now I have to say, M's taste in art is way different than mine. She calls it weird. I would call it eclectic. But this one just threw me off! It looked like something I used to paint as a child!

When I checked out the website for more details, I learnt that these apparantly sell for over150 pounds in UK, and the artist Natalie Rymer, is famous enough for publishers to ask her to make prints of her work!!!!!!!!  :-O

I decided to give it a try. Ofcourse, I changed it a bit. I have a problem having the leaves go in weird directions. And I did not care for the leaves on the mug.

I love how putting a little bit of yellow under the leaves ad flowers on the mug, make them pop!

I loved how easy and freeing this process was. So I made a second one with a dark background.

Which I hated. Hated the backgroud. Hated the process of painting on dark background as my acrylics are very translucent and I had to paint each leaf and sprig in either white or gesso first before I could paint it! Aaaggggrrrrhh!!!

But then I went back over on the background with black and purple.. and now I think it is tolerable!

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