Plein Air-ing it

"Alexandria"

10 x 8 in

Oil on Canvas

I love long weekends especially at the cabin with family and friends. Sleeping was the number one thing in the agenda and I am happy to say that I succeeded. Second to sleeping was continuing my journey with plein air paintings. As I mentioned in previous post landscapes are not my strong suit, but I do have an admiration for them and enjoy painting them any chance I can. I wanted to try to capture the time of day as fast as I can without having the distraction of putting every hair on a dog.  My goals were to capture the time of day, mood in the painting, and edit my process.

Similar to my previous post, I started with the top left picture with just a quick gesture of the landscape. I only want to capture the essence of the scene and its perspective. The top right picture shows my next step, this stage I only ad the overall tones for each section of the painting. This stage I like to call the "rough" in stage, still going quick to capture the type of light I want, similar to doing gestures but with color. This stage allows me to see how the overall color and mood that will be in the final painting. I want to try to keep close to this palette the further I move away from this stage and closer to the final. The bottom left picture I start to zero in on a section and take it to a finish. I first start with the darker values and move to the lighter values. In this stage I am taking the tree's in the foreground and the tree's in the background to a close finish. Then on the bottom right picture I complete the lake and sky, repeating the same process in working from dark to lighter values.  When all the shapes and values are stated in the painting and close to a finish I can then go around and put the finishing touches. 

Painting on location.

Here is another painting I did when the sun was starting to set the previous day. This was a really quick painting as the clouds were going in and out. The size of this painting is 5 x7 inches, being restricted to that size allows you to go much quicker.

Thank you again for stopping by and viewing. I hope you enjoyed this post and the paintings. Till next time, cheers!

"Fall Lake"

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"Fall Lake"

5 x 7 in

Oil on Canvas Panel

I went out today with the little time I had before teaching and did this quick little plein air painting.  I definitely do not do these as often as I should, I really love a lot of landscape painters but havel always strayed away from painting them myself.  For some reason I've always been to timid to do them, just recently I started to go back out and paint outdoors especially with the beautiful fall landscape here in Minnesota, its hard no to.  The weather is getting cold up here so I painted this one with gloves which is something i'm definitely not used to, but really enjoyed the adventure and process making it.  I hope to go back out soon before it gets to cold and capture more of these scenes. 

Picture of my setup at the lake.

"Key Biscayne"

"Key Biscayne"

8 x 10 in

Oil on Canvas Panel

Hi everyone I apologize for the long absence I've been visiting family for my birthday in south Florida, I've been on vacation for over a week and have been itching to get back to painting.  I did this painting on the beach yesterday it was a lot of fun to paint, I know my strongest point is not landscape painting but its something I respect and would love to dabble more in the future.  It's been really nice visiting family being together with my parents is something i've been needing for a while, it saddens me to leave and get back to the real world.  Funny story while painting this picture it was a bit of overcast seeing how cloudy it was I didn't think of putting any sunblock, not a good idea I ended with my legs really burnt and my neck as well.  The sun here gets worst by the years I definitely learned my lesson and hope next time to at least put some sunscreen no matter how cloudy it is.  I leave back to Minneapolis this evening I hope to blog more when I arrive this week.  Thanks for stopping by hope you enjoyed this one!

This is a photo of the set up and a great view of the beach.

Plein Air Painting

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"Lake of Isles"

4 x 6 in

Oil on Linen Panel

Today was raining for the most part and it cleared up around noon time, I went out with a buddy of mine for a quick plein air painting.  Here's a pic of our set up:

It was a lot of fun doing a landscape painting, completely different than what I usually do.  Landscapes are not my cup of tea for the most part but after today and just diving into this painting, I can say I changed my mind a bit about them.  Since the weather is getting better I plan to do more of these in the near future, thanks for stopping by and viewing.