Fixer-Upper

Fixer-Upper, 8x10, Gouache

This old house in Roanoke, Texas has been on my list for the last few weeks.  Yesterday, I did a pretty complete pencil drawing directly on the board.  This morning, after a little DIY work on the RV, I set up the easel and went at it.  It felt good to do something a bit more ”finished” for a change.

Sort of Plein Air, But Not Really

8x10, Gouache

I don’t think this one really qualifies as a plein air piece, even though part of it was done on location.  I started it yesterday from a photo.  This morning, around the same time as the reference photo was taken, I worked on it while sitting outside, looking at the actual scene.  Sort of a reverse of the usual process of starting outdoors and finishing in the studio, I started it in the studio and finished it outside.

It was an interesting exercise, because I was able to make some changes by actually looking at the actual scene.  My main interest was in just simply painting outdoors.  I didn’t want to hike a half mile to find something outside the RV Park, but I did want to just enjoy the beautiful day and cool morning air.  I expect to do a lot of this sort of thing in the future.  Here’s an example of just taking advantage of the fresh air while painting from an existing sketch.  In other words, it’s painted outdoors, but not on location.

This little 5×7 piece started as a pencil sketch done while sitting inside the RV on a cold day while waiting for work to be done (see Killing Time).  I got this far with the painting this morning, but around 11am, it warmed up, and I was sitting directly in the sun.  So, I’ll probably finish this indoors.  But maybe not right now.

Right now, I’m thinking nap.

Outdoors Again…

It was a beautiful day yesterday, my 68^th birthday.  While I’m not a dedicated plein air painter, I hope to become much more of a regular one as we begin our travels.  For now, I’m just taking advantage of good days to get more practice.  Painting outdoors has been a challenge for me, because the quality of the work isn’t what I have been used to in the studio.  Lately, even the studio work has been below my usual level, but I think that’s because of so many changes that have taken place in recent months and the challenges those changes present.

Tree, 8x10, Gouache

Because I’m not a bold, seasoned plein air painter, I’ve tended to stay close to the motorhome here in the RV Park.  This tree is near a fence line, not far from us, but stands next to an occupied mobile home.  I chose to paint it while standing in my own space.  I tend to work quickly when I’m painting in the studio or indoors, but not with any feeling of pressure.  I can slow down when I want to, and even stop and take a break.  For some reason, when I work for the same amount of time outdoors, I work with the same speed, but don’t get the same result.  I know that’s normal, but I find it a bit frustrating.  And, yes, I know that the more I do it, the better I’ll get at it.

Recent photos have shown me working on coated paper plates for mixing palettes.  There are a lot of palette styles out there, most of them pretty inexpensive.  I’d just been holding off buying one, intending to find one that fit comfortably inside my french easel.  William R. Moore couldn’t stand it any longer, and very kindly sent me one of two identical palettes he had recently bought.

The palette fits perfectly, and stores easily with other art supplies in an overhead compartment in the RV.  And, it will work well on the dinette table inside when the table is extended.  And I have to admit, there’s a greater comfort when mixing on this hard plastic palette that stays in place in the easel drawer.  Thanks, William!

More Studies of Malabar Farm

The Hen House, 8x10, Gouache

This is the hen house at Malabar Farm, near Mount Vernon, Ohio.  The painting is based on a photo I took last summer.

I don’t know if my work is taking a turn in a certain direction, or if I’m just working a little faster and stopping sooner because of the new painting conditions.  I seem to be working in a bit more of a sketchy style lately.  Here’s another recent example:

Stage Coach Inn, 9z12, Gouache

The Stage Coach Inn is also at Malabar Farm.  To be honest, I’m enjoying painting this way, spending a lot less time and energy fussing over little stuff.  I could spend a little more time on the field on the left side of this painting, however.  And I’m not entirely happy with the dirt tracks.  But overall, these paintings say what they need to say.

Like most painters, I love the work of the French impressionists, and am easily influenced.  I also have no doubt that I’ll do some more realistic work in the future, when the subject calls for it, and when the realism spirit moves me.  I’m too enamored of the work of Russian artists like Ivan Shishkin and Isaac Levitan to not attempt some form of realism from time to time.

I fully expect to do a great deal of plein air, or outdoor on location, painting when we start travelling fulltime.  The sketchy approach I’ve been taking lately just may be a way for me to do that and be happy with the results.

For now, I’m enjoying this looser, more casual approach.

An Unfinished Oldie

Farm (Unfinished), 16x20, Gouache

Moving the motorhome back and forth from the RV Park to the shop (an 80 mile trip, one way), and keeping things ready for movement, has taken a toll on my painting.  So, just to keep the blog active, here’s one from last year that’s sitting in a portfolio, waiting for me to decide if it’s finished.  I was really happy with the way it was going, and stopped because I didn’t want to overwork it.  It’s kind of hard to get to right now, but I think I’m correct about the size.

This is based on a farm outside of Mount Vernon, Ohio, from a photo taken last summer.

Killing Time

If you’ve been keeping up with us on Back Roads & Brushes, you know we’re temporarily parked at an RV service shop in Sherman, Texas.  I suppose “temporarily parked” is a bit redundant, since wherever we go from now on, we’ll be “temporarily parked”.  But at the moment, we are temporarily away from our regular temporary place.  In fact, we’re 80 miles away from it.  Confused?  Catch up on Back Roads & Brushes.

If we end up with one more full day here, I may break out the paint and easel, but I’ve been trying to stay ready to move the motorhome into or out of one of the service bays on short notice.  (We’re waiting for parts to come in.)

Above is the view out the dining table window, looking forward across a parking lot.  Not sure what’s on the front of these buildings, but the colors will be interesting to work with, primarily grays and red.

I broke out some 5×7 boards and a pencil, and did some preliminary sketches.  I love doing these little things.  Some of them get painted over, some become studies for paintings, and some get tossed (or erased, to save the board for future use).  They’re done very quickly.  In fact, I  spend more time scrolling through my reference photos and deciding on the proper crop than I do actually drawing.

So… here are a couple more done yesterday:

The images are poor because I shot them lying on the table next to the window.  But there’s a nice suggestion of lighting that might come into play if these turn into paintings.

Right now we’re doing what we seem to do the most of right now: staying inside and keeping warm.  The temperature dropped overnight, and it’s about 30 degrees with a 20 to 30 mile an hour wind.  Hemi is standing guard at the front, watching passing traffic out on the street, while we wait for parts to arrive for service on the motohome.

Number 48 (Plein Air)

Number 48, 8x10, Gouache

Another beautiful day today, so I painted another of the places across the street here at the RV Park.

A Train On a Siding and A Greenhouse

I had forgotten that my son-in-law Scott discovered we had an extension to the dinette table.  You pull the table top out from the wall to reveal the extension hidden underneath.  If you look closely, you can see the extension at the right end of the table, next to the wall.  It adds about 12 inches to the width of the table, which in this case, creates a lot more work space.

I set up this morning after walking the dog.  I turned off the furnace to conserve propane, and switched on the little electric heater we brought along.  Once the sun was up and I opened the front curtains, it didn’t take long for the sun to take over from the heater.  As the morning wore on, I eventually turned off the heater and opened a couple of windows.  It turned out to be a nice day, but I chose to keep working inside.  I still need to figure out the best lighting to paint under.  For now, I’m turning on three overhead lights and opening the window blinds next to the work area.

On The Siding, 8x10, Gouache

I wanted to experiment a bit.  This little study was an exercise in simplicity.  I started with a board toned with a combination of yellow ochre and burnt sienna, and sort of went from there, drawing everything in with pure burnt sienna.  It was a fun little experiment that I probably spent a little over an hour on.

After playing with the train study, I pulled up a reference photo I took last summer at Malabar Farm in Ohio.  I really liked the place, and brought back quite a few good references.  This is a view from the back of some of the barns.  In this case, there was a substantial greenhouse attached to the side of one of them.

I drew the structure and sloping lawn with a soft round brush, using a thin mixture of leftover burnt sienna and ultramarine.  Like all my work, these are on Crescent illustration board.

This is as far as I went today, playing with the color on the side of the barn, getting the glass grid in the greenhouse blocked in, and working with the trees and grass a bit.  I’m not sure if I’ll be able to get back to this tomorrow.  There’s work that needs to be done on the motorhome, and it’s possible part of it may get done tomorrow.  We’ll see.

*     *     *

I’ve recently been introduced to the work of Hugh Bolton Jones (1848-1927), an American painter whose landscapes are wonderful.

I have a feeling I’ll be spending some time looking at this man’s work.

Morning Light

Untitled, 9x12, Gouache

It was time to paint some trees.  This was somewhere along Interstate 35, returning to Dallas from Wichita, Kansas on a Sunday morning.  On Crescent illustration board, with a palette consisting of burnt sienna, yellow medium, ultramarine blue, yellow ochre, and titanium white.  I’m having fun with atmospheric perspective these days.

I could probably hit the foreground with a little more warm light.  And a couple more long shadows coming across from left to right would help the existing shadows make a little more sense.  Or I could shorten those shadows so they don’t reach the trees, but I kind of liked the way they tracked across the composition.

Just thinking out loud.  Ever post a painting, then pick it apart?  I do it all the time.  I just don’t always tell you about it.

All part of the ongoing challenge…

Number 49 (Plein Air)

I have become quite the weather-watcher in the last few weeks, mainly to keep tabs on when it’s likely to freeze.  Frozen hoses and pipes are no more fun in a motorhome than they are in a sticks-and-bricks house.  It’s also helpful to be forewarned about what temperature to set the furnace thermostat on.  All that is simply to say that I knew today was going to be a beautiful warm day here in Roanoke.

I putzed around a bit this morning, wrote a blog post, then selected a reference photo that would be nice to paint.  As I was getting the tabletop easel out, a little voice said “Come outside… paint and enjoy the sunshine…”  So I poured a cup of coffee and stepped out on the patio, checked the view from there, then strolled down the street a few yards and looked between the RVs and mobile homes along the edge of the park.  I finally decided to break the neighbors in easy by just painting right beside my own motorhome.

Number 49, 8x10, Gouache

I’ll admit I’ve left a few items out of this little plein air painting, like a barbecue grill, a bicycle leaning against the wall, and a couple of other items.  I really intended to include them, but the clock was ticking and the shadows were moving.

It was right around mid-day (11am) by the time I got the easel set up and paint squeezed out on the palette.  This is how far I got in an hour and a half.  Surprisingly, no one approached me the entire time I was painting.  Several people drove by, but no one came by on foot.

Here are a couple more shots of the setup next to the motorhome:

We haven’t put out any chairs or other outdoor living stuff yet (chairs, etc), and may not.  This was the best day we’ve had since settling in here, and now the next day, as I’m writing this, the temperature is back down in the 40s, the sky is overcast, and to be honest, it’s much more comfortable back inside.

This was the view I was working with, and at midday, the shadows were moving fast.

My current plein air setup: a Richeson french easel, an oil painters turps cup for water, and a coated paper plate for a mixing palette.  The previous palette was just too big, both for the easel and for storage in the motorhome.  The paper plate works okay, but the round shape is awkward, and a slight breeze will turn it into a frisbie.  I’ll find something in the folding plastic style that will work.

What was important to me here was that I was trying to force myself to use more opaque paint.  Typically, when I work outdoors, I tend to work too wet, which doesn’t give me the brushwork I get in the studio.  I did notice also that the air was just cool enough to cause the paint to dry really quickly on the palette.

Mostly, it just felt really good to stand out in the sunshine and paint.