Ragged Point

This is one of those paintings that painted itself. (Seems like I'm starting to say that more and more lately!) Part of the reason is that I was working on linen that had a couple extra coats of acrylic gesso laid on it to "kill" the linen texture. I don't like the woven pattern of canvas and linen, and when I run across a panel prepared with it, I always lay on more gesso. In this case, just enough texture was left so that my brushstrokes for the water and distant light on Ragged Point "broke" -- thus suggesting detail in a way that would have taken me many, many hours to create with a fine brush. You can see the effect in the detail.

"Ragged Point," 8x10, oil/panel, en plein air

Detail:

French Easel Woes

I have some larger frames I need to use up. I typically paint plein air oil around 8x10 or 9x12, but I've got a few 11x14 and 12x16 frames sitting around. So, this weekend I decided to try painting bigger outdoors -- 11x14. (Not big by some painters' standards, but big enough for me!)

One problem with my painting large is equipment -- the 9x12 pochade box I use can accomodate bigger panels, but I don't have the adapter. So, I had to fall back on my French easel. I paint on the French easel all the time in the studio, but I've never taken it outdoors for oil.

Although I have a wet panel carrier for 11x14s, I decided to forgo lugging yet another box, so I fixed my panel to the French easel in the two brackets on the lid and went out. I gave myself my usual hour to do a study. Things went well until I was ready to pack up. Folding up a French easel with a wet panel on it is not easy! And then, because of the way I had to keep the lower bracket raised up high to hold the wet panel tight, pressure was released on the palette inside the box...

...and so when I picked up the neatly-folded easel by the carrying handle, the palette actually SLID OUT through the gap at the bottom near the drawer! What a mess.

I have since fixed this problem by making a little turnbuckle that fits near the drawer. The palette won't slide out again.

At any rate, here is the one-hour 11x14 sketch: "Con Robinson's Point Weir"

Living and Painting in a Fog

The rain and fog just ain't going away this summer. I went out to Con Robinson's Point where the fog was ebbing (somewhat), set up my tripod on a rock outcrop in the low tide zone, and painted the fog.

"Con Robinson's Point in the Fog" 9x12, oil/panel, en plein air

I used a heck of a lot of white in this painting, but I managed to keep the grays full of color. How'd I do this? I use a good amount of my palette scrapings from the previous painting. Every time I finish a painting, I take all the "used" paint on my palette, scrape it into a pile and mix it thoroughly. This "soup" is inevitably gray, but it is harmonized with my limited palette the because it contains a little bit of everything I use. This soup becomes a significant portion of my next painting -- I will use it everywhere. I can push this gray to be warmer or cooler or into a different color family by adding tiny bits of pure color. I can get some really nice grays with this method. (Grays should never be blah and truly neutral; they should always belong to some color family.)

By the time I finished, all my brushes were literally dripping with water from the fog. A weird experience, seeing the water running down into my brush holder.

(PS - Due to popular demand, I am turning "on" comments for my blogs. New entries will allow comments, so be nice!)

Spanning the Channel

Sometimes, you encounter a day where the light is so pure and the colors so clean that you just can't wait to paint! This was a day like that, and you don't get many of them in the Canadian Maritimes this time of year.

This was a fun painting to do. I could have focussed on the bridge or the many old wharf buildings, but I chose to do a big view -- sky, clouds and water -- with the bridge and buildings only suggested. Even though there was a certain amount of gray in the clouds, I kept my paint colors pure and and clean.

This is the Lubec Channel, with the tide going out and some weather moving in. (Click on the picture for a bigger version.)

Liberty Point, Fog

The rain had come and gone, the fog had risen up, and now the sun was burning the fog away. The intense yellow light on the fog made for an amazing moment I just had to capture! The tide was out, too, so the green rockweed, dark against the illuminated water and fog, made for an interesting study.

This was done on Campobello Island in the Roosevelt-Campobello International Park at Liberty Point. Liberty Point juts out into the Grand Manan Channel where there is often fog and a chill wind blowing. We have big tides here -- 20-foot-plus -- and that's why you can see so much rockweed on these rugged outcrops.

"Liberty Point Fog," 8x10, oil/panel, en plein air