The plein air adventure of painting in my garden
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A Finished Painting Creating the Red Wicker Chairs series was an adventure of painting in my garden. Starting with some smaller color studies stoked my enthusiasm for creating a series of larger works. This April turned into a very intense month of juggling several paintings at once to take advantage of the wonderful, welcoming Spring light and flowers. | |
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Day One: Setting Up Deciding on a 30x30 inch format meant setting up in my garden with more than a pochade box. A large umbrella keeps the sun off the canvas, palette and me. | |
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What is My Focus? Composing the painting is my first move away from reality. It is more important to me to make an interesting design using the set up as inspiration than to be bound by the actual scene. | |
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The Scene Emerges Blocking in or balancing the colors, refining shapes, eliminating an object or just moving it around on the canvas -- are all parts of a fluid creative process. Locking in the darks and lights to support my chairs is important at this stage. | |
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Organizing an Abundance of Color A muddy palette leads to a muddy painting. One of the most important lessons I have learned is to always organize my palette the same way and keep it clean and fresh. | |
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End of Day One: The Challenge of Changing Conditions This is where the painting stood when the light on Day One reached the point when it was changing too much to keep painting this particular piece. Both in my studio and plein air, I work on a different painting in the afternoon than in the morning because of the light changes -- always hoping for another sunny day tomorrow. I look forward to sharing more snapshots of my painting process soon. |