Green House, Fruitlands

Green House, Fruitlands

8"x10" oil on Raymar panel

 The painting at the end of my first session, and sun is now behind the house.

Last Friday and again on Tuesday I worked on this painting at the Fruitlands Museum in Harvard, MA. Fruitlands is a beautiful park with historic buildings on the site of the unsuccessful utopian community of the 19th century transcendentalists. In addition to the museum exhibits, and a fine restaurant, people come here to walk and to see the wonderful views across to Mount Wachusett and beyond. They have a plein air program, where artists get an annual membership for donating a painting done on the site. Above is the second painting I've done there.

I've been using a new tool that helped me choose this scene and get a good composition. It's called Value Viewer, and I use it on my iphone. My favorite feature is the notan view, which lets you check the composition without the distraction of color or gray-scale nuances. Below is the notan view from Value Viewer of my first composition choice, note how the light lean-to on the right drags your eye out of the picture. A different shot, which includes the shadow side of the lean-to is much better, see bottom image.  Thanks, Haidee-Jo for suggesting this app!

A day on Peaks Island

 "Rocky Shore"

8"x10" oil on Raymar panel

On Monday I took the ferry to Peaks Island from Portland, and what a beautiful day it was. Gorgeous puffy clouds, but still lots of sun, and a nice 65 degrees. After much futzing around checking out locations, learning island history, and finally renting a bike to get to the back side of the island, I set up on a rock overlooking the Atlantic,... and it started to sprinkle. I thought I was back in Brittany with the Wapping guys! I covered everything, took a walk, and it started again. So I just started painting.

 The scene, but of course by this time the tide was much farther in.

 Artist riding the bike with backpack on, tripod and panel carrier in the paniers. Am I sore after all that walking and riding? Yes, but it was a fun day on the island.

  Ocean Point Pine 6"x8" oil on panel

 

Ocean Point Pine Sketch

 

Sketchbook page

Betsy painting

These are more from my day in East Boothbay last week at the OPA paintout. The top image is my first painting of the day, the same tree as in the painting in the previous post. But here, I'm looking into the sun, or at least it started out that way. My preliminary sketch is the second image, and as is often the case, I like it better than the sketch I did on the panel for the painting. Perhaps a notan would be better preparation for the painting, since it's masses rather than lines that matter. Next time!

I had lots of fun with the drawings, particularly of the other painters. And Betsy did not have two umbrellas.

"Ocean Point" - OPA Great Paint Out 2012

 "Ocean Point" 10:x8" oil on Raymar panel

The scene.

On Wednesday I painted with the Plein Air Painters of Maine group at Ocean Point in East Boothbay for the Oil Painters of America Great Paint Out 2012. It was a beautiful day and lots of fun. I met some great painters, including one of my heroes, Tony van Hasselt. This kind of day is such a treasure, with winter heading our way.

The painting above was done about 4PM, when everyone else was gone, in the spot where Tony stood in the morning. I was thrilled to have been in his painting. I was closer in at that point, looking into the sun, painting the tree on the right.  I'll post my tree painting and some of my sketches when I get back to my scanner.

Corn and Sunflowers

With a forecast for rain all day, I was happy to see clouds moving out around 10AM. I stopped the car for a better look and couldn't resist painting this scene of rows of corn, trees, and other crops. It took 3 sketches before I got what I wanted, and as often happens, I like the composition of the sketch better than that of the painting. Something to work on!