"Spring Thaw"

8"x10" oil on Raymar panel

Had some fun today painting with friends and sharing photos. Thanks to Suzanne deLesseps for the photo I used for the painting above, a mountain stream in Montana. It would have been fun to do this one en plein air!

Forge Pond - Again

"Forge Pond" after some changes to the composition

6"x8" oil on linen panel

"Forge Pond" at the end of the plein air session

I wasn't satisfied with the plein air painting of Forge Pond that I did after our big snow storm, so I got some advice and changed two things about the composition. While I like the composition of the later painting (the one on top) better, there is something fresh about the plein air study that I wish I could have kept. Which painting do you like better?

"Casco Bay Clouds"

 

"Casco Bay Clouds"

11"x14" oil on canvas

The view from Princes Point in Yarmouth of the small island we call the Nubbin. Basket Island on the left, Sturdevant on the right, with Clapboard behind it, and Portland in the far distance.

Forge Pond

A bit that I like.

 The scene is behind the easel to the right.

We've had a blizzard here in New England. Travel was banned on Friday afternoon and Saturday while it snowed a couple of feet, and even this morning there was snow still blocking streets in Boston and Cambridge, and it's been pouring with rain! Yesterday was beautiful though, in the high thirties, and I was able to do a quick plein air sketch by the pond near our house. I'm not sure about the overall painting, but I do like the bit shown at the top. What do you think?

Mill Pond

Mill Pond (#4)

16"x16" oil on canvas

#3

# 2

(for # 1 go here)

I've finished "Mill Pond", a studio painting based on an earlier 6"x6" plein air study. I worked on the painting for an hour or two in each of 4 sessions of my class with Marais Platais, the first was described in an earlier post. Hopefully you can see how things went with the process photos above. A couple of things I learned:
- When I got into a mess between #2 and #3 in the trees on the right, scraping it off and re-drawing with the brush was the answer.
- I was concerned about the bright yellows on the right edge in #3, and asked Marais whether I should darken them. He gave me another alternative, to bring some of the bright yellow over to the left. What a great idea!

I'm pretty happy with this new version of the Mill Pond and with what I learned about going from a plein air study to a studio painting (thank you, Marais!). And I'm not yet tired of the pond. If we get some more snow, maybe I'll be able to do a winter version.