"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.

Mandarin with Ragged Leaf

Mandarin with Ragged Leaf

6"x8" oil on canvas panel

set up (with room light on and lamps off)

This time of year, the beautiful mandarin oranges arrive complete with leaves. I couldn't resist this guy with his bedraggled leaf. The painting was done on a panel Suzanne deLesseps had made up one year to use on a trip to France, it's very thin and weighs almost nothing. I set up the still life in a closet, backed by black fabric, with an octopus light shining one bulb across the front of the set up, another pointed at the painting surface, and a third at the palette (sitting where the red box is in the photo). The photo shows the setup with the room light on, but it was off, and it was dark outside, when I painted this. The black-ish background came from mixing alizarin crimson and viridian.

Does anyone know why the mandarins are available with leaves in the US, and other citrus fruits are not?

And, I did have trouble photographing this, it has been very dark and dreary here. When I have some more light, I'll try again.

Nagog Pond #1

  Nagog Pond #1, River in the Ice

5"x7" oil on Fredrix canvas panel

Nagog Pond #1 drawing

 

Nagog Pond Value Sketch, late afternoon

8"x10" oil on Raymar panel

It seems like this is the winter of experimentation, here in bitterly cold New England. First there were lemons, and then bigger paintings. I'd also like to do some variations on a landscape composition, looking at color. At first, I wasn't sure if this view of Nagog Pond would work, but the more time I spent there, the more sunsets I saw, and as the ice came and went, and came back, I found a lot to inspire me. So here goes, Nagog Pond #0 (a value study from late October), and variation #1, thinking of evening, and rivers in the ice. I used a limited palette of yellow ochre, alizarin crimson, black, and white.

From plein air to studio

Russell Millpond
plein air

6"x6" oil on Raymar panel

A task I've assigned myself this winter is to learn how to make compelling paintings from plein air studies. The idea is not to simply take a larger brush and do the same thing bigger, but to make a new painting, expressing my feel for the place in a different way. I took this problem to a class I'm taking with Marais Platais at the Concord Art Association. I painted Russell Millpond in the spring of 2010.

the studio version after an hour or so

16"x16" oil on canvas

So, of course, in the first session, I did exactly what I said I wasn't going to do, and reproduced the smaller painting's version of the big trees on the right.  I took it home, starting wiping away, and tried to remember what Marais had told me. I'm sure he said more and said it better, but this is what sunk in:
- Use both the plein air painting and any reference photos to gather information.

- Remember that for each brush stroke in the small painting, there will be several of different sizes in the larger one.  

- Think of the whole tree in the small painting as the top of the same tree in the larger painting. 

- Don't paint a copy of the reference photo, another thing I wanted to avoid, but zoom in (thank you, ipad) on areas to see patterns and color variations that could be useful in the larger painting. 

I like this result much better than my first attempt.

Lemon #7

Lemon #7

4"x5" gouache on paper

Now I'm back in my comfort zone with lemon #4 re-described in gouache. I've done quite a few small paintings in gouache, it reminds me most of painting in oil in terms of consistency and color mixing, but of course, dries much much faster. I used some dry brush here, which I'd like to learn to do in oil.

Thanks very much to Sally Dean and JanettMarie for recommendations on great lemon paintings:
- Sally recommends Robin Rosenthal's "Egg and Lemons", it's great. And check out Robin's other work. I also like the next painting on her blog, "Bananas and Teal Jar".
- Janett Marie recommends Julie Ford Oliver's "More Lemons", and if you look at Julie's posts in May of 2012, there are a lot more, just scroll down a bit. And don't miss the sunflowers in the polka dot pot, I love that one too!
- Do take a look at my dear friend Joelle Feldman's "For Limoncello", it is one of my favorites.
- And finally, Julian Merrow-Smith has done many lemon paintings, "Lemon and Cup" is my all time favorite of his, though I have to confess, the pottery mug (David Garland, I think) in this painting grabs me too.

Lemon #6

Lemon #6

4"x5" watercolor on paper

I think it's a great learning experience to explore a subject in different mediums, so here is lemon #4 reappearing as a watercolor. I'd like to get more experience with watercolor, because it's so convenient to take along when traveling, or just going about your daily routine. I could've chosen a better paper here, just one of the things I learned. The background is actually a bit more green than in this scan...

Any more favorite lemon paintings before I include them in a post? Thanks to those who've spoken up so far, I'm enjoying the exploration.