Neighborhood Plein Air

Last month I did a major cleaning out of my Painting space, so I could paint there, and came accross this one from last December.  It was during the Eric Weigardt Worshop; the sun came out so I thought it would be a great Plein Air opportunity but it was cold and I didn't finish. I kind of like the look of it now - it has an immediacy and for the most part didn't get overworked. 

The anual fall workshop for is going on again at OSA with Eric from Nov 30th to Dec. 3rd.  There's still some spots open if you want to go.

Portland Cityscape

First piece after the workshop last week.  I learned a lot but need to practice all the applications. I probably could still have gone darker grading down...next time!.I've also been looking at the works of  

Alvaro Castagnet.

Hope you all had a wonderful Turkey day;  - now, back to the easel. Any comments or questions are welcome and much appreciated.... 

Focus On Reflections.

I was able to attend a class specifically aimed at painting reflections in a rainy cityscape. I met our instructor,  Ron Stocke and his wife Ursula last Friday morning at OSA. After a brief introduction and description of the next few hours Students drew out a simple version of street scene that would give opportunities to paint lots of  wet looking reflections.  I'll show you the secret through following Ron's painting steps.  See if you can figure it out without me stating the obvious.

 

 Step one- A nice juicy mother wash reserving whites on cars and crosswalk strips

  

Step 2- Stating the shapes of distant buildings, keep them high key + avoid  detail.

  

Step 3 Addition of Figures and vehicles closes to you.... These look really dark uh?

  

 Step 4-Adding a large dark mass for balance and detail as needed.

 

The Final - A day in the Pacific NorthWest.

Winter Project Continues......

These are about one third of the sketches for the  Subject to Interpretations Winter Project #2   My final selection for this project follows.  I love seeing what the rest of the group produces.  Our discussion this morning was that most everyone thought it would be such an easy piece to produce but once we got into it, there were some issues to consider and resolve.  I'm not entirely sure this is the best solution but I did enjoy the challenge..

Free Sunday at the Portland Or. Art Museum

It's family Sunday and its Free today.  Here is a picture of all the paper lanterns that were outside the old Museum School entrance.  It rained over an inch yesterday so you can imagine..........

Our Winter Project

We have a new winter project set up for Portland Plein Air Painters (Studio in the winter). All participants are painting from the same image; their interpretation of a landscape from a photograph. We send them to Katherine who is managing the Subject to Interpretations Blog. Click on the link to see submissions by the rest of the group and the image from which we paint.

This painting was photographed when it was still wet so the colors looked off and they were darker than the real painting. Once it was totally dry, the painting didn't have the same spark - I know now it was the paper scrap I used (very soft and absorbent)...... so I photo shopped it !!  I liked making the work more of a limited palette. Below is the actual painting, I wasn't in love with the composition so I liked the crop above better. I hope I learn from this as I work through the winter. Thanks for looking.