Saturday 28 May 2016

For the Last Time

We returned to Cedar Haven Farm for the last time, for a while anyway.  I had another good evening here.  It was hot and I was in the swamp so the black flies were a bit horrendous but I managed to relax into these paintings.

 I was walking a path on the edge of the marsh looking for a pool to paint when I noticed the brilliant green of the field made all the greener by the fact that I was in the shadows of the cedars.  My goal tonight was to really look at the scene and to leave my strokes once put down.  I have been overworking things of late and I wanted to break out of that rut.  This painting is 8" X 10" and it took close to two hours to paint but I like it a lot.

I still had some time left so I quickly found a pool of water in the marsh and set to work.  The lack of available time kept me from getting fussy and overworking this one.  This painting is 16" X 12" and it took less than half an hour to paint.  I kind of like it.

I am getting excited about my work again.  It feels good.

Friday 13 May 2016

Return to Cedar Haven

We are painting six evenings at Cedar Haven Farm.  Tuesday night I had Tree Swallows buzzing me and a Baltimore Oriole serenading me as I worked.  I love this place. I decided to retry the cyan, magenta and yellow colour wheel and like the results.


This is my first painting.  It is 12" X 9 " and was fun.  The sky was amazing but changing quickly so I tried to capture the fish scale and mares tail clouds.  I like this.  It was fun and only took about half an hour.

This painting was done next.  It is 16" X 12" so a bit larger.  The sun was beginning to set and the colour just starting to rise.  I was running out of time so I guessed at where the sunset was going and managed to get close.  The CMY colour wheel is all transparent pigments so the paintings glow and it is impossible to get mud.  This was painted with anthraquinone blue, quin magenta, hansa yellow and titanium white. I am not sure if I like the painting but I love the colour and it does look much better in real life.