April Plein Air

 Chinook Landing, Columbia River

 Chinook Landing in progress

 Sauvie Island Serenity

Sauvie Island April

A couple of trips to paint plein air on the Columbia River, between rain drops!

March

Two views of the Columbia River Gorge, both 8" x 16", adding to two previous paintings in the same format, from my photos. The views from Rooster Rock State Park never fail to inspire me.

Day at the beach

Sunday was a long, sunny and warm, productive day at the beach on Sauvie Island for Scott Gellatly's plein air workshop.  We had informative talks and demonstrations and plenty of painting time at this private residence on the Columbia River.  I brought two 12" x 16" canvases, the first divided into four parts for thumbnail studies as an aid to select a view to develop a larger painting. Doing several studies also focused attention on the way light changes through time.  I especially concentrated on the warm hazy sky colors, and later in the afternoon clouds appeared on a darker blue sky.  I experimented with oil paints and a new gel medium from Gamblin that works well on a plein air palette.  Loved the slow drying flow of oils compared to acrylics, but hated the bits of debris that get stuck in the wet paint!  

Fall Beach

Remember Fall? Just a few weeks ago I went for a walk at Sauvie Island on the beach of the Columbia River. It was sunny and serene, although hunting season. This is a small 8" x 8" study I started plein air and finished later. The photo was taken with incandescent light (since there was no daylight at all today) so the clouds look a bit dingy. Oh well, the winter solstice is past and the light will return!

Layers

Two paintings developed from the William Park workshop. For the less successful ones, the choices are to just keep on going to develop or "fix" it, paint over it to become something else, or save it as a reminder of your learning process. I did a complete paint over of one of the paintings of a river based on a value study by Celeste Bergin posted on her blog. Hers was mainly in grays and vertical, I used a horizontal format and added warm and cool colors. The layers are mostly thin glazed layers, with some of the color and texture of the original painting showing through.

The eye peeking through a veil was started on the first day of the workshop. At first there were abstract lines and shapes, a round form became an eye, and a bit of blue was added. Other layers gradually transformed it. It reminds me of a dream of a bride with a veil, torn Japanese paper collages, the misty waterfalls of the Columbia Gorge, rain.