Sunnyside Up

Oil on Canvas 9 x 12 SOLD

Keeping with the sunshine theme of summer, I'm reposting a painting that gave me an equally sunny, happy feeling as my last post. I haven't posted much this summer, as we've been very busy with family visiting for one month from France, going in and out of town with them, and each time we returned I had an all day painting event. We even threw in my mom's wonderful 91st birthday celebration! It's been a bit crazy but lots of fun, and definitely great spending time with family. I'm looking forward to getting back to painting regularly, posting regularly and reconnecting with a lot of my blogging buddies. Even Facebook and Twitter are sending me messages about my absence. (It feels kind of good to be unplugged for a while) Enjoy the rest of your summer!

Sunnyside Up

On a Clear Day

Original Acrylic on Canvas 24 x 48

On a clear day, the name of my newest painting, is the view that we are lucky enough to see from the beach just a 5 minute walk from my house, when the clouds lift and the air is clear. This is the view from Cattle Point, looking across the Strait of Juan de Fuca toward Washington State. The gorgeous mountain in the background is Mt. Baker, which is always capped with snow. it's truly magnificent and on a day like this everyone asks "Did you see Mt. Baker today?" I had to adjust the tones of the distant islands between the water and the mountain. I didn't have them pushed back far enough. But once I painted in the foreground it was obvious that the tones in the background needed to be lightened a bit. It's all relative...



I had another great day yesterday painting on the lawn of the Empress Hotel again. I won't tell you about the gale force winds when we arrived. I'll just say that EVERYTHING was tied or taped down. I almost attached myself! But, are the skies ever clear now! Not a cloud to be seen! Mt. Baker is once again in full view. I had the opportunity to chat with a lot of tourists and almost all of them were from Texas or Alabama. When I asked why so many people from that area were up here in Canada, they all said "Trying to beat the heat!" I told them that they were fortunate to come from a place filled with so many talented artists, and that I was in awe of the amount of talent residing in Texas. Okay, I know it's a big State but still! I can tell you they were visibly proud! :-)

On a Clear Day

First Plein Air Painting Day of 2011

This is my first plein air painting of 2011. It's been a long year since I did this, and not only was I very rusty, but I'd forgotten just how challenging painting outdoors is. But first, what a beautiful day it was! My painting buddy Sharon Churchill and I headed to one of our favourite locations - Glencoe Cove. It was the first warm, sunny weekend since the end of September 2010!! If you live in the Pacific Northwest you know that I'm only joking a little bit. In any case we had a glorious day, and some wonderful visitors, and below are some photos of our afternoon.


This cat must belong to an artist. He was so friendly, rubbing up against our legs, then he stretched out on the rocks and watched us for a while.


We were painting away and suddenly this beautiful little deer, came walking down the beach. How great is that?


The deer left the beach, then suddenly she was right beside us, checking us out from between the wild flowers, but by the time I picked up my camera, she had started to walk off.



Sharon with her new plein air painting set up. This was the first day she used her new painting umbrella. (I was very envious).

Sharon's painting was far superiour to mine.....but then I didn't have an umbrella! :-)

Plein air painting really is difficult. But although my painting was seriously lame, I did have a wonderful day and am excited to get out there again.

Here are some things that I should have been thinking about, but was distracted by all the natural beauty.

• First off I needed to simplify the scene. In my desire to have a foreground, midground and background, I ended up with a bit too much going on.

• I had a real problem with values. I don't know if it was because it was so bright, but when I got home and looked at my painting, I had made everything too dark. So this lame painting has actually been touched up a bit. In Michael Albala's book Landscape Painting, he states that "Ultimately, judging values is not a matching exercise between subject and painting; it is a comparative exercise among the values within the painting itself."
• The light kept changing quickly, and I got drawn into changing the water over and over again, even though I know not to. I was sort of caught up in the moment and not really planning the painting all that well. Albala recommends that "plein air painters take their time. A painting that is incomplete but well thought out and organized is ultimately superior to something that is "finished" but rushed and unrealized. An unfinished painting can easily be completed indoors because it has a solid foundation." I think that's a very relevant comment. So for next time, I'll approach it in a more relaxed and thoughtful manner, simplify, plan my composition with simplicity in mind, and make a comparison of my values within the painting. And I'll try not to be so distracted by all that natural beauty!
  

First Plein Air Painting Day of 2011

Pacific Sunrise

Original Acrylic on Textured Canvas

36 x 18  - SOLD

Here is the final version of the Step-by-Step from January 23rd and 24th. If you scroll down you'll find these two posts and see the texture building and painting of this canvas. I had to leave it for a few days and come back to it for the final touches, so I could get a more accurate read on what needed to be done. There's nothing like a fresh look at a painting to know where to go with it. The foreground needed to be darkened and the light on the water needed adjusting. Now I'm pleased with the outcome and had fun with the Golden mediums that I used - Molding Paste and Coarse Pumice. The Coarse Pumice was difficult to cover, so I would most likely experiment with adding some pigment before applying it the next time. Have you tried any of these textural mediums? If you've used Coarse Pumice let me know how you handled the paint coverage.

Pacific Sunrise

Seascape Still in Progress

I've continued moving down the canvas, blocking in the colour, and making bold energetic strokes with either large brushes or a palette knife. The coarse pumice medium is really interesting because it has a very 3D effect, and obviously lends itself to the beach scene. The paint on the pumice is drying about 3 tones darker than the same colour on the bare canvas, which actually makes some interesting marks. It's really hard to cover the pumice because there are many little holes where the pigment isn't penetrating. I'm having to use a hard bristle brush and scrub the pigment into the holes because those areas are looking under painted. In some applications, the areas left unpainted could have a nice effect, but in this instance it's not working. If I use this medium again I'll  most likely add pigment to the medium before applying it.

 

I have all the colour blocking in place now and can begin adding shadows to start forming the beachscape, which is made up of sandstone formations, rocks and seaweed. I need to darken down the foreground but also create a warm glow anywhere the light hits small pools of water.

This is my second to last painting session on this piece. I now have the beach well formed, but will need to darken the foreground and warm it up. I also want to work on the sky creating a bit more drama. I won't be able to photograph the final painting until the weekend. There's just not enough light by the time I get home from work. In any case, I'm having a lot of fun with this, and it's great to experiment with different mediums. On the final post for this painting I'll try to include some details so you can get an idea of the texture. I hope you're enjoying this experimental journey with me.

Seascape Still in Progress

A Room With a View

Original Oil on Canvas  8 x 8  $150 Free Shipping CAN & US
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Here's another beach house from Hornby Island. I just love this one. I'd be quite happy to move right in. The window gives you a fantastic view of Whaling Station Bay, a beautiful big, white sand beach with water warm enough to swim in the summer. We've spent some wonderful summer afternoons on this beach. It's hard to believe that it's the Pacific Northwest. 

 

A Room With a View

Beach House

Original Oil on Panel - Plein Air  8 x 10  $100 Free shipping

We recently returned from a heavenly week at my favourite west coast getaway spot - Hornby Island. This is one of the most fabulous places to holiday in the summer. It has gorgeous white sand beaches and WARM water, which is almost unheard of in the Pacific Northwest! It also has gorgeous scenery, spectacular bluffs with fields of tall grass and wild flowers at the top, and more bald eagles than you can imagine. This is a cute little house on Little Tribune Bay. I took the liberty of playing with the house colours a bit. There were a lot of different greens layering back, and some really dark darks, inside the foliage around the house. I tried to simplify without losing too much of the effect. At the end of the painting session, I stood back and decided that there was too much definition in the foliage, so it was competing with the house. I took a fan brush and lightly but boldly stroked over the foliage, in the same swooping manner that the branches grew, and liked the effect much better. The foliage maintained it's character, the house, the center of interest, kept the more defined brushstrokes.

 

Beach House

Waiting to Dock

Original Oil - Plein Air   8 x 10   $100+ s/h


This is another plein air painting from our recent trip to Vancouver. It's a view from Spanish Banks across toward the North Shore and Stanley Park. The bay is always dotted with freighters waiting for port entry. Spanish Banks has very warm waters for this neck of the woods, due to a big sand bar that keeps the water shallow for huge distances. You can spot people way out there and realize they are only up to their knees in water. I've always loved this view of beaching and boating with the mountains capped in snow. I found this painting difficult to do because I was sitting in the middle of blinding sunshine on the beach, without an umbrella but I really wanted to capture this scene, so I just kept going and I'm glad I did.

Waiting to Dock

Vancouver Skyline

Original Oil on Panel - Plein Air  8 x 10  $100 + s/h
Last week we were in my old home town of Vancouver. Gotta love the energy in that city! The first few days the weather was overcast and a bit cold but we had a heatwave later in the week. This is a plein air done on a cloudy with sunny periods day. A bit challenging. It's a view of the West End from Kitsilano, with those gorgeous North Shore mountains as a backdrop. We used to live just up the hill from this spot, and went here often, so I had to revisit and paint it.

Vancouver Skyline

Island Living

Acrylic on Exhibition Canvas 20 x 16 SOLD

Here is a summer beach scene from Saltspring Island, one of several gorgeous Gulf Islands, between here and Vancouver. This is one of our favourite places for a quick getaway. Many of the beaches have rock shoals, as seen here, and feature beautiful Arbutus trees. Here's someone's little skiff, just waiting to go for a row and a cottage nestled in the trees in the distance. Of course I had to paint it! I'm pleased with the sparkling light that I managed to capture.

Island Living

On the Spit

Oil on Canvas Panel  8 x 10  $95

Yesterday my plein air friends and I went to a place called Esquimalt Lagoon. It was a lovely sunny day, which I can tell you have been few and far between. The house is on a spit of land that extends along the oceanfront, forming a lagoon. The water in my painting is almost like a river that runs from the lagoon around the spit and reconnects with the ocean on the far left. My friends were busy painting the natural beach scape, but I was struck by those three telephone poles in beside the house. I loved the tilt of the poles and gently swooping wires. It gave the scene a summer place feel, although no one actually lives in the house.

There is so much wildlife in this lagoon. We saw a sea otter as we arrived, countless blue heron were busy fishing in the shallows, and there was a lot of eagle action overhead. So close we could hear there powerful wings beating the air. We all agreed that there is no better way to spend a sunny morning, than to head out painting together.

 

On the Spit

Trial Island

Here I am plein air painting off of South Oak Bay about 1 mile from where I live.

Original Oil 8 x 10 SOLD

On the weekend my painting buddy Sharon and I headed out on probably the most beautiful day we've had so far this summer. We absolutely had to stop when we saw this million dollar view of Trial Island with the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State, fully visible in the background. The Olympic Mountains are generally cloaked in cloud.

I'm generally pleased with the outcome but I think I got a bit too busy with the foreground. Those pesky details just want to jump off my brush! I'm happy with the aerial perspective though.

Trial Island

Autumn Glow

Autumn Glow  Oil on Canvas Framed $175

My Plein Air buddies and I have not ventured out so far this year, because it's been sooo cold! We live on Vancouver Island, north of Port Angeles Washington, and it's been very windy as well. Last year at this time, we had been out painting several times, but so far, I'm still painting my landscapes from photos. This is the far end of the beach a few blocks from my home. It's one of our favourite places to walk. The colours on this sunny autumn afternoon, were glowing with warmth from all the wild rosehips growing on the cliffs, and I really enjoyed capturing those colours. This is my second oil painting. I'm having a lot of fun trying to figure things out with this new medium.

 

Autumn Glow