A Plein Air Session along Wisconsin's

North Branch Oconto River (3/3)

Author: Larry Seiler, Contributing Editor

The sun had moved a bit lower and shadows had begun to take over the scene. It is important NOT to forget what you were first responding to. Do NOT keep changing your picture to accommodate the sun. That is the challenge. If you do, you will lose unity in your color theme, and thus lose the whole sense of the painting. This is why you must quickly go for the jugular, and why I recommend insistently blocking in the masses and as much information as possible with the rag. In so doing, you will establish your lights and darks, as well as the color theme to capture essentially what it was that first caught your eye. By 5:30pm, I felt that I painted as much as available light would tolerate. My feet felt frozen, and the idea of warming my van took precedence. The last picture here had to wait until the next day when I could photograph the result of the 1-1/2 hour session (below):

Here is the original scene again, for comparison:

I will go back in and touch the sky up a bit, but leave much of it as is. Note the end painting with the photo of the scene when I first arrived. Particularly pay attention to what things I did NOT paint. Note the overhanging tree on the shadow side of the river. It would have been simply a distraction visually, and was ignored. Also...compare the end image with that of the blocked-in stage, notice how I use sky colored pigment to sculpt and create believable foliage and trees by simply dabbing in small negative spaces. I will probably at sometime in the future do an acrylic in-studio painting of the scene, referring to this oil plein air study. My acrylics tend to be much more photo realistic, using some of the convenient details that the photos will provide, combined with my trusting the sense of color and atmosphere my eye determined on-location and recorded on my plein air. Thus...I will have a spontaneous painterly impressionistic piece that will appeal to one group of patrons, and the more realistic version of the acrylic to others. Both...seem to find their appeal with me. So...there you go, another winter's plein air session. Hope you have enjoyed this one. Seriously, don't let the cold stop you from painting. I know a few friends here at WetCanvas! like to tease me with my bent on suffering in the cold, however, the dramatic play of light and contrasts of ice and snow are well worth the effort.

[ Previous Page ]

After 20 years experience as a musician and winning Midwest wildlife artist, Larry Seiler, (winner of Wisconsin's 1984 Wildlife Artist of the Year, and Wisconsin's 1998 Inland Trout Stamp) finds a reinvention of himself over the last 2-3 years with a passion for landscape painting. His pursuit of the contemplative and spiritual sanity in life finds a special connection with his love of direct on location painting often referred to as "Plein Air."

Larry is represented by Art International, and his work is in a number of Midwest galleries including Grassland Gallery in the Mall of America. His background includes teaching art education for the public schools, participation in artist's workshops, travels and seminar speaking. Larry's works are primarily oils and acrylics, with the practice often of doing plein air studies to produce larger in-studio images. Larry is a contributing editor to WetCanvas! and can be reached via email at: lseiler@wetcanvas.com. He can also be found lurking in the WetCanvas! message boards. Larry's works are also available for sale at our sister site, www.art-agent.com.