Our Easter camping trip to Zinkwazi Beach gave me the opportunity to try out some plein air painting.
For me this meant learning to leave out too much detail and just capture the essence of the scene, being decisive and bold about my use of color and learning to use limited brushes to capture what I wanted.
I took a limited palette of my W&N wc's - UB, Cobalt, Cerulean and Indigo, Rose Madder and Cobalt Red, Lemon Yellow, Cobalt Yellow and Raw Sienna, Hookers Dark and Sap Green, Burnt Umber and Burnt Sienna: 3 brushes - a 3/4 inch flat, a no 8 round and a no 2 round, and a block of Bockingford 190gsm.
I ended up using the following colors only - UB, Cobalt, Rose Madder, Raw Sienna, Hookers Dark and Sap Green and Burnt Umber. These gave me enough colours and mixes.
I did 5 paintings over the 4 days, finishing 3 of them to a relative level of satisfaction.
So here they are
This is a beach house overlooking the lagoon - painted from the beach in the morning, sitting under the umbrella using lagoon water to mix the paints!
The second one is a view of the lagoon also painted in the morning
The green hills in the background are covered in sugar cane. The third painting was done at night using only the light from our camping light. I was very unsure of the colors, but in the morning was delighted to see they were pretty true to life. This is my DH reading a magazine in the shelter of the tent overhang, using a hanging gas lamp for illumination. I was sitting in the door of the tent with a similar lantern next to me.
All of these are approx A5 size. I would love to hear C&Cs. I found this a most useful exercise and will definitely make an effort to do more plein air painting.
Nicely done.
Linear Mode
