Door County Plein Air Festival

[Kmart]

Hi WC Pals,
It's been a busy summer. Here are two of my favorite paintings created during the Door County Plein Air Festival. These were both painted way up in Gill's Rock, right on the thumbprint of Wisconsin!


16x20" Trap Net Boat in Waiting



8x12" Weiborg's Harbor.

Thanks for looking,
Kyle

[greg p]

Wonderful Kyle I learning by seeing so thank you! greg

[MChesleyJohnson]

Nice work, Kyle! I like them both!

[Kmart]

Thanks Greg and Michael
Kyle

[manfrommerriam]

Good stuff! Can't say I like one more than another.
Have fun, Dave

[RobD]

Both of them are outstanding Kyle! They have a wonderful glowing light. Very nice.

[Kmart]

Thanks Dave. Both were painted with mass in's, the first I built up a bit more and the second I just left alone. There is always something to those pieces that get left alone.

Thanks Rob.

Kyle

[jmmur]

Wow great work Kyle, hope you had a good summer. I can see the influence of certain Maine painter in the first.

[treeshark]

Very nice the first one, lovely subtle tonal split between the foreground and background.
Rob

[Trikist]

Loved them both. Being raised in the Great Lakes region, the water in the second got to me more.

Gary

[Gribbey]

I keep coming back to look at these, I think they are wonderful. "Mass in", hmm. Please could you, would you elaborate? Did you start with a stained canvas? How does your palette evolve? Nosey aren't I?
Thanks, Libbey

[gardengrrlWendy]

Wow! Your color & light are great.

[kentiessen]

I especially like how each reflects the overall color of light (time of day)- the upper one has areas that really hold together in space.

[Kmart]

Thanks Ken. I had a nice time refining those temperature shifts. I think it had to do with the overall neutral quality of the subject. I would probably have normally abandoned ship and not added quite so much on a subject that didn't hold my attention.

Hi Wendy, Thanks.

Hi Gribbey, by mass in, I mean that I find each mass (chunk, puzzle piece, whatever you want to call it) and paint it in, with the appropriate value and pretty close color. I'm pretty deliberate when I do this. By the time this is done, I clean my palette, and step back and look at it for awhile, deciding about 5 or so things to do. I make those changes, usually bending a color change around a form, and then step back again and repeat. The masses are the important part, the abstract composition is basically the painting, and from there it's just how much do I need to refine it. In the second piece, it's basically just the masses, not much breaking into them. I tend to really enjoy paintings that are left at the abstract stage, just need more guts to leave them there myself! I used to, but this summer wore on me...

Hi Gary, Thanks. That piece practically painted itself. It was painted after three other paintings that day, and switching to a 8x12" felt very doable.

Hi Rob, Thanks!

Kyle