Home Forums Explore Media Oil Painting Oil Painting – Hall of Fame Oil-from-life challenge, June 2018: optional plein air theme

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  • #456876
    Grotius
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        Let’s hope for some good weather and paint from life! As always, feel free to post whatever you like — landscapes, portraits, figures, still lifes, whatever — so long as your work is painted primarily from life. This month I’m suggesting an optional “plein air” (outdoors) theme. As always, the theme is just a suggestion; post whatever you like. Four guidelines:

        1. Please paint primarily from life — not from photographs or imagination. I would like to see your direct impressions of your subject, unmediated by cameras. (It’s okay to post finished studio works based on studies from life; in that case, please post the original study as well as the finished work.)

        2. Please submit something created either last month or this month, not something you’ve done in the more distant past.

        3. Please paint in oils. That said, please feel free to post studies in any other medium, so long as you also post your oil painting(s).

        4. Please list the size of your painting and support. E.g., ‘”8×10″, oil on panel.’

        Optional: Tell us the title of your painting!

        —————–

        Unfinished works, studies, and outright failures are all welcome. There’s no requirement that you invite comment & critique. If you’d rather post without being critiqued, just say so; that’s fine by me!

        You can find older oil-from-life threads in the “hall of fame” subforum of the Oil Painting forum.

        I hope you’ll all consider posting something! Thanks.

        - Geoff.
        My website and blog: https://www.geoffwatsonart.com/

        #633213
        moscatel
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            Jae & Grotius, thanks for your comments in last month thread.

            I went yesterday to the forest again to paint. This time little bit bigger:
            40×35 cm, 16×14 in, oil on canvas, “Forest Path II”.

            I don’t like this plein air either maybe because it looks too much bobrossish .. well, husband likes it so I might continue and fix it when dry. But I’m also now considering the future of plein airs weather to do it any more and instead only focus on still life/portrait. The reason is that I don’t enjoy it anymore as I used to. There’s time for everything, I guess.

            #633229
            Grotius
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                Hi Moscatel,

                I agree with your husband—that’s a good one. I like the purple-grey trees as things recede in the back-right.

                I hope you don’t give up on plein air altogether! You have a unique style that I’d miss.

                - Geoff.
                My website and blog: https://www.geoffwatsonart.com/

                #633214
                moscatel
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                    Grotius, thanks for your kind words. I have plans to paint life figure outside (the model has agreed to pose :crossfingers:) and all still lifes are life and some of them are sight size so I still can post to this thread.

                    #633248
                    carolkay
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                        I like it very much

                        [FONT="Comic Sans MS"]Carol Sometime's failure is the opposite to success~ but sometimes failure can be the pathway to success
                        #633215
                        moscatel
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                            Thank you, Carol.

                            #633216
                            moscatel
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                                Meanwhile waiting for others to post to this thread I will post more and this time still lifes painted from life. The blueberries were imported to a local supermarket from Chile. These were painted already last month and were meant to be a series and daily paintings, but only the first one I was able to finish as a daily painting.

                                “Blueberries I”, oil on canvas board (added extra gesso), daily painting 22×16 cm

                                #633230
                                Grotius
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                                    Great, Moscatel! Those blueberries look good enough to eat! I really like this one.

                                    - Geoff.
                                    My website and blog: https://www.geoffwatsonart.com/

                                    #633249

                                    I’ll echo Grotius, I could pick those blueberries. I gravitate to still lifes as well. Get some satisfaction from the details. However, I feel that getting outside and painting landscapes will help me to loosen up and be more expressive.
                                    Anyway here’s my still life post for this month.
                                    18×24 oils on canvas

                                    #633231
                                    Grotius
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                                        Wow, very cool, Boogiechile. Very pretty reflections. For whatever reason, my eye is drawn to the eyeglasses. They are…eye-catching. Ha!

                                        I got outside yesterday to paint our flooded river, only to be rained out after an hour. I have a half-completed picture to show for it. I may return to the spot to finish it later. I hope to try again today, but rain is in the forecast again. We’ve had incessant rain for weeks, it seems. I may just tough it out.

                                        - Geoff.
                                        My website and blog: https://www.geoffwatsonart.com/

                                        #633232
                                        Grotius
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                                            Mirabile dictu, the rain held off today, and I managed to get in 2-3 hours of plein air painting. I’m really out of practice, as I’ve been doing mostly pen-and-ink and watercolor work for the past month, since I can do those things indoors (away from all the rain!). So this isn’t my best work. Still, it was a good start.

                                            I experimented in one way: I pre-mixed all my colors. I made four or five different values of each color I saw in the picture. James Gurney suggested trying this in one of his recent blog posts. (Mark Carder suggests this too.) I liked this in some ways: it made me more efficient, and I suppose it gave the picture more color harmony. But the downside is that I’m not all that great at sizing up all the colors I’ll need before I put brush on canvas. I did well with subjects I’ve painted many times (trees), but not so well with unfamiliar subjects. Do any of you pre-mix strings of colors?

                                            Anyway, the painting depicts the Friendship Heights metro stop on the DC-Maryland border. I was most interested in the area on the left, and I should’ve zoomed the picture in more on that; I didn’t spend much time at all on the right half of the painting. Still, it worked out okay. “Friendship Heights Metro,” oil on panel, 11″ x 14.”

                                            - Geoff.
                                            My website and blog: https://www.geoffwatsonart.com/

                                            #633217
                                            moscatel
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                                                Thanks, Grotius! You have rain and we have none, the plants in the garden are dying and I’m tired carrying them water. The automatic water pump is broken, plumber will come on Friday to fix it.
                                                You don’t look to me ‘out of practice’ when it comes to plein air. Excellent work with the street scene. Was it difficult to paint in this spot as it is the street?

                                                When I did the last winter/snow plein airs I used to do piles in advance. I figured I get less cold by premixing strings and it helped not getting too cold. We can easily premix greys and other earth colors, basic blues for sky, basic greens and then on the location make the twist to correct direction. It’s strings what I mix. I did it in my last forest plein air too so it seems to become a habit. Besides many times I have the piles from yesterday. I wonder when will I go next to plein airing … sigh. :crying: Grotius, you mention in your post Maryland. There’s a big painting event in Maryland going on atm and a plein air friend of mine is there now painting. It’s called Paint Annapolis 2018 or something. There’s juried and normal categories. Are you familiar with this event?

                                                Boogiechile, excellent work. I like a lot the round sea shell which name I can’t remember. I used to paint those, I collected them on the beaches in south. Well done with class materials and reflections. Beautiful work. Thanks for your comments also.

                                                #633233
                                                Grotius
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                                                    Hi Moscatel,

                                                    Maryland is indeed a big plein air destination. The most prestigious USA plein air event is Plein Air Easton, but I didn’t get in. (My instructors didn’t either. It’s competitive.) I was hoping to go to the quick-draw event at Plein Air Annapolis this past Sunday, but I wasn’t able to make it. Did your friend get into the juried event?

                                                    As for that street scene, it was a good spot because the street narrows right where I was sitting, so I was sitting on the sidewalk right next to the street — actually, right next to my parked car.

                                                    I went out to paint today and did that thing where I drive around for 90 minutes without deciding where to paint. I hate when I do that! I should decide in advance “I’m going to x today” and stick with the plan. Anyway, eventually I got hot and went swimming instead, lol. I did do some watercolors and pen-and-ink drawings at the pool.

                                                    - Geoff.
                                                    My website and blog: https://www.geoffwatsonart.com/

                                                    #633218
                                                    moscatel
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                                                        Did your friend get into the juried event?

                                                        Yes! She won one of these events – a big one – in Europe.

                                                        I might try to go this weekend to an outside swimming pool and paint small plein air there while swimming, the grass area would be perfect for some outside painting. Hopefully that will work out.

                                                        #633219
                                                        moscatel
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                                                            another one of my blueberry series:

                                                            “Blueberries II”, oil on canvas board, daily painting 22×16 cm

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