plein air painting – Page 23 – Marianne Thompson

A Conclave of Cormonrants

A Conclave of Cormorants
June 28th, 2012
Bass Rocks, Gloucester MA
Oil on Canvasboard, 16 x 20 in
(sold)

What I like about this painting is the vibrancy of the sky at the horizon, which I think matches well the sky I was looking at. I also like the rocks. I want to make the birds darker and maybe more birdlike, and fuss with the spray and the water in the foreground, but the week has been so hot that it dried before I could. Just as well, because when I start fussing, I find it hard to stop.

June 26th, 2012

In Progress

June 26th, 2012
Halibut Point Quarry, Rockport MA
Oil on Plywood, 18 x 24 in
(sold)

I love rocks, I love granite, and I really enjoyed painting them today. My struggle was / is the water, which is normally my “comfort zone” but the strange angles of the quarry borders threw me off for some reason. Will replace this image when I have finished, might not change much.

June 23rd, 2012

June 23rd, 2012
Oil on Canvas, 18 x 24 inches
Cox Reservation, Essex MA

(There’s glare on the bottom of painting in the photo, esp. left hand side, that I’ll need to retake to correct.) It was a beautiful day in Essex and I had brought three new knives to try out. None were exactly like the late great one, but one was very close, and that’s what I ended up using. It wasn’t long before I stopped noticing a difference, which I suppose is a good sign. I found this bush which for some reason was turning already (to fall colours). It’s reddish pinkish organge was really striking against the trees in the distance, which looked inky blue. All colours were ablaze; which is why I chose this view to paint.

Logan

Logan
June 18th & 19th, 2012
Tewksbury, MA
Oil on Canvasboard, 16 x 20 in
(nfs)

I decided to try a new brush that I have while waiting for my knives to arrive. I also thought I might like to try painting a dog or cat, in real time, as a precursor to trying a live portrait sometime. I set everything up and followed the dogs to a spot they seemed liable to stay in for a while. I gave them each a long-chewing bone, which I figured would keep them immobile for at least an hour. I began to mix up my colors, and by the time I was ready to go, the dogs were choking down the last bits of their chews and off to examine the world. So I thought I’d try painting the grass, and wait for them to come back. Painting the grass with a brush wasn’t fun. I kept at it but kept failing. Then the dogs came back, and about 5 times, I got their bodies blocked in, about to inflict some detail, when they got up and left. Eventually it all got so frustrating, and the canvas so ugly, that I got angry and let fly – abandoning the brush and using an old knife, and using a dog picture I had on my phone for structure and the dogs themselves for colour and inference.

June 16th, 2012

June 16th, 2012
Cogswell’s Grant, Essex
Oil on Wood, 18 x 24 in

This was a tragic day* for me; I broke my beloved knife. Rather than having a collection of knifes that each do something different, I opted to have one knife that I had used for so long and knew so well I could do anything I wanted with it. Anything, that is, except step on it. I think it must’ve been weakening for weeks because it was in a pile of mown grass I dropped + stepped on it/ broke it. I have actually been paranoid for months now that it might break, or that I might lose it – because I love it so much! And the gods punish you for loving “objects” too much. I’ve already ordered 6 similar looking ones to try and find a stand in. I tried to finish this painting with another knife I had. What made my favorite knife so wonderful was it’s bounce, it’s springiness – the sub knife just didn’t cut it. It’s spirit was willing but it’s flex was weak. I just decided to stop and let this stand as my knife’s last work. RIP.

* – Also, later in the day I found and pulled out a tick from my leg – and three months of feeling increasingly crappy later, I learned I have Lyme Disease. Oh ill fated day!!

June 11th & 12th, 2012

June 11th & 12th, 2012
Hostas and the Path, Tewksbury MA
(sold)

I just finished this (15 mins ago) and still like to see it in the environment in which I painted it, though the angle of the photo is different from that of the scene. Again, trying to understand light and shadow and how it affects colour. There are a lot of pine buds all over the canvas and myself.

June 9th, 2012

June 9th, 2012
Cox Reservation, Essex MA
Oil on Wood, 18 x 24 in
(sold)

It was a hot and bright day when I painted this, and so much staring at the sky and land had really made it hard to see. I felt this was a disaster and I was really struggling, feeling about 3 more hours from its disappointing completion, when David Curtis arrived to give me his critique. To my shock and disbelief, he had only good things to say about this, even as it stood, and advised me to stop working on it; it was done, and among my best yet. I doubted his judgment – he’d been out in the sun all day too, afterall, maybe it had momentarily addled his brain? But as for the suggestion that I stop, I was all for it. I did. The painting is growing on me, like a beneficent fungus.

Twilight, Lake of the Woods

Twilight, Lake of the Woods
June 3rd, 2012
Oil on Canvas, 12 x 16 in,
(nfs)

It was a very wet weekend so although I did paint this outdoors (in a gazebo) it is of a view that was a long way from where I stood in MA.

May 26th, 2012

May 26th, 2012
Cox Reservation, Essex MA
Oil on Wood, 24 x 18 in
(sold)

Last week and this week I chose subjects that are challenging to me – all this close vegetation and the sky through an umbrella of trees present a huge tangle of relationships of light and shadow, colour and contrast, and warmth and cold (tones.) I like this one better than last week’s. Last week I got a lot of compliments from passers by as I worked, this week, not so. As I say too often, probably, if you really want to hit a high note of beauty, you have to have the courage to wade deep through lots of ugly to get there. This was really ugly for a long time as it slowly came into itself, but I feel like, for me, it made it through to the other side. (See this beside the photo I took of the composition before I started painting – scroll to the bottom of “Matching Scene to Painting.”)

May 19th, 2012

May 19th, 2012
Cox Reservation, Essex, MA
Oil on Canvas, 18 x 24 in
(sold)

Owing to the terrific sunburn I gave myself last Saturday, this week I thought I’d tackle the quiet shade of a cluster of woods. I also wanted difficult subject matter I could sink my teeth into. I am trying to leave this as is but may tweak a few things here and there. I don’t know how I feel about it yet.