plein air painting – Page 3 – Marianne Thompson

February 6th & 7th, 2017

Garish Still Life
February 6th & 7th, 2017
Oil on Canvas, 16 x 20 in

Again, I am giving private lessons and since they felt it was too cold out to paint, we opted for a still life. It took a solid 45 mins-1hr to set up, and even so is no triumph of compositional glory. However, it was adequate. I hate painting still lifes, I think it is a well established fact that I’m much more invested in water, wind, clouds, leaves – things that move, and are subject to their own random looking order. But, when in Rome.

January 31st, 2017

January 31st, 2017
Oil on Canvasboard, 16 x 20 in

Today, I joined a good friend to paint. I was not satisfied with my rendering of the scene I had in mind yesterday, so I decided to find the photo that was close to it and work from that. So – this painting and the one below are of the same scene – yesterday from memory, today from photo. I am surprised to find that although my colours in this one are much truer to life, and it’s a lot more “realistic” than the one below, I like yesterday’s best. The way the trail of light sweeps left and right, and appears to swell with the water – and just the overall feel. Yesterday’s you’re pulled in, all nature seems to pull you forward toward that moon whereas today’s just lays there before you, being. Interesting what the emotional vs rational renderings reveal.

January 30th, 2017

January 30th, 2017
Oil on Canvasboard, 18 x 24 in

I was full of turmoil and was teaching a painting student. I couldn’t stand to paint the still life the student was painting so decided to work from a picture in my head. I needed to be at my lake. So I struggled to mix the colors that brought the memory and mood to mind. At one point I realized I had a small photo of the approximate scene on my phone, so periodically I referred to that for a tone I wasn’t hitting. Mostly from memory and very emotion driven. The student liked it and bought it, so I left it there.

Leo

January 5th, 2017
Leo
Oil on Board, 9 x 12 in

My cat of 17.5 yrs has been very, very ill – and is probably very close to meeting his maker. While he was sleeping, I decided rather than just keeping vigil at his side & staring at him, perhaps I should paint him, from life, such as it is. He is a gorgeous cat but definitely looks bedraggled after about a week of not eating. That being said, I am amazed at his strength. He is not going gentle into that good night, and I thank God – and Leo – for that.

December 12th, 2016

December 12th, 2016
(In Studio – from a photo I took of my Uncle’s Pond)
Oil on Panel, 16 x 20 in

I’ve been doing more teaching – which means that while my student paints, I can too. It means I do things I’m not used to doing – such as painting from a picture. I lived with this beautiful water garden in my backyard for more than 15 years, never painted it (from life) once. That was dumb of me. I did take good pictures, however, and this one made a decent painting.

December 5th, 2016

December 5th, 2016
Oil on Panel, 12 x 16 in

My mother reminded me of a photo I had taken and of one of my Uncle’s flowers. She suggested I make cards of it. I printed the photo, and then found myself trying to paint it. I’m not even sure if this is what she meant, because this is a dahlia and she said it wasn’t a dahlia – but regardless. A fun exercise and an ideal subject for my medium.

December 2nd, 2016

December 2nd, 2016
Oil on Panel, 16 x 20 in

I’ve been living in Rockport since May and I suppose it was inevitable that I try my hand at this eventually (Motif #1.) I was actually out giving a private lesson at the time, so hadn’t entirely planned to paint much myself. I hadn’t been out in so long painting felt clumsy and awkward. Still, not a disaster.

December 1st, 2016

December 1st, 2016
Loon at Sunset Reprise
Oil on Panel, 12 x 16 in,

Again, trying to work out the gleaming light of sunset in puddles on the water.

October 27th, 2016

October 27th 2016
Cogswell’s Grant, Essex MA
Oil on un-primed canvas, 12 x 16 in

I was at Cogswell’s Grant to lead the workshop that high winds had curtailed on Sunday. The weather was not windy but rain was imminent and as a result, very few people could make it. As a result of THAT, I got to spend some time painting. I didn’t have any canvas with me, until I remembered a little painting I had done as a demo a week before. I decided to paint on the inside/back, the unprimed side of the canvas. I have struggled with fall paintings in the past, and I wanted to try again.

The paint quickly was absorbed by the cotton duck, which meant I couldn’t get much texture out of the paint – but I worked with the circumstances I had. I layered colors until the fabric had saturated, and then skimmed what I could on the surface. It was liberating to work with a different surface, and I enjoyed the process very much. The product I’m happy with too. They call them fall “tones,” which is right, because on quiet grey days you can hear the purity of color ringing brightly against the muddied, muffled drone of dying leaves.

October 18th & 19th, 2016

October 18th & 19th, 2016
Loon Phoenix Rising
Oil on Canvas, 24 x 30 in

Not a Plein Air! I worked on this one rainy day and one sunny day. I attempted a similar painting a year ago and I was not pleased with the result. There’s something about the light and water my mind needed to work out, so I tried it again. Again my focus has to do with creating the illusion of glowing light. If you use a paint brush, the dynamic is a lot easier to create because you can blend and grade your highlights & shadows gradually. With the knife I’m working with planes and slashes and daubs of paint. The starkest contrast you can get on a canvas or a piece of paper is between black and white – but in spite of their being polar opposites, white on it’s own & in contrast with black doesn’t look expressly like “LIGHT.” Even in an Ansel Adams photo, you have the precipice of contrast but no sense of RADIANT LIGHT. The qualities of warmth, grace, beauty, benediction, life-force, joy – to me, those and countless other dazzling adjectives are what I see in light. That’s what I’m trying to paint. The secret and the key I know lie in colour, but also in the energy and motion of a moment.

Incidentally, I do see this as a sort of phoenix, and identify with it as such – particularly as this phoenix is rising up out of water and light rather than ash and fire.