Plein Air 2014 – Page 5 – Marianne Thompson

Plein Air Painting 2014

April 9th, 2014

April 9th, 2014
Ipswich River at Willowdale, Topsfield MA
Oil on Canvasboard, 18 x 24 in approx.
(sold)

It was another beautiful spring day, and I met up with “the posse” to paint on Wednesday. I couldn’t finish, however, as I had to go do some teaching – and the rest of the week was very hectic. I managed to get a few more hours’ work done on Thursday, but the weather’s so mild that even by then certain parts of the painting were already drying. I managed to finish on Friday, mostly, though as usual I see a few things to tweak. You can’t paint over dried paint with a palette knife though you can with a brush. As usual, I was fixated on the water, and how it went from being reflective, to transparent, to (beyond the shelf of shallows) deep, and green.

April 5th, 2014

April 5th, 2014
Cox Reservation, Essex MA
Oil on Canvasboard, 9 x 12 in
(sold)

It was a beautiful day but very windy, and I was not in the mood to paint. I only had an enormous canvas and I spent the first hour and a half just ambling around looking for something that would strike a chord and wake me up to painting. The search was confined to a very small area, because it was so windy most of the area was unfit for painting, especially with a canvas as big as mine, and an easel as light. Ultimately, I decided to give up the hunt – when a kind fellow painter offered to lend me a small board to paint on. I’d sooner ruin a small canvas than a large one, so I focused on the only thing that seemed interesting to me – the tiny blue flowers _ Squill or Scilla – that had valiantly shoved themselves up among all the dead leaves and grasses, and strove towards the sky. Small scale is difficult with the knife, it’s a study / sketch – on to the next.

April 2nd, 2014

April 2nd, 2014
Willowdale, on Ipswich River, Topsfield
Oil on Canvas, 18 x 24 in

It was a glorious day to be out painting – quite mild, the river was swollen and beautiful, and the sky was just overcast enough for the color of everything to come out. I had a lot of trouble photographing this – truly, it looks awful in this photo but not as much in person – lots of glare and texture shadows – and there are a few little changes I’d like to make, but on the whole, a day well spent.

March 29th, 2014

March 29th, 2014
Cox Reservation, Essex, MA
Oil on Canvas, 18 x 24 in
(Unfinished)
(sold)

It was one of those early spring days the forecaster suggests could get almost as high as 50 degrees, so you don’t bother to bring a jacket, or wear an underlayer, and go out ecstatic to start soaking in the balmy spring. Except you chose a spot to paint that cleverly exposes you to an icy ocean wind from all sides, and though the temperature in sheltered spots gets as high as 42, where you have chosen to stand might just be cresting 34 – and you, clothed in ill-informed enthusiasm and little else to warm you, do your very best to cover all 482 square inches of canvas, but the amount of shivering and dancing you have to do to try and stay just this side of hypothermic eventually render painting impossible, with about 6 square inches to go.

March 24th, 2014

Final as of March 24th, 2014

March 22nd, 2014
Cox Reservation, Essex MA
Oil on Canvas, 16 x 20 in

SUNDAY: The frustration of yesterday has been fruitful and multiplied. I’m posting a detail of a section that I like, though it may no longer look like that. One fusses. Again, I went to work on it outside in the sun, and within half an hour it was overcast again, and everything looks so dank and dingy in the dregs of smothered out sunlight we’re left when clouds decide to assert themselves. I’m in A Mood.

SATURDAY: I posted these two photos (below) from different stages of my painting to illustrate how drastically the color of everything can change when the light changes. In the second (above) photo, I highlighted the area I was focused on to paint. I began by laying in all the dingy undertones and was looking forward to laying in* the warmth and light – but the sky clouded over, a wind came up, and the rain came. I was really miffed when that stupid rain came and stayed. I really felt like this was going to come alive. I’ll try to finish it tomorrow, but I fear it won’t be the same. The more finished painting above is still only about 1/3 done in my eyes.
( *I mean “laying in” like “slapping on” – though I would probably have been amenable to if not an actual nap at least a good read on a dock in the sun if I had the choice which I did not.)

Windswept

March 15th, 2014
Windswept
Great Marsh, Essex Greenbelt, Essex MA
Oil on Canvas, 16 x 20 in
(sold)

It was a beautiful day, warm (50 deg.) and bright. The sky was overcast when I got there and started painted but was magnificently moody late in the day. My intention was to learn how to paint these stands of reeds without using all lines. I can’t get an even or narrow line with the knife, and I don’t think that we focus on clusters of lines anyway, but instead the shapes that they create out of the surrounding masses of snow or land. There’s some reflection on the surface so the colors look duller than they are, I think. Will retake tomorrow. Incidentally, the scene behind the painting is not what I was painting, but a view off to the left.

March 10th, 2014

March 10th, 2014
Ipswich River – Topsfield / Ipswich MA
Oil on Canvas, 16 x 20 in

I had a great day with the “posse” painting in a new and lovely. Again, there was snow on the ground but the temperature was very mild – high 40s. The river was mostly frozen when I arrived but it thawed along the perimeter considerably throughout the day. I feel there’s something I need to do to make this better, I just hope it occurs to me just what that is before the paint is dry.

March 8th, 2014

March 8th, 2014
Cox Reservation, Essex MA
Oil on Canvas, 18 x 24 in
(sold)

Not only was it a balmy 50 degrees, but the sun was out, there was almost no wind, and there was still lots of snow. An ideal day to paint. I went to a part of the reservation I’d never before been – the area that abuts PT Farnham’s and rt 133. Initially I had chosen to paint the landmark grey farmhouse, but after filling about 1/4 of my canvas with that, I decided I was painting the wrong thing and instead looked north (?) towards the great marsh. (There are a few things to tweak on this but on the whole it’s done – and if you think I’m exaggerating the color of the shadows on the snow, look in the top right hand corner of the photo at the shadows on the snow in the background. Same color. — March 9, 2014 – tweaked, done.)

March 6th, 2014

March 6th, 2014
(nfs)

As you can see, I’m working from a photo, this is clearly not Plein Air. For various reasons, I haven’t been able to get out to paint in about three weeks. It’s been frustrating, but at the same time, I think I’m undergoing one of those metamorphoses I occasionally go through – hopefully from this dry spell I’ll emerge with a new perspective. In the meantime, I have been trying to finish Baxter. I can’t tell you how many hours I could spend on this, or how many I have, trying to get it just so. In another 5 hours I hope, maybe 8, I will be done. I haven’t worked on the feet yet, and there are a few adjustments I have to make to his eyes and face. I know he looks like a dog – but I want him to look EXACTLY like one very specific dog, and I don’t think he does yet.

February 11th, 2014

February 11th, 2014
Oil on Canvas, 12 x 16 in
(nfs)

In a hurry, in a mood, I did this. I’m in CT this weekend and can’t get out to paint. I did this before leaving and there are things I would like to fix, but it will be dry by the time I get to it. So, although I hate tautologies, it is what it is.