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Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Sunday Afternoon in the Park, Impressionism Revisited

Sunday in the Park. An afternoon concert in the open air. I have my easel and canvas set up amongst the crowd and am painting the people watching the show. This must be how the impressionists felt, outside painting people enjoying themselves.

There is a great leap from painting trees and flowers on location to tackling people. At this point look for a few clues to help you. People who seem settled in. If they have chairs, food and drink they probably will stay for a bit. Couples can give you nice interaction and if one leaves for a bit, the other will stay. At this time, I avoided painting people with children and pets. They can be gone in a flash, never to return.

I was able to paint this couple for most of first set until someone sat on a wall between them and me, blocking the view.

Below a painting looking out at the spectators. The trick is looking out at all those people and colors and think, how am I going to paint all that in the time available. A back lit subject kept my canvas in the shade. Hat brim pulled down, but still a lot of bright light. Sunglasses on as soon as I finished.

Sunday-Concert in the Park
4 x 6 Oil on Canvas
$100. shipping included






Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Painting Greens

It looks like the title to this post ends up inadvertently being a pun. Today I began the actually work, that is getting out on location and the putting paint to canvas, on a new project. Sort of an artist in residence at the North Ridge Country Club in Raleigh NC. The project is a series of paintings of views of the courses, some done on location and possibly some painted in the studio.

Here is the first study, the product of this afternoons work at Hole No. 8 on The Oaks Course.


Getting back to the pun, while mixing colors to paint the Pine Trees, the Oak Trees and the young newly planted trees. The grass of the fairway and the grass of the green, the grass in the foreground and the grass in the distance, I remembered one of our students at this past Saturday's workshop (Painting in the Rose Garden) asking me, just how do you get the greens in the landscape correct. Now there is an answer for him, go paint at a golf course. After a couple of months, you will have all the shades and tones of green, all the mixtures and colors figured out or you will have given up or gone mad.

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