vermont farm

An update for today. I added some darks, finished up the leaves on the right hand tree. And pulled some of the highlights back in. I also added in the gate, I think it helps to direct your eye to the left and down the path. Now I'm just looking to decide if its done.

vermont farm

Here is a close up crop of Clara. I think as a whole the painting needs so more intense colors.

Vermont Farm

An update to my farm painting. I decided give another try at cross-hatching and thought that the farm I had started would be a good base. Since I already had the basic value and hues I found it easier to work in the hatching. So the next one I will take the good advice from my pals on WetCanvas.com and use an under painting. Although the photo I took did not have the hens in it, I think it needed something to anchor it into a life situation. So the hens are mine, good thing a had some photos because none of them would stay put yesterday. I am thinking about putting in a rooster and chicks, I think it still needs a story.
I will put a crop in the next post so you can see the strokes.

Pond At Macks Apples Plein Air

pastel 11x14
Plein Aire
Painted with the Plein Aire Society Of New Hampshire today. They were actually in Londonderry where I live and had several different spots around town. This one is across from Macks Apple stand, a small pond with apple trees in the background. I painted this with a different approach than I usually do, its a broken color tech., where you keep applying color crossing each other to allow it to mix visually with your eyes. I am finding it hard to get my colors as bright as I would in the studio, another lesson to be learned.

Vermont Farm

Pastel 11"x14"
This is from SugarBush Farms in Vermont, they make really great cheese from a collective of farmers in the area. This is looking down into the side yard. I decided to paint this without an underpainting on watercolor paper primed with colorfix primer. Next stage is to include some of red metal gates and a small post fence off the barn to the left. Fill in leaves and work on the trunk of the right hand tree.

Rickers Pond VT plein aire

11X14"
This weekend we went camping during Labor day Vacation in Vermont. Beautiful little state campground on Rickers Pond. It had nice sandy beach edges, except for the ground nesting bees's it would have been perfect. The rangers came and sprayed the nest and the next day we were in business to swim and get on our canoe and kayak. This is looking down into the next camping site which had a pop up camper behind the clump of trees to the right, which I left out naturally. The birch trees were all leaning in towards the water, very pretty. I took a photo with my camera to compare what I painted. What a difference, between the two. If I had painted this from the photo I think it would be completely different and lost alot of the distance feeling to it. I wouldn't have even seen the Birches in the back.

Sunflowers Abstract Plein Aire

Another Plein Aire from last week. 11x14" on matboard with colorfix primer.
The sunflowers are in a fenched in areia in our backyard, behind them is our chicken coop to which i orginally had in this but it had too many line horizontally so i mushed it out. Needed something to let the flowers come forward so i just blocked them in....so an abstract quality to it. 1 hour.