I went up to Virginia City with a group of painters a few years ago, I was glad to be able to go again. The airbnb place had a number of problems, but the view was quite spectacular – the east side of the mountain range was visible for many miles in each direction. This was a 45-minute sketch on the first morning.
Sue Wilson made a video http://www.pleinairlinks.com/dagroup/050818virginiacity.html
I have been aiming to return to Italy and was finally able to do that this fall, with my friend and co-painter- and traveler Maeve. We signed up for a week workshop in the countryside near Florence, which we determined is really just the right amount of time to get warmed up! The very first morning we got up early to paint, and what met our gaze was almost a complete white out! It turned out to be a very nice environment for painting, and, yes, we used more than just white!
See a short video of our stay https://youtu.be/CTG8DHxEO0g
These paintings are all “alla prima”, meaning they were painted all at once on location and have not been touched since. I am planning to work on them more, but here they are in their raw state. The very long one was an experiment of painting on a rolled-up linen ground, I may not be able to get the kinks out of it, and it’s very rough. You may see the occasional bug on the surface.
Lately, I’ve been wanting more air, water, more fluid merges between colors and shapes. I sometimes just want the edges to disappear. Though this is not there, and it’s just a starting painting, it is going in the right direction at least, and I am hoping to be able to complete it with soft edges.
I am telling you a bit late about my current showing in Mendocino with the Plein Air Painters of Mendocino at the Annual Whale Festival Art Show & Sale which opened last Friday — the show will be open all weekends in March.
Join us this Saturday evening for our Opening Reception!
Come see beautiful landscapes and seascapes inspired by the natural beauty of the North Coast — two floors filled with paintings, whimsical ceramics and woodwork.
White on white is pretty fun, there are an amazing number of variations. In fact, however, some of these whites got so wild they are no longer white, but blue, orange, etc. Since I had so much fun creating the mountain goat I decided to try an owl, keeping it super-simple, because of the time constraint. This was a gift to @sathier.
This was an unexpectedly good place to paint, in Rodeo. It’s unfortunate that people trash their environment, but there was just too much to trash here, so somehow, it was still beautiful! Painting in progress.
I am trying out a <oh never!> stylus with a drawing program from AutoDesk for the iPad. It’s pretty cool, the software, except I can’t find an eyedropper tool so far, which would be oh-so-handy for picking up a previous color. It makes you try harder to match colors, of course, which is probably a good thing. Steve Jobs would have hated that I’m using a stylus, but it really helps because my finger gets tired!! Maybe after a while you get stronger (finger exercises – yeah!) but for now, this is great.
