A Plein Air Excursion
I've been trying to hone my artistic skills now that I'm officially retired. Isn't that what you're supposed to do? My sister talked me into joining several local art groups, the Accokeek Artists Alliance, and the Mattawoman Creek Art Center
This morning's activity was a Plein Air meetup at an historic home called Araby. (I breezed by the historic marker on the way there, so I don't know too much about the building!). The current owner generously allowed her grounds to be invaded by artists few a few hours.
Once we got there, the first task was to scout out the perfect setting for a painting. There were so many lovely views, giving too many options for a nice composition for a painting:
I settled on this one:
I liked the way the mansion peeked over the bushes,
though I was leery about dealing with so much GREEN!
The next challenge was trying to figure out how the heck to unfold my dad's fancy artist easel.
My sister, Lona, had to come over to help me.
I've done a few online landscape painting tutorials and here are my takeaways:
- Look for BIG SHAPES, sketch the big shapes in lightly with paint
- VALUES--make darks DARK; accurate values are almost more important than accurate color!
- SIMPLIFY your composition, but give a pathway for eyes to follow
- Work from dark to light; DETAILS go at the very end
I started with a quick pencil sketch:
Then I sketched on the canvas with thin purple/
Remembering the values, I added some really dark bits...
Getting some good greens was challenging
At this point, I was soooo glad that not too much of the brick building was showing!
Basically, it came down to just dabbing colors randomly everywhere--really!
Two hours work, minus twenty minutes scouting and fussing with the easel.
Those two hours went by in a flash!
Not everyone shared their final result, but everyone had a lovely time!
Bonus--I bought another apple tree at Tractor Supply on the way home!