My friend, Sheryl, and I have started plein air painting together every Monday. Each week we've gone to different places and painted. It's great practice, and it gets me actually painting.
On our first week, we went to the farm of Roy, a friend of ours. He has a lake in front of his house - with a little covered walking bridge, and then a barn. The location was beautiful, but I am not pleased with this effort at all. I will probably paint over it at some point, or maybe I will try to salvage it. The walking bridge is leaning - and so is the barn. (Carol, get the perspective and basic outlines right before starting to paint!!!!) The banks of the pond are way too "perfect," and don't even get me started on the pitiful trees. However, still it was great practice.
Then we went to the farm of a well known ball player. Ron had met him, and so he gave us permission to paint this log cabin on his farm. He, his wife and kids came by while we were painting and chatted with us for awhile - such nice people! I like this painting. I would've liked it better if I'd put the house on the other side of the painting or at least not in the bottom corner. Sheryl was painting the same scene, and I wanted to make mine different. Lesson learned - Paint what you want to paint - two people can paint the same scene from the same perspective - and the results will be different.
The next week we went to Radnor Lake in Nashville. Several other artists from The Chestnut Group went with us. I had painted this scene last year, but I still painted it again but from a different perspective. My trees are awful. I'm not happy with this painting at all. Not sure what I'll do with it.
Our Monday painting group is growing. It started out as just Sheryl and me. However other people are joining us, and it's a lot of fun. It's invaluable practice.
No comments:
Post a Comment