Katherine and I sat in the van for 45 minutes one day so that I could paint this. (I felt very fortunate to I find a meter that already had a lot of time left on it!). The canvas I’d taped on the inside lid of my shoebox pochade had fallen off into the paint that I’d set out on the palette, leaving blobs of color all around the canvas! I wiped off the blobs as well as I could and then was happy to find that they incorporated into the painting in just the right places!
My attempts to paint en plein air on vacation apparently were contagious. One day Elizabeth and William both asked for some paper, brushes and paints and each spent a quiet and satisfying time creating a painting, although neither from their immediate surroundings. (Elizabeth’s was an imaginary camping scene based on our previous stops. We had just a couple of days earlier visited a museum in Bennington, VT, where they had a display of works by Grandma Moses (painted at ages 60-99!) and I think Elizabeth was thinking of those images. William’s was an abstract).
I’ve given both of them quite a bit of art instruction in the past, so they had a good idea where to start and how to proceed. Maybe it was the quietness of the campsite and my painting that pulled them; maybe the lack of other distractions and activities? I was also satisfied to see them create with paint.
I had been intrigued by the results I was getting on oil paper so far, but all my pictures had been lessons from a library book. I wanted to see if I’d get similar results with one of my own compositions. This is from a photo from my mother’s front door. I like it!
One aspect of plein air painting so far that I wasn’t sure if I liked was the canvas texture, which seems to show through a lot in such a quick painting. Then I thought of this ‘oil paper’ made by Arches. I found some in the excellent art store here in town and bought a piece to try out. This picture is a lesson from a library book I have out at the moment. I was pleased with the result.
Katherine and I explored a ‘new’ playground in Bloomington. We were the only people there for most of the time! I sat on top of the play structure while Katherine climbed and slid, then I joined her for a go on everything.
For this painting I sat in the parked van and painted from the driver’s seat with my pochade box on my lap. Katherine read her newly checked out library books in the back seat! I do not like the ‘childishness’ of much of this picture, but it was another try.
Each of these quick studies was done in 30 minutes–all actually sitting outside, with my shoebox pochade box on my lap!
marymayhewart 