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!
One of my goals for this summer is to learn to paint outside–en plein air. I looked into wooden pochade boxes and decided they were too expensive for an experiment, so I thought about making my own, but ran out of time. In the end I more quickly made my own version from an old shoebox. It’s working out pretty well!
I attached a ribbon to the sides and across the outside of the lid, using staples and strong glue. The ribbon stops the lid from flopping backwards (ie in an upright easel position). There is another ribbon attached to the center of the lid that wraps under the box and attaches with velcro to the bottom front of the box, which stops the lid flopping forwards.
I glued in 2 blocks of wood inside to support my palette (disposable gray paper palette taped to a piece of stiff card), leaving room on the floor of the box for brushes, paper towel, and water in a baby food jar (with lid). I could also fit tubes of paint and masking tape in here. I prefer to set up my palette before leaving home, to minimize weight.
The ‘easel’ is an old piece of stiff cardboard glued to the inside of the lid. I attach the canvas to this with masking tape.
The whole thing was made entirely from materials I had on hand and cost me nothing!
I tried the same picture, but with a few alterations. I moved the apple a little more to the right of center and used lemon yellow instead of cadmium yellow pale. It seems to glow more and I’m pleased with the changes.
We have worked harder than ever this spring to protect our apples from the squirrels, who usually eat every single one. I was so happy that we have some apples developing that I took pictures of them and painted this in oils. These apples remind me of decorations on a Christmas tree!
It wasn’t as bright or luminous as I wanted, so I decided to experiment and paint it again with using lemon yellow instead of cadmium yellow pale hue.
marymayhewart 