Yesterday morning I hopped in the car and drove out to the Brandywine area to find a spot to paint. I have been doing a lot of studio work and was anxious to get back to nature.
I left home with darkening skies as the weatherman called for some passing morning storms and sure enough on the way it poured. But I figured by the time I found a spot to paint the rain would be over, and it was. I found a few interesting places that i could set up, but decided to keep going and if nothing else better came up, I'd go back.
Finally I found it, the Goldilocks spot. With a few drops of rain still falling from the tress I hoped out and walked around a bit to find the best view and then quickly set up and got to painting. This scene had a lot of great dynamics and space, a lot of triangles in the composition which makes the picture-space dynamic. Something close and something distant.
My Palette colors: Cinnabar Green,Terra Verte, Hansa Yellow, Raw Umber, Mars Yellow deep, Naphthol Scarlet, Gablin Radiant White, Bolat Blue, Blick Violet Pastel
I blocked in my shapes very loosely and then using a big flat (a No. 16) massed in the biggest shapes until I had the whole composition in big shapes down on the canvas. I was again painting on a Source Tek 12 x 16 canvas panel.
After I had finished the mass-in I took a break and stepped back to asses the way things were going--and noticed the sky darkening again pretty fast. I hopped to trying to get working again because I didn't know if the storm would blow over or rain me out. I snapped pics in case I had to finish the painting at home.
It trickled but I kept painting till a sudden burst came and I ran back to the jeep and covered the easel. after about 25-30 minutes the rain passed and I was able to go back and finish the painting. To finish I mostly used my No. 6 Kafka and a No.6 flat, if I got to picky I massed the area and painting back again. I used Liquin fine detail for my medium. But the sun chad finally changesd too much so i stopped
I'm pretty happy with the result and was really happy to be back out painting from nature--I'll be back out this week!
