Spring Thaw

Spring is finally here, even though Old man Winter slapped us good on the first day of Spring here in the North East with a heavy wet snow. While it might have been a pain driving ans shoveling it made for a great second opportunity to get back over the the Darby Creek and paint a wintery scene as the snow rapidly melted in the 50 degree sunlight.  Today was the third trip I made over to the creek in the past two weeks as the weather broke. I had been going kinda crazy with cabin fever having not painted outside since that cold day in January. I've really been wanting to paint some snow scenes this winter but ue to mu super busy schedule and frankly the brutal cold it never happened until now.

My first strip was to the creek on the 9th of March, just after a pretty big snow, and the weather was in he 5o's so it made a great day to get out even though down by the creek it was still pretty cold. I found a great spot with huge logs jammed up on these rocks that made a really dynamic composition and went for it. I used a SourceTek panel which is my favorite surface to paint on, they are just fantastic and the people at the company are also super nice!

                            I set up and raced the sun and my freezing feet in this great scene

                                                              Spring Thaw 12 x 16 Oil

 A few days later Will and I went back to the creek. This time we parked and hiked over the train bridge to the other side to check out the views over there. Again we settled on the falls,

                                     Will worked down below while I worked above the falls.

                               Here's my painting, The Rock, 12 x 16 Oil on a SourceTek panel

The real hard work, the big challenge here is the subtle temperature shifts of the greys in a scene like this. Not only do you have to not fall victim to detail but you have to push things to be simple, yet read against each other. The greys as they say, are the glue of painting. The slight shifts of warm to cool is a real challenge and then, POW! That dash of the blue sky in the waters reflection. I was working and hoping the light would hold on this scene, but I did have to finish about 20% of this at home as the light changed too much.

 Here is William's awesome painting of me up on the falls. He really nailed that feeling of the spring air and the energy of the falls.


 I thought that that might be the last chance to catch some winter snow but we got socked hard on the firs day of Spring, so we had a second third chance to get back out tothe creek, this time Alina joined us to paint. We learned that there was a much easier way to get to the new spot so we drove right up and parked and got set up pretty quick.

                      I set my rig up and got to work right away, again using a SourceTek panel.

                   You can see my block-in  and the light which had been sunny went overcast.

                                                    Alina set up right next to our cars

                                               William once again hiked down to the creek

                                     Here is a shot of me just about done--the light had gone...

 

 

 Here are a few shots of Alina as she worked, I really love the feeling of her painting!! A great PA piece!

 

 Here is another great composition by William. Getting low and right on the water was a great choice--but a really cold one as well.

And my piece is bellow , Second Thaw, 12 x 16 Oil

It has been a great chance to get out and get some winter scenes these past few weeks and I look forward to probably trying the same spots when spring come full on with its full glory.

Darby Creek

Read about the groups latest painting adventure at Darby Creek over on my drawman blog

Darby Creek

 After finishing my regular work duty on this week's strips I grabbed some Z's and then headed out to paint something. I started too late so I wasn't able to joining Aaron Thompson who was painting out in valley Forge. before leaving I checked the radar it, and it  looked like I might get 2 hours before the raid could show up. Since the time was short I decided to drive back to the Swedish cabin down off of Darby Creek which is 15 minutes at the most from my place. Luckily there were not a lot of people there so I had it pretty much to myself except for people jumping off the SEPTA trolley bridge into the creek.

 There did appear to be some other creative types who visited this spot before me though.

 Just a great view to paint! I set up fast as I could see the clouds were building. I painted again on panel, over and old painting I did in school. I had oil primed it a few weeks back. I used a No. 4 flat and blasted awat blocking it in.

 After about 90 minutes this is where I had to stop as the thunder started..and the lighting too! They say lighting can travel 30 miles from a cloud--so I packed it up for the day. I had a lot of this one done, so I snapped a pick and finished it up at home. I think if you get a painting mostly done you can use photos to finish certain details and areas as you have already established most of the values and colors by eye from nature.

Darby Creek 11 x 14 Oil on panel

 Seems like its going to be this way weather wise every day this week, hot, humid with afternoon thunderstorms, so I think I'll have to make sure I get out early tomorrow.