Burlington Plein Air 16

It looks like Spring has evaporated as the heat turned up to Summer this week in Philly just as I was finally able to get out of the studio and back to painting in glorious nature.

Along with Alina I was able to participate in the Burlington Plein Air 16 which is run by 28 E Gallery in Burlington NJ. We both participated in the event last year where Alina won an award for her painting. This year the event was structured around the Historic Yorkshire Garden Tour.

The event was suppose to happen last Saturday with all the painters heading out at the same time to paint, but we were all rained out and so the decision was made to allow painters to have the next week to complete their paintings.


That meant for Alina and myself Wednesday was the best day for us because of our work schedules and so we headed out from Philly up I-95 and RT 130 with a list of two gardens we could paint at.

We decided on the Pearl Blvd. spot as it had the best views that included the garden, river and also some shade, which helped a lot as it was already 90 degrees by the time we got to Burlington and started painting.






















The people who's home we were painting were also very gracious allowing us the use their bathroom, and some cold water which was great, they even gave as small tour of their beautiful home full of treasures from their world travels.























It had been several months since I was able to get out and paint due to my heavy work schedule that includes two comic strips, Judge Parker and now The Phantom, but I plan to be back out as much as possible to paint this summer.

After we finished our first paintings we decided to take a break and have some lunch at Francesco Pizzeria-Ristorante which has fantastic pizza! They even gave us extra pizza boxes to carry our painting back.






















That renewed our energy  bar back to 100% to try for the second garden, however by that time the sun was about an hour from setting which didn't give us enough time to paint and the angle of the sun didn't give us much to work with as far as light for the smaller garden, which was narrow and nestled between two house, so we decided to pack it in and head back to Philly.

 I prefer to pick my spot to paint rather than have something assigned by lottery, but I took the event as just a way to get back out and paint and do like Burlington as a city to paint in.

I'll drop my painting off today and unfortunately have to miss the opening of the show as I will be attending the Wizard World Comic Convention next weekend.

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.

Fall Paintouts

In the past few weeks I have been able to get out and about and paint a bit and enjoy the great fall we have been experiencing here in Philadelphia. In the next week or so I expect we will be at the peak of the fall colors so I will be sure to get back out and try and catch some of them on canvas before they are gone with the wind.

   

Last Saturday a big group of Philly painters got together and painted, some going to Eastern State Prison and some going down the the navy Yard in South Philly. My friend Diane Feissel puts the finishing finger touch on her painting along one of the historic cell blocks. Eastern State is a great place to visit as well as paint--however its is very busy as well which at times complicated you painting things are there are so many tourists and they often get in your way for minutes and minutes on end.

I set up quick deciding to try and cath the light and angle at the end of the cell block, and it was actualy very quite and only a handful of people when I started painting, but about halfway through the crowds really built up and often blocked my view of what I was painting. As usual when painting in a public place i had several interested parties who would stop to chat, comment and ask questions, but unlike most of the time painting elsewhere in Philly, they were nice and not drunk.

                                  Will and Diane worked in the next cell block over from me.

This was the result of the first painting which I eventually stopped due to the light shift and crowds ad then moved on to the yard where I found Will and Charles painting. It was nearing the end of the day but I still had some paint ready so I busted out this quick little landscape with one of the guard towers in about 45 minutes. Having to paint quick is good at times as it make you take bold steps you might not in order to get something down. No time to be picky!

A few weeks before the eastern State paintout I headed out to Ridley Creek State park near Media with will and another frend an painted there at an old mansion. Another great fall day but I was actually getting cold and shivering a bit towards the end, my hands were freezing!

 

There are mant feral cats out there and they sped around and hunted as people walked by. I saw a few chipmunks get eaten by the cats as I painted. They all seemed pretty used to the people but kept their distance as well/

Once the sun moved too low I had to stop and my hands were really cold with me sitting there so I packed up and went to see what Will and our friend was up to.

This was Will's sweet little landscape.

A mom and her two little kittens watched me for a while before she took them off to hunt.

Here is my final painting of the day. Its on a Sourcetek Birch panel and I love to paint on them. I was definitely thing of how Sargent handled many similar scenes and views in his Italian paintings. I felt pretty good about this till I got home and looked at some Sargents to compare---oh well, there is always next time!

The PAPP at the DuPont Environmental Education Center

Hello Plein Air enthusiasts, welcome back! I'm trying to catch up on the blog with some of recent plein air outings by the PPAP in and around the Philadelphia area.

On a fine Saturday about two weeks back William, Jen and I headed down to the DuPont Environmental Education Center in Wilmington, for a great day of painting on the beautiful Wilmington River Walk. 

Will and I drove down from Philly and Jen drove up to meet us as she knows the area better than the both of us as she lives in Delaware. Arriving a bit early Will and I scouted around the area and then Jen suggested we head over to the DuPont Environmental Education Center, which we did. 

It is a great place to visit and walk, jog and take pictures or paint. I saw many photographers out snapping pics of the beautiful Russell W. Peterson Urban Wildlife Refuge, marsh and wetlands as well and many joggers and people out walking their dogs.

 It was a very sunny day and as we scouted around for painting spots, and we found a lot of great views, the sun started heating things up. So we all were looking for a spot with some shade to avoid getting cooked and there were not a lot of shady spots and the temp had climbed into the upper 80's.
 

 Jen set up on the third floor of the Education Center and Will and myself set up under the walkway which afforded us a great view plus shade. I brought along my new Julian Plein Air unbrella, which really did come in handy to block the sun on me and my canvas--I'm so glad I finally bought myself one.






It was just past solar noon as we all hurried to get painting as the sun clock was ticking. As usual we had many onlookers and interested parties as we worked. Poor Will even had some kind of birthday or Quince Anos party set up for pics and block his view for a while.

Even though it was a challenge I wanted to paint the old train bridge that crossed the river off the Environmental center. I brought along my old yard stick to use as a mahl stick which helped. And you can even watch a video I shot of part of my painting process on this painting on my youtube page. 

A subject like this really forces my concentration to the ultimate, to really look and think before I paint. I painted this painting on a little MDF panel I made back in school that was coated with 3 layers gesso.  i love the depth and counter angles of this view and really want to go back and paint other views of this bridge.

 

                                   But eventually the light changed too much so we all called it a day.

                               My painting for the day, Old Train Bridge,  8 x 20 Oil on panel

 
         









  






LEFT: William's handsome little canvas, a great composition and similar view to mine. 

RIGHT:  Jen's great painting vista from the second floor of the nature Center