On Location

While NJ is currently in-between snow storms, I thought I would share some plein-air photos during the warmer months of this past year.

Plein Air Painting Progression - "RollingHills"

Here's another plein air painting session in which I took a photo of my progress about every 10 minutes or so. I start with placing my major shapes and then jumped in setting up my value/color zones. I did need to adjust some edges back in the studio.

Painted on: Ampersand Gessobord
Medium: Oil
Dimensions: 12x16 inches

Resting Canoes

On a recent plein air outing I took a photo of the progress of my painting every10 minutes until completion. The result is this short slide show documenting my approach for this particular painting.

In this case, establishing the foreground values and colors first to better determine how much to lighten and grey the objects in the distance to create the illusion of depth within the painting.

Painted on: Ampersand Gessobord.
Medium: Oil.
Dimensions: 9x12 inches

Last of the Sunday Night Sketches.




(Click image to enlarge).

Posted above is a very small collection of my many quick sketches produced during the two year run of the Sunday night portrait group (Morristown, NJ). The final session for the group came to a close this past weekend. I will miss everyone who attended over the years and all my best to Chris and Danielle who started this fantastic venture. Thank you.

Fields of Gold

This is one of the last plein air paintings I completed in 2012. It was started on location as a demo for my students. I stayed an extra hour after everyone had left to finish up. As you can see I had an incredible view rolling hills and farmland and a real opportunity to use atmospheric perspective to push the distance in the painting. I remember a very curious yellow jacket that was enamored with my paints as well that day. It didn’t seem mind which bug spray I used to try to discourage him/her with; just adding to the many exhilarating experiences of plein air painting.

Painted on: 2" cradled archival wood panel.

Medium: Artist grade acrylic.

Dimensions: 12x12 inches.