unfinished swamp painting / debriefing

I started painting the swamp water at home but I’ll need to do more work on it before I can finish the branches that cross the water. Those thin branches will need another coat of paint and some orange cypress needles. (not sure if you call them needles but they don’t look like leaves either.)

Tomorrow I’ll work on the mud. I’m looking forward to that. It has bright sunlight going across it on an angle with shadows from the trees. Then the sunlight continues across the water with tree shadows continued. That’s still a lot of work before I put the orange in the fore ground over top of the water. So that’s still a lot more layers of paint.

When I got there today and compared what I had finished on the background last week to the colors of nature I wanted to warm up my background trees so I used my modified fan brush and lightly brushed in some new bark colors.

It was fun to do the highlights on the leaves also with my modified fan brush.

It was windy but the overlook is somewhat sheltered and my painting didn’t fall off the easel. I was standing way back from the painting with my brushes taped to yardsticks and didn’t have to worry because sometimes when it’s windy I have to keep a hand on the canvas. It was cold too.

Then when I was packing my things to go home I had the painting propped up on the deck and it fell down! It didn’t leave any paint on the deck but it did pick up some of the fallen cypress needles which stuck to the wet paint. You can see the dirt in the photo. when it dries the dirt will brush off.

This is my modified fan brush next to a blob of brown paint on my palette. I cut the bristles zig zag. It’s great for painting in 15 dots and a smear all at once, or rough lines. I use this brush all the time. It’s one of my favorites. You can get so many textures and they’re easy and fast to make.

That’s how soupy I like my paint for building up layers. I add a few drops of terpenoid and mix it in well with a palette knife.

The last thing I’ll do is the Spanish moss.

swamp painting 2021 / an ok start

oils

This is only the first step in a big job, my underpainting. I lugged my stuff out to the overlook twice and stayed for around 2 hours both times, didn’t finish my underpainting yet. Maybe I can work on the bottom of the canvas at home. That’s the swamp water with reflections of trees, barely sketched in.

I took my yard sticks and taped my brushes to them so I could keep my brush strokes looser and try to paint like my favorite artist, Matisse. Standing way back from the canvas helped me visualize where to paint the big brown branch which will be the focal point of this painting. It’s easier to see the painting if you stand back. It’s fun but the brushes go out of control a lot. A few people came out on the overlook. If they saw the yardsticks with paint brushes taped on them they didn’t say anything.

It got a little windy and cloudy so I quit for today. The overlook is protected from the wind so it wasn’t a problem. It’s supposed to rain tonight and be colder tomorrow. I might be able to go back out there tomorrow, but I don’t know. Colder is better as far as I’m concerned because less people will be on the trail and I can take the cold weather better than the horrible heat and humidity of summer around here.

This could take some time to finish depending on the weather, and I don’t want to go over there to paint on Sat. or Sun. but I’m glad I got a start.

cypress knees / charcoal and chalk

When I was a young girl I fell in love with a beautiful swamp. I wished I could capture it and take it home. I took photos but they didn’t do it justice. Eventually I went through my boxes of photos and threw away the ones that didn’t have people in them. Over the years, I visited the swamp when I had a vacation at Virginia Beach.

When I started drawing in Plein air I thought about the swamp but it’s kind of a haul from Richmond, so I drew at other beautiful places. I never planned to retire to the beach until my daughter moved to Norfolk and told me she’s settling down. I’ve been here two years now and I often go to First Landing State Park to walk on the trails. I sketched there a few times and once tried to do a painting of the swamp but it didn’t work. I need a big canvas then I’m sure I can get it.

The swamp looks best in the dead of winter. Those tiny branches get a bright red glow in the winter sun. After a good frost the water looks clearer. It’s more reflective then. The black water will be a challenge to paint. I’m starting  to work out my plan now.  I’d like to get a big canvas and tape my brushes to a yard stick and stand back to paint it, like Matisse, because that’s fun, so I should probably do that at home. People would think I was really nuts if I took a big canvas out there and taped my brushes to a yardstick, when I am actually quite sane, hahahahaha. Not that I care what people think…..

Cypress Swamp with Ice / charcoal and chalk

It looks like Fairyland over there today with the ice melting on the swamp! The paths are clear, but the boardwalks still have melting snow on them. I saw a Great blue Heron walking on the ice and also heard a funny alto sounding chirp. ( if you know what I mean) I looked around and didn’t see any other birds, so maybe it was the heron making that sound.

I like this sketch more than the other one I did of the swamp. I might use this one for a painting. The bush on the right coming out of the knee has a lot of fine reddish branches that are all bright in the sun. And there’s a lot of Spanish moss dripping around the trees. I decided to do a close up landscape this time because when you’re in the swamp. you’re looking down at the water and cypress knees instead of looking up at the sky. Who needs sky. hahahahahah

Cypress Swamp with Spanish Moss / charcoal

 

When I was working on my painting at the botanical garden, I met a lady who does plein air painting and she forwarded an invite to me from The Artists Gallery in Virginia Beach. It was a call to plein air painters to meet in First Landing State. Park today. I was so happy because for at least 30 years I wished I had the time to paint there. Now I do and also had the pleasure of meeting some other plein air painters.

I’ve always loved this swamp and came here when I was on vacation at the beach in years past. The water looks black because it’s forming peat on the bottom. I imagined the first settlers that came to VA from England, when they got off their boat at the mouth of the Chesapeake and went a little in off the beach, they ran into THIS! They probably decided to get back on the boat and go upstream. The moss is hanging like spooky draperies all around. It looks soft and breezy. A settler might think it would make good mattress stuffing, but it’s full of bugs. Funny, I haven’t got a single mosquito bite since I’ve been here, and I’ve been hanging around by the water a lot.

Someone told me once, this is the farthest north they call subtropical because Spanish moss is native here. It is a couple degrees warmer here than in Richmond, only 100 miles away.

Wow! was it ever beautiful over there this morning. I could never get tired of painting in there. I have a painting started at the botanical garden which might take me a couple weeks to finish, then I’m going back to First Landing to paint the swamp. I’m looking forward to seeing it again after the frost. I know it will look different after the leaves come down, but I also think winter might be the ideal time to paint it