It’s kind of dark since it’s backlit but you can see the pretty clouds. A man walking on the path took the pic and emailed it to me. I’m much more attractive in real life and the painting looks better too, just in case you were wondering.
I went over the clouds again, the background trees, the edge of the creek on the other side, the creek water and changed the shape of the pond in the middle ground then finally got to start on the trees on the path. So, I’ve been to the point a bunch of times and went there to walk a few times without painting. It’s supposed to be nice again tomorrow so maybe I can get more tall grass painted on the path and do some tree trunks and sticks.
Then I’m almost finished except for the reflections on the pond and I want to put a figure on the path. The paint is getting kind of lumpy because of all the layers applied with my palette knife. I might paint the figure with paint brushes since it will be small and a palette knife isn’t easy to do a small figure.
I can’t be a purist about any certain style or art subject that comes up. I think it’s fine to mix up different styles in one painting. A purist who wants to do a palette knife painting might not want to use a brush at all. Some watercolor purists don’t use water color pencils along with watercolors in a tube. Once I heard a juror say, “Pick one style and stick to it.” I wondered if she meant me. Heck, I don’t even know the different styles. I only know what I learned in art school long ago.
I wonder if they would give this a bad critique at the academy. Probably. They were the old school purists.
There is only one bright tree on the far side. I almost covered it with a pine tree but I’ll save it.
I don’t know how well this shows up in the photo. I put the handle of the drawing board over a stick that’s rooted there and it kind of tilts the paper up a little while stopping the wind from blowing it away. Also, maybe you can see where my drawing board broke at the handle once long ago and I glued chop sticks on it to repair it with some glue on paper towels ripped to fit and a little wooden shim over a crack. I just don’t want to buy another drawing board. I’ve had this one so many years I kind of got attached to it. It’s been all over hell’s half acre with me.
If it’s windy I’ll just sit on the ground to paint. It’s a real nice spot there at the edge of the pond.
We’re having some nice weather this week. It might be cold tomorrow but I should probably let this dry a little before I go back into it.
I was glad when the clouds rolled in this afternoon because I had a solid blue sky and I wanted to make it more interesting. I’m not sure if I want to work on the clouds more or if I should leave them alone. I’ll probably work on the background trees again before I start blobbing in the trees on the path.
I made the path wider so it’s more visible.
This is a plan for a palette knife painting on paper. I’m going to try painting right on top of my charcoal sketch, at home, because it’s going to rain again for a few days. Luckily, I got a few colors mixed in plein air today which I can put plastic wrap on top of and they will be good for a week or more. They say the sun will come out on Sat. too, so I can get back over there and mix more colors.
We didn’t have any frost yet. The trees are showing some color but not a lot. I might fake in some fall color in the background, or I could wait and see what happens, but the beach isn’t the best place for fall colors.
I need to look at this sketch and make some decisions before I get started painting . Like exactly where to start. I mixed some middle ground tree colors in plein air but I should probably start with the sky and background. Or I could try to paint the water first. The water looks different every time I see it, so I might just wing it.
I’m not a good photographer, but this pic is too boring. I’ll get a more interesting painting if I don’t use it, I’m only showing you the photo so you can see how much my naked eye differs from the camera. Which eye is the better representation? The human eye or the camera?
They seem to glow when the sun shines through them and they look great with dark green pine trees behind them.
There’s this little salty meadow that floods sometimes. I really enjoy the view looking across it. I want to sketch the long view of the meadow and a few other places there.
They’re calling for good weather again tomorrow then a few days of rain. I might try a palette knife painting of this if it’s not good to go out.
I was walking at Pleasure House Point and stopped to look at some oysters. A bunch of times I saw little jets of water shoot up. It was kind of funny. I never knew they did that.
Human wildlife
I found another good place to sketch that I didn’t see before. There were boats beached on a sand bar and people out on the sand in the middle of the inlet. The tide was low. A boat was blasting country music.
Birds
I saw an egret, a sand piper and a small heron.
I think the osprey chicks in the nest out back are learning to fly. I saw one fly to the ground and then back up to the nest, and I saw one fly around the nest in high circles. I think those were this years chicks, but I’m not sure.
This photo was lifted from stock photos
Ok. this is my second try using the new editor. It took some time to find the right place for categories and tags. This editor seems more technical or complicated to me.
