What a terrific day to be painting outside. Summery; sunny and quite warm but with a tint of Fall in the cool morning air, longer and cooler shadows, goldenrod starting to blossom and show yellow everywhere and red apples burgeoning every tree I could see in the orchard to my right.
The trees were loaded with apples; so many, the trees glistened with them and appeared over-decorated. Each tree seemed to be leaning in the same direction, somewhat bent with the load; we could imagine all those apples loosening and falling all at once, a deep river of apples streaming into the road at the bottom of the hill.
I enjoyed painting the distant view of the apple storage as a demonstration to J as to how I go about getting what I want from what appeals to me the most as a possible painting from my response to the scenery. There was so much to see from our vantage point – on the side of a hill that offers a 180degree view. What appealed to me the most was the road going up the adjacent hill & the things at the top of the hill in the distance and all that view means to me personally.
A lot of memory has been written into that little painting. Not only of the past, but of the painting session yesterday.
I like this painting. So much that I’ve been carrying it around with me where it will catch my eye and I come up with a fresh thought about it. I left the painting propped up against the wall last night, wanting to be mindful of my 1st thought when I woke this morning and spied it there. The result was: I like it, but not quite sure why, so will carry it around for awhile and enjoy the thinking about it.
One of the things I’m liking is the way I did the beginning steps. I drew in my main elements with very loose Burnt Sienna and small brush, then established the middle ground (back, middle, fore) with a few deeper layers of burnt sienna. I tinted the area where sky met treeline with burnt sienna, graded it out to the top of the paper. I left the greater part of the burnt sienna nearest the treeline. This left the paper quite wet and I quickly mixed up a sky color using UB and a tiny amount of CY, mixing into what was left of the burnt sienna tint puddle on my pallet. I started the blue wash at the top, graded it down into the burnt sienna part, mixed more UB and CY into the puddle. This thickened the paint to the point where it, too would blend nicely into the wash I’d just begun. I worked that layer downward and stopped where the 1st wash of blue was getting thin, mixed a little more UB/CY into the puddle and worked it into the top of the blue area. The paper was just wet enough so that all the paint was worked in somewhat smoothly.
I’d forgotten I’d intended making 2 clouds. Fortunately, when J spotted my ommission, the sky area was still wet and I was able to scrub out the two little clouds in the areas of the painting that represent sky. I used clean water in a semi-dry paint brush, kept rewetting it & going over the spot on the paper, almost scrubbing, until I was able to make those two areas appear as clouds. The paper I’m using is very cheap and can’t take a lot of scrubbing before it starts to shred and break. There were shreds after I scrubbed down the clouds so later, making sure the paper was quite dry, I erased the clinging shreds of broken paper, very lightly, with a regular pencil eraser.
I did the hill using a UB/CY = Blue/Green, starting at the bottom and grading it out to a little before the top of the hill, then finished at the top of the hill with clear water. I mixed another UB/CY= Yellow/Green, started mid-hill and worked that wash up into the light, adding a little more yellow each stroke until I got into the light part and added yellow only.
The road was done in a mix of UB/BS graded from the bottom of the paper to the top of the hill where I left it light. I mixed a little yellow into the UB/BS mix, thinned it a little and graded it from mid-hill to the top of the hill. Areas in the trees and the corn, were done with a mix of deep UB/CR/CY and painted on with a small brush.
I could have gone on and on but fortunately, especially with Painting Outside!, Noon rolls around, the morning shadows are gone, it’s hot, we’re tired and thinking more of lunch than any more painting for today. The painting, by default, is done.
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