Take me to the river

The fall weather and colors  have been pretty spectacular this year for plein air painting, so I have a little backlog of images to post as a result. The first two paintings were done last week at a paint out with the Virginia Plein Air Painters group. This is a great group that gathers once a month (sometimes more) from spring through fall to paint together en plein air. The great thing about this group is that members will organize unique locations within about an hour of Richmond. Some sites are public, but others are on private property that can't be accessed ordinarily. Such was the case with this location.

The owner of the property happened to be a Zen garden and landscape designer who allowed us to paint on her sprawling property fronting the South Anna River. There were so many beautiful compositions to be made that it was really hard deciding what to paint. But since I wanted to take advantage of the autumn foliage and the play of light across the sparkling water, I was most drawn to the natural settings along the river bank.

This was my morning effort:

"Autumn on the South Anna River", Oil on linen, 9x12" ©Jennifer E Young

I had such a great time with that one that after a quick brown bag lunch I decided to try another river painting a little further upstream:

A few days went by when I couldn't get back outside, but I kept thinking about how satisfying it was to be painting down by the river. Especially in the fall, where the vibrancy of the light is at an all time high. This has to do with both the lower angle of the light at this time of year, and the way coolness of the blues and purples in the shadows so naturally play compliment to the autumn hues of gold, orange and red.

Yesterday was my next opportunity to revel in all of that beautiful light and color. I couldn't finagle my way back onto the South Anna River property without a proper invitation, so I decided to return to Pony Pasture, the same section of the James River Park system that I visited in my prior blog post.

"Sun-kissed", Oil on canvas, 6x8" ©Jennifer E Young

As lovely as it is, the autumn light tends to move faster than the spring and summer, and I only had time to do a small one this time before making the trek back to Ashland.  But at least I got my fix. I can't promise I'm done, though; the weather's supposed to be pretty nice for the next few days, and winter lurks just around the corner.

James River plein air

Oh happy day! Oh cold morning; but nevertheless, happy day. This week I finally managed to get back outside, to visit one of my favorite painting muses, the James River. The James River Park system in Richmond, VA, continues to fascinate me and remains one of my all-time favorite plein air painting sites.

*SOLD* Autumn Morning on the James River", Oil on canvas, 6x8" ©Jennifer E Young

I painted this at Pony Pasture, where I stood wedged between some boulders.

Pony Pasture is on the south side of the river, in Richmond VA. I've always wondered where this part of the park got its name, but only today did I think to look it up. According to Richmond.com, "The name came from the 1960s when the area was suburban and people who were into housing their horses near the river," said Ralph White, who is the (now retired)  manager of the James River Park.

While there are no ponies today (though what a cool sight that would be) there are plenty of other creatures to observe, including Canadian geese and herons, as well as dogs and their owners, fishermen, kayakers and canoers. Oh, and you might occasionally see the odd painter too. ;-)

Venetian Byway

As I've noted previously, I've been enjoying digging into subjects for my paintings by working small to large. Several of the recent studio paintings I've done have had their inception in smaller plein air pieces I have painted on site. Through this exercise I have come to appreciate the method of problem solving in the smaller piece. My latest "small" is this Venice piece I completed yesterday. At this point I'm not sure if I will rework this into a larger size. I will sit with it for a while and see what I can see from it with fresh eyes, as I work on other projects. 

"Venetian Byway", Oil on linen, 14x11" ©Jennifer E Young

Plein Air to Studio

Though I have a great love for plein air painting and do it as often as my time and circumstances allow,  I have, out of necessity, become much more of a studio painter these last few years. Working on location is like painting calisthenics. It demands one's full concentration, advance planning, additional travel time, and a good amount of in-the-moment ingenuity in order to capture the particular color notes and light effects of that point in time. As with physical exercise, I get both an exhilarating rush and a bit of a drain afterwards. 

5:30 a.m. wake-up time ensured that I captured this sunrise in all of its colorful glory. As you can see, all of that color was long gone when I photographed the setting at around 7 a.m.

While I love the spontaneity in my plein air work, my studio work has its advantages. For one I can be more deliberate. Without the limitations imposed by time and changing light, I can go larger in the studio, and at times, improve on my drawing and composition. I can also experiment more easily with various formats, color combinations, and other formal aspects of 2D artistry. 

While I have been engaged in both practices for many years now, I want to do more to relate the two disciplines to each other in a more purposeful way. Part of the reason I haven't always managed this is because I tend to consign my plein air paintings to galleries almost immediately after I complete them, which means I am separated from them for either the length of the consignment, or forever if the painting is sold outright. I do have photographs of all of my plein air paintings as well as photographs of the location (though as you can see above,  the latter often tells me very little about the true color I saw in the moment.)

Therefore I'm making a concerted effort to do more plein-air to studio paintings, using the actual plein air paintings as my primary reference when at all possible. Here's my most recent effort:

"New Day Rising", Oil on linen, 20x24" ©Jennifer E Young

Here's my setup, in progress. I used my tablet holder to prop up my plein air painting so that both pieces would be under the same light for better color accuracy. It actually worked very well. Necessity is indeed the mother of invention!  :) 

French village work in progress

The weather's been great here lately, but I haven't had much of a chance to do any plein air painting because I've been working on a large commission. I'm not sharing that today because I want to "unveil" it to the client first, but I'm doing a happy dance that it has reached a state of completion that I am satisfied enough with to present it. 

All clients are special, but this particular client commissioned me to create a commemorative piece in memory of a beloved family member. This client is a lovely lady and so very sweet and kind, and the sense of pressure I felt for "getting it right" has been all mine. 

Often times  when I have labored over a large or involved project, there is no better palette cleanser than painting a new small canvas, fast and fresh, of a completely unrelated subject. 

I almost always seem to forget to photograph the painting after I paint the shadow patterns, but before adding the sunlit areas. Oh well, this is close. I didn't have time to finish yesterday because it was getting late when I started it and I had to pick up my daughter. I like this stage though, because if you get the majority of the shadow areas down in the beginning, you really see the potential and the armature it provides to the design.