Summer by the Shore

As much as I love the dramatic light of a sunrise or sunset at the beach,  full-on sunshine makes me conjure up lazy days and summer vacations. So as I sent my wee-one off the kindergarten today I guess I can admit that I have been feeling a little nostalgic (already!) for those long duty-free days filled with sandcastle building,  sun and sand between my toes:

"Summer by the Shore" Water Miscible Oils on Linen, 16x20" To purchase, contact me!

I had such a fun time with this one. It was almost a way of teleporting myself back to the beach. I especially enjoyed painting the figures. Here is a detail  of some of them:

In fact, I had so much fun that I may even do another painting with just these two girls frolicking in the waves.

As I mentioned in my prior post, I am loving painting in the studio with water miscible oils. I will still work with traditional oils outdoors, mainly because I have quite a large supply of them in my stock. But gradually, in spite of some early struggles, I feel I am getting the hang of painting with the WS variety. I am loving that they are solvent and odor free, and have managed to work with them in a way that creates a lovely rich texture. This is helped greatly by my new Rosemary & Co. brushes, I might add. If you paint, do yourself a favor and check these out!

One of my struggles early on was that the water soluble oils weren't playing too well with my natural bristle brushes. Even after I realized that I shouldn't thin with water and wipe the water out of  my brushes thoroughly  between washing, my bristle brushes would get fairly flabby after a while. I really dislike synthetic brushes because they lack the spring and paint load abilities of a natural hair. Enter Ivory and Eclipse brushes by Rosemary & Co. These are synthetic brushes, but they behave much more like natural hair bristle brushes. Amazing! They really hold the paint and have just the right amount of spring in them. And the prices are quite reasonable as well. If I were to pick just one type ( though why would I want to do that?!) I'd go for the Ivory because they are more like the bristle brushes I normally paint with for my direct painting method. But the Eclipse, which are touted as a "synthetic mongoose" are really nice as well for finer details and soft edges. I really look forward to trying out some of the other styles as time and money allows. Meanwhile, I think I'll head back to the beach soon (by way of the easel!)

Sunrise Stroll

Back in spring as I was packing up and/or discarding my earthly belongings, I had imagined that by fall we would have begun working on a new studio at the new house. "Oh, I'll be up and running by winter," I thought. Well, I may have been a "tad" optimistic as we haven't come close to deciding how or even where we will fashion one.  In light of the constant waffling, we finally decided to rent a little temporary workspace for me, to take the pressure off a bit.

Viola! My little space. It's certainly a far cry from my former studio. It's tiny, it's dark, it's plain...but it's mine (at least temporarily). And I couldn't be happier to be back at work. :-)

What's missing in this picture is, of course, the easel. I will keep things simple (and light) by using my Soltek in here. I have also added a few additional lights to brighten things up a bit and make things a bit easier on the eyes.

To kick off the occasion, I dove into a subject I have been dying to develop since I painted it on location this summer- The Outer Banks of North Carolina. I was especially keen to dive into the concept of the sunrise, having tackled in en plein air in July:

 "Sunrise Stroll" Oil on Linen, 20x24" Contact me to purchase!

 Because I am renting this space and the ventilation is poor, I will only use water miscible oils here. So this, friends, marks another inaugural moment, of sorts--my first studio painting with Royal Talens Cobra water miscible paints.  I have to say, I am loving these paints in the studio. They stay open longer than my traditional oils, which makes it easier to manipulate edges  and build up to lovely, lush texture without having to do it all alla prima.  The only criticism I have at the moment is that the Titanium White in this brand is rather weak. Maybe I just need to get used to the tinting properties of the other paint colors,  but I used  almost half of a 150 ML tube of paint on this one 20x24" painting. (And that's not *much* of an exaggeration.)  Otherwise, though, I am having a great time and am so happy to have a room to call my own to create and leave all of my toys lying about.

Watching the Waves

Here is the last plein air painting I did at the beach last week. It was a quickie, started around 4:30 or so and wrapping up around 6PM. Watching the waves is one of my favorite things to do when I'm at the beach.

"Watching the Waves" Water miscible oils on linen, 8x8" To purchase, please contact me!

What is it about the ocean that calls us so? I guess it is the mystery of it. Or maybe it's the rhythm of the tides? Or maybe it's just that it is the place where we all originated, and it's depths are still unknown. My daughter once asked me, "When does the ocean stop waving?" Exactly! It never does, though it never ceases in changing either.

Incidentally, as I was painting this little vignette of our neighbor with her blue striped umbrella, I was photographed by Hidden Outer Banks!

Check them out. It was perhaps the one time when I actually didn't mind having a picture taken in my bathing suit. ;-)

Morning Surf

Immediately after I wrapped up painting my sunrise painting, I turned to look up the beach toward the pier and noticed how lovely the waves looked lapping up on the curving shoreline. So since I finally felt like I was getting somewhere with these paints, I decided that this would be a back-to-back session, one piece after another. Here' s the beach in early morning, post sunrise, around 8:30 a.m. or so:

"Morning Surf" Oil on Canvas, 9x12" Contact me to purchase!

For this painting and the prior sunrise one I had to lay the paint on pretty thickly to manipulate the edges the way I wanted. Also I found the titanium white and cadmium yellow light were much less intense than what I was used to with my traditional oils, so the highlights were painted very thickly indeed. I hadn't noticed this in my first venture with the Water Soluble oils, but it became much more apparent with these beach paintings because they are pretty high key.  Overall the effect seems to me to be closer to a palette knife painting than one done with a brush, though hog bristle brushes were all that I used.

I really enjoy painting the surf. While I have done it before a number of times  in the studio, these pieces were  my first effort done completely from life. What a rush! I feel like I could spend a lifetime studying just this one subject...I should be so lucky.

Back from the beach

Last week my family made our annual trek to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. It is a trip I look forward to all year, and it always seems to be over all too soon. For this trip, I brought along my water soluble oils.  Given all of the moving and excitement we had this spring and summer, I thought I would simplify things a bit with the painting gear I chose to bring with me, and eliminate the need for carrying turpentine. The only problem with my little plan was that, unlike my first foray into this medium, I found myself struggling. A lot. I don't know if it was the humidity, the painting surfaces, my overall fatigue or what. But every painting I did all week was a complete wiper, in spite of my  most valiant efforts.  The paint seemed to completely lack body and intensity. It also seemed to do nothing but smear all over my surfaces when I applied them.

Finally on the night before the last full day, it dawned on me that I should try a more absorbent surface. When I paint with traditional oils my preferred surface is one that is quite smooth --a fine weave linen or a shellacked birch panel. It was my understanding that shellac wasn't going to fly with water soluble oils, and my linen wasn't doing the job at all. So I dug around in my supply of panels and came up with a couple of gessoed birch panels and a Pintura gessoed canvas panel and decided to throw the old Hail Mary on the final day.

Here is the  first piece I did that last day, at sunrise:

"Sunrise at Nags Head" Water miscible oils on panel, 9x12" Contact me to purchase.

Finally I painted 3 pieces that I actually felt happy with! The paint was still harder to control than my beloved traditional oils, and I had a harder time mixing the colors I was aiming for, but at least the paintings actually looked like something I could show and/or use for reference when painting larger pieces. I will post the other paintings from that day in the coming days. Stay tuned!

Clearing Sky on the Outer Banks

One of my favorite times on the Outer Banks is just after a storm. The sand is a wet, deep, ochre, the surf still churns, but the clouds begin to lift and light up and eventually give way to that brilliant blue sky. This is a painting about just such a moment.

"Clearing Sky on the Outer Banks" Oil on Canvas, 30x24

 

I worked on this off and on last week, though there was lots of "off" time, as my daughter and I enjoyed our final week together in "summer mode" before the start of preschool.  We sent the summer off right, with a trip to the zoo and a good deal of park and pool play as well. With all of the back to school prep though,  the home life has felt a little hectic recently. Nevertheless, we got it all done without (much of) a hitch, though I think we were both ready to return to the more normalized schedule that the fall ushers in. In a way, this painting feels a little like a metaphor for me today. The storms are (for now) behind us, and hopefully we can enjoy a nice stretch of clear skies ahead.

Large Hatteras Island Painting -complete!

Here is the final version of the painting I have been working on for the past week or so:

"To the Sea" Oil on Gallery Wrapped Canvas, 30x40" Click here for more info, or contact me to purchase!

I had such a good time painting this piece I didn't want it to end. The  several prior studies I did of this subject (most of them on location) really helped to inform me about color choices and brushwork, and also, more importantly, they brought back the strong emotional connection I have with the subject. I felt like I was on vacation all over again. Don't get me wrong, this was work, too, but it is this kind of view that I see on summer vacations to the Outer Banks  when I step out on the deck in the morning to sip my first cup of coffee. For me it recalls a time to let  all the cares go and just relax!

My Facebook page, plus two plein airs from the OBX

It's been such a while since I've provided some blog love, but there's been so much going on this summer that it's been hard to keep up. However I do  have two little plein air pieces I'd like to share, having just returned from a fabulous week on Hatteras Island in North Carolina's Outer Banks:

These are both 8x8 studies done on birch panels, painted from the lower and upper decks of the beach house we rented in Salvo. I only painted on a couple of mornings (it was the hubby's vacation too, after all) but I so love painting there that I look forward to doing more and more of these in time. Here you can see me through the picture window, painting on the deck, while the kiddos finished up their breakfast. You might just be able to make out a cup of coffee on the railing. I had my breakfast delivered easel-side, too! Not a bad way to spend the morning. :-)

I didn't get to paint out on the shore due to either the timing or the wind, but hope to do so when we return to the Outer Banks in about a month. Though the legs are starting to go, I'm still lugging my big old Soltek easel around. However I'm finding it more and more cumbersome for travel. I may have to dust off my little Prochade kit for my next trip, though I will need to get used to the much smaller palette size again, and the fact that it does not stand up well at all to any kind of wind.

This is the first time I have painted on shellacked birch panel, but I really like it. I prepared my own panels with Zinsser Bullseye Shellac, two coats per side, and sanding in between. I have heard about this kind of panel before, but it was most recently recommended by Matt Smith in his workshop that I attended in the Spring, so I was eager to try it after that. I was a little afraid that the shellac would make for too slick a surface, but it was the just right amount of smoothness and tooth. It did take a little preparation, but once the panels were sealed, the wood provided a lovely blonde tone on which to paint...no extra toning needed.

One final note, I have finally created a Fan page on Facebook, on which I plan to update with announcements and goings on. You'll find a link to it in this post and also in the right sidebar. I guess I'm not exactly on the bleeding edge, but at least now I can finally say, "Like us on Facebook"!

The dunes, once more

We have stolen away to the beach. Well, that's not entirely accurate, as with a toddler we aren't really "stealing away" anywhere any more. More aptly put: We have loaded the entire contents of our house into the van and 6 hours later unloaded it into the beach house just in time for a total melt down. Our toddler was none too happy either. ;) But somewhere around the 24 hour mark I think we all settled into a groove, and I actually got up yesterday morning and painted.

"Dunes, Early Morning" Oil on Panel, 10" x 8"

This was originally to be a sky painting, but I got drawn into the light on the dunes once more. This was painted from our balcony ( our footpath to the beach is on the left. ) It's a great spot, but east-facing, and in the morning, completely sunlit. I started this around 7:20 a.m. By 9 I was roasting and had to wrap it up. I am mobile blogging so the color is seeming a bit washed out, but you get the general idea here of the morning's attempt. (Updated image)