In progress

The plan was, and though I had second thoughts about it, still is to have buildings along a canal that will cover a fair amount of the trees as they stand right now & will be reflected in the water as well. I was not crazy about my first set of buildings, sketched in another and then abandoned the idea.  But I'm over that now & will get it to work tomorrow. Maybe.

Early Morning Frost

Here is yesterday's start, finished. Not quite what I had in mind yesterday. I had to move the sun behind me so that the buildings would have a combination of sun and shade. I had at one point drawn in the tree branches for the nearer trees, but I did not like that effect, so I went for a more fuller approach. Owes a lot to my previous Market Garden painting.   The lighting was a bit uneven -- amazing how the camera picks it up though it is not visible to my eye -- so the photo is a little funky, but it will do.

18x25" 45x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Work in Progress

Given my approach to painting -- a sketchy impressionism -- and my use of rather large brushes to keep me from getting too fussy about things, there is a danger that I might use my approach just to be quick and lazy. While I admit to nothing, I decided to use a smaller brush this time to concentrate my focus a little.

I paint right handed and paint on a desk rather than on an easel so that I tend to paint from the upper left corner down and across the board, if only to avoid dragging my cuffs through wet paint. I started this painting at the bottom this afternoon -- you can see what's left of the morning's work on top -- and decided that it was safer to wait until tomorrow when the bottom was dry before proceeding further.

Morning, High Street Lillihill

This is a plan 'B' painting, and improvised at that. My originally intended painting did not work out, and seems unlikely to do so, so I just grabbed a smaller board this afternoon and started to work out some ideas (I want to paint trees without leaves this week) -- and use the paint that would otherwise go to waste.  With smaller paintings I am a lot less fussy, and while this is nothing much, it isn't worth painting over.

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Weir on the Lenant

I spent way too much time on this small painting today. I rather hope it will be the last one on this theme -- as I should be putting a little more thought into what I paint. I generally follow the seasons with my painting and the leaves are off the trees around here, so I will try my hand at painting leafless trees next week. That, at any rate is the plan.

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Foot Bridge at Willowbee revisited

As a student of painting who is just trying to discover just how to paint, I don't have all that high of standards for keeping a painting. What it can't do, however, is bug me, and the building on the first edition of this scene, bugged me. So I took it out, and while I was at it, decided to make the whole scene a bit mellower.

18x24" 45x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Foot Bridge at Willowbee

This piece is a variation on Monday's The Weir Near Compton Station.  I  had that painting up and last night while looking at it without my glasses on -- the best way to view my paintings -- I noticed a light area that looked like it could be a building in the trees -- essentially this painting. This painting is a little too up and down, too literal, but it will do.

Painting like I do, I have to be sure that the viewers realize that I am not trying to be detailed. If there is any confusion, they might think I am trying to be detailed and failing.  That was the problem with my work yesterday which I scraped off and did not post. Besides not liking the colors, it was a too much of a scene, too detailed but not detailed enough to work.

Below is today's afternoon painting. It is actually the same scene that I was trying to paint yesterday, thought less of a set-piece then the first attempt. In my first attempt I was attempting to put my morning walk to good effect by painting sunrise on the trees and the full harvest moon still low in the western sky. It was just out of my current comfort range when it came to colors & such.  This one is one of my standard issue misty morning ones.

The Old Lock at Willowbee

each 18x24" 45x60cm acrylic on hardboard

The Weir Near Compton Station

Back to painting this week. Pottered around with this painting all morning with little to show for it, so I started fresh this afternoon and just decided to go with the flow, and so I did.

18x24" 45x60cm  acrylic on hardboard

Mist and Willows

This is just something I did this afternoon to cover over the other River Crossing painting from last week. It is the type of painting I do without thinking at this point in time. I did not know what I wanted to paint: only that I wanted to cover up the previous painting, so I just started painting and went with the flow. I did try several other approaches that did not seem to work -- I was not happy with the colors,  so I ended up reverting to a familiar standard.  Who knows if this will last any longer than the painting underneath it.

16x24" 40x60cm acrylic on hardboard

No Painting today

Having fun with another project, so I did no painting today. Maybe tomorrow -- getting some ideas in the meanwhile.

Bridge and Barges

Since I didn't have a clue as to what to paint today, I decided to go back and rework one of last week's less than stellar pieces. Just as in my writing, I find that it is sometimes best to edit out things to make a piece better. In this instance,  keeping only the bridge and barges I think improved the work -- even if you're not getting a lot of paint for you money.

It is a gloomy day here, so the photo is a bit funkier than usual.  I've taken hundreds of photos of paintings and I am amazed at how unseen tiny variations in shadow and light make a big difference in a photo and how hard it is to get all the colors right, no matter what you do.

16x24" 40x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Above the Weir at Copper Vale

Not great, but after a week of not painting well at all, I'll not complain.  I used to hate painting the summer's greens and looked forward to autumn and the autumn colors to paint, but I don't seem to be on top of my fall color game.  With a bit of luck, I will have next week to work on it...

18x24" 45x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Chasing my tail

I did end up working on the River Cross Station Dawn painting (above) for what it's worth. This week I'm just chasing my tail and can't seem to get anywhere.  It appears that my leeriness of painting these scenes was justified.  Below is the down and dirty revision of River Cross Station Dusk that I did this afternoon -- removing River Cross Station and changing it into a boulevard for no improvement, but since I'm painting as a student: it counts as practice.   (Both 16x24" 40x60cm acrylic on hardboard).

Finally, since I had time, I decided, what the hell,  I'd do a quick study and take a peek at how tomorrow's paintings might work out in order to avoid even more tail chasing. At least I have the rest of the evening to think about this one.

River Cross Station, Dusk - Last Version

Above is the latest, and last version of River Cross Station, Dusk.  I'm not sure it is much of an improvement, but I'm having my doubts about the whole exercise anyways.  Below is my quick sketch of River Cross Station, Dawn, mainly blocked in for position.  Can't say I'm too fired up about it. I have two other paintings in mind for this week, so it may get bumped back to next week, if at all.

both 16x24" 40x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Nothing to Show Today

Decided to revise yesterday's 'River Cross Station, Dusk' painting and ended up it  and all my  day's work scraping off. Oh well. Did explore quite a few ideas, none of them worked, however.

River Cross Station, Dusk

I have been trying to figure out how to paint an urban scene without being too closed in. Today I simply opened up my umbrella and flew like Mary Poppins over the city. The painting turned out somewhat crude -- it always was going to be more than a little abstracted. I had hoped that I could paint the foreground in a bit more flowing manner, but as a first attempt, it will have to do. I'm planning a 'River Cross Station, Dawn'  and hopefully I can smooth things out a bit.

16x24" 40x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Market Garden, Autumn Morning (Sunday's edition)

If I hadn't painted a series of this themed paintings last year, I would have given up on this painting a while ago and painted over it. But having done these once, I did not like to think I could no longer paint them. This is the final version. I'll settle for it.

18x24" 45x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Market Garden, Autumn Morning (Saturday's edition)

Here is today's revision of yesterday's painting -- having the trees recede in the distance and a revised wall and foreground. Not thrilled by the foreground, will have to see if I can come up with something else.

Market Garden, Autumn Morning

I did a three painting series of market gardens last fall, and this painting represents a return to that theme -- for no particular reason. I had a barn or a shed on the left, but it looked clunky, so I moved it mostly off the frame and plunked in another one in the distance, back beyond the wall.  I really should try to get a few buildings into my paintings -- but I've not been very happy with them  when I do.

18x24" 45x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Autumn Meadow Morning

This is my morning's painting. I decided to go with the flow and paint another tree and field painting, though this time I used the thinner, drier, more pastel approach similar to "A pond in a Mist" rather than the thinker technique of my usual  'Friday paintings' . I find I really have an aversion to painting straight 'set piece scenes'. That is to say paintings were all the elements, trees, buildings, people, trains, etc are plunked into their places to create a realistic setting or scene. For example, tossing in a deer or two in this painting. (Not that you could tell my deer from my cows or sheep.) Maybe I've done enough of those, or maybe this is just a passing fancy, but I don't feel like doing them. Expect more of these more abstracted landscapes.

18x24" 45x60 cm acrylic on hardboard

Below is my afternoon painting. I decided to keep trying to work on an urban version of my vague, foggy paintings. Luckily I decided to do so on a small scale, because this is as close as I could get to an urban setting. It turned out a bit gloomy, but it was a rainy, gloomy day, so it is in keeping with the afternoon's feeling.

The Lagoon on a Gloomy Afternoon

8x12" 20x30cm acrylic on hardboard

Small works

With nothing in mind to paint today, I decided to devote my time to painting some small works for an affordable art sale that a fellow artist puts on in early December. The lower right is yesterday's work, the other three are today's -- drawing on several ideas that I've used in the past month or so.

each is 6x8" 15x20cm acrylic on hardboard

Little Painting

Improvising as much as I do I expect to scrape off a lot of paint -- which is what I did with the day's major work.  I took a little time at the end of the day to do this small painting -- only it's small size and my small expectations saved it from being scrapped clean as well. I seemed to have taken a blurry photo of it and rather over sharpened it to boot ... but you can see all it's glorious texture.

6x8" 15x20cm acrylic on hardboard

Harbor with Lighters

There was a railroad bridge in this scene before lunch.  The problem was that it was hard to engineer it to be level and look right. Eventually I gave up and edited it out, changing the scene from a Thames-like river scene to this more industrial or harbor scene.  My intention was to apply this vague style to something other than trees -- cities in fact. The problem with cities is that  one generally views buildings from the street and it is hard to stand back from an building without making the painting rather unrealistic -- perhaps factories would easier to isolate and paint.  Tomorrow's project.

16x24" 40x60cm acrylic on hardboard

River Morning

Last night, looking at last week Friday's painting I got an idea: I saw the trees as a plume of steam and smoke from a steam engine or two and so I set out today to paint such a scene.  And I did. The only thing is that I did not like it, and, having done some similar pieces, I decided that it was too much of a 'been there, done that' sort of thing, so I  scraped it off and scrambled for another idea.

The problem with painting cities and buildings is that they are rigid and sharp edged, so they're hard to render in a loose sketchy style typical of  this series of paintings, even in a fog.  It is a problem I've yet to solve, so I opted for a river scene today -- another option I've been considering.

18x24" 45x60cm acrylic on hardboard

The Boulevard Hotel

No post yesterday -- morning appointment, then cleaning up a branch brought down by overnight winds and other yard and gardening chores to do since it was a nice sunny day. Also, had no idea what to paint.

Today's painting is a first attempt to apply the abstract, low contrast, limited palette and misty approach of my 'Friday paintings' to something other than trees and a field.  Started with a city scene -- a start, but it ain't as elegant or as abstracted as I'm thinking I might like it to be. It's all up in the air as to how I can apply what I want to do to what type of scene. Tomorrow being Friday, I'll see what I think of this tomorrow and go from there.

16x24" 40x60cm acrylic on hardboard

 

Pond in a Mist

Since I've gotten serious about painting over the last year or two, my paintings have gotten less ambitious -- I'm more concerned about particular aspects of painting -- the tactical aspects of them, so to speak than the over all painting. I much more a student now.

Today's work was painted on the old 'Shore Road' board from several weeks ago. It began today as an attempt to see if I could apply the style I use for my 'Friday paintings' in a painting with much more contrast than those pictures. My attempt was not promising, so I scrapped things off and painted this in a much flatter style, trying to reproduce the soft landscapes of some pastels. I'll look at it again tomorrow to see what I think.

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

A Transistion Day

Traveled over the weekend, and played hooky from painting with some yard and garden work, it being a nice day for a change. Did do a little work in the morning -- above, painted over the the unfinished work from last week. While traveling though central Wisconsin I saw an area of pine covered limestone bluffs and thought it might make a good scene to paint. Don't think so now, after this quick sketch. I'll have to decide 'where I want to go next' with my paintings, as I think I'm done with Cape Cod for now.

Field in an Autumn Mist

Another 'Friday painting', the third in my series of subtle landscapes. I had first painted this as a London style square, but I've done a lot of those and it seemed too familiar --so it was back to field and trees for one more time.

18x24" 45x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Revised revsion

Minor changes (the pine woods on the left is gone), but I think -- at the moment -- an improvement -- better lines.  The whole trend in these revision seem to be making the lines less plump, flatter -- a more sweeping, open feeling.

16x24" 40x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Early Autumn Saturday Along the Road to Bayport Revised

Above is the painting I started this afternoon -- it is meant to be a painting similar to yesterday's Early Autumn Saturday, but with the house in the foreground as part of the painting rather than being tacked on. As you can see I paint on hardboard with a clear gesso undercoating -- I prefer the warmer tan background to the normal white gesso, if only because it does not show all the little holes without paint as much as a white background.  

Below is the Revised Early Autumn Saturday Along the Road to Bayport. Yesterday's version was a painting sort of caught in mid-hop -- the house did not belong in a study of fields, shrubs and sky, and there was not enough nostalgic value outside of the old time house to make it work in that way. We'll see if by bringing the house closer, I can capture what was lost by moving the house out of the frame.