On the Road Back After Art Atrophe

Because I am a glutton for punishment and self-evaluation, I revisited the site of my first plein air painting today. The first took place on 7/6/2013. Let's be clear: my first attempt was a complete disaster. Complete. Utter failure. Have you ever had a moment when your opinion of your skills hits the hard wall that is reality? Ouch. It is like putting on skis after not skiing for 30 years and expecting to traverse the moguls just like the good old days. My first plein air attempt was a brutal wake up call that 30 years of very little artistic endeavor had taken its toll. So, I decided to give it my all for a year and revisit the site a year later to see if I've been able to breathe any life into my dormant artistic skills.

Here's my painting from today on the easel from the field where I was 'out standing'.

I am fairly happy with the barn and the foreground and think that maybe the concerted effort over the last year have awakened my artistic perceptions. However, I'm not back yet: why I got lazy on the tree and phoned it in I'll never know! You can't see it it in the photo above because the umbrella is in the way, but the tree is gnarled and interesting and would have been a nice if I'd done a better job of rendering it. Next time I'll rough in a more interesting shape with darks and then carve out the lights and sky. In fact, I just may revisit that tree again sometime soon...

All in all, I'm pleased with where I'm at after 15 months, and still having a blast knocking the rust off my painting. I've been trying some 6x6 daily paintings this week too and am finding the small size and focused subject matter very liberating. Here are a couple attempts from this week:

I know you're curious, but I'm not emotionally ready to show you my first plein air attempt. However, I think my delicate phsyche can handle showing you 25% of the whole and let you extrapolate the awesomeness of the complete painting....Ouch.

Barn From Wyngrove Cemetery

It is October and I am starting my "30 Days of Painting" that Jan mentioned in her last post. Like her, I have some travel dates planned but will paint every day I am home. I may not complete a painting but I will paint.

So, I had 90 minutes at lunch yesterday to complete a painting and hopped in my car and drove to an old pioneer cemetery from 1850 with gravestones memorializing some of the first settlers in northern Illinois. Nearby is a barn I've admired every morning driving to work and was glad to have an opportunity to paint it. Since I was strapped for time, I had a plan to be very efficient: 1) Simple drawing. 2) Put in darks first. 3) Put in lightest lights next. 4) Every other value should fall in between.

Here's the barn.

This shot above is looking northwest. Looking directly west (below) is a nice view of what those settlers back in 1850 might have seen and I thought it would be fitting to add it to my painting.

I finished the painting below in about 75 minutes so with set up and clean up I was done in 90 minutes.

Barn from Wyngrove Cemetery, Oil on Canvasboard 8"x10"