What's on the Easel?

I went back to Oatlands to be a plein-air painter during the Loudoun Sketch Club's exhibit. This was the fourth and last scheduled time I signed up for, but I know I'll be going back to paint at Oatlands often in the future! Everywhere you look is a potential painting. I used to paint there a lot in the early 2000s, when I had an art group in my community called the Centreville Regional Art Guild, and we often went to Oatlands to paint. It's so nice to be part of a group of artists and be able to paint together. Now I go paint with the Loudoun Sketch Club! Today I set up just about 15 feet to the left of where I painted yesterday, looking in the same direction. From this angle, you can see up a little alley between boxwoods to a low brick building which is used as a greenhouse. (The south side of the building is all glass.) I like this view because of the way the sun made colorful shadows - I chose to include the gravel path in the foreground because I love the colors of su...

After working on the large Oatlands painting on Tuesday, I took a few days off from painting. I stretched canvases for my M painting and my next NGA copy, got my Covid and Flu shots on Thursday and felt kind of yucky on Friday, but today I went back to Oatlands to paint during my 1-3 shift for the Loudoun Sketch Club (during their exhibit there, painters are deployed around the grounds to demonstrate what we do.) Today was pretty cool and breezy, and I brought a few different size panels, since I never know what size I'll want to use.  It was overcast but bright, with the sun sometimes peeking out. I chose a view looking south (into the light). I had noticed the beautiful light filtering through the woods and illuminating the orange and yellow leaves. I also have a thing for Adirondack chairs, both to sit in and to paint. I stood so that two of them were in the foreground and could act as "narrator objects" for the view. This painting took exactly two hours. I may make mi...

I wasn't planning on going back to Oatlands until this weekend, when I'm scheduled to be one of the plein-air painters again for the Loudoun Sketch Club, which is having an exhibit there through November 16. I started this painting on Saturday in full sun, and today was forecast to be partly cloudy and windy, so I didn't think I would go. It's supposed to get super windy again this week, and this weekend was going to be overcast, so I had resigned myself to finishing this painting from my photos. Not the way I like to work.  But when I got up today, I saw that there was bright sunshine and very light winds. Change of plans! I quickly got my gear together and asked my husband to accompany me, and off we went. I got there around noon and painted until a little after three. I corrected the color on the shaded sides of the house and put in the sky. I also worked more on the leaves of the Canna plants and put those brilliant red flowers in. I like the way the intense colors ...

Well, conditions were not favorable today for me to continue working on the large painting I started yesterday at Oatlands. Yesterday was completely sunny, and today was overcast. I can only work on this painting on a similarly sunny day. But worse, it was very windy. Having such a large canvas on the easel outside in the wind is a recipe for disaster. I had a bag of rocks that my husband rigged up to hang under the easel so it wouldn't blow over, but even with that, I didn't want to risk it. And the sun wasn't there. Luckily, I planned for this possibility, and brought a 9" x 12" panel. I set up in the garden where I was slightly more sheltered from the wind and chose a view with a beautiful, lush red bougainvillea potted plant. It was perched on a lovely old stone wall, with the old red brick garden dependency buildings and smokehouse in the background. I really enjoyed focusing on this gorgeous potted plant. When the sun came out from time to time, I was able t...

The weather was perfect today for painting! I got to Oatlands a little after 11 and went to my pre-chosen spot in the garden. It took a little while to set up my easel (I'm using a half-box French easel because of the large canvas - it's 31" high), tweak the length of the legs so it was level on the slightly uneven ground, get my palette, paints and brushes arranged, and position the umbrella so it cast shade in the most important area - my mixing palette. The canvas was too large and the umbrella too small to keep the whole canvas in the shade, but it was OK.  Progress shot - getting the layout roughed in After my physical set up was ready, I spent quite a while peering through my view finder and measuring, to make sure I got things positioned as I wanted. I like to be accurate with architecture, and this is quite a complex structure. I used Gamsol to draw with thinned down paint. If I needed to correct my drawing, I wiped it out with a paper towel and Gamsol.  By the tim...

Today was the day to deliver three paintings that will be on exhibit at the Loudoun Sketch Club's annual show, "Art in the Heart of Loudoun", which this year takes place at the Oatlands Historic Site in Leesburg, VA. I'm going to be doing a plein-air painting demo this Saturday, October 18th, from 11-1, just before the show's reception, which is from 1-3. I used to paint at Oatlands all the time in the early 2000s, and it feels good to be able to paint there again. I walked around the grounds and garden today to choose my spot. I'm pretty sure this is the view I'm going to paint:  I'm also going to be painting there during the exhibit on 10/19, 10/25, and 10/26 from 1-3. I think it would be interesting to work on the same painting all four days (and maybe beyond.) I'll get it all laid in this Saturday when I paint from 11-1, and on the other three days, the light will be different, because it will be from 1-3. The front on the mansion faces south, ...

I've started this new blog  to document what I'm currently working on. I put out a monthly newsletter called "What's on the Easel", which you can subscribe to   here,  but I think a blog is more immediate. I have been keeping a blog about   copying at the National Gallery   for many years, but I haven't been documenting my day-to-day painting projects, efforts, and struggles in a blog. I have just finished working on "L", the latest in my Alphabet series, Still Life A-Z.  As in my other Alphabet paintings, all the objects start with the same letter. In this painting there are: Lilies Loving Cup Lychees Limes Lifesavers Lion Lincoln Logs Landscape painting with Lighthouse Lit Lamp Lemon Lavender cloth Now I'm collecting objects and stretching a canvas to start my next Alphabet painting, "M". I make lists and free associate on the letter I need. I try to use objects that are meaningful or clever. Once I collect enough objects, my process ...