"Spring Grasses" is a painting done about two weeks ago, before the green overtook our verdant coastal landscape.
In line with my project "91 Days of Summer", I will be posting a plein air painting for each day of summer and I shall endeavour to share what I am learning with each piece that I post. So, this is #1.
I don't think I have ever painted spring grasses and foilage before en plein air - the old dead growth in with the new, the foilage on the trees as they are just barely starting to green up. I have to confess, I found this one challenging.
The water was the easy part, larger straight forward shapes. I rendered the dead grasses by scraping the wet paint with the wrong end of my brush to suggest the texture - the next problem was painting the see through foilage on the trees. I had to try a couple of times - first trying to paint the background around the tree masses, which didn't work so well. I finally resolved it by painting in the backdrop of the mountains and just suggesting the foilage with a scrubby brush heavily loaded.
Every painting is a teacher, and holds a new lesson. That's why it's good to do a lot of them!
Opus has asked me to do a demo video en plein air this next week, and I shall post that as soon as it becomes available to me. Please let your friends know about my project and upcoming demo video release....let's get some momentum here! I am looking forward to hearing about your plein air adventures as well. Feel free to post questions for me should they arise.
Keep those brushes wet!
Best,
Gaye
No comments:
Post a Comment