Plein air painting in Silverlake, CA

Last week I found myself painting at the Silverlake reservoir in Los Angeles. I thought it would be fun to take some pictures as I went along and give a little insight into how I went about my painting. 

By no means do I have a standard way of approaching every painting, and especially with plein air I am still figuring things out as I go most of the time. I actually broke away from some of the things I usually do when painting this, so probably the next demo I post here will be a little better!

The Silverlake hills are beautiful but a little overwhelming for a 2 hour painting. I zeroed in to find a composition I liked and settled on the spot below. I was kind of far away and looking through this lovely chain-link fence, so I had to find a basic pattern that was appealing and not worry about the details.

I liked this palm tree at the top and the fact that this spot had a light pattern coming down from that tree, curving down the hill. You can see it a little better in this picture. 

If you compare it to the picture of the finished painting here, you can see that I moved things around and simplified things to suit the composition I wanted. However, I kept this basic light/dark pattern in mind until the finish, and it helped me to stay on track with the basic idea that I started out with.

I'll say now that I almost always paint a neutral wash on the surface to get rid of the white background before I start. And I probably should've done that on this one too. But I decided to jump right in and start. I drew a curved line to remind me of the flow I wanted to keep in this painting, and started placing the darks where I wanted.

I sloped the top of the hill on more of an angle as I didn't like it so flat.

I built this slowly, jotting down notes of darker color to slowly get the placement of my shapes in as well as figuring out what I wanted to do with the color. I made the colors more blue and grayed down as they receded, in order to create a sense of space, and got warmer greens in the front. I tried to keep the paint fairly thin and save the thicker paint for building up the light areas.

Below you can see it developed a little further as I put in the light shapes and figured out a bit more where I wanted to put things. I barely did any detail at this point--for one thing it was very hard for me to see from where I was! So I decided to take it home and finish it in my studio. At this stage, there was not much down, but it was very helpful to start this way instead of doing the whole thing from a picture.

I always take pictures right before I start the painting, and continue taking them as light changes until I'm ready to finish up. I'm really glad I did in this case, because look how much the reflections had changed over the hour or so I had been painting! 

Continuing in the studio:

Now I began building the details, while trying to continue simplifying what I saw and not getting too picky about the details. One thing I really didn't like from the start is how the composition is cut off with the bank of the reservoir.  So I kind of downplayed that area and you can see I ended up just keeping that loose and darkened it up on the sides.

Ta-da! The finished painting!

Reflections - 9"x12" - oil on paper (Arches Oil Paper!)

Hopefully this was interesting and useful in some way! Come back soon. :) 

This painting is available for sale through Art Cricket LA 

Ray Roberts workshop

A few weeks ago I had the wonderful opportunity to assist Ray Roberts during a workshop, through the California Art Club's mentorship program. It was a four-day workshop called, "From Field Sketch to Studio Painting." The first 2 1/2 days were spent painting on location, in Eaton Canyon near Pasadena, and the last day and a half were spent in the studio, where we learned how to utilize those little sketches and make a nicely composed and interesting picture.

I'd never received any instruction on landscape painting before, even from a book, so I was really excited to get acquainted with this area. Although I still have lots to learn, I really got a LOT out of this workshop. By the way, if you aren't familiar with Ray Roberts, here's an example of his beautiful work:

I have to admit, I find it pretty difficult to get excited about landscapes, even though I love the process of plein air painting. But Ray is one of the handful of landscape painters that I just love.

So during the workshop I did five paintings over the 2 1/2 days on location. The first four were "learning experiences", and I'd rather not tarnish my large and impressive reputation by posting them. We didn't have a lot of luck with the sun--it was sort of hazy and cloudy for most of the time, so it was trickier for me to find an interesting subject. Luckily, the sun came out on the last outdoor day and my fifth painting was one I was happy with and interested in turning into a larger painting during our time in the studio:

Plein air sketch, backlit tree in Eaton Canyon

I probably painted for about 45 minutes to maybe an hour. You can see at this point the light was totally different and wasn't lighting up the tree at all anymore. This is what makes plein air painting fun. And frustrating, if you don't work fast. 

Here's how my painting began once we were in the studio--figuring out a light and dark composition that I liked:

It's amazing how much of a difference it made to have that color study on hand to refer to. It's so easy to lose the essence of what you saw in person that made you want to paint something, when you're just going off a photograph alone.

Here's the finished painting!

The Golden Hour -- 14"x18" --oil on canvas

Painting in Provence

I learned a lot on my recent trip to Provence, even before I left the last airport on my three-plane, one-train journey. The first thing I learned, and the most important lesson I think, is that there is at least one European man out there who sprays his crotch with perfume in duty-free shops.

The next very important lesson is that some French people really do say, "Ooh la la!" I also learned the circumstances that will make me cry like a 5-year-old in public. Namely, traveling for 36 hours without sleeping or eating more than a bag of potato chips, having my luggage lost, consequently missing my train and then not understanding French well enough to operate the pay phone. After explaining this to certain information desk ladies, you may hear an exclamation of, "Ooh la la!"

I took 2401 photographs on my 10-day trip. 359 of these were taken of the clouds on my first plane ride, from Los Angeles to Boston. I took a break after the man sitting next to me slit his wrists, driven to insanity by the incessant clicking of my camera shutter. But really, can you blame me?

At any rate, it was all worth the trouble once I got to the beautiful Châteauneuf-de-Gadagne. Our chateau was incredible--almost 2000 years old, with a beautiful view.

Our communal area 

A couple of artists painting in the courtyard.

A gorgeous day painting in Gordes.

One of the first things that struck me about Provence was the light, often creating an intense lavender sky in the evenings. Here is one of the many "Are You Kidding Me?" moments brought to you by the average Provencal sunrise:

Every morning was different, but continually breathtaking. I wanted to paint the morning light, but it wasn't until one of my last days that I finally got up early enough. I had a false alarm the day before when I set the alarm for 6:30, poked my head out the window, said "The light's not right," and went back to sleep. Before I left, I was blessed with the golden light I had been waiting for. I scouted out a good spot and did the drawing on my canvas in advance, and set up my gear the night before so I could capture that light in the short time I would have. I started painting as soon as light broke and really only had about 20-25 minutes before it had changed too much to keep going. I finished the painting when I got home, mostly from memory.

"Sunrise Over Provence" - oil on linen - 8"x10"

I had a bit of a struggle painting while I was there, which I eventually realized was because of the solvent I was using to clean my brushes. (You can't bring your own solvent on the plane). I'm used to cleaning my brushes with a solvent that evaporates in a few minutes, whereas this thinner took DAYS to dry. The result was something like painting with soup, which is not an easy endeavor! I brought a wax medium that was good for thickening the paint and speeding the drying time one day, but the next day I was painting in the full 90 degree sun, and sadly my wax medium melted and succeeded only in making my painting soup into more of a stew. But it was still a lot of fun, and always educational to paint from life.

I will leave you with two more paintings completed on the grounds of our chateau. The second is a portrait of a fellow artist staying with us who was nice enough to pose.

"Afternoon Ruins" - oil on linen - 6"x8"

"The Gentleman" - oil on panel - 8"x10"

Resident cat standing in during a break.

Bonus: here's a painting I did after coming home from the trip. 

Waiting for Juliette - 16"x20" - oil on canvas

Plein Air painting: Dirt, oranges, and a banana.

So, today I had what I call my first real plein air painting session. For all you painters who live in a hole, and for regular people who don't paint: plein air basically just means painting outdoors. It comes from the French en plein air, 'in the open air.'

Anyway, I call it my first real plein air painting because I thought that I had never done it before, but then I realized I that I actually have. But the other times I was making watercolor sketches and not necessarily trying to make anything look like real life, and this time I was using oils and wearing a painting hat.

I decided not to get too adventurous for my first time, so I headed to Prospect Park in Redlands. I parked, prepared for a long expedition to find The Perfect Spot, and found it in an orange grove after looking around for about 10 seconds. Feeling like I should take this thing more seriously, I wandered around checking out the other options, and eventually ended up back where I started, about 15 feet from the parking lot.

Plein air painting definitely brought a whole new set of Challenges. Namely:

The Challenge of how to not drop your brushes in the dirt a second time.

The Challenge of how to not use unladylike language when the wind is blowing everything goddamn everywhere.

And most of all, the Challenge of what to paint when the lighting is changing every five minutes--from completely overcast, to so-blindingly-bright you can't tell if you are painting with ultramarine blue, or a banana.

But all in all, I ended up having what I would categorize as a really fun time. Which for some reason kind of surprised me. And as an added bonus, I learned some things that are going to help me in the studio. I won't share those things with you. It would be too boring, and useful.

I was out for about 2 1/2 hours, and here is what I came up with:


Love, Nat