Late Winter at Amalga - fini

Egads! It is soooooo nice and sunny and warm! 

Hard to imagine that chilly March day

 when I sketched at Amalga Harbor for this painting.

Late Winter at Amalga  oil on canvas panel  8" x 10"

I really love the way this turned out ... I believe

this will be one of the paintings I will submit for the Plein Rein Annual Calendar.

and below, the b&w.

Thanks for viewing my art!

Amalga -continued

Wow! Another gorgeous day here!

I actually went out and painted Fireweed!

I will post that at a later date.

Here is the continuation of my Amalga painting.

Will post the finished painting tomorrow.

Amalga Harbor plein air/studio painting

It is still July for a couple more days 

and we have had some resplendent days here in Juneau lately. 

June was pretty darn nice too!

Weekend activities included biking out to the

 Juneau Arboretum 

with our good friends Rick and Dayna.

Then today Matt and I hiked to Granite Creek Basin 

with more good friends Julia, Liesl and sweet dogs Chelsea and Ayla.

This next little series of photos show the progression of a little painting from the Plein Rein Painters annual retreat (March), which I wrote about about earlier in the year.

This painting began on our last day of the painting retreat and we were only out about an hour when it began to snow, so we booked it out of there. 

But I had enough paint down and had some reference photos 

to finish the painting in the studio just a few days ago.

I will begin with the sketch, previously posted on 3/13/13:

Next is the rough-in, which I had not previously posted.

Tomorrow I will post again with another progression and the finished photo of the painting. 

Getting a little tired after hiking 7-8 miles today!

Thanks for viewing!

Finished Virtual Paintout - July

It was fun to do this little painting for the VPO.

Toodling around Charleston, 6" x 8", oil on paper

... and in b&w.

I guess toodling isn't in the dictionary yet ... 

but most everyone will know what it means. Yes?

VPO - Charleston, Day 3

Ok, back to my painting in Charleston, S Carolina. 

Today work was on the greens and the first bicyclist.

If you haven't checked out the Virtual Paintout website, you should!

There are many very nice pieces posted.

The Yellow Raincoat - plein air

Today I went with the Juneau Plein Rein painters up Basin Road to a Gold Creek gravelbar. 

This spot is where lots of tourists go to pan for gold. 

The foot bridge in the picture leads over to the mining museum.

The day began with low clouds threatening rain, but as the morning progressed, the clouds thinned and blue sky appeared! I painted for about two hours on this little 6x6 panel. Forgot my palette knife so I was forced to use brushes!

We saw a Harlequin female duck with her ducklings in the fast flowing stream. They literally ran across the swift current to cross the river, seeming fearless!

The Yellow Raincoat    oil    6" x 6"

(I will get back to my Charleston painting in a bit.)

Thanks for looking and making a comment!

Virtual Paintout, Charleston - Day 2

Virtual Paintout/Charleston, SC

Thumbnail sketch of the street view I found 

on Google Maps for the July 2013 Virtual Paintout.

Working on Arches-for-oil paper - got my darks in.

Before the Rain

Southeast Alaska weather turned in the night - from real summer with sunshine and everything - to hard wet rain today! Maybe it has to get it out of its system.

After pulling lots of alder from our side yard, before it got too big, I set up my pochade box there in the yard and had about an hour's worth of painting before it was time to help prepare dinner.

I thought I may have ruined this painting but then I put a couple of finishing touches on at about midnight last night in the studio and now I like it!

This was painted with water soluble paints and a palette knife (mostly). There is nothing to judge scale, but from the bottom of that old scrap of a tree at the bottom of the painting to the top of the tallest Indian Rhubarb is 5 or 6 feet.

I broke the centering rule (do not center things in your painting) but I like how it turned out.

Before the Rain   10" x 8"   oil on prepared board

This does not look like it does in real life, unfortunately.

Here is the value shot.

Wishing everyone a very happy Independence Day! ...coming up on Thursday!!!

Thank you for taking a peek at my blog.