RAINY DAY SATURATED

Cold, Damp Spring.

It's not really conducive to a Plein Air painter's likes, but it's the kind of spring we're having. Friday it's raining and in the lower 50's, so we have to find a place where we will stay dry. Carolyn's went, so there's no painting in the car. We're tired of that anyway. I like for Carolyn to go, also.

 

We drive for awhile and settle in under the awning for the drive-thru of the old American Trust Building. Early spring is only visible in the trees above the buildings and in the rain.

 

Carolyn and I finish our renditions while Spearz is cold and getting rained on. He decides to finish his later. Carolyn's not happy with her work but I'm satisfied with mine. It captures the day pretty well. The picture that Spearz finishes, later, hits it well, too.

 

Monday is dryer but still chilly as we three are out in the country rendering a deserted farm in paints and pastels. If we could only catch a sunny day with bright colors, shadows and blue skies with patchy clouds. But NO! We are all getting good at cloudy, gray days. This is only good for mushrooms!

 

Later!  

JUST AROUND THE CORNER

CAROLYNs
"JUST AROUND THE CORNER"
Tim and I and Carolyn this time..came along to paint with us today. My turn to choose the location. We meaning I drove around the corner from 450 to 400. Tim wanted to paint a filed puddle. By J. Blair's farm was just such a field with a pull off and a series of piddles just as he described.

TIM's
I pulled off the road down a gravel lane which led to a back field.  I set up under the back hatch to keep the direct sunlight off of my paper canvas. When we painted in the car the sunlight was reflected and much less of it affected the color intensity. Now outdoors after along winter painting outdoors changed the color palette we were looking at.

MINE
In the car the palette  was much brighter to make up for the lack of light. Outdoors the palette was less intense since more light was hitting the colors, now. I stated with a prepainted surface using mostly a variety of greens, yellows, and blues which had dried.Carolyn was a "newbie" and didn't know where to start. Tim took her under wing and coached her to start with a sketch. Carolyn can draw and paint but needed encouragement. With little being said we worked at the puddles in the field and the gravel lane. Nearly and hour or more had passed and I felt like I was starting to"dabble" which is clearly and indicator to stop! I'm done I announced. Tim came back, " Yeah I'm almost there too." Carolyn decided she'd quit too. When we stood up and looked a our work for the day all three pieces were a success. That's the payoff. A few hours of out of mind enjoyment and now we were headed to grab a Subway 6" turkey and black forest ham with Jalapeño chips on the side. Is that a fine day or what? Good job, Carolyn. Good job,Tim. Good job,me!

WRIGHTS JUNK YARD A SUBJECT NOT A DESTINATION

Wrights Junkyard became the subject of todays outdoor painting excursion a place to paint  not a destination This is old junk yard has been a place of interest for some time but the last stop was that the "Nays" won. Today was Tim's day to select and after much driving I suggested Wrights. An old blue bus got my attention while Tim took the bigger view of two old yellow school busses and a truck.

This is Tim's The day was somewhat cool but very bright out. The day was good and we enjoyed the company and a Subway.Later a nap is in store for me...Tim? He has to take care of his Higher Ground Farm...chickens can be very demanding.
philandtim, laterrrr.

OVER TROUBLED WATERS

Lost bridge is a story itself and I think I've told the story. The bridge is currently in bad shape...new decking and beams are in order...still the old iron bridge is rusting away...so we decided to paint on the bridge. 


J.O. a teacher where I used to teach joined us. These are his two watercolors. He has done watercolor as long as I have known him. He has reduced the landscape to little more than a calligraphy.

We all worked for about  two hours  on different views. Tim to the west. J.O. to the east and I to the north. No plan, that's just how it worked out. We all have different styles and media/technique. My last watercolors were years ago...acrylic provided the quality I liked in opaque watercolor. So I've stayed with it.

Mine is done with a palette knife on a heavy artist paper. Tim's is pastel on pastel 'toothed' paper that accepts pastel chalks best.This is his below...

Aside from the cold wet weather I painted in the car on the apron of the bridge J.O. and Tim from the bridge center.

Later....

philandtimpaintoutdoors.

2 FER FOR ONE DAY

2 for One Day...slowly gearing up for spring.
That's what this is, for today. I've been feeling like I have a few concrete blocks tied to my waist. Kind of the Jacob Morely thing is going on....I guess as Tim says Spring fever. We went out to Salamonie dam last week and these   are the images 

near the bottom of this post. These two top ones are near Mexico,IN at the elevator. These grain solos fascinate me for some reason. I think it is the repetition of forms. Mine was done over a very dark and bright red- blue under-painting. Tim's has a purple cast. That is the secondary color mixture of blue-red, hmmmmmm.

My wife thinks our work is starting to look the same...style or technique. Maybe thats' because we watch each other's work progress over the last three years that we have been doing this.

I like to use under-painting while Tim does something similar in grounding the whole paper with soft colors which are dominant in the landscape.  I guess that is under-painting as well. So we have been morphing slowly into each other's style.
I guess that's inevitable after all this is philandtimpaintoutdoors see the tow names are run together like our works are becoming. Hey, laterrrrr.....Time for my nap.