Blinding Light

©2013 R.L. Delight, Blind Light, 6"x8", oil on canvas panel

Oh this week has been a challenge. The main challenge being the weather. Not bad weather but cold sunshine and wind blowing from the East off the mountains. This time of the year the sun is low on the horizon as it approaches the Solstice. I can't find a place to put my easel, indoors or out, that the light doesn't blind me. I literally cannot see the colors on my canvas accurately. The painting above is a case in point. The color of the sea on the horizon is too intense and jumps out. I couldn't tell until I photographed the painting late this afternoon. That is just one of the issues. I will put this one aside and come back to it later to see if I can fix it. This was painted using a plein air study I made in January 2013 as a reference.
The sunshine also means calm seas. The waves are so puny that they hardly make any foam. They stretch out in miles long unbroken lines parallel to the beach. Beautifully different but not what I like to paint. I might have to look into finding some nice rocks to paint while I wait the weather out.
Well, I just deleted a whole rant about bad insurance and enormous hospital bills and assorted billing errors. Amazing how easy it is to stray off topic! I won't bore you all but will say that the U.S. healthcare system is a rather sad testament to one of the many things that ails our beautiful country. Our people deserve better. Other countries lead the way.
The only way I know, the way forward, is to paint. So, I will paint. Good, bad, I will paint. It will all eventually work out one way or another.
I will get there. Dinner time calls. Tomorrow I paint.

Painting on Copper, the Verdict.

© 2013 R.L. Delight, Wave Study #48 in progress

This is Wave Study #48 from yesterday. I decided that I wanted to paint a little bit more on the copper to explore how it handled with an existing painting so I took another hour and "finished" the painting. Here is the finished wave study.  I wiped some of the sand wiped off too:

© 2013 R.L. Delight, Wave Study #48, 4"x6", oil on copper

I am not used to painting the ocean in the sun! It was also later in the day and the sun was in my eyes. Too windy for the umbrella. There was a lot of dazzling light and the values where hard to nail down due to the sun in my eyes. The sky should probably be completely cleaned off to get the sand and repainted. If this was a painting I planned to sell I would do that.
So my verdict on painting on copper? I believe I am going to like it a lot. I love the way the colors look. I will have to make adjustments to the intensity and value of the colors when I paint on copper. They seem to work differently than when I paint on canvas. Holding this painting up to the wave studies I have done on canvas makes them look dull. It will take a little practice to get the painting technique down but I think I will be able to make the adjustment fairly quick.
I thought I would wrap up the post with a teaser of sorts. I am planning to paint two self portraits. I am painting self portraits because the model works for chocolate and, while she is not always patient, she is willing to keep showing up. I needed a reference model for an element in the painting I am planning. I thought I would show it here:

Sea Dragon

She is about the size of my hand. I plan to start work on the painting next month, at least the sketching phase. Now do you see why I love being an artist? You get to order toys for yourself and no one questions since they figure it must be an artist thing!
One last picture of my mate and my sweet girl Twill waiting for goodies from our UPS delivery guy:

Easter at Hug Point

© 2013 R.L. Delight, Hug Point Study, 6"x8", oil on canvas

Yesterday the weather was sublime. We hit 70 degrees on our front porch! That is summer weather around here and not a common occurrence in March. Suddenly I "misplaced" my to-do list and decided that reading a book in the front yard was the most efficient use of my time.*
Today the weather changed again. I purposefully took Friday and Saturday off to get things done so I could start this week with today. The tides were below zero feet, otherwise known as a minus tide and the weather forecast called for sun so perfect conditions for painting at Hug Point. Lowest tide was at 10:35 am so I headed out the door at 8, along with my mate, to have plenty of time to paint before the tide turned. Alas, as often happens in this area, coastal fog has set in. I still went to paint as you can see from the picture above. It was cold though. This is a one hour study and I was shivering by the end of it in spite of my layers. I decided we should go back home even though I had planned to do another one hour study.
I have written about Hug Point before. It is a magical place but can be tricky. The last time I went the tide and surf were too high to paint this scene of the old road bed over the ocean. That is what this painting is, a portion of the view of the old road bed that used to be the only way to get a vehicle or horse down the coast. It was dangerous then as well and you had to time it right to cross before the tide came up. Certain times of the year it became impassible. At least, that is what I have read.
Here are some photos I took so you can get an idea of the scale of the place:

Hug Point road bed looking Northwest

Hug Point cliffs. Taken with back to the ocean on a misty foggy Easter day

Hug Point. Road bed along lower left of the cliff.

The cliffs on right side of this picture are riddled with caves which is how far back the waves go when the tide is high.

Hug Point roadbed from beach looking Southeast.

I will be painting at Hug Point again. Going there is bewildering because there is so much to paint. I could easily spend years, and hopefully will, painting there.

The waves were quite puny today. One of the drawbacks to painting at such a low tide. The fog obscured what little there were. This isn't too much of a problem since the surrounding scenery on the Northern Oregon coast is nothing less than stunning even on a bad day.
I haven't decided where to paint tomorrow but will probably get some wave studies in.

* I was reading The International Bank of Bob by Bob Harris. Highly recommend it, specially if you participate in making Kiva loans or are curious about it. It can get a bit gritty in some spots but leaves you with hope and faith in the world.

Wave Study #41

© 2013 R.L. Delight, Wave Study #41, 6"x8", oil on canvas

It seems the weather cleared up just in time. This morning was calm, cloudy with occasional sun, and a bit on the chilly side but good painting weather. The waves were so-so but, good enough to study. I still have a bit to go to achieve and understand what I want to. I am getting faster at painting waves. Must be all that practice. This one was painted in an hour plus. As I get faster, I can get more information in and work on values, brushwork, color, etc. Of course, I still have those times when the painting just plain fails. I learn from those too but they aren't as much fun.
I had a challenging time getting started this morning. Our band rehearsal went late last night. I need to get enough sleep in order to get out in the weather and paint anything resembling what I see in front of me. As a result, I got a later start than I wanted to. My turps (OMS) in its leak-proof, sealed container...leaked. Of course, I had just refilled it with fresh.  My pack took a header in the car and ended upside down on the floor. I don't know why I didn't set it on the floor as usual. I think the force of falling upside down  might have loosened the seal and allowed the container to leak. Fortunately I don't trust things like that in general and had it in a zip lock bag, which, considering the age of the bag, it is amazing that it managed to contain the leak. No turps were leaked or spilled onto the beach.
The same incident with the pack caused my freshly laid out paint on my palette to slide and mix with one another. That is a first for me too. I also managed to drop the lid to the turps container into the sand, wet side down.
Fortunately I was in a philosophical mood and just shrugged it all off, cleaned up as best I could and got the above painting!
It is spring break time around here which means a lot of families with kids and dogs wandering up and down the beach and our one main street in town. One beautifully freckled little girl very earnestly interrupted my concentration to tell me that my painting was very very good. She had snuck up on me and I didn't know she was standing there. I gave her a smile and a thank you and she went on her way.
I had an appointment this afternoon up the coast so I was only able to get the one wave study in but it is good to be back in the saddle after my mini break from wave painting with a lot of exciting things to come.

30 in 30 Challenge: Day 6

© 2013 R.L. Delight, "Storm Chased", 6"x8", oil on linen panel

Another studio painting of a plein air study, Wave Study #10 to be precise. I had hoped to get out today but the fog had come in along with the rain this morning and visibility was very poor.
I look at these paintings and I do see some progress but, I also see that more improvement is needed. I am satisfied that I am doing what I need to do and will keep working away at it, even after the challenge is finished.
I have a band rehearsal tonight so this post is short. Still trying to catch up to myself!

30 in 30 Challenge: Day 5

© 2013 R.L. Delight, "Just an Ordinary Magical Day", 6"x8", oil on linen panel

I painted the wave study for this painting (wave study #11) on 12/12/12. Hence the title "Just an Ordinary Magical Day". There is also something rather magical to have the ocean roaring in the background as I was painting this in my studio today. I have to be honest though, I like the wave study better than this studio painting! My back is really hurting for some reason and I was not as patient with the behavior of the paint as I usually am. These things show up in the painting. The stories paintings could tell if they could talk!
Today I just realized that I only have fifteen of these panels. I have used five of them and I have fifteen days that need panels beyond what I have. I will have to order more.
Speaking of ordering, all of the challenge paintings will be on the my DailyPaintworks gallery site and are available to purchase. I will be donating a percentage of the proceeds to one or more animal rescue groups I have in mind, including our local United Paws of Tillamook. I will get that up on the auction site and determine the percentage soon.
Weather and my back permitting, I will be heading out to paint en plein air again tomorrow. I am thinking that I would like to try painting directly onto a panel instead of the loose hemp canvas that I currently have. That means I will essentially be selling one of my painting references. I have mixed feelings about that. It would save me precious time to combine the wave study and challenge in one painting. I also tend to generally like the plein air paintings better than the studio ones. I would need to finish the paintings in the studio. There are a few drawbacks as well so I believe I will need to sleep on it. I would at least like to try it to see how well it would work.
I will stop this post here. I am babbling, a sure sign that I need sleep!

A Day of Mizzle and Rainbows

© 2012 R.L. Delight, Wave Study #2, oil on linen canvas board, 6"x8

I was planning to post this yesterday but when I got it home I decided that I wanted to tweak it just a little. Not too much though! This is a plein air wave study I did yesterday. The day was kind of a strange weather day. It was mizzling (mist/drizzle) on and off and the sun kept popping in to try to burn off the mist only to disappear again. They sky had a kind of pearly look to it and the clouds were outlined in dark violet with rosy interiors. As I was painting on the beach a strange low double rainbow appeared about 25 yards away. I couldn't decide it it was sprinkling or just a heavy mist. Of course, I left my camera at home.
In spite of the dampness, it was fairly warm. I shed my rain gear and hat fairly quickly. I had to choose angling my painting umbrella to block the overly bright diffuse sunshine or to keep the wet off. I chose to keep the sunshine off my painting so my palette and painting had water beading up on it.
I am starting to get the hang of composing these paintings. I pretty much decide where I want the horizon line, how much water, and how much shore. The choice depends on what is gong on at that moment. I watch the waves for a time and when I see how they are interacting (it changes hourly) then I pick a wave to start with and build the rest of the painting from there. Doesn't mean that I make a great painting everytime but I am learning how to shape the composition while painting a moving entity from life. Each painting I do points me to where I need to work next. I still have a ways to go but I am seeing improvement.
This painting was done on a Raymar Art canvas board. The board is covered with Classen''s #13 Linen. It was part of a sample pack I got to try the different surfaces. I liked this one the least. In fact I really didn't like it at all. I thought the linen too coarsely woven for the kind of surface I wanted. The other samples worked OK. I really like the smooth surface of one. I will probably go with that one eventually. In the meantime I have ordered some hemp yardage which arrived today. I am going to gesso it and use it loose for my plein air studies. When I am satisfied with the quality of my plein air paintings, I will go back to painting on the panels. I want to build up a reference sketch library to paint larger paintings from before I start selling my plein air paintings.
It has been a long day and I am having trouble keeping my eyes open. I hope to finish my little marine inspired still life tomorrow but if the day is decent, I will probably go out painting. The weather forecast says we will be having wet and stormy weather for a while starting soon so I need to paint outside while I can!
Stay warm and dry! -Renee