Exreme Plein Air Painting

I have made it out to paint for three consecutive days now! As I mentioned in the last post, my first painting was really too horrible to post at this time. However I have pictures of the last two day's effort. I am going to post today's painting first, in a moment. Yesterday the conditions were perfect for painting. Since it was the Thanksgiving holiday and we have a lot of visitors in town, there was a lot of people on the beach and just as many dogs. I really wanted to concentrate on my painting so I kept my head down and didn't make eye contact so only one person came up to chat. There were people climbing on the rocks behind me and then sitting a while to watch. I didn't mind. I just didn't want my concentration to be disturbed.
Today's weather was completely different. Pretty typical for the Northern Oregon Coast. I headed out with my gear even though it was raining. The winds were light. I have a plein air umbrella that clamps to my setup which keeps off either the sun or the rain. It doesn't do so well in wind, let alone both rain and wind. The weather was calmer on the north end of the beach. It was actually fairly warm due to the warm front moving through. I hike from my house which is about a mile and a half, mostly along the beach. I figure it is a good way to get some exercise in. I had to secure part of the umbrella to my tripod with a bungie cord. Thankfully I carry some with me! The day was very gray and rainy with a lot of mist. I had to continually grab the umbrella when any large sets of waves would come in. The wind they produced threatened to knock my setup over. I painted for about 2 hours when I began to realize the weather had changed. The wind shifted and the temperature dropped. I rushed to get the painting as finished as I could and then packed up to hike home. The wind had picked up so much the rain stung my face and I had to keep my head down and lean into the wind as I walked.
I made it home fine but I was completely soaked through in spite of my rain gear (jacket, rainpants, rubber boots, and several high performance underlayers). I pretty much pushed my gear and myself to the limits. I am still cleaning and drying everything out! Today was a day of extreme plein air painting. So, here is today's painting:

© 2012 R.L. Delight, The Day After, plein air wave study, 6"x8" oil on hemp canvas.

You can still see some water drops. The umbrella kept most of the water off but not all. The foreground is not finished. I will probably finish it in the studio later on today.
Here is yesterday's. As you can see, quite a different day even though it was overcast too.

© 2012, R.L. Delight, Home for the Holiday, plein air wave study, 6"x8", oil on hemp canvas.

The color on the first picture is close but slightly off due to the fact that the day is so dark that I had to turn on a light in order to get a photo. I would reshoot it if it was a formal painting.
On a final note, I am going to have to replace my old rain gear with honest to goodness foul-weather gear. Today was warm (about 58 degrees) but being as wet as I was could be dangerous when it is colder. My boots have cracks in them and my feet get quite wet. I never can seem to find waterproof boots that will last a whole year before starting to crack. I have even tried more expensive ones. If anyone has any suggestions please leave a comment!
Take care everyone. There is some serious energy moving around with planets aligning and a lunar eclipse, not to mention solar storms!

New Direction and the Call of Nature

Guerrilla Painter 6"x8" Thumbox

Before I launch into this post I have to give a warning. There will be a rather down-to-earth talk on answering the call of nature for women at the end of this post. I will give warning at the start of the section so if any of my dear readers wish, they may depart before any delicate sensibilities are offended. 

Yesterday my new Guerrilla Painter pochade box for plein air painting arrived. I am so excited! The set up I have been using is extremely heavy. My pack ends up weighing about 25 pounds by the time I get it loaded up. Even if I drive down to Neahkahnie Beach (about a mile) I still have a hike up the beach, not to mention wading through drainage streams and occasionally incoming waves. I decided to order something lighter and easier to pack.
I have made the decision to get out to the beach to paint as often as I can with the goal being everyday. Yes, you read that right, everyday! Now, knowing how life happens I might have to miss a day or two but I am still going to see how long I can go. I have 77 - 6"x8" loose hemp canvases in the process of being gessoed. I am about half way through. I have to order more gesso to continue. I have enough to start painting though. I tape them to a 6"x8" support to paint on. I decided to do it this way for the first 75 paintings to keep them as studies. I will be using the resulting marine studies to paint larger paintings in the studio that will be for sale. I am so excited! I broke in the box today.
We just recently had that huge storm and the beach is littered with a lot of branches and logs. The waves were also filled with huge trees and logs, which is very dangerous. I kept a sharp eye out for rogue or sneaker waves. They come in deceptively fast carrying those trees with them. Never turn your back on the ocean! I saw one tree that was over 60 feet in length.
I hiked from my house to the north end of Neahkahnie beach and set my new rig up. I have a nice tripod that the box attaches to. I must say it went up fast and easy. The tripod is sturdy and didn't blow over even when I was hit with a sudden squall. The sky was partially cloudy with huge thunder clouds. All of a sudden the squall appeared on the horizon. I started painting as fast as I could before it hit. I was painting so fast that I produced the worst painting I have ever made! It hit with wind, rain, and hail. By the time I packed up it was gone. I could have just waited it out but I needed to get back home. The painting was bad and I didn't have as much time as I would have liked but, I did it. I took that first step! I will be going out tomorrow morning too before coming back to prepare my Thanksgiving feast. Just a quick note here, I am vegan. There will be no turkey but there will be tofu "crab" cakes, smoked tomato and wild rice soup, roasted cauliflower, assorted seasonal side dishes, and a raw pecan pie, washed down with a hard cherry cider and followed by coffee.
Getting back to today's plein air jaunt, I do plan to post the paintings as often as they are made. I am not posting today's painting because it was so bad. My goal to to produce 100 small plein air marine paintings. I am clearing one of my bulletin boards to pin them all up on. Perhaps I will share the very first one when I reach 100.
On the way back home I spotted this wooden float and brought it back with me. Here it is with my beautiful dog Twill. She had a good time sniffing it.

I am looking forward to this exciting challenge that I have begun. I will be switching my oil paints that I use to Cobra water-mixable paints for ease of use out in the field. I will continue to use my oil paints in the studio.
I am going to end this part of the post here and wish everyone in the U.S. and the rest of the world too a Happy Thanksgiving. I give thanks for good health, loved ones, including the furry one above, and wonderful online friends and artists.


 
**********Warning: Frank Discussion on Bodily Functions Ahead. Close window now to skip!***


Ok, first I would like to say I have a passion for nature and the out-of-doors. I love to hike in the wilderness and the semi-wilderness. As a woman, I occasionally have to answer the call of nature and relieve myself. Men have an advantage in this department. For many years I have just hung my bum out there, behind a screen of trees or bushes and did my best not to get pee all over my boots. I have stories of angry golden bumblebees and stinging nettles. Thankfully not poison oak! Several years ago I found a nifty device called the Freshette. It allows a female human to stand and pee like a man. It worked pretty well until I had what I called a Freshette fail the last time I hiked up to the top of Neahkahnie mountain and back. Fortunately it was at the end of the hike and we were not too far from home but, yuk! I decided it was time for a new device that hopefully won't have the same issue. This one in fact called the pStyle:

Note the "easy to use while clothed". I also like the colors. The freshette only comes in a gruesome pink so-called flesh tone. When you are a mile or two hike from the nearest restroom and in the middle of painting, it is best to be able to find a discreet way to take care of the call of nature. I say discreet because there are houses that overlook the ocean where I paint. I really don't want someone with a telescope or binoculars to get a view they may not have (hopefully!) intended. Now, I haven't had a chance to try it out yet but I will give a brief thumbs-up, or down in a future post when it has been tested. Readers who skipped this part won't know what I am talking about but you all will! If you have gotten this far, thanks for hanging in there. I am posting this info for those women like me who love the out-of-doors but would really like another way to take care of certain realities.

Dog on the Loom... I mean Easel!

11/18/12 Neahkanie Beach approaching storm.

I tried today to get a decent picture of the painting I currently have on my easel but we have a huge storm that descended upon us this afternoon and the day has been dark gray. I couldn't get a good shot in either natural or un-natural light so I am posting a picture I took this morning of my favorite place to paint, before the storm hit.
Many of the lovely folks who read this blog know I was a weaver for about twelve years before I turned to painting on canvas rather than making canvas. The weavers will recognize the term "dog on the loom" and will probably instantly know what I am going to say next! For those who don't weave, a short explanation is as follows:
 Weaving is a very time consuming and enjoyable process, however, it sometimes happens that a weaver will warp (thread) a loom and the fabric will not turn out well. Usually it happens when said weaver has gleefully put 10 yards on her loom while envisioning the most incredible cloth that will result. I would get... um, that is, the weaver would get about a yard or two into the process and realize that the resulting cloth is either hideously ugly, full of errors, or slowly losing its shape for some mysterious reason. Sometimes all of the above. The weaver stops and there the loom sits, with this dog on it that the weaver does not want to continue weaving yet, until it comes off the loom, prevents the weaver from moving on. I think the rest of you can see where this is heading! The weaver has two choices, either continue to painfully weave the final 120,000 yards off, or cut it off and burn the remainders by the dark of the moon. However, there is actually a third choice! Decide the warp is a lost cause and start experimenting with different weaving techniques. After all, there is nothing to lose.
If you are still with me, I currently have the painting equivalent of a dog on my loom sitting on my easel at the moment. My still life is not going well. In fact, I think it is rather ugly and uninspiring! I have a few choices here that are thankfully easier to implement on a painting than on a weaving gone bad. I can put it away for a while and then come back to it with fresh eyes to see if it is worth saving. I can also paint over it and use the linen panel again for another painting, OR, I can consider the current painting a lost cause and with nothing to lose, experiment, learn, and grow.
When I was considering my options and remembering my weaving days I realized how much I really love the freedom to experiment and how much I learned from it. In weaving sometimes the result was totally unusable as a cloth but I would save the results as reference samples. So I have decided to have a bit of fun and experiment with the painting. I can either save it as a sample or eventually paint over it and reuse the canvas. A win-win!
The storm is howling around the house tonight and is supposed to get even worse tomorrow. Hurricane force winds, pounding rain, and 32 foot waves. We are prepared and snug here. Tomorrow I have 77 small 6"x8" canvases to gesso and will have some fun news to share on Wednesday.
Stay safe and warm!
-Renee

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

Art Studies-Luminism

I have paintings in progress to finish up and post about this week but didn't feel that they were at a good point to share so I thought I would give a very brief description of my current art study fascination, Luminism. First, I want to share how I got onto that particular topic. I had neglected to mention a month or two ago the end of what would have been my third year of art school and the beginning of my fourth and final year. I guess I have moved from the art student mindset to the artist-scholar mindset. A subtle shift but an important one. I am sure my technical skills would be a bit more refined had things worked out differently but I don't think I would be where I am now in terms of direction and voice. I have the many professional artists I connect to and follow through blogs and social media to thank for that. I found a way to continue my education through their expertise, tips, and fine examples. I am very grateful for that!
I have been following in their footsteps of hard work and many failures and am starting to find my direction and voice. I still have so far to go as I am only just beginning. Never fear, I will be sharing more of that here over the next several weeks!
With all that in mind, my studies have taken on a greater focus which brings me back to Luminism. I have been studying both Luminism and Tonalism (mentioned in a previous post). Thankfully the local library has a couple of decent books on the subjects and I have been pouring over them. I can see that I am going to have to hunt some of these paintings down and visit the museums where they hang so I can see them in person. The reading is a bit dry but I have picked up a couple of tips or two. Here are pictures of paintings from two of my favorite Luminist artists.

Brace's Rock, Eastern Point, Gloucester, c. 1864, Fitz Hugh Lane

The painting above is by Fitz Hugh Lane. You can see even in this little picture the quality of light, smoothness of the brush strokes, and over all serene feeling of the painting. I have a feeling that I will need a lot of time to take in all the exquisite detail when I go to see them in person. It will be a while before that happens though as I don't wander far from the west coast of the U.S. much these days and most of the paintings seem to be located on the other side of the country.
The second painting is by Frederic Edwin Church.

Beacon Off Mount Desert Island, Frederic Edwin Church, 1851, oil on canvas, 116.84 × 78.74 cm (46 × 31 in)

 

I am studying these artists and more not to copy their techniques but because I would like to achieve some of the qualities of light, color, and atmosphere that they accomplished in their paintings. We shall see what happens with my work over the next few months. I have so much to learn!
If these paintings have stirred your curiosity, the internet is a good place to start. I find that some of the more recent books have the best quality reproductions over all. All of the links above are from Wikipedia. There are inconsistencies in the information but you can get the overall feel.
That is all for this post. Somewhat of a teaser perhaps but the purpose of my blog is to share my journey. There are a lot of wonderful blogs out there that have information galore on art and the process of making art. Some of them are on the links bar at the right side of my blog.

Looking forward to a new week. I have been so excited I haven't been getting much sleep! 

-Renee

Wave Study

©2012, R.L. Delight. Wave Study, Neahkahnie Beach, 6"x8", oil on canvas board.

I had a lovely time painting this wave study on Monday. The day was beautiful and warmer than I thought it would be. Surprisingly for such a calm day the waves were large and glorious. I decided to paint them and to try to capture the wave action that happens in this particular spot. Neahkahnie Mountain juts out into the sea which not only influences our weather here in our little town but causes some of the waves to bounce off and travel sideways or perpendicular to the shore. These waves meet the incoming waves and cause quite a spectacular crash and geysering of the water. Now a wave study is just that. I tried to capture the action, shape, tone and color of the waves. The composition of the painting was a distant consideration. The moon hanging above the sea that morning was a wonderful bonus!
In the studio, I have set up a still life that is somewhat related to the sea. I have always loved rocks and driftwood as well as found objects washed ashore. I have decided to paint these things for a while and see where they take me. I am not neglecting my drawing either! I will be spending a portion of the day working on either drawing the few plaster casts I have or a self portrait study. I also intend to lure my rather handsome husband back up into the studio to sit for me.
I am very excited this morning. I was dancing through my Facebook newsfeed, posting a "like" here and a comment there when I came across a post by one of my favorite artists, Sadie Valeri. She has started a new Facebook group for those who paint and draw only from life rather than photos. She made a mention of the artist Edward Minoff and his techniques for painting seascapes from life. I went straight to Google, found the web site and gasped. I will let you check it out for yourself by clicking on the above link but I am truly inspired by his process, not to mention his breathtaking seascapes. Sometimes a simple thing as a mention on a Facebook post can completely rock your world. I am given the courage and inspiration to continue on the path that is starting to open before me.
Off to the studio now! -Renee

Getting Out To Paint

© 2012 R.L. Delight. Plein Air studies.

Before I get started, I have a favor to ask. I am auctioning off two small paintings on the Daily Paintworks site to benefit Hurricane Sandy relief efforts. I will be donating 100% of the proceeds less shipping and payment fees to the Guardians of Rescue. They have been scrounging gas and other resources to get food and supplies to pets and people in the areas where stores were flooded. They have rescued pets and animals in dire straights as well. If you click on the Daily Paintworks Hurricane Sandy Fundraiser widget on the right, it will take you to the special auction. I know funds are tight for many, including myself, but even if you are not able to make a purchase, please tell a friend who might be able to. I would dearly love to be able to donate the proceeds from my work to these dedicated folks. Thanks! -Renee
 
I am so fortunate at this time in my life to be living in a place of great beauty. It is a challenging place to live but worth it. I realized that I have to take advantage of my good fortune and paint where I live. The ocean has a huge presence here. Even as I am writing this post, I hear the waves roaring on the beach, which is a short 5 minute walk to the water's edge from my house. Last night I was walking the dog before bed and an ocean mist was floating through the dark streets carrying the smell of the sea with it. The sound of the waves were particularly soothing.
With this realization, I made a decision to start painting plein air on a regular basis. I am just starting out and learning as I go. At the moment I am painting on loose canvas that I have taped to a small drawing board. The top painting is a wave study. It would not make a good finished painting since I basically would focus on a certain aspect such as wave shape, tone, light, or color, paint it, and then move on to another aspect and then paint that. The painting is kind of a mish-mash of different waves and different focuses but all done from life.
The bottom painting is one I did last Friday on a gray and wet day. It wasn't too cold, the winds were moderate, and only a few sprinkles so not too bad weather-wise. I ran out of time before I could finish the rocks at the base of the cliff. I would have liked more time in general but it is meant to be a sketch. This is at the foot of Neahkahnie Mountain which is one of my favorite places to go. At the right time, some of the waves bounce off the inner curve of the mountain and travel almost perpendicular to the oncoming waves. When the two kinds of waves meet they often crash spectacularly and make all kinds of interesting shapes.
It is going to take a lot of practice to get to the level I would like to get to. I am starting now in the fall because I find the waves and sky are more interesting. I also figured that if I can do this over fall and winter in spite of the weather, I will be able to paint plein air year-round in almost any conditions (here locally that is, I melt in heat!). I will have to update my foul weather gear as soon as I am able to but, with a little invention and perhaps a bit of duct tape, I will be able to do it!
I am starting with a once a week goal and will add another day for a twice a week goal once the first goal is set into a standard practice or habit. I don't have a set day as I like to check the weekly forecast and tide table. So, next week's plein air day? Tomorrow!
The rest of my studio time is divided between painting small daily paintings, working on larger paintings, and studying my craft and honing my skills.
Oh, one last thing. One of my small paintings was accepted into the Cannon Beach Art Gallery's miniatures show! The show opened last night and is part of the Stormy Weather Festival going on now in Cannon Beach. And yes, the weather is living up to the festival name! It is always a pleasure to be included in a show with so many lovely artists.
Hope everyone has a good week!
-Renee