I Can Fly...

If A Tree Falls..., (working title,day two, painting in progress)

with color and line, but then sadly, I have to land, quiet down and make hard decisions. Verticals and horizontals playing rough with one another. Choices  to be made.  What to play up? What to play down? What to whisper and what to shout? So it goes with painting. The days that follow the first are never as much fun, yet filled with interest.

A Beginning, An End

What the Hell is This?

It's A BEGINNING, a first pass using  very wet acylics, wide brushes, but mostly a sponge and an overkill of Payne's Gray. It's a fun morning session discovering the palette, before lunching with the girls.  Drawing freely with sponges is the absolutely great way to break the ice when beginning a new painting adventure. This is a photograph, cropped from another photograph. How close I'll want to go to the reality of the scene remains to be seen. all I know now is the sessions that follow will not be as much fun as this first impression. As for what it means to me, I have no idea other than it involves entanglements and inter-relationships, the stuff that fascinated me.




THE END OF SPRING THAW, (my final title--I hate titling).

Spring Thaw, Acrylic, 20" x 20"

The End is when there's nothing more I need  to know.

HISTORY NOTE:

George Washington's mother's name was Mary Ball Washington. His father's name was Augustine. His father died young, like all previous Washington men and left George and four other kids for her to raise. She was the first General George ever knew, a hard lady to please. She said no when he was offered a commission in the British Navy. She needed him at home on the farm. Her no was signifigant to US history in 1776.

Peinture en Plein Air

Olive Stand, charcoal, 18 x 24"

--for the very first time this year. Actually, I was really investigating how my watercolor easel would do outdoors.

Poplar Stand, charcoal
Painted in 1986, plein air in my last backyard.

Not being made out of wood, as the plein air easel, it is impervious to weather and can probably remain conveniently outdoors through out the summer?  It's also collapsible, has a carrying case, is light weight,  sets up in minutes, easily adjustable, holds cavanses up to 36" high and wide and can be positioned horizontal to the ground for wet into wet  painting--acrylic or watercolor. I chose charcoal for my first outdoor excursion for its facility. My tabour was my side table on the patio.

 I had a wonderful time in the sun and made a note to slather sunscreen straight out of the shower in the future.  My yard is so full of  intriguing vistas, it should satisfy my first season painting outdoors--unless I get an urge to travel down to the lake, then the plein air easel will make the trip.

DISCOVERY:  indoors or outdoor, I cannot sit while painting. I am always on the move back and forth scruitinizing.  Consequently, two hour sessions seem to be my limit. Any time longer and I'm icing my legs all evening. Oh to be forty five again when Poplar Stand was painted with more stamina and more finesse.