Finally Painting Plein Air in 2018! Spring Is Officially Here! :)

Ahhh, Spring! I hadn't painted outdoors in a while!!

(I'm a little late posting this, but it has been a busy few weeks) 

Spring in Ohio is crazy, you never know what you are going to get, one day it may be in the 70s and the day after it may snow. Planning an outdoors painting session is always risky.

First Pein Air Outing: Pickerington Ponds Metro Park

My first day of plein air painting in 2018 was on March 29, very early on the calendar, and I was a little worried about it; you are very likely to get a snow blizzard in Ohio at the end of March. However, it turned out to be a gray and rainy day, but not too cold.

I met with a group of eager artists, lead by the awesome teacher: Joseph Lombardo, in Pinkerington Ponds Metro Park. Joe always does a demo at the beginning of class, then the group breaks out and we each start our own painting. 

Since I've taken Joe's plein air classes several times now, I decided to paint along during the demo, instead of sitting and watching. That early start gave me the opportunity to tackle three paintings: a 9"x12" during the demo, and two 6"x6" afterwards, during a period when I usually only make one.

My favorite part of all three paintings is that they are colorful. On a such rainy day, it became my personal challenge to render what I saw with bright colors, pushing the hues that I saw, making them way more intense and bright.

This is the first painting I did, I rendered the same scene as the instructor's painting,
making similar choices to what he did.
Untitled
9"x12" oil on board

For the small paintings, I kept the color challenge on, and added two different variations. I made one reflect the fogginess created by the rainy and humid atmosphere, and the other using thick paint, applied quickly.

This is one of the small paintings, I created them simultaneously, but with two different strategy in mind.
One showing the fogginess and low contrast of the rainy woods, the other one using thick paint.
Untitled
6"x6", oil on board
SOLD

Of course, making three paintings in the time in which I usually make one means that I ran out of time and they were not quite finished, but I liked where how they turned out and what they represent. I added a few more brush strokes in the studio, but I was very careful to keep the freshness of the quick painting process, trying not to overwork them.

Here is the thick paint one. I applied the paint both with brush and palette knife,
leaving quite a bit of the warm under-painting showing through, especially in the sky.

Overall, not a bad start of the plein air season! :)
Looking forward to the following weeks and the Paint Out event on April 28! (I'm the chair for that, it has been my baby for four years now, a lot of work getting it organized but I love it!)