Paintings of France, Italy and Beyond

I wish I could figure out how to post images more easily while I am away but the wireless connection is pretty low at the hotel. We are having a great time though and spent the day riding bikes and exploring some more. It is still windy here which makes watermedia difficult for me outdoors, so I am mainly sticking to sketching. I am gathering lots of reference material though and taking a ton of photos for further development back home in the studio. Next time I will definitely want to bring my entire oil setup (I will take my chances with the airlines!) as the oils stay open and workable so much better than watermedia, especially in the wind. Other than that the weather is terrific. Clear blue skies and very little humidity at present. We’ve rented bikes to get around and it’s been fun cruising through some of the lesser known side streets. I could get used to the pace of life here! Here I am sketching in one of the hidden alleys:

-Jennifer Young; Vibrant Landscapes
www.jenniferyoung.com
Contact

Jennifer Young; Vibrant Landscapes
Oil Paintings and Art Prints Online
My Website
Subscribe to my newsletter
Subscribe to my blog
Contact Me!

We have arrived! We left Richmond on Saturday with temperatures in the 30’s and arrived in a warm Key West topping out at 80 degrees! After stopping off at the hotel we went by the Wave Gallery to visit with the owner.

I was a little worried that with the recent hurricanes a lot of the flora would have been destroyed. Key West did receive it’s share of destruction from the salt water storm surges, but it appears that the old section has largely been spared. It is beautiful here!

I spent yesterday morning doing some gouache studies of the various plants while Dave conducted important business largely involving lounging in the hot tub. By afternoon thunderstorms rolled in, so no painting.

Weather today is sunny but very windy. I may be able to bring a modified setup to do some sketching, but with these winds I might be limited to taking a lot of digital photos.

As soon as I can figure out how to get my photos downloaded remotely I will try and post some pictures.

To see my oil paintings of Key West, click here.

Jennifer Young; Vibrant Landscapes
www.jenniferyoung.com
Contact

Jennifer Young; Vibrant Landscapes
Oil Paintings and Art Prints Online
My Website
Subscribe to my newsletter
Subscribe to my blog
Contact Me!

I’m off for a few days to bask in some Florida sunshine! I have determined to bring my gouaches and watercolors to make for a very portable plein air setup. Sometimes it is good to experiment and move beyond the comfort zone. I was extremely tempted just to bring my oils, but the compactness of watermedia is hard to beat. I managed to fit almost all of my art supplies into a small 9×12″ pack. If I can get my ducks in a row, I hope to post to the blog while traveling.

Best wishes,
Jennifer Young; Vibrant Landscapes
www.jenniferyoung.com
Contact

Jennifer Young; Vibrant Landscapes
Oil Paintings and Art Prints Online
My Website
Subscribe to my newsletter
Subscribe to my blog
Contact Me!

I spent some time yesterday playing with gouache paints so that I could see how I liked working with them as a possible candidate for my portable studio. Gouache is a water based medium; basically it is an opaque watercolor. While as an oil painter I wouldn’t exactly call it opaque, it is more so than traditional watercolor. I’ve worked with many different water media before, including gouache, but it has been some time. Here’s what I discovered:

My “oops” moments:

• Some of the colors don’t behave at all like either watercolor or oils. In general the gouache colors were somewhat darker and took some experimenting to get the mix I wanted.
• The paint dries very quickly! In the future I may rethink squeezing out big blobs on my palette all at once (an overzealous oil painter’s habit.) If I painted with these outdoors, I’d definitely need a spray bottle or drying retardant to keep my paints moist and fluid while working in the open air.

My “hey, cool!” moments:

• A very forgiving medium that is easy to work with. Most mistakes can be “lifted off” with water and brush. The opaqueness allows you to paint over certain passages and change the composition (something not so easily done with watercolor.)
• Versatile- can be mixed with watercolor and pen and ink. Acts as a watercolor for washes, but can also be laid down more opaquely and mixed with white.
• Easy cleanup. Like watercolor, just a little soap and water does the trick.

Gouache paintings are treated the same as watercolors in terms of care and framing. They should be displayed under glass and kept out of direct sunlight for best longevity. Gouaches tend to like a rigid surface, so a heavy paper or mat board is a good substrate for this medium. Here is a little painting I did of the Provincial countryside:

Jennifer Young; Vibrant Landscapes
www.jenniferyoung.com
Contact

Jennifer Young; Vibrant Landscapes
Oil Paintings and Art Prints Online
My Website
Subscribe to my newsletter
Subscribe to my blog
Contact Me!

House guests kept my pretty busy during President’s day weekend, so not much time for blogging until now. It has snowed off and on here for the past few days, but nothing really lingers too long. The Key West trip coming up this weekend is seeming even sweeter as I look out my window and see yesterday’s cold weather remnants on the ground. All I ask is to just keep the roads and airplane wings clear of ice until I can get down south!

Today I am playing with some art supplies so that I can determine what to bring with me down to Key West. If I had no limitations I would just bring my oils and easel, because in my opinion there is just nothing like them! But a plein air painter or sketcher has to consider the most portable and lightweight options when traveling, and especially when dealing with the airlines, and oils don’t always fit the bill.

Typical plein air travel gear can include:

• Easel or pochade box with attached tripod
• Paints
• Painting medium
• Paint Thinner (for oils- best to buy this at the destination if possible)
• Brushes and palette knives
• Hat and rubber gloves (optional but I am a messy painter)
• Canister for paint thinner (for oils) or water (for other water media)
• Small spray bottle filled with water (for water media)
• Paper towels
• Plastic bag for trash
• Bug spray and sunscreen
• Bottled water
• Small sketchbook and pencils (for working out compositions)
• Camera
• Painting surfaces (canvas, panels, papers, etc.)
• Wet panel carrier (for oils)

Other optional supplies might be:

• View finder (a little tool for determining your composition on the fly)
• Portable chair or stool
• Extra bungees and weights (for weighting your easel on a windy day)
• Umbrella
• A rolling case or dolly to cart all of this stuff around!

By no means am I saying that all of these supplies are required. Some watercolorists get by with two brushes, a watercolor block, sketch pad, a small container, some pens and pencils, and 3 to 5 paint colors, all stashed in a backpack. I think it is all what one feels comfortable with. A studio painter usually has more “stuff” within arms length, and paring down requires some effort and acclimation. I have done both studio and plein air painting, so I feel pretty comfortable with both. Even so the temptation is to bring more (maybe too much) stuff “just in case I need it”. I’ll try and post my painting kit here once I’ve figured it out.

-Jennifer Young; Vibrant Landscapes
www.jenniferyoung.com
Contact

Jennifer Young; Vibrant Landscapes
Oil Paintings and Art Prints Online
My Website
Subscribe to my newsletter
Subscribe to my blog
Contact Me!