"The Brook"- A plein air adventure in Bryan Park

Last week I took another early morning stab at painting in Bryan Park. Since I had already done a couple of plein air paintings at the park of Young's Pond, (which you can see here and here) I decided this time to tackle the shady brook that feeds it:

"The Brook" Oil on birch panel, 12x9" ©Jennifer Young

Even though everything seemed to be lining up for me when I launched into this painting, I did have a couple of unanticipated challenges. At the time I was dealing with "umbrella issues", so after hassling with it for about 10 minutes to no avail, I gave up and just tried to position myself so that my painting and palette would be shaded from the sun. Sometimes it's hard to anticipate this, but I keep a compass handy for that reason, and I figured I would have at least an hour before the sun would overtake me.

But then there was "Billy" (not his real name.) Let me preface by saying that Billy was an incredibly kind and gentle soul, and exceedingly complimentary. But Billy liked to chat. A lot. And ask lots of questions. I love meeting people, and I am always blown away by how lovely people are when I'm out painting, complimenting my work as they stop briefly to take a look. But I find it pretty much impossible to chat for extended periods and stay "in the zone" when I am painting.

At the same time,  I have yet to figure out how to express this to someone without feeling like I am being a big jerk. My husband's advice is matter-of-fact- "Tell them you are W-O-R-K-I-N-G." This seems so simple and rational until I am in a real life situation. I guess I just hate to be rude, and it feels so ungracious when someone is being so genuinely enthusiastic. But really, Dave's right. This is my work, and it's up to me to respect it and value my time, regardless of whether any one else thinks to do so.

As it was, I was a total wimp and did not tell him anything close to that--at most, merely *hinting* that, "Well, ahem! I'd better get to this thing and focus, ha-ha!" (which apparently was a bit too subtle for dear Bill). The end result was that it took me far longer than I wanted to take, and all too quickly I lost my beautiful shade.

When I got back to the studio, I had the inevitable but still unpleasant surprise of seeing a resulting painting far darker than I thought it was when I was on site, due to the sun's glare (what I call "retina burn"). I did about 20 minutes of rework from memory to lighten it up in places, and I think I've still managed to maintain the feeling of the light and the place.

The odd thing is that even though I seem more often than not to have to deal with the pitfalls (and pratfalls) of painting on location, there is still something about it that leaves some part of me feeling exhilarated. There's a clarity to it; a feeling of losing myself and being in fully the moment, even alongside the sunburn and bugs and chatterboxes. So I'll return. And hopefully next time I do so it will be with a working umbrella AND a backbone!  ;-)

Sunset on the Sound

I did bring my watercolors with me on our recent anniversary trip to Cape Hatteras, but I really didn't do much in the way of painting, save for this quick and light-hearted attempt below (done when we were sitting on the beach).  It just wasn't that kind of trip.

In fact, I even forgot to bring my camera, which is a real rarity for me! In a way it was a shame, because the B& B where we stayed had a fantastic vantage point on the sound, and provided us with some of the most beautiful sunsets we'd seen in a while. In another way, taking a real vacation to just "be", without feeling the need to work, was quite nice and very relaxing (though, believe me, there were times when the views were so compelling that the pull was strong!)

Our room had a view, so we'd sit on our balcony each evening and watch the sun set. I never tire of doing this. You can watch the setting sun from the same spot each evening and yet each time the experience is unique. It's the best show in town, and the sky seems to delight itself in its endless variations.

In the end, it's just as well that I left the camera at home, because the large majority of my amateur snapshots fail to capture the depth of color and the subtler transitions from sky to water. If not painting on the spot, the next best thing is to just sit and observe and to try and commit what I see to memory as best I can. So that's what I did. Once we got home, I painted this little watercolor from memory:

"Sunset on the Sound" Watercolor, 7x10" (SOLD) ©Jennifer Young

WIP, Beynac, France

I'd hoped to be posting a new plein air painting today, but the plein air gods weren't with me. In spite of my best intentions, it was a Murphy's law morning, and I came back home with nothing but a wiper. Back in the studio, I took solace in a new 3x4' canvas. Here's the start:

Right now this probably looks a little like one of those red cliffs out in the Southwest, but it's actually a block-in for the riverside village of Beynac in Southwestern France. I'm experimenting with a little different approach here, blocking in the entire cliff and village as one mass first, rather than sketching out each little building individually.

This is more like the way my plein air starts are beginning to evolve now, with the idea that grouping related items into larger masses (in the beginning)  will provide me with a little more unity in color and composition early on. Here's hoping...this is the largest canvas I've worked on in a long while. More stages as they evolve, and as time permits.

Willow in back-light

This week is bringing us some gorgeous weather here in central Virginia, so on the way home from the farmer's market last night, I took a detour and decided to keep a recent promise that I made to myself. I returned to Young's Pond to paint the evening scene I'd scouted out when I was there the prior week for a morning painting session:

Willow in Back-light" Oil on Canvas, 12x16" ©Jennifer Young

Having already conceptualized what I was going to paint in advance, I set up quickly and dove right into the painting. It was a good thing, too. Even though I started relatively early in the evening (5 PM) all of that beautiful back-lighting did not last. After about an hour and a half, the sun sank quickly behind the trees on the distant hill, and took all of that beautiful back-lighting with him!

Luckily I got the painting about 90% complete. As I later told my husband, "I had the essence but not the poetry". This is what I hoped for as I worked on the final 10% immediately after I returned home to the studio (while everything was still fresh in my mind). Mainly it was just a matter of softening some edges and adjusting a value here and there, (and trying not to do too much for fear of losing the essence!)

12x16" is not a huge painting, but it's the largest I've done in plein air in a while. One of my goals (goal number 274!) is to increase my plein air sizes beyond 12x16" or even 16x20". With more canvas to cover, it may require multiple visits to the same site at the same time of day, but it would be interesting to see how far I could push it. We'll see...I have the whole summer ahead of me yet.

Alla prima outdoors; plein air at the park

Keeping to the topic of alla prima painting, here is a morning plein air landscape I did this week on a visit to Bryan Park:

"A Bend in the Pond" Oil on Board, 9x12" ©Jennifer Young

Young's Pond is actually the name of this pond (though there's no relation to yours truly, and that's not what drew me to the location to paint it!) It wasn't until I was researching online that I even knew this pond's name or history (part of a former 18th century gristmill).

Bryan Park is a neighborhood park with lovely old azaleas that put on a great show earlier in the spring. It's a good "go to" spot for me when I need an easy-access opportunity to paint outdoors, as it's very close to my home (a hefty walk with all my plein air gear, but definitely within cycling distance). Even so, it's taken me a little while to warm up to it as a painting site. I find that sometimes with certain locations I need to visit them several times before I can hit it at the right time/place/day to inspire a painting. I've gone there a couple of times already in the early spring when the azaleas were in bloom, and even though the flowers were pretty, I just could not find anything I wanted to compose. I must have looked like a strange and suspicious character, just walking around with a big floppy hat and shabby backpack, staring at trees and bushes in a half-trance, (except for the times when I'd peer through the square formed with my hands)--All to no apparent end. The things we do for art!

This time since the season is over, I wasn't lured to the azelea gardens and instead went directly to the pond. I got there early enough so that the light in the distance was still soft, though the shadows and highlights of the middle distance held enough contrast to interest me. I also liked the little pond "islands", the flowering shrubs growing wild on the bank, and the curved retaining walls. Now that I know how the sun travels over this spot, I've also noted an adjacent site that I think will provide a nice back-lit scene in the later afternoon/early evening. I will return again soon when the time is right, and have another go at Young's Pond. Who knows, maybe it will become a favorite plein air location after all?

p.p.s. For those who may be unfamiliar with the term "alla prima" that I've bandied about in these last few posts, it's an Italian phrase that literally means "at first". In art terms it refers to a painting done with a direct approach, usually completed in one sitting (wet-into-wet).