Painting my garden

The gardens around my studio and house are really picking up steam with summer blooms. I think it's best described as a cottage garden, and borders on chaotic at times. This is the same spot I shared with you in early spring...much improved now, I think!

My little "fountain" of succulents in the garden opposite the studio is now surrounded by a flowering butterfly bush, purple cone flowers and towering lilies (just about to bloom) And here's Ted, alternately my garden cat and studio cat. He likes to support me whenever I am being industrious:

With such an easy access garden, you'd think I'd paint it a lot more often than I do. I mean, you really can't get any more convenient when it comes to a plein air painting location! But there are a couple of challenges to overcome. First, the light moves pretty quickly in my little oasis,really only remaining constant for less than 2 hours. Inevitably even small paintings seem to require more than one session. Secondly, while I do have some painting time during the week while my little girl is with a sitter, any time she sees me painting outside she wants to "watch" (which quickly evolves into wanting me to push her on the swing, blow bubbles, etc.)

Nevertheless, I did get an opportunity over the July 4th weekend to complete this painting in the yard while Dad distracted DD:

"The Cottage Garden" Oil on panel, 12x9" (SOLD) © Jennifer E. Young

The dunes, once more

We have stolen away to the beach. Well, that's not entirely accurate, as with a toddler we aren't really "stealing away" anywhere any more. More aptly put: We have loaded the entire contents of our house into the van and 6 hours later unloaded it into the beach house just in time for a total melt down. Our toddler was none too happy either. ;) But somewhere around the 24 hour mark I think we all settled into a groove, and I actually got up yesterday morning and painted.

"Dunes, Early Morning" Oil on Panel, 10" x 8"© Jennifer Young

This was originally to be a sky painting, but I got drawn into the light on the dunes once more. This was painted from our balcony ( our footpath to the beach is on the left. ) It's a great spot, but east-facing, and in the morning, completely sunlit. I started this around 7:20 a.m. By 9 I was roasting and had to wrap it up. I am mobile blogging so the color is seeming a bit washed out, but you get the general idea here of the morning's attempt. (Updated image)

From study to studio (work in progress)

I feel like it has been ages since I have painted en plein air. Perhaps I feel this way because it is true! But while time, obligation, and health have kept my plein air painting at bay lately, I still think about it very much (not without a lot of longing) and I find myself digging out what plein air pieces I still have and meditating on them. It seems to me that even the weakest studies contain valuable information. Studio works have their place and purpose, and (the good ones) posess a grandeur that is harder to acheive en plein air. But there is a quality about the plein air paintings that continues to distinguish them in my heart and mind as something very special. As incomplete and insufficient as some of them are, they are infused with life and an immediacy that I still find hard to match in the studio. Still, given my life situation at the moment, I shall have to try.

One day recently when I was feeling particularly "homesick" for plein air painting, I came across this little piece that I painted during my trip to the Dordogne. It was tucked away in a stack of unfinished studies that I have not looked at in a long time:

I put it away mainly because I ran out of time to finish it on site, and I really haven't thought much about it since. It doesn't have the wildflowers that were in the field, the middle distance is unresolved, and it is lacking contrast in the row of nearby trees, as well as some other detail. But what it does have is some really good information about the light, as well as a nice loose, light touch that reflects the breeziness of that morning in early summer. And as I looked at it with new eyes, I started to think about new possibilities, and how I might translate the information in this scene to a larger studio canvas.

The location was near a public park just on the outskirts of a little village in France called St. Germain de Bel Air. There were these enormously tall trees that I believe were poplars. They always remind me of Monet because he painted a series of these trees in the countryside near Giverny. I was attracted to the scene not only because of the trees, but because of the way they lined the simple country path that led to the village, and the shadows they cast in great diagonals across the picture plane.

We will see how it goes, but here is my (very) preliminary layout on a 24x30" canvas.

Independence Day

It was hot and humid and overcast. Our baby had been sick part of the week prior and through the long weekend with a 102 degree fever and hand, foot and mouth virus. And to top it all off, we woke up on July 4th sticky and without power from a tremendous summer storm the night before. But believe it or not, I had a great morning, as I was allowed the privilege of escaping getting outside early to do this little plein air painting.

The location is Young's Pond in nearby Bryan Park. I've painted this location before a number of times, and this approximate scene once before, which you can see here. There were a number of nearby spots I could have chosen, but on an overcast day it's nice to paint a water effect, as then you have some luminosity built in, when the light is otherwise fairly flat.

I spent about 3 hours on site working on this piece, which was longer than I normally would do on location. But I think the combination of fairly steady light conditions, and my private glee at having the entire morning completely to myself kept me lingering longer than I would have otherwise.

Here's a shot of my setup right before I started.

Next time I would like to get out even earlier than I did, to try and capture that wonderful atmosphere (aka humidity) before it settles into just plain old hot heavy air. But with a baby, you gotta do what you gotta do, and I was happy to get out at all. My setup has remained pretty consistent over the years, with my Soltek easel still being my go to plein air easel due to the ease of use and quick setup time.

The sun made its appearance often enough that shading myself, my painting, and my palette was a concern. I brought my umbrella with me, but it is a pain to set up and doesn't really work that great with the Soltek (one of the easel's down-sides...I've yet to find a really compatible umbrella that can attach to it without falling over.) So If I can get away without, I usually do. This often means avoiding standing in the blazing sun, even if it means forgoing a preferred view. Otherwise my painting ultimately suffers (not to mention my skin.)

In this photo I've set up my painting panel so that the sun (when it peeks out) is behind it, making it shaded. I am relatively shaded by tree branches overhead. Since I am right-handed, my subject is to my left, so that I am not having to reach across my painting when I look/paint. Often times I can shade my palette simply by wedging another panel between it and my painting. In this case I am using a flat wet panel carrier called the Art Cocoon.

This is actually a pretty neat concept for a wet panel carrier, which I read about some time ago on another artist's blog (when I still had time to read them) owned by Ed Terpening . The advantage is that you can use the carrier for different sized paintings with the provided inserts, and it is nice and lightweight and not bulky. But the down side for me is that it is made out of cardboard, which eventually warps (especially in our hot Virginia climate) and when that happens it stops protecting the painting effectively.

For that reason, my go-to wet panel carrier is still the RayMar. It's a little more expensive, and bulkier, but still lightweight. And its coroplast construction means that while it won't last forever, it lasts a good long time and doesn't warp.

Postcards from the Outer Banks

This past week we stole away to the North Carolina Outer Banks for a glorious week on Hatteras Island. I had hoped to post while we were away, but I couldn't get my technology straight to do any mobile blogging. But here are two plein air pieces I completed in the early morning hours, just as the sun was coming up over the dunes. The hubby even took on full babysitting duties so that I could paint the view from our deck. What a guy!

"Hatteras Island Dunes I" Oil on Linen, 12"x8" (SOLD) ©Jennifer Young

"Hatteras Island Dunes II" Oil on Linen, 8x10" (SOLD) ©Jennifer Young