Boreas Sanctus
Plein Air Painting 2016
March 17th, 2016
Half Moon Beach, Stage Fort Park
Gloucester MA
Oil on Canvasboard, 18 x 24 in
I decided against the trees. The day started out clear and then a front began to move in, I decided to follow the change and I think it was a good decision. The composition bugs me but I think it works all the same. Brought my dog with me for this one, he was very happy to be out and very patient for the four hours I stood there. A nice day.
March 8th, 2016
Half Moon Beach, Stage Fort Park
Gloucester MA
Oil on Canvas, 18 x 24 in
As you can see by scrolling down a bit, this is the third time in recent history I’ve painted more or less the same view. There is something so magical about that water and I have yet to get every gorgeous element I see quite as I’d wish. However, I’m getting there. It was a glorious day to be out painting. People often ask me how long a painting takes. In this case, it was about three hours. The tide had just reversed from high and was rapidly on its way out so as usual, water first! Ten sky, land, rocks.
February 27th, 2016
Cox Reservation, Essex, MA
Oil on Canvasboard, 18 x 24 in
I was still not particularly “inspired” by the landscape, but I wanted to paint. I chose a subject that was of some interest, and jumped in. It’s funny because what I chose to paint was the birdhouse, but for the first three hours of my painting day, though ultimately the canvas was covered, there was no birdhouse in sight. Background comes first! By the time I was ready to lay in the birdhouse, the frigid wind had picked up and was blowing in force. I was freezing and didn’t have much control over my hand or the easel that kept lurching in the wind and threatening to blow away. So I got the gist in, then went home to warm up. Then, on Sunday (the 28th) I spent about 45 mins getting the birdhouse in there and fixing the foreground.
I remembered, in the process, that sometimes work is just work – and regardless of whether you feel “inspired” at the outset, you will always find things to be excited about… be it in the beauty of blending paints, the satisfaction of a color well matched, or a little highlight that ties seemingly disparate planes of color together. Always something worthwhile in the process.
February 22nd, 2016
Half Moon Beach, Stage Fort Park
Gloucester, MA
Oil on Canvas, 16 x 20 in
Began painting just after high tide, stopped just an hour short of low tide. I tried to do the water first, knowing it would soon be gone, and as usual got a little stuck trying to capture an effect I was seeing of light in water. I will probably leave this more or less as is, though I might try to make the division between land and water a little clearer. I can see that the colors of sea and sky in the background differ from those in the painting. The light had changed, which is why I took the picture and packed up at that point.
February 21st, 2016
Lake of the Woods
Painted in Gloucester, MA
Oil on Canvas, 16 x 20 in
I went to Essex to paint today, and according to my phone I walked 1.35 miles with my 30lb paint bag, easel and palette box and found not one thing that was strong enough to pull me out of a storm cloud in my head. This time of year, when there is no snow, is my least favorite time to paint. I don’t like the colors of all the masses of naked deciduous trees huddled against one another in the cold, the pale dead grass, the dirt and sand every where and even the cedars a strange burntout orange-green. The problem with being a painter, or perhaps the problem with being me, is that whatever I am feeling inside is often all I see outside. I have been able to overcome this sort of mood at other times by focusing on the light – because no matter how dreary and dead the husks of exhausted vegetation appear, one stray shaft of light in the right place or moment can make everything come to an almost beatific life. I didn’t find it today outside. So I made my way home in frustration. I made myself paint anyway, choosing a favorite subject (doubly, 1.water 2.Lake of the Woods) and Cracked ON until it was done. Tomorrow when my fog has cleared I might try to straighten the wobbly horizon but in the meantime, it’s a good example of what I’m starting to think of as expressive impressionism, where what I’m looking at is both a reflection of the place and the emotional state of the person painting it at that moment in time.
January 30th, 2016
Cox Reservation, Essex, MA
Oil on Canvasboard, 12 x 16 in
I had only very small canvases and very large canvases. Having to walk the dog before I go painting and after I come back cuts into the number of daylight hours I can spend out painting, so I opted for the small. It was an overcast, mellow day and these feathery grasses (an invasive species) caught my eye again as they often do. I’ve painted them from a distance, as a body, but I thought I’d try a bit more of a close up. A huge part of the experience of these grasses is the sight of them shimmering in the breezes. The challenge is to show the breeze. I don’t know if I did, but I like the colors – subtle and serene. A good day’s work.
January 25th, 2016
Rocks & Sea at Half Moon Beach
Stage Fort Park, Gloucester MA
Oil on Canvas, 16 x 20 in
It was a beautiful day to go painting. While the snow was the most logical subject, being a temporary treasure for an outdoor painter, water is my catnip. Particularly at Half Moon Beach, the colors of the water contrasts so beautifully with the color of the stone. It was a good day and I’m not displeased with the painting, though there are a few little patches to tend to tomorrow. I learned a pro-tip for winter Plein air painters – standing in one place in the snow for a number of hours will result in the snow turning to ice. If, (inspired by a recently circulating meme perhaps) seeking to emulate the mountain goat and opt to perch yourself on a pitch or angle, the inevitable and unenviable result is that you will slide ever further away from your work at that point when you most wish to be near it. A helpful trio of passing boys suggested cleats – real metal snow cleats, “Not the ones for soccer” as a solution to my difficulty. Wise beyond their years.
January 9th, 2016
Cox Reservation, Essex, MA
Oil on Canvas, 16 x 20 in
It was a dense communion of colors I was taken by, so it was a dense communion of colors I painted. It definitely has an abstracted feel – I was not worried about having a linear subject, only a true patchwork of tone which I think I achieved. I stopped when my hand was too cold to hold my knife, which is always the cue in winter that a painting is done. So, on to the next!
January 7th & 8th, 2016
Good Harbor Beach, Gloucester, MA
Oil on Canvas, 24 x 30 in
Well you can see, I hope, that this is a fall painting, painted in winter primarily from a photo I took.
I walk this beach at least once a day, and have spent time studying the colors so I think it counts as ALMOST a proper Plein Air.
Again it was the clouds I was focused on. Getting there.