Plein Air 2014 – Page 2 – Marianne Thompson

Plein Air Painting 2014

September 12th, 2014

September 12th, 2014
Oil on Canvas, 18 x 24 in
(sold)

I had gone to The Old Granite Pier in Rockport last Tuesday to paint, but I was not – it was just not working for me that day. I spent hours and used a lot of paint, and at the end of the day I scraped it all off the canvas in disdain. I do not believe in wasting paint, especially not my favorite new paint – so I decided to look for a photo in my midst that would work tonally with the paint I needed to recycle. I came across one from this past summer of a loon, and worked from it. I will retake this photo in better light.

September 7th, 2014

September 7th, 2014
Oil on Canvas, 24 x 30 in
(sold)

On Thursday, without warning, my Uncle’s and my incredibly fit and healthy dog suddenly died. Apparently there had been a large tumor all around his heart, and it burst – and he passed away. He never had to be sick, never had to be old, lived with all his favorite things (water, balls, and affection) in constant supply. I know he had a wonderfully happy life. I’m so grateful to have gotten to share his life, he is deeply missed. Saturday I had an Open Studio. It was hot, I was sad – I decided I would paint, so I wouldn’t need to think or feel too much. I had a photo from the Island this summer I decided I’d work on, and set to it. I left out the buildings, left out the bridge – just set my sights on the warmth and beauty of the light.

August 29th, 2014

August 29th, 2014
Old Granite Pier, Rockport MA
Oil on Canvas, 16 x 20 in
(sold)

I felt like I’d been a bit of a wimp, leaving out all those buildings, boats and piers in my previous painting so reluctantly I decided to include a sampling of houses in this one. I think my degree of interest and sincerity in portraying them is evident in their execution*, unfortunately. So now I will quote a poem to deflect attention from something I feel I do poorly:

Man’s ingenuity was good.
He saw it plainly where he stood
Yet found it easy to resist.
—Robert Frost

(* – They were permanently executed this morning, September 1st, and I’m much happier with the painting now. There’s still one distant house on the far peninsula, for those who like that sort of thing.)

August 23rd, 2014

August 23rd, 2014
Sun Dappled Woods
Oil on Masonite, 8 x 10 in
(nfs)

Because of the size of it, this painting looks to me like a paint-by-numbers type product. I worked from a photo of the path to the boathouse on the island. I wanted to get the feel of motion through the patches of light on the ground of sun dappled pine needles. Those gems of light dance as the branches sway and shimmy in the wind.

August 22nd & 23rd, 2014

August 22nd & 23rd, 2014
Kittery Point, Maine
Oil on Canvas, 18 x 24 in
(sold)

This day began as a partly cloudy day, with nice big stretches of blue sky… but over the course of the 4 hours I was there painting, it gradually became overcast, and then gradually the silver clouds became steely. I got caught following the steady course of change, keying and rekeying my water to match the sky. I – it was an odd day and I personally was feeling off key – perhaps why I was so ready to abandon all attention to the piers and houses along the shore and instead just scramble to stay in tune with the water. When I had it back here to complete yesterday, I could have used one of the photos I took to fill in all the details I had ignored – several houses along the shore, a long pier with a few stray boats, seagulls. I could have stuck something – anything – there on the right to balance it all out. But it had nearly dried, and there wasn’t much I could do but fill in the blanks and polish the edges and call it a day.

August 16th, 2014

August 16th, 2014
Cox Reservation, Essex MA
Oil on Canvas, 16 x 20 in

If you look closely, you can see a yellow leaf stuck to the surface of the painting. I was not quite in the mood for literal representations, and riding a light breeze of abstraction when that leaf fell into to my painting and brought it to life. Not sure what will happen in a few weeks or months when the leaf has succumbed to further decomposition, but I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.

Dappled Light

Dappled Light
August 9th, 2014
Cox Reservation, Essex MA
Oil on Canvas, 16 x 20 in

I’ve been busy teaching and posing for figure classes and have had no time to paint, so I was happy to finally get to Essex for a day of painting. I stood in the shade and looked up the path that initially was in full sun but eventually settled into a nice pattern of shadow and light which I tried to capture. Pleased with the way it came out, after what felt like a long hiatus.

July, 2014

Some day at the end of July I was too distracted to paint 2014
Rocky Neck, Gloucester MA
Oil on Masonite, 8 x 10 inches
(sold)

I was distracted. There were boats in the water but I never got around to putting them there. Did I mention I was distracted?

July 22nd, 2014

July 22nd, 2014
Near Christmas Cove, Maine
Oil on Canvasboard, 20 x 16 in

Once again, there is too much glare on the painting to get a good photo – I’ll keep trying. Although I generally avoid painting backlight like the plague, this day I saw it as a challenge. the fact that the scene was so beautiful was all the motivation I needed. It was the water especially that caught my eye. Although I see a spot or two I would like to tweak to improve the painting, on the whole I felt it was another successful painting unfortunately executed on a poor quality canvasboard. Once this and the one below have dried, I’ll carefully remove the canvas from the bent up boards and restretch them. I was very happy with the way the water turned out in this one.

July 21st, 2014

July 21st, 2014
Damariscotta, ME
Oil on (crumpled) Canvasboard, 20 x 16 in
(sold)

I was fortunate enough to spend a few days on a painting trip to Maine with David Curtis and Tom Heinsohn, where we were joined in painting by Bill Curtis and a few of his artist friends. Inspired by some true but disparaging remarks by David about my work of late, I was determined to get back on track. There is too much glare on the photo to show the painting to its greatest advantage, I will retake as soon as I can. Regardless, in spite of the extremely junky board I was painting on, I was pretty pleased with the result.