Here's a cow's mask I made at Cora's house yesterday for Paij Bailey who was making the rest of her cow costume for Halloween. Too bad you can't see the black heart shaped cheeks on the side of the box. It came out really well.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Cora Brooks Reading
Here's a cow's mask I made at Cora's house yesterday for Paij Bailey who was making the rest of her cow costume for Halloween. Too bad you can't see the black heart shaped cheeks on the side of the box. It came out really well.
Friday, October 23, 2009
Autumn Farm in Vermont
Have you ever painted on vinyl? Well this particulary canvas I prepared was so slick
experimenting with different gesso. I had several coats of the oil based lead gesso, and I it was shiny it was so smooth. Consequently the paint was sliding all over, and impossible to build up surface, so I'll let it dry and make some adjustments next week.
A cold morning turned into a great day painting with six other plein airers!
Driving over Smuggler's Pass at 7Am it was 34 degrees and you can see the snow! Unusual to have the Pass open after the snow flies, but it's early this year. The light hitting the top of the mountain is called a reverse sunrise because you're facing west, and the sun coming over the mountains behind me.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Canadian Geese Flying South by Mt Mansfield
16 x 20 inches Oil on hardboard
Process in the field of view of Mt Mansfield on overcast day. The geese sounded wonderful as they flew over, and I'm waiting till it dries to put them in stronger. You can just barely see them as dots in a V on completed one. The house is an old Revolutionary period Stone House that you can just barely make out.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Vermont Covered Bridge Waterville
Process of the painting with temperature 37 degrees at 9am, and warmed up to low 50's by the afternoon. The flat light was even all day basically so no need to hurry!
TM Nicholas plein air workshop.. we had 2 other painters. I guess the cold weather sorts out the serious ones! I'll post more photos of workshop later.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Monday, October 19, 2009
Apple Tree on Savage Island, Lake Champlain
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Friday, October 16, 2009
Birches Prickly Mountain
It was cold this week, and we had 4 inches of snow on Monday. And there is still snow in some patches.
On September 3, 1882 Van Gogh, while in Hague, wrote to Theo, in which he described his approach to painting.
[….]
In a way I am glad that I never learned painting. In all probability I would then have learned to ignore such effects as this. Now I can say to myself, this is just what I want. If it is impossible, it is impossible, but I'm going to try it even though I don't know how it ought to be done. I don't know myself how I paint it, I just sit down with a white board in front of the spot that appeals to me, I look at what is in front of my eyes, and I say to myself: that white board has got to turn into something - I come back, dissatisfied, I lay it to one side and when I have rested a little, I go and look at it with a kind of awe. Then I am still dissatisfied, because I have that splendid scenery too much in my mind to be satisfied with what I made of it. Yet I can see in my work an echo of what appealed to me, I can see that the scenery has told me something, has spoken to me, and that I have taken it down in shorthand. My shorthand may contain words that cannot be deciphered, mistakes or gaps, and yet there is something left of what the wood or the beach or the figure has told me, and it isn't in tame or conventional language derived from a studied manner or from some system, but from nature itself. [….]
As translated by Mrs Johanna van Gogh-Bonger