Under the Gazebo at Scituate Harbor

Painting Geraniums at Scituate Harbor

The Scituate Harbor parking area has a large gazebo which also functions as a paint out shelter for those "iffy" weather days.    I love the scene here, seagulls, people, boats of all shapes and sizes, and beachhouses in the distance.    While I considered all those subjects for my painting, I decided to just start with the geraniums that were planted at the edge of the gazebo, and simply enjoy the setting and my painting friends.

The day was overcast, but beyond that, the flowers were on the darker, northside of the gazebo, making the values of my colors closer in range.    My plan was to capture these muted, gray day flowers, and upon my return to the studio, decide if I should lighten it up.

I started with my darkest greens, the crevices down between the lower leaves.  Next I made a dark, cool blue for the next darkest leaves.   The brightest leaves were a warm green which I made from viridian green and cadmium yellow light.  I picked a couple of leaves to develop more detail on, specifically the ruffled ringed pattern.

For the red geranium flowers I used cadmium red light straight from the tube.   I made a couple of darker, cooler shades of red by mixing some alizarin crimson to cad red light for the shaded flower petals.   I wanted to make sure that I included the faded blooms as well as the fresh new growth.   The spent flowers were dark violet blue.

We did an informal critique and I got some nice objective feedback on my spent flowers.   They were too choppy and I agreed.   I fixed them, I think. 

As was mentioned earlier, I reserved the right to bring up the values of my brighter hues.   I am sure that I can improve the composition by doing that.   Next view of this improved painting will be on my website of finished paintings.   www.vezinart.com

Nantasket Beach Paint Out

It was a hot and humid July day.   I headed north from Marshfield up Route 3A trying to decide which beach I was going to paint at - a nice dilemma to have after working 55 hours a week for over thirty years.   When my children were little, I would occasionally take them to beautiful Nantasket Beach.   All the conveniences are handy and there is plenty of free beachside parking.

I spotted the David Cook Comfort Station which is toward the Northern edge of the beach prior to where residential homes start.   There was a shelter that hung over a picnic table and benches.   The first parking spot was free.   I had found my spot.



Nantasket Beach Scene Stage 1

I set up my easel facing north.    On the map to the right, if you find Hull and then look north, the islands in the distance are the Brewster Islands (Outer, Middle, Little and Great).  Boston Light is on Little Brewster.



Nantasket Beach Scene Stage 2

This gave me a chance to practice making the islands in the distance recede, especially since there was so much moisture in the air.   I began with a pale blue and white palette knife sky.   I then sketched in the islands on the horizon and dabbed in Boston Light. I used my new favorite, buff titanium on my palette knife to represent the gorgeous beach.   I liked the beachhouse on the left and the winding side road with crosswalk lines on which a few cars had parked.   Seagrass and beach roses made up the remainder of my composition.   I don't plan to spend a lot more time on the grasses and foreground sidewalk, but I definitely need to touch it up.

 I estimate that the top one third of the painting took two thirds of my effort and the bottom two thirds of the painting the other third.   This is not done yet but I love the summer feel of it and will polish it up in the near future.

Muted Sunrise in July

Cloudy Dawn Sky Stage 1

The most spectacular part of a sunrise or sunset is obviously the sun and all the immediate atmosphere, clouds and long rays of light.   As striking as this is, and always tempting to paint, I have observed that there is a beautiful range of colors - pink, lavender, celery greens in the cloudy day skies.   Muted colors aren't for everyone, but I happen to like this scheme a lot.

Cloudy Dawn Sky Stage 2

Pristine Beach is Back

Right after the June Nor'easter of 2012, our beach became covered with thick rancid, red seaweed.   Despite multiple cleanups by the town and ordinary residents (like myself), the copious amount, especially between the boulders, caused an unbearable odor that lingered for weeks.    Finally within the last few days, the beach was back to a nice, pristine state, and I set off to do a sunrise painting.

July Sunrise Stage 1

I began with a canvas toned with warm light values of red, yellow and blue.   There was some texture from the underpainting which can be seen in the Stage 1 photo at the left.  There was a section of yellow and pale red in the underpainting similar to the colors of the actual sunrise. I planned the sunrise around that warm area of underpainting color and my plan was to leave the underpainting showing through for extra color.  I drew in the jetty and a strip of rocks that were visible because of low tide.

  

The colors became less vivid as the sun rose, and as is always the case with changing conditions, I had to be very deliberate about not "chasing" the light.  Empty tidal pools made dark swirled patterns in the sand. 

Cloudy July Sunrise

Plymouth Harbor

If beauty had anything to do with the Pilgrims' decision on where to settle, I can see why Plymouth Harbor was the choice.   Realistically, they were looking for water, food, and a site suitably protected from weather and potential enemies.     How pleased they must have been once they settled in and started to appreciate the fantastic geography and beauty of it. 

My basic needs as a painter were met in Plymouth as well, those being - views, parking, restrooms, shade and enough people around to feel secure.   I set up facing the beautiful harbor grateful for a successful modern day pilgrimage!



Easel Set-up at Plymouth Harbor

Looking due east in the distance on the right was the long spit reached via Ryder Way (it extends about one third of the length of the pennisula) - or it can be reached by boat.  There are very few houses out there and if you ever find yourself on a ferry exiting Plymouth Harbor, you can get a good look at them.  

Within my viewfinder from where I was standing I could include five of these beach houses in the far distance and include a beautiful antique sailboat that I had spotted.  Additionally a sailing class had paraded out to the spit, their small sunfish boats matching except for their colorful sail stripes, so I included them (distant right).


Antique Sailboat Plymouth Harbor


Again the early morning was calm and pink.  I didn't want to "push" the color, because the soft pale pinks, blues, lavender and greens were gorgeous as they were.   I was thinking this subtle key would not translate onto the canvas as beautifully.   I decided to go for it anyway, but made sure I mixed each shade of pink, blue, lavender and green in the same value and then place them separately on the canvas (ie. not blended so as to get gray).  

The foreground scrubby brush and grasses offer an "anchor" and I didn't worry about any detail.   

So what about the color, too bland?

Arnold Arboretum

The Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University is the oldest public arboretum in North America and one of the world’s leading centers for the study of plant biodiversity.  Established in 1872 and planned and designed in collaboration with Frederick Law Olmsted, the Arnold Arboretum is a National Historic Landmark and one of the best preserved of Olmsted’s landscapes. Founded as a public-private partnership between the City of Boston and Harvard University, the Arnold Arboretum is both a respected research institution and a beloved public park in Boston’s Emerald Necklace.
Occupying 265 acres, the Arboretum’s living collection of trees, shrubs, and woody vines is recognized as one of the most comprehensive and best documented of its kind in the world.  Use this link to check out their website.

http://arboretum.harvard.edu/

Lilac Sunday at the Arboretum 2011

Each summer in collaboration with Jamaica Plain Open Studios, the Arboretum hosts a juried group exhibition devoted to art inspired by plants, the landscape and the Arboretum collections.   Last year I my painting Lilac Sunday at the Arboretum was included in the exhibition.

Enjoying Arnold Arboretum 2012

We love walking through the Arboretum and make a point of trying to make it to Lilac Sunday at Arnold Arboretum each Spring.   This year was no exception and although I did not have my painting gear with me, I did take many photographs including one that was used to develop this year's Arboretum painting.

In this scene, I was at the top of a hill looking down into one of the main walking intersections.  Under the tent was information about Arnold Arboretum Memberships.  I was attracted to all the different groups of people and the ways they were enjoying the Arboretum.  I used a 24 X 20 inch canvas.   It was a challenge to paint from a vantage above, and in fact looking down into the top of the closest tree.  The other challenge was to capture the myriad of different kinds of trees, some with Spring blossoms.  The things in the distance are lighter, bluer and fuzzier.  I came in at the end and really carved in some edges toward the front.  What is the center of interest as you look at it?

This is my submission for 2012.  I'll let you know if it is chosen to be included in this year's show.

Rexhame Paint Out

A few friends and I agreed to meet early at Rexhame Beach in Marshfield and paint together.   I parked at the furthest end of the parking lot at 7AM and walked up the sandy crossover.   This pretty dune lined path was the only shady spot in sight.   It was going to heat up fast.  I set up at the high tide line looking south.   What a gorgeous scene!  The calm water was glistening with silver and pink.   There was a haze over the barely visible horizon.  At the water's edge, the sand was pinkish taupe; a wide silvery blue strip of rocks was next.  The stretch of beach closest to the snowfence was a warm buff color (Titanium Buff with a dot of cad red light).   The lifeguard lookout structure stood tall over everything. 


Easel Set Up at Rexhame Beach

I had brought a 14x18 inch canvas, and decided to include the wide expanse of water, beach houses, and the dunes.   I drew in my guidelines using everything that sat behind my canvas, what I refer to as my same-size method.  Specifically, I first took a large step backwards.   On the right edge of the canvas I marked where the top of the dunes and snowfence touched the canvas.   On the left edge of the canvas I marked where the horizon intersected the canvas.   I peeked behind the canvas from both the top and the bottom to determine the horizonal placement of the houses and lifeguard stand.  Once the guidelines were in and my composition set, I was free to apply the shimmery colors of the beautiful beach morning in front of me.

For this painting, I had brought along a Titanioum White inGamblin's new oil paint called "Fastmatte."   I described using this fast drying paint in a previous blog.   I really liked it for mixing my sky.   It allowed me to apply three layers within the two hours I painted without pulling off previous layers.   The same quick drying characteristic that allowed the triple sky layer had a minor drawback for the same reason.  With Fastmatte not only did the canvas dry quickly, but my brushes dried quickly as well - not a big problem, but something to remember for the next time.

As always,  I'll wait a few days, let it dry and come back with fresh eyes and make any adjustments or improvements.   If you have any suggestions, let me know!

Painting at Plymouth Rock

I set out early on a perfect July day with a specific destination in mind, Plymouth, Massachusetts.     It was either luck or the early hour, but I secured the closest parking spot to the historic Plymouth Rock, and it was free. It was a sign of a good painting day to come.

I didn't actually paint Plymouth Rock or its enclosure, but rather chose a scene just beyond it. 

I commenced with a line drawing of the scene, with a plan to make the Mayflower II my center of interest.    The skies were pale morning blue with an orangy glow on the horizon.   The distant strips of land both on the right and the left almost pointed to the ship.   The Plymouth Harbor jetty also crossed behind the ship.   There were many boats, large and small in the harbor and one decision was which to include and which to leave out.    When I return to this painting, I want to include a few more distant boats with hints of white reflections.

Just as I was about to start on the Mayflower, the sun emerged and it absolutely lit up the side of the ship facing me.   The timing could not have been better so even thought the ship may look a little bright, I swear it was glowing in real life too. I used Naples Yellow and Cadmium Red Light to get enough warmth.  The elaborate roping is important to the ship's era and I will add it once the canvas is dry.  I find it difficult to paint a steady and accurate fine line outside, so I always wait to do that in the studio.


There have been plenty of days in which painting outside was a struggle. The problem might be the temperatures, precipitation, constant light changes, tides, interruptions and of course the biggest one, my mistakes.  This was a day with none of those, thankfully.   This is a great painting spot and I hope to return soon.

Grrrr Greenheads!!

Summer in a location with saltmarshes means that at some point, greenhead flies will rudely announce themselves.  Greenhead flies and black flies can spell the end of a perfectly fine beach or painting day if they are plentiful enough and at their peak.   At our saltmarshes, greenheads usually appear sometime around July 4^th and last for about two weeks.   They are quite aggressive and they bite.  I've been told that on the beach, kids even compete for how many "greenies" a person can swat in a day.   The record that our family knows of is 315 in one day by one person.    I don't know why someone would subject themselves to that much time exposed to the little devils, but to teens this kind of competition is worth it!

The greenies' ugly little cousins, black flies – also called “New Hampshire flies” -  appear later in July if they appear at all.   These look like ordinary house flies, but they're not.  They usually agree on a particular victim and gang up on the poor mammal.   If they like you, look out.   With respect to how numerous they are and how long they endure, black flies can be even worse than greenheads.



Greenhaed Weaponry

Greenhead weaponry may include a fly swatter, citronella candles, and bug spray.   These brightly colored items, sitting in a pile on July 4th, prompted me to pull out my still life shelf and set up the summery, anti-greenhead collection with a colorful striped beach towel underneath.  My warm spotlight illuminated from the top.

I began by blocking in my straw hat, not exactly a greenhead related item, but compositionally useful for its circular lines and muted cool shadows.   These curves provided variation and intersected all the other objects with their straight lines.  I then proceeded to the bright colors and made a conscious effort to use clean brushes and out-if-the-tube color where possible. 

I like striped fabric in my set ups, as you may have noticed.   One thing I liked about this one is that for every "out-of-the-tube", I made a shadow pile of that paint on my palette.  Where the towel folds over and is in shadow, I then had the darker version of the color ready to blend to toward the brightest hue of it, making it look like fabric.

Here is the effort after my first painting session of this 11X14 inch canvas.    I should note that in the days since I started the painting, we have not had a big problem with greenheads.   I've only been bit a couple of times.  I hope I do not jinx myself.


Usual Greenhead Cycle:

I spot my first biting fly of the season and remember how much I hate them.   I go into high alert mode and if I so much as feel anything brush against my skin, I am instantly ready to swat the bugger.   It takes about a week for them to hit the peak infestation and activity.   Toward the end of the second week, they get “stupid.”    They laze around and buzz aimlessly, making for a much easier target.   By July 21, they are gone for another year. 

I remind myself, greenheads are temporary!

Bonus Postscript:  Instructions for dealing with greenheads- 

Swatting them dead with your hand:

The best method to ensure a kill is to sideswipe, rather than whack it perpendicular to your body.   They seem to not see a sideswipe coming.  I’ve given greenheads a good whack, only to have them occasionally land and take off again.   This is probably why whenever you see someone successfully swat a greenie to the ground, they will then pound it about six more times to 1) make sure its really dead, and 2) vent the frustration of having to deal with these annoying pests.

Fly swatters: 

Greenies know what fly swatters are and will avoid your blanket or easel if they see one.  Display it prominently so they also will tell their friends.

Bug Spray: 

Wearing Insect repellant does work, although they still may tend to bump into your skin - then fly away – a little nervewracking, but at least you are spared the painful bite.  

Happy July!

Front Porch

Last week we were experiencing pop up showers every day.   I usually try to take advantage of painting places that have overhangs or shelters on such days.   On the day I started this painting, I used the most convenient sheltered spot of all, my front porch.    My street runs north-south and for this painting, I am facing south looking at my porch, shrubs, flag and the street beyond.

Front Porch Painting Stage One

I used a 11x14 inch canvas and there was quite a lot of content in the scene that I had framed with my viewfinder.  If think if I was out for a single painting session, I would have wanted to simplify the scene so that it would be more managable by eliminating things.   The engineer in me leans toward making everything more complex than it needs to be and I decided to go for it all in a multi-day effort.  

I started with a line drawing with paint because there were so many structural elements.  I then worked on the distant sky, trees and houses along the street.    Since it was overcast at the start, the values of the various planes in Stage One were mid-range.   The furthest parts of the scene were developed, the porch structure framing the distance.

At quitting time I lightly marked the placement of the three legs of my easel on my porch floor so that I could repeat my set up more easily on subsequent days.  On my next painting day, it was late on a sunny afternoon.  My neighbors' houses on the same side of the street as me were throwing nice long shadows across the street.   Also, the left side of the street was brightly lit by the late afternoon sun.    I was glad to have a good structural drawing from the cloudy day.  Now I could concentrate more on the sunny versus shady planes.

I initially found myself not wanting to include parked cars and mundane objects like trash barrels and recycling bins thinking these made the scene look ugly.     After I put the cars in, I was glad I did, since that is the way it typically looks in summer.  They also added some interest; anything painted seems to get elevated in status.



Front Porch in July

One of the corrections I made during session three of this painting was to slightly reposition and size the porch posts.    For some reason all of the posts were not level.   I had placed the top of the post exactly in the proper place, but as I extended the post down to the porch floor, I sloped them about five degrees off.   I only discovered this because I measured with my ruler.   I had evidently become blind to my misalignment.   I have done this before with verticals which is why I do this doublecheck

On day three of the painting I started filling in the foreground.   The white Adirondack chairs were completely in shade, so I had to force myself to make these nice white chairs dark enough.   The porch wood is also white and I intentionally made them darker than they should be so that my finishing strokes would be relative to the rest of a completed painting.  

I plan on coming back to this after the painting has a chance to dry and will post again with my last session's work.

Tropical Fish World

It seems like a year ago that we were enjoying our trip to Aruba, but it has only been a few weeks. 
 


Snorkeling became one of our favorite activities, having first discovered it on an island tour a few years ago.   Now whenever we go, we bring our own snorkeling things and delight in the underwater world of tropical fish.   This year we added another item, a disposable, waterproof camera.    The photos do not nearly capture the amazing color, but they certainly help recall some vivid memories of it, and serve as good reference material for painting it.  



Underwater World

The real trick would be to convey with a painting the other sensory elements of the encounter, such as:  the muffled sound of lapping waves above, a strange crackling noise (fish gills flapping?), or the feeling of the warm, tropical water and an occasionally bump or brush against of curious fish.

One of the funniest things to watch was my husband swimming ahead and watching a thousand fish trail behind him, they obviously were thinking he was the dominant, boss fish.   I also experienced being the big fish and if I swam a bit, then twirled around, there would be a thousand pairs of fish eyes and big fish lips facing me.  Wild!

I started this painting of the underwater world with a wildly colorful underpainting of cool yellows, greens and pinks.   Close range fish and coral seemed crystal clear in person.    They were actually magnified as evidenced by my erroneous perception of how close the bottom was when I tried to set my feet down.  As things were further away it got murky fast, and as it turns out, the camera had trouble focussing on anything too far away.  Stripes of wavelet fractured light crisscrossed everything under the water.   It too got dimmer in the distance.   These were the environment observations that I tried to include in the painting.

We had a plastic reference card that had pictures of various Aruba reef creatures and could match up what we saw which included all kinds of parrotfish, grouper and lots of yellowtail snapper.   I had some good pictures of the following fish which is why they made it into the painting.  The yellow fish with black stripes are called Sergeant Major.   The fish with a pinkish body and light periwinkle bluefins and tail was either a blue angelfish or a grey angelfish.  The large black fish with yellow dots and a greyish face is a French Angelfish.   Down in the crevices between the rocks and coral we spotted many Long-spined Sea Urchins, the black prickly-looking creature.

I loved painting this because of the variety of color and coral texture and am thinking I'll try another one soon while the learnings are fresh in my mind.