Blakeman's at Sunset

Blakeman's at Sunset

On Duxbury Reservation, the "bathhouse" building houses restroom facilities and a snack bar on one side a clam shack on the other.  The clam shack, open only "in-season" is called Blakeman's.      At Blakeman's the dining experience is as informal as your on your average back deck.   I'm not even sure there is a "no bare feet" sign.   The seating consists of picnic tables and people can bring their own beverages.   It is a great place to get dinner especially if you have one or more wet and sandy children straight off the beach.  Adults can get a fisherman's platter and the children can get a hot dog.

One of the nicest features of Blakeman's is the fact that there is a beautiful, wide open view of the northern end of Duxbury Bay.   The sunsets are routinely spectacular and the scene depicted in this painting is a backlit Blakeman's looking toward the sunset.

The structure has various rooflines that seem to convey that additions were added on one at a time over the years.  The roof over the "dining room" was reflecting the peachy sunset, and the rest of the building was in shadow.   The trademark sign with the six foot high lobster is depicted as well as the buoys that hang from the eaves, although you have to look closely.

Ames Pond

Easel set up at Ames Pond

After spending the morning in Boston, I drove north to Tewksbury to attend a retirement party.    My early arrival meant I had some time to set up and do a plein air painting.   Ames Pond off of Route 133 in Tewksbury is
bordered by some nicely designed office buildings with parking and picnic tables.




One White Birch at Ames Pond

 The photo to the right shows the angle of my easel as it faced Ames Pond and the hillside to the southern edge of the pond.  A path wound around the building to my left following the edge of the pond.   Occasionally an employee on a break would stroll along this path and disappear around the other side.   A couple of different people who stopped to take a look asked me if I had seen the swans.  They said that a swan pair and their chicks regularly visited the edge of the pond where I was standing.  I mentally prepared for the appearance of the swans.   I would try to quickly sketch them in, if and when they showed up.   They never did, but given the current state of the painting - nice but somewhat dull - I may still retrofit them in from reference photos.  The swans would take the place of the single white birch as the center of interest.





One White Birch

Nantucket Sound Vista from Centerville

Gazebo Overlooking Centerville Beach - Stage One

I had never seen the Centerville beaches until the day of this paint-out even though I've been visiting Cape Cod my whole life.   Centerville is just to the west of Hyannis so the trip did not take very long travelling down Route 3, over the Sagamore Bridge and along Route 6 to Exit 5.   I was meeting a group of plein air painters from Craigville, a small community that overlooks the beaches.

The meeting spot was the gazebo at the top of "the forty steps."    It had plenty of parking, shady trees and a beautiful view of the ocean.   The heat was still turned all the way up even though Cape Cod is known for being generally cooler in summer than "mainland" Massachusetts.   The winds were brisk but hot at the gazebo, forty steps above sea level.

Gazebo Overlooking Centerville Beaches

In the first photo, the scene and my painting are shown. In the top left corner is a large branch, part of the tree on the left that crossed through my viewfinder.    I included it thinking that it would offer a foreground element that framed the painting.    When I asked the group for their opinions, the consensus was the branch was confusing and detracted from the painting.    I was thankful for the insight because once I removed it, the scene seemed to become lighter and airier, like the day itself.   The sky was a pale blue (cerulean) with some hazy, pinkish clouds (yellow ochre, cad red) that are present on humid summer days like these
.  Although the figure is not prominent in the painting, she is sitting in the gazebo doing a watercolor painting if you look closely.

In a Fog at Gray's Beach Kingston

It was overcast and gray when we set out to drop off the car for an oil change and find a place to paint until it was ready.   Kingston is located between Duxbury and Plymouth and just about a half mile south of the Jones River estuary is a nice town beach called Gray's Beach.   Its name was perfect for this cloudy, it-could-rain-anytime day and fortunately there were picnic tables with big sturdy overhangs.  

Fog sat over the water and shifted in and out during the time we were painting.    Just after painting in the gray cloudy sky and matching water, the fog thinned out revealing patches of blue sky.    The brightening did not last though, and that was fine with me since I was well along in my painting which was predominantly shades of gray.



Gray's Beach Kingston

We had several visitors curious about what we were painting.   A Dad, his two school aged daughters and son with a skateboard were particularly interested in the process.  I asked, and they offered me their opinions on whether to include the lonely motorboat moored off the beach.    We came to an agreement that adding the boat would not improve the composition, and as the auburn haired daughter noted, the scene should remain unblemished with this detail.   Well said!

This painting offered the reminder that a simple design, especially of our beautiful New England landscape can offer a kind of attraction that can rival a more complicated or more colorful piece. 

Rock Formations Beautiful Vieques

I painted with watercolor while on vacation in beautiful Vieques, Puerto Rico this past Spring.  This week I finally made time to revisit their beautiful, tropical beaches with the dazzling turquoise water in my favorite medium - oil.   



Vieques - Media Luna (Half Moon)

With the watercolors and painting plein air, I never did feel like I quite matched the ocean's tropical green.   With oil, that's a different story.   I used Emerald Green, Gamblin's "Cote d'Azur and some cerulean blue with titanium white in varying amounts to make what I thought was a good match for that fabulous tropical water's colors.   The rocks had a mid value pinkish purple color.   I used my tropical sea water with alizarin to get the local color of the rocks.   In the deepest shadows I used Prussian Blue (very similar to Pthalo Blue).
 
The sand was primarily buff titanium with some swirls of my existing palette colors for interest.  I like how bright it looks - certainly not the blinding light of standing there, but relative brightness feels similar.   I'd like to figure out a way of having the canvas emit the associated solar heat.

Plymouth Clock Tower

Plymouth Clock Tower

The heat has been brutal for several days with the dew points in the high sixties and even hitting seventy one day.   We headed out for the second day in a row to paint and bake.   We figured if there was going to be a cooler spot, it would be along the water, turns out we picked Water Street in Plymouth.

Again a dream parking spot - closest to Plymouth Rock and free!   There were people strolling the waterfront and many seemed like tourists based on their accents, maps/cameras in hand and their need for directions.   Plymouth's nickname is "America's Hometown."   It was a lively spot to enjoy a paint-out while people from all over the world explored the area around us.

Plymouth Clock Tower from Water Street

Plymouth has a number of interesting buildings with a variety of steeples and rooftops.  While my painting partner tackled the complex Plymouth Rock Memorial, I set up with my back to the water looking toward the grassy embankment that leads up to the center of town and all the rooftops and steeples.   I chose to eliminate the cars at the base of the hill and start the scene just above them.  The castle looking building is actually the Salvation Army Church on Carver Street. The clock tower is atop the US Postal Service Building.   I vowed to be really loose on the large areas of sky, trees and grass, and I was.   The grass was done with a two inch brush with wide diagonal strokes that I didn't go back to - that was hard.  Trees were done with thick dark paint via palette knife.  Sky was also palette knife.   Since the size is large at 16"x20," I used a lot of paint!

I'm calling this one Plymouth Clock Tower with the notion that its gold dome and four sided clock face was the center of interest.   Competing for top billing however is the castle, especially with its warm red and gold stone façade.  I will revisit this one and decide whether to play down the color on the castle so that it is more subdued as a supporting element. 

Meanwhile, feel free to weigh in on it - as always your comments are welcome.






Brant Rock Late Afternoon

Dark Water at the Start

Ocean Street parallels the Atlantic Ocean for a stretch where there are parking spots right above the shore.   It was late in the day but the sun was still high in the June sky and it was illuminating Brant Rock, the jetties, the sand and the beach houses.    There were plumes of jet contrails high in the sky and a deck of pretty lower clouds as well.   

When the clouds sit above the ocean late in the day, the water can look much darker than the overhead blue sky.




Lighter Water Midway

Look what happens next.   The water gradually gets lighter in color as the clouds take over the eastern sky.

The shadows from the cars are more pronounced on the sidewalk.  I needed to make design decisions about the light, but I didn't do it right then and there.   I continued capturing the unique elements such as the Brant Rock tower and even the guardrail.






Pale Gray Water Toward the End

As the clouds continue to fill in to the east, the water gets paler still.   This light gray water version of the scene is so vastly different from the blue summery feeling at the start that I packed up and headed home.


One week later I did a critique, deciding that the long car shadows might be the key to making this painting more interesting.   People who sit along the wall in late afternoon can decide to either be in sun or shadow (most seem to chose sun).   I added the striped effect of the long shadows back in the studio.   The boldest, widest shadow in the foreground is meant to balance the far right elements (people, houses, tower).   Did it do its job?


Brant Rock Late Afternoon

Feedback as always is welcome.



Figure in the Sunshine



Figure in the Sunlight - Studio Rework from Class Study

 
 




Our Figure in the Landscape class has been as good as I had hoped it would be.   We had a beautiful model who layered on her sunblock and dutifully sat in full sun so that we could observe and record the luminescence of her skin. 









I tried to predict the trajectory of the sun so that some nice shade would overtake the spot I chose to paint from.   Temperatures were rising quickly.   Well I didn't calculate very well I and spent most of the class standing in the sun with a sunlit canvas as well.    At least I could empathize with our poor model who was also melting, fully exposed to the sun too.   Essentially I came out of the class with a study.


Negative Version of Painting

When I got it home I saw several things that I wanted to improve. 
 I also thought that by studying the composition armature, I could improve the flow.   The photos show the sequence of what I did.








Negative, Upsidedown Armature

1) Converted the painting to black and white and then changed it to its negative in Photoshop, then turned it upsidedown. (I was thinking that seeing the painting abstractly with the figure as the darkest element would help see the armature more easily).









Negative, Upsidedown Armature with Spiral  Balancing Lines

 2) The armature seems like spirals so I added extra lines to expand the abstract design with more spirals.



Back to positive image with balancing spirals

 
 
3)  Changed the black and white back to positive state.  I liked how it looked from an abstract (weighting) perspective.     No matter which way I turned the canvas, it looked equally weighted.



4) Next the challenge was to figure out how to incorporate these line elements into my representational composition.    I did it with the landscape (branches and grasses).   




Here is the finished product.   The Naples Yellow grasses were my attempt at balancing the composition and creating pseudo spirals that echo the primary armature.

Cornsilk

                                                                                  





Shady Porch Next To Audubon

It was early on day four of a July heat wave when we got our paint-out started, mainly trying to avoid the sizzling midday sun.   

It was already 82 degrees at 9am.  Maybe it was the heat getting to me but I felt uninspired as I looked around the Daniel Webster Audubon in Green Harbor.   There was plenty of nice scenery, much of which I have painted before.   Nothing was jumping out at me which is unusual.

Underpainting

There was plenty of green.   I had brought along a large canvas that had been underpainted with a colorful textured abstract.  I knew one thing;  I was going to guarantee myself shade for the entire duration of painting session.   Two large maple trees stood by the two picnic tables and I picked the one closer to the small private residence that abuts the preserve.    A border of flowers with bright orange tiger lilies ran along the road in front of the house with a small front porch.   The morning sun was behind the house and the porch area was shaded which created a dark backdrop making the lilies look even brighter by contrast.


Bright Flower Border - Stage One

I had a brand new, ding-free palette knife so I began mixing up some piles of color with it




Bright Flower Border - Stage Two

.   Instead of switching to brushes, I spread the color on with the knife to start.   With brushes I tend to paint thinly, building up layers gradually.   With the knife, I go thick right from the start giving the painting a whole different feel.     It's a lot of fun to paint this way and the result is thick and colorful.

Silk Spools with Fan

Silk Spools and Fan Stage 1

I don't ordinarily work on a square, although I really like when I see art in this format.   For a square, some say that the rule of thirds does not apply.  In other words, a composition with the center of interest in the middle should work just fine, balance on either side of a centered axis, both horizontally and vertically.  It was fun to play with this size again, since the last time I did one was the Out of the Box event through North River Arts Society last year.



Silk Spools and Fan Stage 2

The reason I was working on the square was that it was to support a silent auction.  After I completed it, I decided to enter something else instead.  I love this one. I had just attended a fantastic still life demo by Daniel Keys, so I pulled out my still life shelf and set it up with some items.   Mill spools are becoming more and more scarce and are one of my favorite pieces of Americana.   I bought the fan in Japan and actually has some splashy color on one side and neutral on the other.   I used the neutral side and in fact set up everything in neutral color so that I could improvise with the color.    The goal for this painting was use a color palette that was considered "hot" for 2013 (per a designer magazine) would interest more bidders.  

Silk Spools and Fan Final

I settled on a palette combination that has hot pink, turquoise, cobalt blue, and shades of gold.   The black lacquered vase was picking up a lot of reflections.    Winding the thread throughout the painting is a look I have used before and had fun adding again.

I'll let this sit a few days and decide if there are any other changes needed.   (maybe the blue spool is looking too flat?).   Let me know what you think too.