Relaxing Riverside

Relaxing Riverside

We carved out time during a trip to Western MA for plein air painting.  Lots of streams and rivers crisscross the Connecticut River Valley.   We stumbled upon this beautiful spot along Millers River in Erving, MA.   I shouldn't say that its discovery was completely by chance, because my husband speculated that there would be access spots below the several bridges that traverse the waterways.   Similar to how people hang out and relax at the ocean shoreline, a few people sat in the shade of the bridge buttress enjoying the water.   This sweet pooch was full of energy and would greet all who came down the path.   He also put on a show for us.  He would float with the river current, then scramble to the edge and bound back to his owner, who barely moved a muscle.

Stream Down by the Barn

Stream by the Barn Underpainting

Another snowscape!?   But see?  There is melting going on here ... a sign of inevitable Spring. :)

The barn in this painting is located in Lee, MA next to the Devonfield Inn.   I was picturing how the barn may have looked when it was originally built.   It was probably red oxide (the cheapest and most available paint back then), certainly not white.    The mid-winter setting and frozen stream probably didn't look much different though - pristine!

The modernized barn was white so that was the way I painted it.  The strong dark shadow from the eaves was perfectly parallel with the roof line - all was well with the world.   I loved that there was a stark contrast of values in the scene.    Whether viewed sideways or up-side-down, the abstract value pattern worked - independent of the subject.



Stream by the Barn

The stream in the foreground was done with a very dark combination of transparent darks: alizarin, ultramarine, transparent oxide brown, viridian and purple.  I didn't mix them thoroughly, but rather scraped up a bit of each onto my palette knife and spread it horizontally, which resulted in a dark area where the various colors can still be distinguished.   If I had mixed all those darks, it would have resulted in a nice dark blackish color which would have been okay.  A better result came from minimal mixing of the colors, adding another dimension to the darkest dark.

Let the melting begin!



Mill on the Housatonic River

Climbing up to the Road

Painting Riverside

Lee, Massachusetts was the location of this paint out and it is with a small degree of pride that I present this painting.  My painting partner and I both spotted this spectacular scene as we drove along - passing it by at first.   Twenty minutes later after not seeing any scenes nearly as striking, we returned.  It was no trivial matter getting set up on this painting spot because it was situated at a sharp curve in the busy Route 20 at an overpass over the Housatonic River.



Mill on the Housatanic River - Stage One

There was an old rusty chain blocking a car path down to the river and just enough space for the Cube to nestle in next to it (love this car).  The road was about 30 vertical feet above the river.   We scaled down the embankment to a scene where the river rapids passed in front of an old red brick mill.    There were blue mountains in the background and it was completely overcast.    The clouds made the red brick look even more stunning and certainly the central point of interest amid all the muted early Spring underbrush.



Mill on Housatonic River - Stage Two

Rather than sightsizing, I used my viewfinder (two cardboard "L's") to frame the picture.  I placed the brick stack first and based all my other placements around it.   The moldy/mossy green at the base of the rusty brick buildings was reflected in the water as well.   Three areas of brick were lighter in value, the farthest building, which was on a different angle, the side of the biggest building, which was not in complete shadow, and the right side of the stack.    Each time I worked on the building elements, I used the remainder of the color below in the water.

I decided to finish the foreground trees and branches back in the studio using my photo reference.   I'm glad I did because I had so much thick paint in the sky and water that the branches were pulling in too much white.

Mill on the Housatonic River