9x12 oil pastel, Ben Hunt Cabin, Hales Corners, WI 9/23/15

I met up with my buddies in the Milwaukee Sketch at Ben Hunt Cabin. It's been quite awhile since I've seen the Tuesday evening crew, Al, Tim, Roger, Juanita, Bonnie, Carol, and Amy. I talked to Bonnie and she was working with water soluble oil pastels so I brought my oil pastels. Here's a picture of what I was painting more or less.

I was thinking about switching to acrylics but I really feel like playing with oil pastels even though you have to mat and frame them. They never really dry. Although I've read about people putting a Sennelier fixative on top followed by an acrylic clear coat. That would be interesting to try.

 I like to work from light to dark so I can scratch back into the lighter underlayers.I didn't use any black just combined red and a dark green to ge the darker colors. Used very light peachy pink, gray, green, brown and red for the logs. The gray was used to blend and round the logs. Then scratched back to get details.

Al had a good suggestion to make the line more irregular where the grass lawn meets the prairie. You can see how the picture is improved by making a darker shadow area in the lawn and making the lawn edge more irregular.

Here's a link to Oil Pastels 101 . They say that "other advantages of oil pastels (besides being dustless) are their size, portability and ease of use - especially for plein air applications. Many artists use oil pastels for field studies because the color ranges are just as vibrant as traditional oil paints, but much more handy for carrying around."

I have found that to be true. I like that they are very portable and not very messy. It's easy to grab my tackle box of oil pastels that I have sorted by value and color, the bag with my rags, tape, 9x12 Strathmore Acrylic linen canvas paper pad, drawing board, and stool and go out painting. Clean up is very easy. Just put away the pastel sticks so I'm done and ready to go.

3.5 x 5.5 pen sketches at springdale pond, wisconsin 6/19/15

 In between swimming I sketched a little in my portable notebook.

Idle Isle, Muskego WI 6/18/15

Well only 2 of us met up this morning. Everyone else was at Cedarburg Plein Air Event. It was overcast and threatening to rain but it never did. Idle Isle was quite a hopping place. Lot of fishermen and boats. Park guy told us that it gets pretty busy in the afternoon with all the neighborhood kids and etc. coming to enjoy the park. Between 9 and 11 we were pretty much the only people sitting in the pavilion near the beach.

Due to the rain, I decided to use oil pastels. I'm going to need to buy another white or clear stick since I like to lay a light layer of white down over the entire paper before I start. I do that so I can scratch or scrape back to a lighter color if I want to. Here you can see the beginning.

Here's a picture I abandoned halfway through. It was on the smooth side of the paper. I flipped the paper over and started a new sketch on the more textured side.

Here's the final picture. I used light blue, gray, and white for the sky. The light kept changing as the clouds kept moving across the sky. Used dark red mixed with green for the darks. Showed my friend how you can use a plastic card or fingernails to scrape back for texture and highlights. Ran out of time so this is where we left it.

 
My Judsons Art Outfitters Almanac No11 came last week. Carl Judson along with Winston's Churchill's book "Painting as a Pastime" really inspire me to paint. I have his guerilla box and tripod that I use when I plein air paint with my Golden Open Acrylics. Carl Judson is now traveling across the United States on a painting journey. You can follow his trips at http://www.guerrillapainter.com/wherescarlnow.html . July 6-7 he is going to be in Kimberly, Wi to visit Jack Richeson & Co., Inc. However I don't see anything on Jack Richeson's website maybe they don't know yet.

I am on a learning curve right now with a new photo processing program. I am trying to learn how to use Adobe Photoshop Elements 13. In the past I was able to use Adobe Photoshop to fix perspective when cropping because no matter what I do, I can't seem to take a photo of a picture and make it square.

 

McCarty Park 6/11/15

A group of us has started painting again on Thursday mornings. Originally we planned to go to downtown Waukesha per Milwaukee Sketch Club Summer Plein Air Painting Guide but M called me and said the radar was showing heavy rain that was going to start there at 9am. Right when we were going. So he said, "How about Greenfield Park." I texted everyone and thought that McCarty Park might be a better option has it has a pavilion/boathouse with a very large overhang. So that's where we went.

When we arrived it started to rain lightly, a little more than a drizzle. The men who were getting the pool ready for summer had their truck under the overhang so they could access their tools and stay dry. A older man was fishing on the steps leading into the water and across the way I could see someone in a pink coat fishing under the trees.

9x12 oil pastel

At the last minute due to the rain I switched to oil pastels. I keep them in a tackle box sorted by lightness/darkness and color. The lightest ones are in the top drawer and the darkest ones are in the bottom. I use a lot of clear or white because I prep the Strathmore Acrylic linen canvas paper by rubbing in a layer of clear or white before I start. That's so I can scrape back to a lighter color if I need to. You can see where I taped the paper to my board. Usually that's cropped out if I decide to mat and frame it in a 11x14 frame.

9x12 oil pastel

After I've rubbed in the white with either my fingers then a rag. I take a light color and block in the shapes. Then I start layering. Sometimes I'll rub in a layer but mostly I scribble. I use a lot of browns and reds to tone down the greens. In the darker places I ended up using black since none of my colors were dark enough. I'll scrape back with a plastic card but on an angle to make a point to put back in highlights. The sky was a combination of light blue, gray, and white. I think I have 3 grades of Cray-pas from student to expressionist because that is the brand of oil pastels that I started with. The student grade has too much wax in it so doesn't lay down much color and is more transparent. I also have Van gogh, Sennelier, and Holbein oil pastels.

I started a second drawing of willow trees but didn't complete it. (It was time to go.) I needed to use white to milk over the greens and put in more darks. Also probably would have fixed hill and water edge once I sat there longer. Oil pastels are a little trickier than regular pastels but you can scrape and reapply them to fix an area.

The wildlife, frogs, ducks, and geese were quite noisy. There was also a heron. I think this picture might make a nice painting if you move things around a bit.

People were friendly yet respectful. A lot of people walking by. We teased them about putting them into our painting. This young boy fishing by us pulled out a lot fish but didn't keep them. A worker guy left the pavilion open so we could access the bathroom if we needed it and not use the porta potty. At the end several buses of kids pulled up but mostly played on the playground on the other side of the building.

A link to oil pastel society and oil pastel basics http://www.oilpastelsociety.com/oil-pastel-basics.html

5/13/15 journaling

Some more journaling. The landscape picture is from left over paint. I'm getting a lot of shine/glare off the pictures even though I am taking the pictures in the shade.

4/30/15 journaling

Some more journaling done at The Martini Girl's Studio.

4/23/15 pencil sketch old, leaky, winter boot

This is my favorite type of boot to wear in winter when working outside unless it gets below zero. Then I wear my white, rubber, Mickey Mouse boots.

The felt pack keeps your feet relatively dry and warm. They're not too heavy and they are easy to get on and off. Next year I will be buying a new pair as these have developed a leak. Luckily it was when the weather was starting to get warm in the high 20s F. Goodbye leaky boots.

Some journaling from 150416

Met up with my Martini Girl friends at their studio. We had a good time.

Elegant Farmer Apple tree orchard pastel 9x12 and plein air painting

 Last Thursday a group of us met up to paint at the Elegant Farmer. Donna had called and got us permission to paint at the top of the hill but despite that we still ended up talking to someone in a white truck. I guess the woman in the office forgot to tell him.

John got there first, then me, then Mark and Cindy, then Terry, and Donna last. It was an overcast day and actually sprinkled on the way out but it stayed dry while we painted. There was a good breeze and towards the end of the morning it became partly cloudy with white puffy clouds and a blue sky.

Mark has very good painting setup that he designed hisself. (I'm using the colloquial version of himself here because that's the way I talk.) His wife bought her photographer's umbrella from Amazon Basic. It has a handle for carrying and a hook on the bottom for hanging weights when it gets real windy to keep it from blowing away. Mark made their painting panel mounts so they can attach with a camera attachment. He got the insets from a hardware store. They found lightweight sports umbrellas from Menards

My painting looks dark and fuzzy but I think that is the way the lighting was.

My painting supplies were simple. Three boxes of pastels, a drawing board, and rag. I set the pastels on a towel to try to keep track of them in the tall clover and sat on a light, blue, foldable, tripod stool. Since this is wood tick season I tucked my pants into my socks but didn't see or get any ticks. Wind kept off any possible bugs. I wore my floppy canvas hat, long sleeve shirt, and long pants. Mosquitoes love me and I get an allergic reaction to insect repellents, even natural ones, so I have to limit my use.

I started out by taping a piece of 9x12 gray, Canson Mis-Teintes paper to my drawing board and lightly sketching the basic shapes. I was intrigued by the lines of the trees in the orchard. I had to dull down the greens with browns. The far tree line was the darkest spot of the picture while the chopped up plant material in the field was the lightest.