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.