Double Bluff - again

Day 2 of Jim Lamb plein air workshop started at Double Bluff Beach again in early morning. I painted west bluff looking toward west and an isolated sea water on the beach, which Jim demoed last year. It went relatively well by remembering his demo.

However, the second piece I started about noon didn't go well mainly because strong sun light (temp was about 90) shifted and washed colors away in both sun lit part and shadow part. I was kind of lost. Jim helped salvaging this a little bit like adding pattern on the foreground and dark red trees. But I gave up.

For both paintings, mixing enough batch of common green helped me a lot. I should make this my habit.

"Emmert Vista II"

Today I joined Jim Lamb's plein air workshop Day 1, hosted by WIFAS(Whidbey Island Fine Art Studio), Cary Jurriaan, on the island. Until this morning we didn't know where we would paint today. It was at the former president of UW, or the current NCAA president Mark Emmert's place, near Cultus Bay, south end of the island. Mark Emmert is apparently one of Cary's friends on the island. In the afternoon, while we were painting, Mark came back from the East Coast where he works and I exchanges some words with him. He liked my Moto Guzzi V7 but his wife cut off our conversation and asked me not to recommend with a smile...I had to let him stay away from trouble.

Anyway, above is the outcome of today's session. After finished initial block out with wider brush, I run out of base green mixture and struggled putting more layers on top of it. Lesson1: make a enough batch of major colors expected to use a lot.
I think the tree shapes and colors are ok. Jim said sky is too cool and I should worm and lighten it up. He demonstrated on my canvas, which I later destroyed mushing up with greens. He also commented the orange grass is too hot. I should have made more pinkish or something like that.
But after all, I think I picked a proper composition and made a good progress on learning plein air today.
I'm looking forward to the session tomorrow.

Putting in highlighted shapes

I wanted to set proper values at this stage at highlighted areas to decide value contrast with darker areas. But I realized the ears were proportionally big so I made them smaller and lowered the positions. Much better shapes now.
I also pushed the darkest dards further.

Skagit River

This evening we got some sun broke through clouds so I took this photo. I thought I at least got values right although I know it should have gotten more color variation. But now I see it's missing direction of light, which was coming from low left in the evening. I'll try improving next time as well as adding more colors or making some brighter.

Filling the sky

Yesterday, I went to Skagit Valley and painted Skagit River. But I paid more attention to attacking mosquitoes than painting. Next time I need to remember bringing bug repellent. I couldn't take photo of the painting because I came home late evening and today(Sunday) is rainy or cloudy. I'll post later when weather allow me to take a good photo.

I worked on mainly sky part of this painting today. Almost done. I struggled with brush marks. But I guess this is better than "Sauvie Sky". I need more practice.

Need to improve wet canvas holder

Last week my new Guzzi V7 Stone got the first maintenance finished as well as the European side stand was installed, which was the last piece I was waiting. So I took it to a long hwy ride first time passing Bellingham and got to Lummi Indian Reservation. I painted on Fishermans Cove near Whatcom Chief Ferry terminal to get to Lummi Island.
This was my first plein air session this year (since previous Guzzi Nevada didn't run) but it went ok. But when I came back home I found the surface of the canvas had hit the top part of the canvas holder multiple times, losing some paints. You can see it clearly on the bottom right corner of the photo below; losing the beach color. I need to come up with something to keep the canvas staying at the bottom by next time I go out painting.

Bigger shapes are aproximately positioned

I haven't worked on this a while but finally I'm done with the 1" brush to put bigger shapes in place. I'll change the brush from here and start defining key edges and more colors.

Simple Composition

This is very simple, which means it might be difficult to appeal to viewers. It would be all about the face of the horse. The rest should be quite dark.

New Horse Painting???

This is not abstract painting. But my new horse painting. 20x20 square format with a 16" diameter circle in it. The title would be "Window". I took a distant photo of horse sticking his/her head out of a horse barn window at a ranch near North Bend.
Yes. This is my continuous effort to paint natual objects with unnatural shapes. Series' #2. The last one didn't go well but I haven't given it up. So I decided this format as my second effort. Inside the circle the colors would be monotonous, except the horse head.
We'll see how it goes.