Kittens!

This weekend Daya and I visited Cathy.
She is fostering 2 litters of kittens and they are RIDICULOUS.

I taught them how to use the ipad.

They did very well and got to something like level 39 of the catch-the-fish game.

I didn't bring any paint because it rained ALL WEEKEND.
This is Cathy's yard on fire in the rain.
(It's a reflection from the fireplace!)

Here are some pictures from our walk in the woods:

Garbage Plein Air

I met up with Thor today and did 2 paintings in Thompkins Square Park.
My goal was to not get too insane over all the detail and chaos, and keep it pretty loose.

8x10 oil 2 hours

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When I had barely started this second painting, an old lady came over to say hi.
It was the best conversation ever, extremely NYC:

Lady: What viewpoint are you painting?
Me: I'm painting the garbage.
Lady: Oh, that's wonderful! 

6x8 oil, about an hour and a half.
It was pretty fun painting garbage.
I'll have to do it again.

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It was fun painting with Thor and real nice of him to let me tag along.
He knocked out three or 4 loose paintings in the time I took doing these two.

I was in two of them! I don't know if he'll finish them or not.
I got a picture of one of them.
(In the second he depicted me walking a cat which was pretty funny.)

Thor's palette:

Thor's painting of me:

Thor Wickstrom's painting 

Work from Home Issues

Working from home has been difficult today.

Cannot use the mouse now.

More Kayak Views

I woke up very early to get down to the boathouse on Pier 26 for volunteer orientation.

Here is Tribeca in the morning.

Orientation was cool.

We found this fish on the pier.

I swept it back into the Hudson.

Isn't it gross?

A bird ate it, but it looks like a cartoon fish with head, tail and spine!

(How do they eat them and leave it looking like this?)

Then we went out on the water.

The water is not open yet until next weekend, so it was just three of us and it was nice. The water was very choppy but I don't mind.

I made use of my new waterproof phone case which has a neck strap, so my phone doesn't get claimed by the river gods.

These weird ominous twin-facing buildings (NY and NJ) are how the exhaust gets removed from the Holland Tunnel.

It's a military zone and they freak out if boats get too close.  

It is on Pier 34 (where I painted yesterday) and you can go to the end of pier 34 until the security fence.

Lower Manhattan Skyline Plein Air

Today I wanted to go paint by the water, so I decided to take on a new challenge- the lower Manhattan skyline.

On an 8x10.

This view is from Pier 34.

I had a technical issue which made things a bit difficult.... I primed and toned some panels on Friday, but the tone wasn't quite dry. This was a problem because it mixed into my sky color.
Burnt Sienna plus turquoise does not look good.

Usually my panels are dry enough the next day so I don't know what happened there.

To get proper coverage I had to cover the sky with a very thick coat of paint, much more than I normally use. This was troublesome with my edges against the buildings and I had to work in small sections. It was a bit frustrating but thankfully something I don't normally have to deal with.

Otherwise this was a pretty difficult painting.
While I always analyze all my paintings and I can see issues with this one, there is still a lot I am happy with. It really was a difficult painting and would have been without technical issues, so I'm proud of myself for attempting it to begin with.

8x10 oil
Three hours

                              

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Sometimes if I talk to people about my painting self-analysis they think I am looking for suggestions from them. Especially if they have something of an arts background.

I am not.

I am not currently at a place in my plein airs where I want critique or "suggestions" of any kind.

Especially from people who are not plein air painters.

Well if they are a really accomplished plein air painter- then I'll take it.

Being out there painting is just a completely different perspective and experience.

And the truth is that I'm painting from my perspective and learning journey, and another person cannot know that from the inside.  I'm experienced enough to know what I did well with, what I missed and WHY.

I almost never go out painting randomly to "see what happens". Almost always, I have something I'm working on, a problem I'm looking to resolve, something I am looking to improve on. Sometimes I add a new color to my palette- recently, viridian. Or sometimes it's literally just trying new subject matter.

This is why VOLUME matters so much- because trying to focus on too many things to improve in one painting is too much. It is a cumulative journey.

(That being said, I desperately want Simon to run a plein air workshop again because I really want to learn from him and have him pick apart my paintings. I would LOVE that.)

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Outside of a teaching context, I actually don't think plein air in general should be critiqued, not really, and absolutely cannot be evaluated the same as a studio painting. It just can't. It's too different.

The above painting is about a thousand times more difficult on-location than it would be in-studio.  This is why even experienced studio painters almost universally feel like they have no idea how to paint at all when they start plein airing. This is normal. 

Plein air can be evaluated in the sense of "what elements are you looking to improve.... values? drawing? composition? paint handling? foliage edges? variation in greens? sky holes? painting windows in buildings? Clouds? Brushwork? Simplification?" And about a million other things- it never ends. 

I think it's better to evaluate plein airs as a group of work to see trends.

Every single experienced and accomplished artist I have spoken to about this says the same thing.  We are always self-evaluating.  I have never met someone who thinks they are "there".

So Exhausting

Pebbles moved once this afternoon.

From here:

To here:

So exhausting!

Blue Spruce Plein Air

I went back to Brooklyn Botanic Gardens yesterday.
It was nice to be out alone with all the plants.

I love these plants!

Aren't these mugs great?
I got one.

More pictures from familiar places, it was nice to be back.
I didn't really walk around a lot on Sunday, so I did a bit yesterday.

Japanese Garden:

This gorgeous tree caught my eye and I decided to paint it.

Here was my view:  I really loved how the tree stood out against the dark.

The color in this photo is not great- that tree basically glowed blue, it was amazing.

So..... this was a really difficult painting and I kind-of missed the mark on getting the lights on the tree.

Partly because by the time I got to the lights, I had direct sun on the panel at a really bad angle and I stopped being able to see at all.  5pm this time of year is a terrible sun angle!! I did move around but no angles were good.

Also conifers are difficult and I don't really know how to paint them.
I need to figure that out. Probably in-studio.

This painting ended up being a lot darker than I intended... and without the glow I wanted to get.
I should have added cadmium yellow to the palette but I only used yellow ochre, and it was limiting for lighter greens.

But weirdly and unexpectedly, it has gotten extremely positive response on social media. 

I'm kind of surprised to be honest because I didn't think it was that great. 

But people seem to really like all the darkness.

This painting kind of dragged on longer than I wanted to be out, and the sun angle really was a problem.

People at BBG loved it though, and I did get mistaken again for a high schooler so that's cool.

This painting absolutely would not photograph at all.
This is the best I could get, and I had to do it at home.

8x10 oil

On-location shot.... doesn't that look terrible?
I tried taking many location pics at different spots and angles and they all looked awful.

Bluebell Wood

 Yesterday we all decided to meet up again at Brooklyn Botanic Garden to paint.

I have not been since pre-covid, it was so nice to be back.

The bluebells are in full bloom and they are amazing.

I painted them.
8x10 oil

So many bluebells!