Evening Plein Air Session

Time To Pause
Oil on panel, 10x8

Ken Thompson Park in Sarasota is a great place to paint at any time of day, but my favorite is the evening.  I had to paint quickly as the sun was getting lower, and the shadows longer.  The great blue heron was standing still in the shallow water for a long time.  I painted the calm, stillness of the evening.

Painting a Backlit Scene

Early Morning Glow
Oil on panel, 14x11

Here is a backlit scene painted on site at Ken Thompson Park in Sarasota, Florida.  It was around 8:45 in the morning, and I was facing into the light.  The buildings and boats were surrounded with dazzling light and reflections.  When painting a backlit scene, I use more greys because the objects appear as silhouettes.  Painting white objects backlit by strong light is tricky because the white areas are actually darker than the surrounding light.  In this painting, I used lavender-grey on the whitest boats.  I added a little cadmium yellow to the white paint in the reflections.  This also creates contrast of warm (white & yellow) against cool (white & lavender) areas.  I kept the edges as soft as possible, especially on the buildings in the background.  This helps create the illusion of light surrounding the objects.  My main objective when I began this painting was to create a feeling of unity of light and atmosphere throughout the entire painting.

Year Of The Tree

Quiet Afternoon
oil on panel, 5x7

This study was done at Twin Lakes Park in Sarasota, Florida.  Everytime I visited the park I noticed how beautiful it was, and I wanted to come back and paint.  I finally found time to spend a whole day painting there.  This was the painting I did in the morning, before the clouds came in.  There was an alligator slowly floating around at the other end of the lake.  I saw egrets, herons, osprey, anhingas, and vultures around the lake. 

I am calling 2015 the year of the tree because I am planning on doing many plein air tree paintings.  The best thing about painting trees in the Southeast is the spanish moss.  It reflects color and changes with the light.  I have seen gray, green, yellow, lavendar, and red tones in the spanish moss.