Paint out day!

This was the site of our plein air paint out today---a private home with an abundance of flowers, vistas overlooking the valley, and fun garden art tucked here and there to surprise us!


The variety of poppies was pretty stunning---these especially, each one about the size of a dinner plate---or larger! There were red poppies, frilly orange & lavender ones, and these amazing giant white beauties.



I loved the painted floor in the bathroom...how cool is this?!


This poppy was unique with its crackle-like white veins shooting out from the centers.


Here's what I finally settled on painting. At first it was in the shade---like I was, but then as we approached noon, the poppy was flooded with sunshine, making bright highlights and subtle shadows I tried to throw in at the last minute.


This was the first layer of pastel on my 12x12" canvas.


And here is the pastel painting at its almost finished state. I need to study it for a bit now, see if there's anything I don't like, or want to change. Any suggestions? Constructive criticism? Ideas?

Photos from the past week

This is what our car looked like, stuffed with everything Eliza had at UO when we brought her home last week. She and I almost had to walk home! Notice the big bag that sat under my feet all the way home... luckily I like to sit with my feet on the dash and it wasn't uncomfortable at all!


Lovely evening out with friends from Portland---we had dinner at Fireworks (previously known as Wildfire, & before that as Intabas) http://www.fireworksvenue.com/main.html


Sunset out our motel on Monday night---The local plein air painters headed to Florence for 3 days, painting Tuesday at Cleawox lake just south of Florence, then at Heceta Lighthouse on Wed.


This was the view I chose to paint at Heceta Lighthouse state park---you can see the lighthouse off in the distance.


Speaking of the lighthouse....


Walking back down from the lighthouse the view of the keeper's house and the hwy. 101 bridge which I was painting nearby earlier.


The keeper's house, up close & personal---it's a bed & breakfast!


Meanwhile, back at home we've had a visiting chickadee family that frolicked in the sprinkler while we had lunch one day. I had to try and capture a few on film (probably not the correct term now that we're using digital photography?)





Have a terrific weekend!

Latest painting---still in progress

The local plein air painting group went out to a private garden last week and I decided to work smaller & focus on a single flower. Using a square format, I was somewhat limited I discovered. There were some brilliant blue delphiniums just calling out to me, but they're so long, tall & lanky, they just didn't seem the best choice to squeeze onto the 12x12" canvas I was using that day! Fortunately I found a sweet yellow rose, just right for this shape and went to work on it using pastel on primed white canvas. Here are some shots of the rose & the painting in progress:


This next image shows the first layer of pastel I had on the canvas---after I sprayed it---plein air hazard, it takes too long for this to dry on cool cloudy days.... Wished I had a battery powered blow dryer! (do they make such a thing???)


Here is the painting almost finished---there are a few changes I plan to make still---that lighter green seems distracting above the rose, so it's gotta go, then where the right petal of the rose meets the background leaf, it's a bit too perfect of a line-up, so will alter that too. A bit more lights, darks, pushing the colors a little more, and I think we can finish this up fairly quickly! I'll try to remember to post a photo of the finished painting as soon as I get to that point!

Fake TtV

Yesterday I did some reading on TtV's---through the viewfinder photo images. "Through the Viewfinder photography is defined as taking a picture of any subject through the viewfinder of any camera with another camera."... as if photography doesn't already have its own complications---let's try taking pics using our camera looking thru another one! Well after exploring this new way of photography I began to desire an old Brownie or other old box camera to attempt this process. What I like is the dust textures, the frame around the image and the slight discoloration that can be created by shooting pics this way. Here are a ton of photos taken with this process if you want to see what I'm talking about: http://www.flickr.com/groups/throughtheviewfinder/

Well, seeing how I don't have a box camera, I did a bit more research & discovered how to reproduce this look thru photoshop! Of course I had to experiment, and this is what I made---first the original photo, taken Sunday north of Tillamook Or.



Then after fiddling with it in photoshop with my new TtV knowledge (which took way more time that I expected...it's how I learn photoshop techniques---lots of trial & error, emphasis on error!) this is what it now looks like!



How cool is this?! Tillamook Bay has never looked more moody! Ok, maybe it has, I just wasn't there to capture it. Now I can create it with a little help from photoshop (or photoshop elements---what I really used this time).

Here's the website I used to learn how to do this: http://poetic-pixels.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=62:fake-ttv-tutorial&catid=57:post-processing

Go---play (or struggle if you do photoshop like I do...)---try this yourself! Then give me a link to your photos in the comment section.