Plein Air Painting

I'm the one on the left

Hello Friends

Today I joined the Escondido Art Association Plein Air Painting group at Felicita Park, in Escondido. I have painted landscapes before but this was my first plein air outing.

All I can say is that I was not prepared for plein air painting. I had to do my painting really fast because the light and shadows do change fast.  I had to hold the canvas on one hand, painting with the other while fighting off the bugs climbing on me and my art supplies, as well as the stuff that would fall on my painting and paint from the trees. It was not easy to reach my supplies and the sun was hot.

Next time I will take a TV tray table to put my art supplies on, a stool would be helpful to sit on (instead of a rock), and bug spray.  Hopefully area won't be too far from facilities. I guess I'm a city gal, although I love nature and taking long hikes and even camping, when it comes to painting, I prefer my studio.

Although it took me about 30 minutes to do this artwork, I was going for the impressionist style, I like my little painting under the circumstances it was painted on. My first oil landscape in years :)

I was surprised to see fake trees a long the park. The fake trees are used to cover up cell phone towers at the park. It's my understanding they are all over the place now. It was a beautiful day outdoors and so happy I got to experience plein air painting, as it was something I wanted to do for a long time.

With Love,
Glad

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School is Over for Now

Dark Night, 40"x60" Mix Media on Canvas

Dear Friends,

School is over now. I loved taking art classes and feel grateful to have been able to meet art professors, art students, and other people in the field of art.  I got to create amazing art projects and will miss the art assignments. My first drawing 2 project done in pencil, Yosemite, was on exhibit at the Escondido Municipal Art Gallery last month.

I did my very first oil abstract painting this month. It's huge, the biggest size I've used this far.  It's 48" x 60". I was not sure how the piece would look like when I started. I started using colors I liked, trying to implement some of the color theory concepts I learned but in the end I was not happy with it, so covered it all up and painted as I did before, from my own intuition, regardless if it conformed to any color theory concept or not, and I was happy with the result.  This artwork is now available for sale at my website. 

I attended Tom Tiedeman's annual BBQ last month. I took a few watercolor lessons from him years back but really couldn't get into that medium...what can I say...I'm in love with oils.  It was nice to see him again, his lovely wife, Marty, and gather among other creative minds.  I see artist like him with great success and smile, knowing that I will someday be there as an artist.

Art is so revealing. As an artist I pour all of me into my work and display it for all others to see and critique it. I am learning much about me as I paint. I say this because I also finished my acrylic "Dark Night" painting last month. I didn't realized how much anger I had during that time, but happy to see it express itself though art.  I put that painting next to my "Bliss" painting and realized that in life, it's all one....the sad and happy, the up and down, just one side of the same, like a nickle that has heads and tails.  Why do we insist on having a one sided nickle? I am learning to embrace both sides equally and with thanksgiving.

I hope all is well with you.

Love,
Glad

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