Park Life

Today was a fun day out painting with friends.  I am taking a couple of plein air sessions with Kim VanDerHoek and today we were at Eisenhower Park in Orange.  Lots of pretty scenes of water, ducks, geese and trees on the lake and ponds.  This loud goose modeled for us and would take a break and return to almost the same spot.  

Today I mostly wanted to work on water reflection and setting the background back.  I took lots of photos and I think I will work out a few studio pieces from them.  The tree and water value contrasts are strong.  Working the composition out in studio is much easier for me than on location.  I tend to paint what I see.

10x8 oil on canvas

DPW Auction

Boat House, Irvine Park 9" x 12" pastel

The boat house is a neat little building that houses all the peddling boats at Irvine Park.  It sits at the far end of the small lake and is a basic rectangle building.  It has a lot of roof that catches the light nicely.  It is difficult to compose.  There is either the building and tall trees or the buildings and a lot of lake.  Today there were very nice reflections and so I picked the lake to work on leading to the boat house.  It was so pleasant under the trees.  It was a wonderful day.  The photo has toned down the color more than I like, so I uploaded another one with a color adjustment.  Somewhere between the two is the true color, leaning toward the top one.  The roof has more of a coral color to it.  One of these days I will learn the photo editing program.

Irvine View " 8 x 10" oil

I really call this Tom's trees, because we were copying a painting of Tom's in class 2 weeks ago. I think there is a value in copying a painting to get the feel of what it take to make that stroke or feel the thin or thick or just match a color. I have trouble when I think about the fact that I really am trying to find my own style. So I need to make sure I balance the importance of both in my life. I think the only answer is to paint , paint, paint!