This weekend I took advantage of the 'Between the Boards' event organized by the St.Thomas Elgin Public Art Gallery. A day of plein air painting featuring a beautiful old barn.
I started the day with a watercolor & ink sketch. I'm not a watercolor painter, but I found sketching the view then colorizing it really helped me get into the groove.
The weather was great, with lots of fluffy clouds blowing around in the wind.
For the second painting, I switched to acrylic paint on wood panel. I also adjusted my spot so that I was behind the barn to get a wonderful willow tree into the view. The wind really gave this tree expression and I tried to convey that. I also tried to capture the light on the barn. The light shifted quickly so I had to pick my light and just go with it. I also added a bit more laneway to give the painting a pathway in for the viewer.
In the end I feel good about both paintings, they're so completely different in style, but I had lots of fun creating them!!
I also loved seeing how all the other artist took this subject and made their own. For the second part of the event, all the artists will create a more finished painting based on the plein air sketches created on site. The art gallery will host a show of these painting in the coming year... stay tuned!
I've done quite a bit of plein air painting over the last year, so I wrote a blog post sharing what I learned from plein air painting every day for a month.
Check it out... PLEIN AIR BLOG POST
