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Saturday, March 17, 2007

Studio Painting from Plein Air Sketch

The weather turned wet and nasty again yesterday, but I wanted to paint. Rather than paint the scene from my window, I decided to go through my stack of "not-ready-for-prime-time" plein air paintings to see if I had anything that still excited me.

I found this 8x10 of Liberty Point, which is in the Roosevelt-Campobello International Park here on Campobello Island. Although it suffers in a number of respects -- colour too extreme, composition could be better -- it still takes me back to the moment. I loved the drama of the evening light slanting across the rocks and lighting up that little lookout deck. I felt it had enough potential for a nice studio painting.
I had no reference photos, so I had to work exclusively from the plein air piece and memory. I decided to go with an 11x14, which is not a huge leap in size, and to take my time with it. It took about four hours to finish this piece, including an overnight stay on my "viewing mantle." I think the painting works quite well, and I'm very happy with it.

Here is "Evening, Liberty Point." I took step-by-step photographs as I worked, and I have posted them as a new oil demonstration on my web site.Click here to go to the demonstration. (And, as always, you can click on the thumbnails here to see larger versions.)