Ahhhh….painting en plein air – there’s nothing like it!

This was the second plein air pastel I did over the weekend that I visited Mum and Dad on Salt Spring. (Here’s the first one.) This time we went to the end of Baker Road which overlooks Booth Bay. I walked the beach looking for a place to set up but I need shade to work under and I could tell that anywhere shady would soon be sunny. That dang sun, you just can’t stop it – it just keeps moving along. So I decided to go back up to the road and find a spot looking down at the sea through the trees.

 

 

You can see I have my small Unison half stick starter set (only 16 pastels), pocket sketch book, and Wallis paper drymounted on board. The thing to notice here is the size of the paper – it’s 18 x 12 inches – the largest piece I’ve done on location. My usual size is half that at 9 x 12 inches!!!

After making a quick three-value thumbnail sketch (which you can sort of see sitting behind the pastels), I draw up the design on the Wallis paper with vine charcoal.

 

 

I then apply pastels, indicating the three values decided upon in my sketch. Can you can see I’ve already made a change from the initial charcoal drawing?

 

 

From there I begin adding a second layer, still being pretty loose about it. With a limited palette comes limited value and colour choices. You have what you have and you need to make do. That’s one of the challenges of painting en plein air.

 

 

And I build from there. I start to indicate the wave movement of the water.

 

 

Part way through I decide that perhaps the centre looks too empty and although there’s no boat in my view, when I look over to the right I see a number of boats to choose from. There’s a sailboat and I use that as my reference. I draw it in very lightly and step back to decide whether to commit to it.

 

 

Yup I like it so in it goes.

 

 

By now the tide has come in  – there’s no beach to be seen, only sea. It’s about an hour and a half since setting up and it’s at this point, as I get tired, that I have a tendency to ‘paint-by-numbers’ ie. I’m no longer really looking at the scene and am just adding colour in a random sort of way. It’s time to stop painting.

 

 

Before I can begin packing up, Mum captures me in action 🙂

 

 

I feel pretty good about what I have done especially considering the larger size of paper. After conferencing with Mum, back in the studio I decide to add a branch to the tree on the left and I make some other small changes (see if you can find them!).

 

 

So that’s it!

It was a pretty idyllic day and lovely to spend time with my Mum and Dad, all of us immersed in the delight of painting en plein air – there’s nothing that compares to it.

Please let me know if there is any questions or feedback about the process by leaving me a comment. To do this click on the title of the blog which takes you to my website. You’ll find the comment option there. I would love to hear from you!

 

From my studio…

~ Gail

 

PS. For those of you interested in painting en plein air, there’s a magazine all about it.