Oil landscape details

"Early Spring, Floyds Fork at Seatonville Road" oil on panel

16 x 20 inches, finished today after starting it on site last week.  As I stated in a previous post, this was a fairly limited palette. I wish my camera picked up more of the subtlety in the tones in the paint. I am pretty happy with it.  I ended up putting a bit more foliage on the trees than there was in real life, and the scene was actually less colorful than I depicted it, with the exception of the grass on the banks, which was a pretty intense green--something I could not generate with a mix of Naples yellow and ultramarine blue.

Floyds Fork at Seatonville Road

Goose Creek in Walnut Ink

A few Fridays ago, it was unseasonably warm, but the bugs and poison ivy weren't out yet.  I sat out and sketched by Goose creek, in the woods near my daughter's school, for an hour or two.  This was the result.  This was done mostly with a bamboo pen; some of it is my homemade soda can pen; and after I got home I worked in more details with a Hunt 101 nib.

detail:

Falls of the Ohio Pen and Ink Detail

black walnut ink on paper

 This is another closeup of a pen and ink drawing. This section is about 4 x 4 inches. I really like the closeups because I like seeing the pen strokes and the patterns in the lines. That border between the representation of the scene, and the abstraction of the marks on paper, is what I find most exciting about any art medium.

Floyds Fork Landscape oil painting

This is a commissioned oil painting on panel.  The subject of the commission was actually the bench, which is dedicated to my client's parents.  She wanted to give them a drawing or painting of the bench as a Christmas gift because they are unable to get out to the area much any more.

I initially thought to work on a pen and ink drawing, but it seemed like it would be such a waste of the fall colors that were showing at the time.  A great reason to do an oil painting!

I actually added a little more to this after this photo was taken: a small amount of blue-green glazing to darken the distant foliage behind the trunks on the right edge of the painting. I also used it to add some slight shading and definition to the trunks and a few other areas.

I am pretty pleased with the result.  I'll take another photo of the real-real finished product and a few closeups to post later.

Commissioned oil landscape work-in-progress

Getting near the end...just need to let it dry a few days so I can work over some corrections, refinements, etc.

House portrait in pen & ink with watercolor

This one is about 10 x 10 inches

detail:

Sketching with walnut ink on lunch break

I took my sketch pad and walnut ink out on my lunch break today for some quick sketching. I went over to A. P. Sawyer State Park.  I used some homemade cane bamboo pens and some twigs I had cut.  It had been a while since I had gone out to draw on my lunch break, probably late last summer?

Plein air painting on lunch break

This is the result of several sessions of painting over at E. P. Sawyer Park during lunch. It is acrylic on panel, 10 x 16 inches.

Echo Trail landscape - acrylic on panel

Last Friday I painted near Floyds Fork, just off Echo Trail.  It was a beautiful day to be out.  The landscape there is very nice; I will definitely go back for more.

This is acrylic on panel, 16 x 20 inches.  Most of it was painted on site, but then I finished it when I got home with some modifications and “polishing up.”  I cannot remember the last time I completed a painting all in one day.

My neck was sunburned by the time I went home.  It was foolish of me not to bring sun block, but fortunately I was wearing long sleeves and had a ball cap, so it could have been worse.

I joked elsewhere about seeing plenty of wildlife "...and most of it had eight legs and run up my pants."  However, apart from spiders and bumble bees and lots of birds chirping, I didn't encounter much.

in progress

completed

Sycamores by the creek - acrylic on panel

Acrylic on panel. I finished this last night.