Monday, July 6, 2009

July 4th Paintout

Like all red-blooded patriots we at the DPC celebrated the July 4th holiday by smearing around oil on canvas trying to capture part of this great land on canvas.
The DPC along with families in tow hit the Morris Arboretum of the University of Pennsylvania early in the morning for a day of painting. The biggest issue was there was so much great scenery, what were we going to paint?
Finally we settled on this great little fountain and waterfall and set up and went at it--racing the sun before the shadows would change too much and force us to stop.
Here is what I ended up with before the sun changed too much. I snapped a picture so I can finish this in the studio.

This is my block-in of my painting, I was using my biggest brush to just try and get the major shapes in fast. In natures seductive riot it is so easy to get seduced by detail too early.
Dave going great guns...
Will is working away on the same scene.

1 comment:

Kelly said...

Sweet! Looks like a great place to spend the day. I had no idea places like that allowed people in on the holidays.

Have you painted in or around Winterthur? Don't know if they allow artists in to paint, but there is an area around the children's garden that's really cool. Some sculpted shrubs, layers of trees, just the right amount of flowery things, etc.