Painting The Delaware

Yesterday was one of the best days of the year so far weather wise and especially for painting, and with the need to finish a few more paintings for the ASE at PAFA the DPC hit the banks of the Delaware River to catch some sun and paint us a river. It was a mini-DPC group, just Lexi and myself this time, so it was a Mini-Palette meeting--but all the same rules applied---paint, paint, paint.

One of the things you find out while trying to get to the river in philly to paint, especially if you want to paint old piers and such is that they are not that easy to get to. So many places are blocked off or fenced or basically behind signs that say "No Nrespassing". But last year I found a spot and this is the place we went to. We walked out onto one of the long ago abandoned piers and found a cool spot. It seems like many people have been there for fishing and partying because there was tons of trash, fish hooks and broken glass.

There were so many great views here to paint I know we'll go back, here you can see the city a short distance away.

Lexi decided to bring acrylics this time as they have a lot less cleanup and maintenance involved, I brought my new French easel I got for my birthday last year. I knew it might be windy and so I spent time really making sure the painting was locked onto the easel. The weather report said thunderstorms by the afternoon so I knew the weather could change fast. At certain points the wind did gust up and I had to use my mall stick, a nice fat dowel of wood and hold down the easel and painting with my left arm--and paint with my right. It was a real battle a couple of times to keep the whole rig from blowing into the river.

Usually when doing a plien air painting I do a smaller painting, say 12x 16 or smaller, but this time I went for broke and used a canvas I made myself which was 13.5 x 39, so I'd have a nice panorama. Of course even though this was my biggest plien air so far, it still pales in size to some of the plien air paintings by Redfield or Garber.

To speed up the blocking in I brought along my speedball roller which was great for quickly massing in the big shapes--it's also great for textures as well.

As usual while out painting we had visitors and the curious onlooker come by to see what we were doing and what we are up to, this time it was a little different, we had a few fishermen and some families come through, but we also had the crew of the tub boat Virginia come by and moor right next to us as the crew wanted to go into the Wallmart that was right behind us.

The captain of the ship spent a fair amount of time talking to Lexi as she painted away, even giving her some flowers---awww. I just painted away racing the sun and fighting the wind as I knew any minute that thunderstorm could rear up...

Lexi paints away, emploring some ideas and approaches she go while taking a workshop with Ken Kewely last week.

A shot of my painting as it progressed. I was really trying to push shapes and not get seduced by details and thinking a lot about Levitan, Sargent and Sorolla and how they so beautifully took in nature and then designed it. There is so much they altered, changed or took out in their paintings. I kept saying to myself, "what does the painting need", "Keep it loose and big as long as possible".

A pic of me nearing the end of our painting day as the sun had now shifted a lot.

Here is lexi's wonderful painting, really great color and design!

Here is my finished painting, I made a few touches in the studio and scraped off a couple of bugs. I am pretty happy with this painting and it was great to get out of the studio after being basically a studio painter for the last few months, I really want to spend as much time painting outside as I can now that the better weather is here.

Across the Delaware

My painting of the Ben Franklin Bridge across the Delaware River. 10x 20, oil.


Yesterday the Dirty Palette Club had our second weekly meeting of the summer at a nice park along the Delaware River in Philly. This time it was just me and the gals as the other male members were busy or away. Lucky me!

It was a nice day, hot, but I found a great spot under a nice tree and got to relax the old mental muscle from the stress of the weekly commercial grind in my studio.

I picked up a few landscape proportioned panels at the last sale at Dick Blick and tried out one of them. I packed a pic-nic lunch and just enjoyed painting as the tide rolled out and the ships rolled past.

My feeling with plein air is to hunt for a scene fast, pick it, stick it and paint it as the sun gives you 3-4 hours.
Alina choosing her shot.

Here is my palette set-up and my pencil rough in of my painting.

Here is my painting after about roughly 30 minutes when things started to change like the tide going out.

Yesterday the lighting did change and it became a bit more overcast and that diffused the lighting a bit and probably gave us a longer time to paint, also I planned the suns change and figure what would change fast earlier in the paint and what would change later. I however hadn't taken into account that the tide would go out, which it did about half way into my painting. This ended up giving me a much more interesting foreground to my painting--and I leapt to get it down fast. The tide started coming back and then some big cargo ships moved through and their waked really changed everything--the driftwood logs and interesting details.
Lexi and I take a lunch break.
Alina and Lexi brunching under the trees.

The more I paint in nature I realize how much forethought and planning you need, how much you have to focus and think as everything is 'live". I also and concentrating on altering things for the sake of the painting more, eleminate a tree, change a shape of a rock, bush, etc.

It is always great to have company and to watch and see what everybody else is up to and how they solve their problems and interpret the same or similar scene. Alina and Lexi paint away.

Here is Alina and her painting, this was only her second time painting a plein air landscape.

DPC SUMMER SESSION -1

Today was the first official gathering of the DPC for our summer sessions and we decided to take it on the road, or down to the river as it were. I met the gang at school and we trucked on down the a park along the Delaware River to do some Plien Air landscapes. The painting above was done in 2-3 hours, 9 x 12 on Fredrick's canvas board.
The subject was this abandoned power plant looking place, or as I call such buildings, "Joker hideouts" as they look like the type of building a super-villain always uses as a hideout.

The sky grew quickly almost totally cloudy as we set up and a stiff wind started blowing in off of the Delaware so we all had to make sure our canvases were really secured or they would have sailed right into the drink. I set up a pretty limited palette based on the colors I saw and set straight to blocking the painting in. The park was still full of families and people walking or riding around and fishing. No sooner had I started to rough in the painting that I was quickly set upon by curious on-lookers, and a few, particularly this one couple, was pretty drunk. The lady was reallllly interested in what I was doing and pestered me with many questions, her male companion was much more respectful and tried to keep her off of me telling her "let the man concentrate and do his business."

Then they noticed Will and Dave and set about to observer and art direct them and give lots of advice. the lady kept coming back and telling me I was "winning", that my painting was so much better. She'd leave and come back all evening as we painted. A few other curious people would come by but they were always much more respectful. Every time i have painted out publicly I have been set upon by the curious on-looker, I suppose people just never see anyone painting beside Bob Ross on TV.

The wind really started blowing and the paint started really setting up, drying fast and getting stiff along with my arms and hands. it must have dropped a good 15-20 degrees by the water really quick as the front went through.
Dave and Will joking around as they set up.
Dave's rough-in.


Here is the drunken lady who pestered me all afternoon pestering Will and giving him advice on how to make his painting better.
Will's painting in progress, I'm sure the pointers from the Budwiser Art Critic really helped.
Dave's painting in progress.

In the end we had a good time, my painting turned out Ok, the light did change from partly sunny to mostly cloudy, but I just put down what I had and stayed with it instead of chasing the light. At about 6:30-7 we decided to pack it up as we were all pretty cold, my arms and hands were like an arthritic old man from being blasted by that cold wind. It got so cold even the drunken art fans left. For the end of May it felt more like November.

We topped off our first outing with dinner at Silk City Diner. It was a good day and next week we plan to do another plien air expedition.