St. Johns Barn - acrylic on canvas

I had such fun painting my 6x6 tile with acrylics, so I decided the same scene might even work with a small acrylic canvas. Pastels are still my passion but I have also been fascinated by acrylics ever since I saw the demo done by Ellen Diamond at one of our Art Guild meetings. I really wanted to take her one-day workshop that she ran for Art Guild members, and signed up for it. But when I priced out her supplies list for the workshop it would have cost me $200-300 just to buy her required supplies! That was a lot of money just to try something out to see if I liked it! So I canceled out of the workshop.

But in the meantime I had bought a few acrylics and a few small 8x10 canvases. I think one thing I like about pastels is working directly with my hands on the support, and one thing I dislike about acrylics is using a brush. I just don't enjoy using a brush! But at the very least the Ellen Diamond demo suddenly made me realize I could use my hands to put on acrylics too! Why not? There are no rules that say you must use a brush, right? It just had never occurred to me that I could use my fingers with acrylics too.

So that's what I did on a great deal of this painting. It was a lot of fun doing this scene again for the third time.

St. Johns Barn - acrylic on tile

The Art Guild of Orange Park suggested a summer project for all the members. They provided a bunch of rough tiles, either 6x6 or 4x4 inches, and asked everyone to paint a tile. You could even paint more than one of you wanted. They'll be brought to the first meeting in September.

I took a 6x6 tile, but of course could not use pastels on it! That would only be a mess. So I pulled out the small number of acrylics I have. I decided the same scene I had done yesterday in pastel, for the 5x7 painting exchange, would also work well on the 6x6 tile. It was another rainy day today, so I worked on this painting this morning. It was fun. Maybe I'll have to get another tile or two to paint. :-)

St. Johns Barn

It's funny how there are so many different Floridas. I love St. Johns County, where St. Augustine and Guana River and Fort Matanzas are located. Those are all along the coast, with lovely beaches, and palm trees. Also many tourists, and tourist destinations. It looks more like the tourist literature Florida. But you only have to get a few miles inland to see a totally different Florida.

This painting is from that very different Florida. If you come home to my house from Fort Matanzas you can cut inland at route 206, then take 305 up to 13A, before connecting back to route 13 and then over the Shands Bridge. Along that route you find yourself in the middle of nowhere! Well nowhere that most tourists would venture. It's very rural countryside, mostly farms. Pine trees, not palm trees. You drive along and see miles of pine trees, cattle, corn fields, barns and tractors and farm houses. Oddly, it reminds me a lot of the countryside near my summer home in New Brunswick, Canada.

This coming Saturday we have our final meeting before the summer break of the First Coast Pastel Society and we are all supposed to bring in a wrapped 5x7 painting and have a painting exchange! It sounds like fun, but of course I had no paintings available as I never work in a small 5x7 size, so I had to paint a picture for the exchange.

I ended up doing one of this barn I saw along route 305. The sun was glinting on the roof, and I liked the feel of it. I liked the idea of doing a painting of this "other" Florida also.

We are being bombarded with rain today from Tropical Storm Beryl, so it's not a day for traditional outdoor Memorial Day activities. So I sat in my kitchen and looked out at the rain on my pond, and painted this from a reference photo I'd taken.

It's done on UArt paper, the first time I've ever tried it. It worked well and held quite a bit of tooth.

Fishing

When I attended the First Coast Pastel Society plein air paint-out on April 7 I finished the previous painting I had posted fairly early in the day. So at that point I took a break and went for a walk around Washington Oaks to see where the other pastelists had set up, what they were working on, and to take a few photos to post on our  FCPS blog.

When I got back to the spot where I had my easel set up I found that a couple women had set up their chairs almost right next to me and were fishing. Since I had finished my first painting and was looking for a vantage point to paint another I decided that rather than move my easel and pastels and all my gear I would just stay where I was and try to paint the two women!

It was fun. Painting people is harder than scenery of course, especially when they don't know they are being painted and, unlike professional models, keep moving around and shifting position, LOL. But I had fun working on it, and just made a few touches in my home studio this morning so I could put it up on this blog. And the two women got a kick out of it when they saw what I had done.

Washington Oaks plein air

Today the First Coast Pastel Society  held our bi-monthly paint out at Washington Oaks Gardens State Park in Palm Coast. It was a heck of a drive for me, 55 miles from my house. Lyn, our president, had scheduled it there in the hopes that it might attract people from Ormond Beach and Gainesville who had expressed an interest in the society. But despite that none of them showed up and the 5 attendees who did make it all, like me, had a good 50+ miles to drive to get there!

But it was well worth the drive. I avoided I-95 which I never take unless I must, and took back roads to cut over to A1A just south of St. Augustine, and then down from there. Since I enjoy lovely rides the ride was half the pleasure of the morning. And the weather could not have been more perfect! Mild gentle breezes and moderate temperatures. The park has a lovely formal gardens, but I ended up setting up my easel along the Matanzas River among the fishermen and women. I not only got the paint, but got to watch boats going by, and birds flying by also, not to mention a very bold great blue heron who came right up to beg for fish scraps from the fisherfolk.

I admit I began to feel a bit tired by the time I was driving home, but it was still a marvelous day. I enjoy plein air and really should do more of it! So I keep saying, LOL.

Garrett Mountain in Winter

Last night was the last art class of my 4-week session, and we were supposed to paint a winter scene this time. Sort of funny as some of the students are Florida natives, and one admitted she'd only seen snow about three times in her life. I've seen it plenty of times though, LOL. This is from a photo I took up in New Jersey at Garrett Mountain. I tried so hard to vary my background hills, and now that I see the finished product they just look like three identical lumps! Anyway, as per Lyn's instructions, I didn't use any white at all in this painting.

Crisp Maine Autumn

We're still painting the seasons in my art class with Lyn. Tonight our topic was fall. Since I now live in Florida I had wanted to do a Floridian scene. And, believe it or not, I actually have some photos from this past fall that show some lovely autumn colors. Maybe I'll try to paint one this week. But I was still irresistibly drawn to this scene of a lovely red-orange tree at the height of the fall colors that I took up in Maine in October 2010. I painted another version using the same reference photo here.

Fort Mose plein air (two)

Yesterday was certainly a fabulous day. But as it approached midday the sun began to beat a bit strongly on me, even though I was wearing a billed cap, and just a T-shirt and light cotton slacks. I had pretty much done all I hoped to do with my first painting, so decided to try to find a somewhat shadier spot and do something else.

So I came back down the boardwalk, and ended up at a covered picnic table right by the boardwalk entrance.  I did this painting from there, of the roadway into the Visitor's Center at Fort Mose, and the trees lining the road. There was still a lovely breeze blowing, so between the light shade and the breeze the painting conditions were just about ideal.

Fort Mose plein air (one)

Today we had the plein air paint out  of the First Coast Pastel Society, at Fort Mose Historic State Park. I had never been to Fort Mose before, other than a brief flying visit a few days ago to snap a few photos for my blog entry announcing the paint out, so I had no idea how totally gorgeous it was. It's both a painter's and a birder's paradise. There are a couple boardwalk trails that take you out to the edge of the marsh, a trail that takes you out into the marsh itself, a couple trails in the woods. The marshes are lovely, and there is an amazing rookery in view from one of the boardwalk trails. It was a sunny day, with temperatures in the mid 70's F, and a light breeze blowing. One could hardly have asked for more perfect weather.

I was totally overcome by the marsh, so spent most of the morning at the end of the boardwalk trail, looking out at the marsh and the trail that led out into it. Eventually the sun did grow a little hot on my head, even though I was wearing a brimmed hat, and I had to stop. But my then I had done the painting above, and felt I'd gone about as far as I wanted to go with it.

But I loved it there and can't wait to go back. A new Florida discovery! In addition to my painting I also saw 22 bird species while I was there.

Warm and Cool

When talking about the seasons in class we talked about the warm and cool colors and what they conveyed.  Lyn also talked about how the background color can also affect what you see. So in class last night she gave each of us 4 small (about 3x4) pieces of Wallis paper, and we underpainted each of them, two with a warm background color and 2 with a cool background color. I chose orange and blue-violet for my two colors. They we were supposed to pick out both cool and warm pastels, and experiment with each on the two backgrounds. I first selected a set of cool colors - a cool lighter and darker blue, a cool lighter and darker green, a cool red, a cool yellow, and a cool purple. Then I tried to pick the same colors, with similar values, but using warmer shades. And did my experiment.

The example above is my cool colors done on the warm orange background.

Here are the exact same cool colors done on the cool blue-violet background.

Now we see the warm colors done on the warm orange background.

And last we see the warm colors done on the cool blue-violet background.

Sometimes I wonder if I really have a subtle enough eye to be an artist. Yeah, I can certainly see the difference between the cool and the warm colors. But I struggle with seeing any difference made by the background. Okay, I've seen it in works by other artists. But I'm the sort who is not happy with my own paintings until every little speck of the background is covered by pastel. So if the background is totally hidden how can it make a difference what color it is? I guess it can affect *you* as you paint.

In general I'm more a cool color fan than I am a warm color fan. Yet my favorite background for painting on is Art Spectrum Colourfix Rose Grey, which is a nice slightly warm mid-tone color.

Guana River in Spring

We continued discussion of warm and cool palettes in class tonight, and how they can help convey the mood you want to present. We did some fun experiments too, which I may post tomorrow, trying little samples with warm and cool colors, on warm and cool backgrounds.

It was fun, so I decided I would paint the same scene that I painted last week, but instead of using the warmer summer colors I used last week I tried to choose cooler colors that would indicate the Spring season.

Guana River in Summer

I have had almost no time for pastels since moving to Florida, but this past week I began taking a 4-week class with Lyn Asselta at the St. Augustine Art Association.  This is what I did in class on Thursday night. We are supposed to be painting the seasons in pastel, and learning about choosing cool or warm palettes to represent out chosen season. Tonight we were supposed to pick either summer or spring, and I decided to go with a somewhat warmer summer palette.

I totally adore the GTM Reserve Guana River center which is where my reference photo was taken, so it was fun trying to incorporate that area into a painting, using some of Lyn's suggestions in class.

Stinker One

LOL. I was doing some straightening up in my studio room this morning and came across some acrylic paints. Since it was sort of a quiet day I decided I might try to use one and paint a painting! Silly me. My mom used to try to get me to work with oils, acrylics and watercolors when I was young (as that was what she used) and I hated all of them. Hated fine arts in general until I discovered pastels and fell in love!

But I gave it a try, and ended up hating the result as much as I've always hated the pastels and oils I tried. I found my wrists could not hold steady when holding a brush. I hated not being able to go in there with my fingers. I hated the result. But it was all a learning experience so I might try it again anyway. I have nowhere to go but up. :-)

At any rate, this was done on an 8x10 canvas, and is my back yard.

First Coast Pastel Society

Today was the first meeting of our newly formed First Coast Pastel Society.  It's great to be part of a new pastel society here in my new home. The mission of the new society is:
"To promote the use of soft pastel within the FCPS membership and the community at large as an important and continually evolving fine art medium."

Our moving force and first President is Lyn Asselta, PSA and she's been a real dynamo at getting the group off the ground. We has 15 attendees at our first meeting, which I thought was a pretty good turnout, and we had a great time watching Richard Lundgren, PSA, demo how he prepares his own surfaces for painting upon gatorboard.

Spring Park Gazebo plein air

I had such fun at my pastel plein air outing yesterday. But as the morning wore on it began to cloud up, and as noontime approached there were even a few drops of rain being felt. Not very good for painting! But there was a nice large gazebo in the middle of the park so we all gathered up our pastels and chairs and easels and boards and lunches, and came into the gazebo to eat then continue painting.

I had done pretty much all I thought I might with my first painting, so I decided to start a second one, and trying to incorporate the gazebo itself seemed like a fun idea. Though the light was so dark in the gazebo that it was hard to see what I was actually doing. And it's hard to attempt architectural details when you have no rulers or straight-edges and it's all done freehand. But it was still fun to try, and fun to be with a bunch of other artists.

This one, just like yesterday's, was done on my usual 9x12 art spectrum, various pastels.

Spring Park plein air

I don't do much plein air painting. It's usually too hot or too cold or too buggy or too "something" for me. But today we had our first planned outing of the newly-formed First Coast Pastel Society. I have to give lots of thanks to Lyn Asselta for getting this group off the ground, and for organizing this plein air paint out. We had about 7-8 people participate. We met at Spring Park in Green Cove Springs, just an easy 10-15 minutes from my own house, though some folks traveled over an hour to get there. But it was lots of fun! The morning was sunny and lovely, but as the day went on it clouded up, got chilly, and then started to rain. We all ended up inside a large gazebo, and then the rain started blowing in sideways with the wind! It was almost 2:30 PM by then so we called it a day. But I managed to get this painting done in the morning while the sun was still out.

Garrett Mountain

Last night was a bittersweet night at my art class - my last class before I move to Florida this coming Tuesday. It was fun though, and for the first time in months everyone was there. I decided I needed to paint a New Jersey scene, so I did this one of Garrett Mountain in the late autumn, taken last year when I was there on a birding expedition, one of my favorite birding spots in the area. Done on 9x12 Art Spectrum paper as usual.

On the Beach

LOL, I guess I took my art teacher's advice to heart, when she suggested to me that maybe I should work on a series of beach-related paintings. I love the beach so not hard to take that advice for sure! So this is one I did last night, on my usual 9x12 art spectrum colourfix paper.

Man o' War

I love coastal North Carolina where my sister lives. I love going for long walks along the beach at Fort Macon. One day when we were walking there we came across a whole bunch of dead Portuguese Men o' War on the beach. My sister warned me not to go near them, and said that even days after their death they could sting dreadfully. So I kept my distance! But they were such a gorgeous and delicate blue color that I had to photograph them, and knew I would have to paint them too.

Christina, my art teacher, says I should do more beach scenes like this, and that they would probably be popular in Florida. :-)

Done on my usual 9x12 Art Spectrum Colourfix paper.

Afternoon in the Kitchen

It's funny how much the original photo I used for a reference appeals to me. In fact I actually painted this scene earlier here nearly two years ago. But for some reason I still had the picture on my mind, and came across the original reference photo yesterday, so I decided I would try another version of the picture.

Hopefully now that I've done it twice I'll have it out of my system, LOL. But just for information, here is the original photo I took which inspired me to do two paintings.

Key West Light

Well, here's one more painting for my lighthouse series, as well as my Florida series. I saw this lighthouse in Key West back in May, when Key West was the first stop of the cruise I was on. I loved my day in Key West, and also enjoyed finding a new lighthouse to photograph and later to paint. As in my painting of the Portland Head Light I used no white pastel at all in painting a totally white lighthouse. :-)

This was done on my usual 9 x 12 Art Spectrum.

Turkey Trot

Rifle Camp Park, in Woodland Park, NJ, is another one of my favorite birding spots. I almost never go there without seeing wild turkeys, and I've probably taken dozens of photos of the turkeys over the years. I've long thought I'd enjoy painting them some time if I ever got a photo that I felt did them justive. But I took a photo last fall that I thought might be just the one, and that was my reference for this painting I did last night. Although the turkeys are common you don't often see the toms strutting their stuff, with tail feathers on display, so that made this one especially fun, As usual done on my 9x12 Art Spectrum.

Meadowlands - Saw Mill Creek

Today I'm back in my native New Jersey. New Jersey has so many gorgeous spots. It's a shame not to capture some of them also. This is done from a photo I took last March while on an organized birdwalk at the Richard DeKorte Park in Lyndhurst, NJ, with the Bergen County Audubon Society.

What is great about going on the organized walks is that you get to see places not open to the general public on a day-to-day basis. On this particular walk we went out onto the Saw Mill Creek Trail, which is normally kept locked out. As you can see from the official report of the trip we had a big crowd, and saw a lot of wonderful birds, including a horned grebe, which was a life bird for me. It's amazing I managed to get some photos with no people in them, LOL.

Photo of horned grebe.

Grassy Waters

Back in May I went on a cruise from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. I'd been visiting my son and his family in Jacksonville, and drove down from there to catch the cruise. Well one of my hobbies, in addition to painting, is bird watching. Being in southern Florida might well give me the chance to see birds I'd be unlikely to see in my more northerly climes, so I googled for spots to look for birds that were along my route. I found a newspaper article that detailed several good places for bird watching in south Florida. I knew I could not visit all of them, or even most of them, and many were way out of my way. But I decided to make a visit to Grassy Waters Preserve as it was on my direct route and appeared to be pretty close to I-95.

Perhaps the other spots are just as lovely, but Grassy Waters was an absolute gem. I don't see how I could have picked a better spot. Just a mile or two inland from glossy West Palm Beach is this marvelous habitat like a mini Everglades. I spent over an hour there walking the trails, taking photos, watching the birds. It was so marvelous that I stopped there for another hour on my way home from the cruise also.

It just seemed like a natural to paint a picture of the place, maybe more than one! So I did this painting last night, my usual 9x12 Art Spectrum, of the pond at entrance to the preserve. There are signs there warning of alligators, but though I looked hard for them on both trips I didn't see a single one.

But I did see several life birds there, including a pair of *snail kites* - a locally endangered species in south Florida, with only about 400 breeding pairs in the state, according to Wikipedia. I'm unlikely to travel to South America where it's more numerous, so getting to see one in Florida was a big thrill for me. A real coup for my life list. :-)

Sunflowers

I enjoy still lifes though I have not done them lately. But I didn't know what I wanted to do in art class last night. And it turned out Christina had had a workshop on florals at her studio over the weekend, and still had a bunch of floral still lifes set up around the studio. One of them was this vase of lovely big sunflowers, so I decided I'd try to paint them. Most of us in the class work from our own photos in the studio, but last night three of us decided to do floral still lifes. One of the other women did the sunflowers too. It will be interesting to see how hers turns out. Mine was done on my usual 9x12 Art Spectrum Colourfix paper.