Wednesday, May 1, 2013

High on San Miguel

"Late Afternoon - calle Hernandez Macias"
24x30 ins. oil on canvas
This one is a studio painting done with the palette knife. I didn't want to get too fussy with this one and the knife generally insures that you don't. I was going for that 5 pm. atmosphere and I think on the whole it came out pretty well. I'm no expert with the knife but I like the effect. I've been putting little dashes in with the knife for some time now but haven't done too many dedicated knife paintings. This was fun, so maybe there will be more "down the line". 

The painting below was started as a plein air last Monday. There was a huge eucalyptus on the right at the start of the session ( note shadows on yellow wall ). As we painted a work crew came along and felled the tree !! I just couldn't concentrate on the tree with this guy with a chain saw, swinging around on ropes dodging "widow makers" as they came down. Most of the group were down the street about 50 feet from me - much closer to the action and indeed in some measure of peril. However, the senor was an expert and there was no loss of life. The group showed good plein air metal even as they found themselves blanketed in a fairly constant snow of saw dust.

I've said it before:    as you set out to paint in the morning, you never know what the hell is going to happen to you. We've watched and admired that beautiful tree growing the whole time we've lived here and wouldn't you know - the vary day we chose to paint it, it drops in the sidewalk, piece by piece before our startled eyes. However, I must mention that Les did a nice, historic as it were, painting that day in which the tree figures largely, in all it's prior majesty. Les works pretty fast sometimes .....................


"High on Montitlan"  12x16 ins. oil on pamel