DIY Plein Air Carry All

I searched for the perfect bag and finally decided it doesn't exist. So I decided to make my own out of  recycled fabric and whatever I could find in my sewing basket. My husband donated an old pair of blue jeans to the cause, so that made the rest easy. I just added an assortment of old buttons, a couple of snaps and some leftover fabric from curtains I made years ago.

It holds an amazing amount of stuff. My husband said that it reminded him of Mary Poppins' carpet bag the way I just kept pulling large items out of it. I put a rectangular piece of mat board on the bottom so that it will sit flat.
 All of my awkwardly shaped gear goes in                                                                                                without a problem.


Yes, it is rather funny looking, but my daughter once told me that she thinks I would do almost anything if I thought it was funny. Well, maybe she is right. One thing I didn't demonstrate in the video is that I can connect the two handles making one long one if I want to wear it as a cross over bag. It's just a matter of buttoning them together.

So this is my bag. Custom made weirdness.
My 'Got a Minute?' video is about 2 minutes this time. Hope you can squeeze it in. Let me know what you think in the comments.

Painting Sunshine on Canal Street

Our plein air painting group finally caught a break with the weather, so we met on Canal Street in New Smyrna Beach.
The sun was shining with nary a cloud in the sky.

If you know Canal Street, you are aware that it is popular with tourists and locals alike. It is lined with quaint shops, restaurants, and galleries. I love to hear the comments of people who stop to look. My favorite this day was "Oh! Fancy!".

This is where I set up. I started out enjoying the shade cast by the building across the street, but all too soon I found myself in full sun and beginning to burn.

I wear sunglasses to help me to not paint too dark in full sun. But even the shades couldn't eliminate all of the glare on this bright day.

Here is my "Got A Minute?" progress video. It even came in at just under a minute this week! Now who doesn't have a spare 57 seconds?

Back in the studio I took this picture of the finished painting.

"Canal Street" - oil - 8"x 10" - Leah Wiedemer - $280

Please leave a comment and tell me your thoughts. - thank you!

The Results Are In

The opening for the Mount Dora Paint Out gallery show was a few days ago. A huge crowd gathered to view the work accomplished that week. I was impressed with the turnout. Many times an opening is attended by mostly the artists and family members, but this brought in locals and visitors from all walks of life.
 Each participating artist could hang up to three paintings and most did. There was a lot of great work. I'm happy to report that I didn't go home empty handed. My painting "Lake Dora Boat Slip" was awarded one of two honorable mentions.

"Lake Dora Boat Slip" - 8"x 10" - oil - $280

Thank you judges!

I put together a "Got a Minute" progress video for my painting of "The Cannonball Caboose". By the way, it came out at exactly one minute! Don't you just love when the trains run on time? Happy viewing and please leave a comment.

Climbing Mount Dora

Did I say 'climbing'?! No, that's just silly. There are no mountains in Florida. Although the land does gently undulate in Lake County  where the charming little town of Mount Dora is located. What I meant to say was 'painting' Mount Dora.

For the past week I've had the pleasure of participating in the Mount Dora Paint Out. Driving back and forth was exhausting, but the time I had painting more than made up for it.




Day 1. I decided to paint Donnelly Street which is the main street in town. You can see from the photo that is was a beautiful day. Here is my finished painting.

"Donnelly Street" - 8"x 10" - oil - $280

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Day 2. Unfortunately it poured rain all day. The good news is that I snagged a spot in the parking garage where I had a great view of the train. So I was able to stay mostly dry. I don't know why everyone didn't do that.

The Cannonball Caboose - 11"x 14" - oil - $462

I'll do a separate post for my 'Got a minute' progress video of the Cannonball Caboose.

Day 3. The sun came back for another gorgeous day and I set up my easel by Lake Dora. The cypress trees make the water appear tea colored.

"Lake Dora Boat Slip' - 8"x 10" - oil - $280

Here is a shot of the hawk that kept an eye on us painting all morning. 

                                         

Day 4. I returned to the lake but a different area. There were a couple of swan boats on the beach that I didn't paint. I did use them in the title though.

Lake Dora Swan Depot - 11"x 14" - oil - $462

 

Tomorrow is the show opening at the Mount Dora Center for the Arts. I can hardly wait to see the works that my fellow artists painted during the week.

I'm learning so much by painting on location. There is still sooooooooooo much to learn! 

Please leave a comment or question below.

The Casements

This week I decided to do a quickie. It was threatening rain and I just had a little bit of time so I pulled out a 5"x 7" wrapped canvas that I had applied super heavy gesso to weeks ago. There is a wonderful old house on the Halifax River in Ormond Beach that used to be the home of John Rockefeller. Many Ormond Beach events are held there and it is one of my favorite places to paint.

                                                                                                                            

My canvas was so small that I really needed to be choosy about what I included. So I zeroed in on the right side of the giant oak tree.

Those rays of sunshine are deceptive. It did end up raining on me briefly, but not enough to send me packing.

I didn't take enough in progress pictures to warrant a minute video but here are a couple of stills with the final product.

toned the canvas and blocked in the tree

more on the tree and foreground and added some awnings

                        

I stopped taking pictures because of the rain so we jump ahead here to the end

The Casements - oil - 5"x 7" - $87.50 - Leah Wiedemer

Thanks for joining me on my plein air adventures! Please leave a comment. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

A Day in Happy Valley

We made an impromptu trip to Pennsylvania this week to visit some family. This is my brother and sister in law's beautiful back yard.

 We nearly missed the fall colors but did manage to catch the tail end just before they all blow away.
It was warm enough but overcast which was a bit disappointing.

The video is very short this week, so check it out and let me know what you think.

Here is the finished painting which I gave as a thank you gift to my in law's for their incredible generosity and hospitality. I'm missing my photo editing software here. These colors look very washed out compared to the original, but you get the idea.

Leave a comment and tell me what you love about fall. Is it the colors? The temperature? Pumpkins?

Rockefeller's River View

This week the weatherman was calling for rain so I decided to stick close to home for my plein air day. It still hasn't rained by the way. Anyway... here I am at The Casements. It's a lovely estate which was purchased by John Rockefeller in the 1900's, and is located on the Halifax River here in Ormond Beach.

 I found a good spot under cover just in case it did decide to rain. I edited this scene quite a bit by moving some trees and taking out other trees as well as the picnic tables.  I thought the dock would make the painting too cluttered so I removed it as well. I'll paint it another time. So 'simplify' was the word of the day.

Take a look at my brief video to see my progress. It takes just a little over a minute.

Here is the finished painting. Typically I will continue to make minor adjustments over a couple of days. That is likely to occur this time as well.

Rockefeller's River View - oil - 8"x 10" - $280 (framed)

I'd love to read any comments you might have! 

Please comment below.

A Day at the Beach

Who doesn't love to go to the beach? The crashing waves, warm sunshine, salt air... It's great. I love to go and put my toes in the water, watch the shore birds, pick up shells and breath deeply of the fresh salt air.  It gives me a feeling of well being and contentment that I can get in few other places.

Painting the beach is a whole other ball game. Some artists manage to paint beautiful beach scenes with warm clouds and waves that feel wet. They make me feel the sunshine and smell the air. I've never been one of them. As a composition the beach seems a bit boring to me. So when I arrived at New Smyrna beach I decided to try to come up with a composition that would interest me and hopefully others.

I concentrated on the sea oats blowing in the breeze. This is the view I chose. As you can see it was a beautiful day.

Take a look at my (less than) one minute video of my plein air experience painting the beach.

Finished. -------------- I think. :)

Please leave a comment and let me know what you think. I'm always interested in learning from you.

St. Augustine Inspiration

 I decided to drive up to St. Augustine to do some painting. It's one of my favorite places and the weather was absolutely perfect.

Check out that BLUE sky. Isn't it gorgeous? I've always loved the look of this old church with the greenish dome. I heard a tour operator tell his trolley full of tourists that it was built by Henry Flagler. No big surprise as he seems to have built most of St. Augustine.

I was able to set up in the shade which is always a bonus. And I scored a parking spot where I could keep an eye on things to avoid getting a parking ticket. So far, so good.

My canvas here was 12"x 24". I've never worked this large in plein air before, so this was a challenge. I'll save you the suspense.  I didn't finish. Well, not on location anyway. I ran out of parking meter change after three hours of painting. So I decided to pack up and finish it in my studio.

My 'Got A Minute' video is actually more like a minute and a half this week. Close enough don't you think? Check it out and let me know what you think.  Thanks!

Blue Dome - oil - 12"x 24"
Leah Wiedemer

The Gazebo in the Park

Oh my, but it's been raining a lot here in central Florida. Clouds and rain kept me from making it out to New Smyrna Beach yesterday to paint with my group. So this morning when I saw actual sunshine, I decided to pack up and go paint close to home. This little park is about two blocks away and a favorite haunt for dog walkers, exercisers, and bicyclists.

Most of the passersby seemed pleased to see an artist painting and made complimentary comments as they walked past. One man gave me pause (and not in a good way) with what he had to say. You will have to watch the video to see his comment. It's only a minute 8 seconds.
I'd love to hear any interesting comments people have made while you paint or at art shows. Please leave a comment below.
In the meantime...     Got a minute?   Watch a minute video of my painting in process.

We returned to Spruce Creek Park this week. I decided to set up on the dock  this time. The sun was intense, but the light was beautiful.  We saw a pair of eagles while we were there. Always nice.

Enjoy the one minute video of my painting process.

What do you think? What would you differently? I'm not sure where we will be painting next week, but I hope you will come along and enjoy discovering plein air painting with me.

Painting at Spruce Creek Park

I packed up my gear and headed out this morning to join a plein air group painting in Spruce Creek park. It sits close to the border of Port Orange and New Smyrna, Fl.

I chose this view on the path just for a change from the usual water and marsh that I seem to gravitate to.  I did a thumbnail value sketch and toned my canvas.

A word about toning the canvas. In the past I used a mixture of paint and a little odorless turpenoid. After reading a lot about the toxic nature of any turpentine solvent including the odorless variety I decided to look for an alternative.  I came across Lavender Spike Oil on the Jerry's Artarama website. The bottle says that it is an historic alternative to turpentine and has a distinctive non-toxic lavender scent. I'm very happy to have found a non-toxic alternative to my odorless turpentine, but...  Let's talk about that distinctive scent. In a word it's POWERFUL! I mean knock you over with a lavender brick and then have it inserted in your sinus cavities powerful. It is very, very, strong. At first whiff, not unpleasant, but it just gets stronger so don't leave it out opened. The other thing that I'm trying to adapt to is that it doesn't move the paint around as easily as my favorite carcinogen. It dries and holds its ground very quickly. Since I just wanted to tone my canvas and hadn't planned on wiping my design out it was ok. Just be aware that it doesn't work exactly like turpenoid.

If you have been reading the previous posts, you know that I am a novice at plein air painting. I have a lot to learn and hope that you will learn with me. Last spring I painted outdoors 3 or 4 times, but I'm counting this as my first official painting in my plein air adventures.

Until next time... Happy plein air adventures!

The SunEden Traveling Easel

Since my beloved french easel is a bit cumbersome, I decided to look for a lighter set up. So I logged onto a forum and asked some plein air artists  what they used.
My informal poll came out overwhelmingly in favor of the SunEden Traveling easel. It was priced very competitively so I pulled the trigger and ordered it. And by 'ordered it' I mean I sent the link to my husband with the message "I must have this for my birthday". He got the message. I know. Subtle.
As you can see in the video, it's super light (3.2 lbs) and compact enough to fit into a smallish bag. I would love it if they would design a bag specifically for the Traveling Easel Package. Hint, hint to SunEden. In the meantime I will make do with my Talbots bag.
The other key items I purchased in preparation to outdoor painting are a Soleil Travelers umbrella and a Mijello palette. Both were from ASW. I put velcro on the underside of the palette to stick it on the tray while I'm painting. Kind of proud of that bit of Macgyver-ism. Also it has a tight fit lid and wipes clean. If you use acrylics you can just peal the old paint off. All good features to my mind.

Next week I'm planning on joining a local plein air group as we pack up our necessaries and meet at a state park to paint. So I will let you know how how my new gear works in the field.
Here is the You Tube link for the video if you prefer.

My French Easel

Perhaps it's an emotional attachment I feel to my french easel.There is a certain charm in its antiquarian style and of course having the word 'french' in the name doesn't hurt either. I've had it almost as long as I've been painting. I bought into the romance; the idea of it and used it when I painted demos or taught. But I never actually set it up outside, alla Monet until about six months ago when I dipped my toe gingerly into the cool waters of plein air painting.  I love the wood construction and the way it is completely self contained. It holds all the supplies I need. It's been a true and loyal friend.
BUT  it is heavy. Weighing in at this corner... the French Easel - a whopping ten pounds!
Check out the short video below as I demonstrate how to set it up.

Studio Comfort

I'm a studio painter. I like air conditioning, indoor plumbing, handy refreshments whenever I want and no bugs to deal with. But I'm feeling the pull of plein air painting. All the cool kids are doing it after all. So I'm committing to taking at least 2 days a week to get out of the studio and paint.
Since this is a whole new skill for me to develop, I will chronicle my adventures here. Let's see how fast I progress - if I progress. Follow along and maybe we can learn together.