Growing Pains

Mount Dora Lighthouse - oil - 8"x 10" - plein air - Leah Wiedemer

Even though I haven't posted anything in a while, I have been busy painting outdoors and in, as well as doing a lot of thinking about painting.

Like most artists I'm always reaching for a foothold in the next skill and creativity level. The digital age has made online and video study an affordable option for artists to grow. I've invested heavily in these teaching tools over the past year. It's taking time for me to assimilate so much information. In an effort to avoid being overwhelmed I have found it helpful to concentrate on one aspect such as color, value, or composition at a time.

Rain at the Bridge - oil - 5"x 7" - plein air - Leah Wiedemer

Now that much of the information is solidifying in my mind, the next step is to consistently implement it in my painting. Easier said than done. I'm satisfied with far fewer paintings these days and have made it a habit to regularly purge sub par works. It has been liberating to let go of those paintings that used to haunt me with their various issues.

As I continue to press forward I'm faced with another dilemma. I've noticed that many plein air works look to be in a very similar style. How to stand out when there are hundreds of wonderful plein air artists out there doing similar work. I feel a twist on my horizon. I'm not sure what the twist or bend will look like, but it's coming so I'm watching for it.

Painting Flagler Beach

This past week was the culmination of months of planning as I headed up the annual Flagler Beach Paint Out. Being in charge is a role I'm not entirely comfortable with, but my reward is getting the chance to interact with so many talented artists.
Tuesday I was able to take some time to paint with  other artists, have lunch and go back to painting. It was a perfect day. I chose a shady spot under the Flagler Bridge.

There are prettier places to paint, but this location fit my needs. Close to the restaurant where we were meeting for lunch, shady, and protected from too much wind.
This is the painting I did under the bridge. I warmed up the colors and concentrated on making interesting light effects.

"Under The Bridge" - oil - 8"x 10" - $195

Next week I'll be in St. Augustine painting the Castillo Di San Marcos and Fort Matanzas national parks.

Painting Naples Florida

One of the things I enjoy about plein air painting is getting the opportunity to visit  beautiful areas to paint. Earlier this week I was in Naples, Fl for the annual 3rd On Canvas plein air event. This was my first time as a 3rd On Canvas artist, but I was treated as an old friend by the organizers and other artists.
We were assigned locations and required to paint from 10 am - 4 pm Monday and Tuesday. My plan for Monday was to begin a painting in the morning and then change my view (not my location) to begin another painting in the afternoon. My strategy with this plan was to view and paint my subject with semi- consistent lighting.
It's good to have a plan. But it is better to be flexible and roll with the punches. This is what Campiellos looked like when I arrived.

 I had just gotten my rough block - in done when the staff came out and very quickly and efficiently removed the heaters and put all of the umbrellas up. So much for my plan. I could still see the bar well enough so I worked on that and decided where I wanted to put some figures. By then the sun was baking me so I was ready to have some lunch and find shade.
Still in front of Campiellos, but on the other side I chose this archway as my subject.

I was happy to have some space out out of the direct sun. This was about 80% complete when I left at 4 pm.
The next morning I made sure I arrived early to give myself plenty of time to complete the bar painting. It was drizzling when I first got there, but it cleared up pretty quickly and I was able to finish and frame the painting.

"Campiellos Bar" 11"x 14" - oil on linen covered board

So after lunch I returned to the archway. 

"Campiellos Arch" - 11"x 14" - oil on linen covered board

I received good feedback on both paintings, but in the end I chose "Campiellos Arch" to be in the auction at the Port Royal Yacht Club this coming Sunday. 

It was a great experience. I'm already looking forward to next year.

Expanding My Territory

We are finally getting settled into our new digs in Deland, FL. Moving is such an ordeal and this one seemed fraught with extra complications. Most of that is behind us now and I'm expecting delivery of my new studio/shed sometime next week. I'll do a whole post on that when it arrives.

We are located about a half of a mile from the St. John's River. So with most of our unpacking and organizing done I've managed to head out to Ed Stone Park a couple of times to paint the river.

This is the first one I did a week ago. I focused on this mossy tree with it's branches stretching down into the river. It's an 8" x 10" gallery wrapped canvas in oil.

I went out again today and chose a different view.  Here are a few pictures of my progress as well as the view.

I love the light hitting that small clearing

I toned the canvas and put in my basic plan starting with the darkest darks

"The Clearing" - oil - 8" x 10"

Is it a Paint Out or a Party?

Tomoka State Park

I spent this past weekend with the wonderful artists of the Florida Womens Art Assoc. at the Tomoka State Park in Ormond Beach, Florida.

It was our annual paint out or artist party, whichever you prefer to call it. I took this picture at about mid day on Saturday. What a beautiful day!

In the morning we were able to watch a demonstration by Ruth Vines which was as entertaining as it was informative.

Then in the afternoon I did a very small painting of the scene on the left. Using a limited Zorn like palette gives the scene more mood don't you think?      

"Tomoka Boat Ramp" - 5"x 5" - oil - Leah Wiedemer

This one sold soon after I brought it into the recreation hall we were using and put it on the table. The thrill never ends when someone hands over hard earned cash for one of my paintings. I'm very grateful for my collectors.

There was still time to watch another demonstration. This time it was a portrait demo by Kathleen Lusby. One of our members posed in period garb for Kathleen. I appreciated how she took the time to teach and explain why she made certain choices.

At the end of the day we had a pot luck supper and elected our new officers.

Since I'm currently living like a gypsy while we wait to close on a house one of our members very kindly let me stay the night at her house. Artists are such fun! I had the best time wandering through her home and admiring all of the beautiful art work. Thank you Babs for your wonderful hospitality.

Sunday was a bit gloomier, but I was still able to paint outside during the morning hours. So I did two more mini paintings.

"Rain on the River" - 5"x 5" - oil - Leah Wiedemer

"Kayaks at Rest" - 4"x 3" - oil - Leah Wiedemer

 Did I mention that these first two canvases had been prepped with super heavy body gesso? I like how it adds texture and makes the paint look thicker than it really is. You can really see the difference by comparing it to "Kayaks at Rest"

Marilyn Masters did our final demonstration in the afternoon. The good people at the Tomoka State Park had 3 re-enactors come in period regalia to pose for us. Marilyn painted a man dressed as an East Florida Ranger and invited us to paint along with her.

Well, I couldn't resist taking her up on her invitation to paint a live model.

Here is a shot of our model James.  And below that is my portrait attempt. I think I'll work on it a bit more and then maybe I'll give it to James as a thank you for posing so long for us. James explained that the tri cornered hat he has on is slightly inaccurate in that the trim should be white and not yellow. I promised to change it in the painting after it dries a bit.

East Florida Ranger - oil - 8"x 10" - Leah Wiedemer

So that was my weekend. A paint out and a party all in one.  I love hearing from you so please leave a comment.

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.

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.

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.