I recently signed up for the Plein Aire event through Gallery North. Yesterday I took the day off from my day job to go to the introductory workshop, led by Kim Caldwell. It's been many, many years since I painted Plein Aire, so I sort of forgot the basics. I found the workshop both very informative and inspiring.
The weather was a bit less than cooperative, but it was still lots of fun. It had stopped raining by the time we went outside. We went over to the courtyard near Mill Town, around the corner from the Edmonds fountain. I found the pattern of the wavy lines of brickwork and the row of different sized manhole covers alongside the fountain inspiring, so decided to do a quick sketchy painting of them. Here is a photo and the sketch.
I found it to be very challenging because I had to paint standing up, which I'm not used to, and I had very limited access to the water I brought. I had to use one of the planter ledges as a makeshift table, so it was painted from the perspective of the planter in the foreground of the photo. I really do see what Kim meant about the camera turning all the shadows to black. There really was a lot of color in there in real life!
So I learned at least two important things from this. First, painting outside is really fun! And second, I went out and bought a water brush. I can hardly wait to try it next time! Hopefully it will solve the problem of not having accessible water.
Then when I came home, to continue the challenge set forth by my son of 30 cats in 30 days, I did a cat painting.
She reminds me of an amigurumi cat. Amigurumi is a form of Japanese crocheted doll making. Usually the eyes are exaggerated, very large, and lower down and towards the sides of the head. Sometimes they also have proportionally smaller bodies. Maybe sometime I will try to crochet a doll inspired by this painting, but that's a project for another day.
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