Plein Air Marathon

These past 5 days have been a painting marathon for artists participating in Germanton Gallery's Annual "Painting North Carolina" paint out.

I spent Friday through Monday in the Beaufort, NC, area painting and got very lucky with the weather. Friday when I arrived it was perfect and stayed that way through Saturday. Here are some of the pieces I did during the two sunny days I had.

Up On Stilts

Don's Green Boat

 The boats in this yard was being stored or repaired. This green boat was just taking a rest in the yard for awhile.  A couple I met have been working on and living in their boat for 2+ years. They began in Maine and then had sailed to the Bahamas. They came to Beaufort and their boat was in need of a lot of repair so there they sit until it's finished!  They told us that the owner of the green boat was an 80-something guy named Don and that he, along with some help, had built this boat. Pretty amazing people.

Marshallberg Cottage

Marshallberg Harbor  12x12 Oil

Marshallberg is an old harbor and town with a lot of history. I met a fisherman who sails a 90 foot boat catching fish and shrimp for a living. He told me that this big orange boat in the harbor had been a sister ship to the Presidential yacht. It has been sitting there for twenty years; two different men invested $1,000,000 each to restore it but neither succeeded. His best guest was that it would eventually be scrapped.

Germanton Art Gallery will host the opening of the show this Friday 5:00 - 8:00 pm. It is open to the public so hope to see you there. Saturday there will be artists painting around the outdoor area of the gallery from 10-4:00 as well.

What can you paint in twenty minutes?

I decided to do small oil paintings instead of drawing this past week at our drawing circle. I took some water soluble oils, my small Open M pochade box, which I can hold on my lap, along with some 5x7 and 6x8 panels.
At our circle, we take turns posing. We have 4 poses that last 20 minutes each, with a break after the first 15 to give the model a chance to say "enough". This worked out just right for me - I concentrated on the face for those 15 minutes and then used the last 5 to put in as much of the hair, bkgd etc as I could.

Here are my results. I loved the freedom of doing this quickly and moving on to the next one, eliminating my usual urge to "fix" things - which often results in ruining them.

Some folks in the drawing circle were curious about the water soluble oils and panels I was using so here is some info.  The best brand I've tried is Duo, made by Holbein.   I rarely thin them, they work pretty well straight out of the tube but, if you do want to thin them, use the water based linseed oil Duo offers. Use water only for clean-up.

The panels are called Multi Media Art Boards. They are thin, rigid and very lightweight. Suitable for all media, they even sell some with a sanded finish for pastels. I was not thrilled with the pastel ones because I prefer more tooth on my pastel paper, but the regular ones worked really well with the water soluble oils. For more info go to  www.multimediaartboard.com

Friday morning I am off to the NC coast to paint for the annual Painting North Carolina plein air event hosted by Germanton Gallery in Germanton, NC. The opening reception will be held Friday, August 11 from 5-8 pm. For details go to germantongallery.com