First Day Out

Friday was my first day painting outdoors in 2013. It was a nearly perfect day as some friends and I set up our easels at a farm in Quaker Gap, NC. The first day out is usually a practice run and a waste of paint, but this time I came back with 2 paintings that I really liked.

I happened to pick up my copy of Hawthorne on Painting before I left the house and glanced quickly at a couple of pages. Charles Hawthorne was an American painter who founded the Cape Cod School of Art this book was compiled by Mrs. Charles Hawthorne and contains notes taken by his actual students.

I found purples, greens and oranges and exaggerated them

I took a few of the words from that book out with me that morning. I held on to three ideas that appealed to me. Find the colors you see in things and exaggerate them, use a large brush or a palette knife, and get the spots of color in their proper relation.

Using a 1" brush and a palette knife allowed me to keep it simple.

One last piece of advice I took from Hawthorne was to stop painting when you no longer know what you are doing. This might be the best one. This time I came back with two fresh little paintings because I stopped in time.