Lake Forest Paint-out

Last week the Plein Air Painters of Chicago joined the Deerpath Art League for a paint-out in Lake Forest. They had five locations chosen including Market Square in the downtown area where the Saturday Farmer's market was taking place. I painted the train station for the morning, a painting that still needs work. Then I went to the Middlefork Savanna Forest Preserve to the West of town. It's a beautiful, open preserve of grass, wetlands and forest.


Middlefork Savanna, oil, 10" x 8"

Mangos

I've always loved the colors of mangos. From red to green to yellow. And they're from the tropics, which is something else I love.
Oil on canvas panel, 6" x 8"

At the beach... again

Raymar Artist Supply makes a good quality canvas panel that I have been using. They also have an on-going art competition for paintings done on their panels. I submitted this painting I did of my son and it was chosen as a finalist for March. Each month a judge selects twelve paintings from those submitted that month as finalists. At the end of the year the top twelve for the year will be chosen for awards and a printed calendar. See the finalists here at Raymar along with the judge's critque.

Hibiscus

In keeping with my plan to get as much practice as I can with small sketches, I had a chance to do a couple while on Spring Break in Florida. Warm weather and tropical locations are my best inspiration. Oil, 8" x 6"

Small paintings

Kevin Macpherson is one of today's best know plein air painters. He's also a highly sought after instructor and author. I had the chance to meet him on my recent trip where he was the Special Guest of the Maui Plein AIr Invitational and along with Jean Stearn, director of the Irvine Museum, gave a lecture on plein air and his "Pond" series paintings. Over the course of five years he did one painting for everyday of the year of the pond next to his house.

In his books he recommends doing one hundred small quick paintings for practice, working daily for an hour and numbering them to track progress. I'm committing to trying this and just bought one hundred small canvas panels.

Here's a start. Though I admit I spent too much time one this, more like two hours instead of one. The challenge is working fast and knowing when to quit.

This is a view of the West Maui mountains done from photos I took while there. Oil, 8" x 10"

Puamana

This was done in a couple hours one morning at little Puamana Park looking North toward Lahaina. I'd like to re-do this as a larger studio painting. Oil, 9" x 12"

A cottage in paradise

I started a couple of paintings last week on Maui that I didn't have time to finish there. Yesterday I took a few hours to finish this one. This cottage is just South of Lahaina with a spectacular view West to Lanai. In the distance is the island of Molokai. Oil, 12" x 14"