In the not too distant past, on a Tuesday of course, just before Christmas in fact, a friend and I decided we should go paint the red bridge on Jupiter Island. It was a beautiful day and there were plenty of people passing by. The bridge is located at the end of a bike path and connects the island to another smaller island called Harbor Island, that the local garden club maintains. My inclination is always to paint the bridge even though there are plenty of options over on Harbor Island. The only disappointment was that since the last time I was there, they painted the bridge a duller red than the true red it was for years. I’m hoping that they go back to the old color soon. It’s just not as brilliant as it once was. In spite of that though, my painting was sold before it dried.
oil painting
Tuesday Paintings
As usual I’m behind in posting and photographing my Tuesday paintings. I’ve gone back to using the painting knife more and am more comfortable with the combination of brush and knife now.
This first painting is at Indian Riverside Park in Jensen Beach, FL – kind of a windy day.
On this Tuesday, it started out as a rainy day at the Port St. Lucie Botanical Garden, but it cleared up later.
Bid on Rainy Day here:
Red Flag Again
This summer most of my paintings are cloud-centric and atmospheric. This painting is of the Stuart Beach lifeguard station.
More paintings to follow. Photography required.
Elliot Museum Show
Two of my plein air paintings were selected to be in this invitational show, which is already hung at the Elliot.
If you are in the area, hope you get a chance to swing by. 🙂
The St. Lucie River on a Tuesday
These two plein air paintings of the St. Lucie River were done at the Veterans Memorial Park in Port St. Lucie, FL. One is smaller. I was on a huge boardwalk. Several other people painted from the giant size picnic pavillion. It was a breezy, pleasant day with jumping fish.
Tuesday Paintings House of Refuge Beach
Last Tuesday, not yesterday but Tuesday of last week, we painted at the House of Refuge on Hutchinson Island, a narrow strip of land called Gilbert’s Bar. It was a nice breezy day and I decided to paint the beach instead of the buildings. The limestone rocks alone are an interesting subject. Even though I had time for a second small painting I still painted the rocks and ocean instead of the buildings. So here are mama and baby paintings from last Tuesday.
Met some friendly beach walkers and one dog that was mostly interested in digging to China.
Pearce Homestead Paintout
Back in November I went to a paintout at the Pearce Homestead in Ft. Basinger, FL. The property sits on the western side of the Kissimmee River. It was a beautiful day and there was a pretty good turn out as far as I could tell.
These two paintings we done from the dock of the boat house.
Cows
The Cow – Robert Lewis Stevenson, A Child’s Garden of Verses
The friendly cow all red and white,
I love with all my heart:
she gives me cream with all her might,
To eat with apple-tart.
She wanders lowing here and there,
And yet she cannot stray,
All in the pleasant open air,
The pleasant light of day;
And blown by all the winds that pass
And wet with all the showers,
She walks among the meadow grass
And eats the meadow flowers.
Palette Talk
Originally my plan was to write about Sorolla and his palettes, however while researching I found the definitive article written on Sorolla, his palettes and technique. The article was written in 1990 by Charles Sovek as a cover article for The Artists Magazine.
The article is here: http://www.sovek.com/publications/articles/sorolla/index.htm
Sorolla’s palettes were different for portraiture or outdoor landscape, as stated in the article:
“Varying with the subjects he painted, Sorolla used essentially two different color palettes. For studio portraits, he favored one that included black, burnt umber, raw umber, rose madder, burnt sienna, raw sienna, yellow ochre, Naples yellow, vermilion and cobalt blue. Occasionally he would add orange, pink or purple, but he usually emphasized strong tonal contrasts over ambitious color effects. His outdoor palette was completely different and included cobalt violet, rose madder, all the cadmium reds, cadmium orange, all the cadmium yellows, yellow ochre, chrome green (since replaced by permanent green light), viridian, Prussian blue, cobalt blue and French ultramarine. In both cases, he used lead white.”
Unfortunately Charles Sovek passed away in 2007, however his website remains and is loaded with valuable information and is maintained by The Charles Sovek Estate.
http://www.sovek.com/index.htm
On the top of his section “Speaking of Art” he talks about the palette based on the color wheel, or a rainbow palette, which is similar to what I use, sometimes less and sometimes more, depending on what I’m painting, but a good color wheel palette in any medium keeps your paintings bright and less muddled.
Sovek’s suggestion is: Dioxine purple, permanent rose, cadmium red light, cadmium orange, cadmium yellow medium, cadmium yellow light, thalo green, cerulean blue, ultramarine blue, white, black.
Personally, most of the time I don’t use the purple, thalo green, cerulean blue or black and try to mix those instead. Sometimes I’ll use thalo blue (carefully – it’s a strong color). Also I use Veridian. But basically it does stay fresh and is a rainbow palette.
In the past I’ve discussed palettes for pastels and do in fact use different palettes for portraits and landscapes, more earthtones for the portraits and more of a color wheel selection for landscapes.
Because of copyright issues I haven’t included one of Sovek’s paintings here but strongly urge you to visit the website and look through his galleries as well as the “Lessons from the Easel”. He was a wonderful painter and teacher. You can get his books and dvd’s there also.
This website is also interesting, Sorolla’s paintings and biography:
http://www.joaquin-sorolla-y-bastida.org/