Friday, June 26, 2009

Hay's In by BJ Wright

8"x10" oil on RayMar panel, painted en plein air, alla prima, on June 24th (completed 8:00am)...$85 including shipping...Getting outside to paint in 95+ degree heat is nuts...so I get out really early to miss the heat. The early sun quickly rose to show its orange light on the recently baled hay. It's hard to believe this was just 3 days into early Summer.
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3 comments:

chuck larivey said...

What a nice surprise :=) Mmmm....I'm thinking you were in the zone that morning.

I like your play of color and the tree branches, I believe... handled as your signature with the end of your brush. Like your signature it's your creative signature. Its what distinguishes you from others and shows up in your best work, like this one.

My favorite time to paint is early morning, great atmosphere....very inspirational for impressionist painters...like you :=)

bj said...

Yes, the zone showed up that morning. So did some mosquitoes, but I painted on.

This tree was in much distress last year during the drought. Many of its limbs were bare. It seems to be recovering, but there are still limbs showing through all the nice foliage.

I try to lay down a quick underpainting (usually) using the shadow colors. But in this case, I used cad orange and aliz crimson...because it was going to be a scorcher with 95+ degrees. The underpainting shows through when I scratch in my signature and limbs, etc.

My favorite time is also early morning. If I can get there around 7, I can catch the sun through the trees on the western side of the mountain.

We must have a terribly terminal illness...letting the bugs eat us alive, risking life in raging river waters, seeing all these 'strange' colors instead of just plain greens and browns. No wonder folks stare at us oddly.

chuck larivey said...

You said something interesting...paint shadows frist...do you know what I found out about that....makes your painting muddy. Its OK if the under painted shadow is a pure colour...like orange..crinmson...purple....keep white out as much as possible....break your colours down with other colours or variations of muted colours.

A can of raid for the grass and the clip-on works.

Painting early......like coffee... gets you going for a good day in the studio. Coffee use to be the first thing.. now.....it's a little painting....then caffeine!!