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Thanks Savina! I agree, outdoor painting is super difficult. But it’s fun! I just try not to be disappointed if my efforts aren’t great – it’s all part of learning, and I treat them as studies or practise pieces. I love your fairytale pictures, btw!
DAY 7
No studies or paintings today, but I managed to get a couple of these canvas pad pages masked up in preparation for my colour charts. Each sheet will have two charts, with 12 colour mixes in each chart, stepped down in 5 values. I use 12 colours (plus white) and there will be 13 charts in total. It’s something I should have done years ago, and it’s time to stop putting it off.
DAY 6
Plein air painting day! Woo hooo!
Had lots of fun out painting locally today, and ended up with what I think are a couple of pretty good starts. This first one is a view of some farm building that I spotted yesterday when I was out walking the dog yesterday morning, and and figured would make a sunlight great painting if weather permitted. Sadly, today was a bit too changeable and I only got about 45 minutes in before the rain clouds completely changed the light effect.
After the above got rained off, I nipped home for some lunch and to grab something to paint on, then headed to the local nature reserve. I spent the afternoon producing this. I am not sure there’s much design going on here, but it looks a decent enough sketch to me, if a bit flat. I was pretty happy at how much I managed to get done in two and a half hours or so anyway. I was attracted to the tree on the left initially, but I didn’t really make it my centrepiece in the end, which I should have. I might return and take this one further, but I think I’m more likely to start a new painting and spend more time designing it around this tree.
Thanks Igor!
DAY 97
Absolutely scunnered with that figure drawing. Can’t face it. Gonna turn it against the wall for the foreseeable.
In the interests of finishing this challenge, then, I’m going to do a full daily life drawing session each night until I get to 100 days. If like to keep that going at least every couple of days afterwards as well. Here are tonight’s efforts.
Best one first for extra clicks, ha ha.
DAY 5
I have had a lazy weekend, so picking up again here. Maybe I should have just made this a sketchbook thread rather than a 100 day challenge.
Anyway, I did some monochrome tree studies in oil today. Not exactly in the plein air spirit, but I figure this is a good way of developing painting strategies when I can’t make it outside to paint. Also, I’m not trying to get colour from the photographs, just drawing and to some extent temperature.
DAY 4
Didn’t manage to get out today, so I figure I would undertake a little struggle session with this painting from Tuesday.
The first problem I see is a lack of organisation and distinction of the masses. The water forms one light mass; then there is big dark mass formed by the trees and “cliffs”; and then there’s a a very slightly lighter mass made up of the rocks and ground plane, with no clear distinction between the two. I think the big dark mass needs to be broken up into two smaller masses, to distinguish the cliffs from the surrounding trees and vegetation. There also needs to be a greater sense of the ground plane being separate from the slanted plane of the foreground rocks.
Second, while allowing for the painting being unfinished, the trees and vegetation are just an undefined mush. There’s no drawing anywhere to give context to those abstract elements. I think even just one or two clearly drawn trees and branches would indicate to the viewer what all that stuff is meant to mean. I feel like I little bit of sky would have helped too.
Similarly, there’s not enough drawing of the falls to give the sense of the water flowing down from the top of the picture to the centre. This contributes to the overall flatness and lack of depth.
Also contributing to the lack of depth is the fact that the shadows of the foreground rocks are lighter than the cliff shadows. They should be darkest in the foreground.
The composition could do with being cropped narrower, I think. A vertical or square format might be more suitable for this subject and might better allow for the introduction of a little sky cutting down into the glen.
I think I’ll try some thumbnails and see if I can come up with a better design for this picture. Maybe another attempt is in order some time in the future.
DAY 95
20 minute sketch from today. I’m not really firing on all cylinders at the moment, and I don’t want to work on the other figure drawing. I’m going to take the rest of the evening off and watch a movie.DAY 3
Attempted tree drawing got rained off, so I say in the car and spent 20 minutes drawing the local shop. Powder was damp today all round 😐
DAY 94
Did some more work on the shoulders then went in with the stump and made everything look really flat. Feeling pretty bummed, so I’m packing it in for the night.
Really nicely done. The drawing of the face is excellent and beautifully expressive.
Main areas I think you should address:
* The shadow on the cheek is a little bit too hard, it grabs my eye away from her eyes and doesn’t explain the softness of the flesh there, as contrasted against the hardness of the cheekbone. I think this is worth doing even if it means departing from the reference.
* The shadow edges of the breasts also look too hard, they give the form an angularity that looks odd and is distracting
* I feel like there’s too much space above the head. I would crop it maybe halfway between the upper edge of the canvas and the top of the dark circle.
DAY 93
I was out hiking the glens and painting plein air today, and I didn’t have it in me to work on Mr Muscle tonight, so just some five minute figure studies. Definitely find I’m getting a lot more into my drawing in five minutes than I was at the start of this challenge.
BTW, I’ve started another 100 day challenge for my outdoor painting which you can find here: https://www.nma.art/forums/topic/lews-perilous-journey-into-the-wild/
DAY 2
Tuesday is when my daughter spends most of the day in nursery, so from now on Tuesday is PLEIN AIR DAY for me. Today I took a drive up to the Campsie Glen Falls and bashed this out.
I am really happy with it overall. I’m aware of many faults but I think it’s a definite improvement on the last one I posted. I write like the colour, although I think it’s lacking in depth and obviously isn’t finished. But I’m calling it a win nonetheless.
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