Color work in the field

From today's afternoon plein air. Working on greens in nature, these are much more warm and earthy than we think. In this piece I am trying to get the field colors as close as possible to what I was seeing. With my painting set up high on the easel, I am able to step back and compare the colors I put down on the edge of the board with the actual colors in the field. You can see the distant green grass on the right edge of my painting almost blends right in with the actual field. This gives me a nice close green which I can then use for the rest of the field. Same with the foreground grass on the right side. Give it a try some time.

Cheers, Don B

New figure painting, Trance

Recent small painting, 9x12 in oils on board.

From Salon L' Orient tribal dance performance in Portland.

This is a painting of performance artist Irish Collins who always looks like a work of art when she performs.

Plein Air Steps Golden Field

I found these beautiful golden fields and decided this would be my plein stop for today.

The start of this painting was same as always, laying in the basic shapes and general color tones.
This is about 20 minutes later, still working with getting the colors and layout correct.

At this point I have the foreground base a bit more saturated than the actual filed. I did this on purpose because I wanted to lay in the softer golds and white flowers on top of this brighter base, letting some of the underpainting show through.
My block in is complete and now I have put another layer of paint down over parts of the base painting. The golden fields in the foreground now have some more neutral golds and off whites placed creating more color harmony in the painting. Decided not to add the barns, my main focus was the golden fields and I'm just not a big barn type guy anyways. I will stop and do the final details back in the studio. My total time on this one outside was around one hour and thirty minutes, just enough to get the basic color notes and composition down. The studio finish will be a snap from here!

New plein air paintings

Clover Fields 16x20, oils on board.
Distant Yellow 14x18, oils on board.
This is a photo of the canola fields in bloom now near my home.
Canola Fields 16x20, oils on board.

More nice weather last week, of course this week it is raining again!

So here are few plein air pieces from last week.

Ceramic Vases

Something new for me. One of my collectors wanted a set of urns showing winter and early spring as a circle of life theme. They are also into birding so I did a blue jay for winter and a goldfinch for spring on the lids. Painting on these worked out well for me and it was fun once I got the hang of it. So now I am thinking of trying a few more of course.

Both of these are in oils. The urns are about 14 inches tall.

Peach Lace revisited

New figure painting, Peach Lace 12x16. This time in oils on board.

I did the original version of this about a year ago when I was just starting out on my figure painting journey. I though it would be fun to do a new version a year later. I used a slow build up of thin layers to bring this piece to finish.

New portraits.

Tiare 12x16 inches, oils on board.

Sivonna 11x14 inches, oils on board.

Kara 11x14 inches, oils on board.

Some new portraits from the last month.

New figure painting, Soft Light

This one is acrylic, 9x12 onboard. Working with soft lights and tones.