Hagen Home Landscape Painting

Today was a wonderful day full of art and artists. I started off my morning by heading over to the beautiful Hagen Home and doing some plein-air painting with David and James. With the bright sunlight, trees, bushes and colorful flowers surrounding me I got an idea of what it was like to be Monet.

The painting I did was small and quick, only about an hour sketch, but I had a great time doing it. I started out in the shade but after about 40 minutes the shadow of the tree I was under receded and I began baking in the hot sun. I don’t like the direct sun, it’s too hot and I got enough of it when living in Florida, so I began to paint faster, just getting the “impression” of what I was seeing. Maybe this is what led Monet to paint the impression of things. When faced with the hot sun, the blowing wind, the biting insects and other annoyances its hard not to speed up and spend as less time as possible in one place.

But, I’m happy with the outcome, I think I captured exactly what I wanted.

That is David with his awesome umbrella. As soon as he pulled the umbrella out I found my center of interest. I started this painting with a wash of two values mostly in green. First was the shadow shapes of the shadows cast on the grass and flowers then the shadow shapes on the foreground bush and background trees. Then the light areas of all the green.

10 minutes into the painting it was nothing but two flat greens, one dark one light and I ran my brush over the entire painting to soften all the edges. Then I began right away to get the details of the focus of the painting which was the red and white umbrella.

The effect was quite nice. My center of interest boomed out of a sea of green and brought the entire idea of the painting together quickly. At this point it was just a matter of observing the values, drawing and color temperature and putting down accurate strokes. I knew the painting was going to work well, I just wish I could have spent more time on it.

This was interesting, I started to paint a second landscape of the home, this time in the very pleasant shade, and quickly realized that the shadow I was in was super dark. I’m not sure if it was the type of tree or the fact that the branches were hanging so low but it was so dark under there that I really couldn’t see what I was painting well. Lesson learned here, if I’m going to paint in the shade make sure that I still have a good amount of light on my canvas. Honestly I kind of liked the direct sunlight on my canvas more than this very dark shade.

After painting and talking about art I didn’t get home until after 2pm and had a late lunch. Then me and Pattie went to the park for a workout. At this point we were both sapped for energy because it was a very hot day, and the workout was tough.

Then, back to our house for a cool shower and we got ready to run to the Brackenwood gallery for Cary Jurriaans show opening. Every time I go to this gallery I become super motivated to work harder on my art. All the artists in this gallery are amazing!

I’m still not done for the day, after the Brackenwood gallery I setup my easel again and started working more on this geranium painting that I started yesterday. I didn’t get much more finished on it today, but I took my time and did the best I could.

A long day, but one full of what I love!