Today I’m doing something different. In my sad attempt to emulate James Gurney I’m going on location with my gouache paints and painting a landscape. My wife and I have been to this soccer field several time and I have never seen anyone sitting on this lonely bench. So I wanted to try to capture the idea of loneliness.
When I began the painting the lonely bench and trees were in sunlight but then a large bank of clouds rolled in and not only did the temperature drop but I painted the whole scene in overcast light. I think the overcast light was better for the mood.
Here is what it looked like when sun was hitting it.
Here is what the lonely bench looked like in overcast light. I think it looks even more ominous in this light.
One of the bigger reasons for my gouache on location attempt was to figure out a good setup for gouache on location. I think this is the first time that I’ve done a landscape in gouache so I needed to figure out the best and quickest way to get setup.
Here is the finished painting on location, it only took me an hour to get this far, but I could have spent much longer if I wasn’t so cold. I was wearing shorts thinking it was going to be warm, and I was sitting on a metal bench.
