A Great Winter's Day

One of our painting colleagues had a "significant" birthday on Saturday, so we decided to mark the occasion the following day with a paint-out in his honour. We were lucky to get one of those all too rare perfect winter days - not a cloud in the sky all day. But the plan involved tea, cakes and good fun at the home of another colleague followed by a portrait session at her studio. So I only managed to do one small plein air painting. Unfortunately, I gave the portrait to the guest of honour before I got a chance to take a photo of it.

Our paint-out was at the little harbour of Carne, full of small fishing boats during the summer, but practically deserted at this time of year. Since the water looked fairly uninteresting, I looked around for something entirely different and settled for this old shed which looked very striking against the strongly lit background.

Winter Sunlight, Carne
(10" x 12" Oil on Board)

I remembered to take a photo of the scene this time and include it here because it shows how I edited it somewhat to improve the composition.

Last of Autumn's Colour

A few of us decided to catch the last of the autumn colour last Sunday in beautiful Kennedy Park (US followers of this blog may be interested to know that the park is adjacent to the ancestral home of John F Kennedy, hence the name dedication).  A lot of the leaves were already gone, but some varieties, especially the numerous maple trees, were still extraordinarily colourful.

For my first painting, I was really attracted to the strong, almost abstract shadow patterns created by the low sun and the almost bare trees.

Late Autumn Shadows, Kennedy Park
(14" x 11" Oil on Board)

I could no longer resist the obvious for my second painting and painted these maple trees in all their autumnal glory. There are several varieties here, with autumn colours ranging from green-yellow to orange and the deepest reds.

Autumn Maples, Kennedy Park
(11" x 14" Oil on Board)

Good weather, good company and a great location. Plein air doesn't get much better!