Two Seascapes and a Woodland Scene

It's been very cold here for the last few days, but the upside is that it has been sunny and calm. Near ideal plein air painting conditions, because of the consistent light. I went to Baginbun Head on Tuesday and managed to do two while perched on cliff-tops. It was only about 2-4 C (approx 35-40 F), but felt warmer because of the sunshine and absence of any wind. I've been learning to be a bit more creative in "designing" my plein airs lately, so there is a bit more editing/re-arranging, while still being faithful to the light conditions. I've also been paying a lot more attention to composition recently and have included some panoramic photos here to show how I've cropped the scenes to focus in on what interested me.

For my first one, I was attracted by the vivid colours of the cast shadows of the rocks on the foam. The difficulty was that there wasn't a lot of action in the ocean and the foam only appeared for about 10-15 seconds every ten minutes or so. It didn't make things easy either that the tide was coming in rapidly and both rocks had all but disappeared by the time I finished.

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

I moved to the other side of Carnivan Beach for my second one. I thought the gap in the flat rocks provided a nice "lead-in", even if I had to tweak things a little.

Winter Surf, Carnivan Beach
(10" x 12" Oil on Board)

These are two photos I took before starting, the first a panoramic shot and the second a closer crop which was closer to what I had in mind compositionally:-

This is a panoramic shot of the scene, which shows how I zoomed in on a particular area and arranged things somewhat. I also exaggerated the surf for effect.

First-Paint Out of 2011!

I finally got back into painting yesterday after almost two months of inactivity. So firstly a belated Happy New Year to all the followers of this blog. And now that I'm back, I promise no more lengthy breaks from painting!

Well I have some of my painting colleagues to thank for persuading me to get back out there. We had our first group paint-out of 2011 yesterday.  An overcast morning gave way to some pleasant afternoon sunshine, even though we didn't see to much of it in the deep forested valley of Edenvale.

This was my first one from the morning. The river was in flood, hence the dull colours and absence of any clear reflections.

Winter Stream, Edenvale
(10" x 12" Oil on Board)

Even though the cloud cleared in the afternoon, the low sun had virtually disappeared, but I managed to catch a glimpse of it in the distance in this scene.

Heading Home, Edenvale
(10" x 12" Oil on Board)

Here is a photo of the first scene taken before I started painting:-