Okay - I've decided to keep the blog going on to Day 2 of our painting adventure with Joel atop Mt Philo in Charlotte. Beautiful views, farmlands, Adirondack Mountains in the background.
We were perched like mountain goats - each leg of the easel was a different length and the heat was starting to rev up a tad, too. But it was a beautiful setting and as long as we maintained our balance, we could get something going. At one point Joel's easel fell into my back. No worries, but not my favorite set up. I think we worked on perspective a bit here, trying to change the colors of the tree groupings based on how far back they were and keeping the darker colors of trees in the foreground always darker than the shadows of the background trees. We talked about the colors that fade away first (yellows) which is why the green of the trees start to look blue the further back they go. We also worked on perspective - how the lines of the field separations needed to go in order to show distance, etc.
And while all that really eventually helped..... Joel told us we would all start out crappy and that by Tuesday and Wednesday would feel like our painting was awful and then get better as the week went on. He of course worded that better. This is why I have not posted a painting from Tuesday. OMG.... Okay, for the sake of learning - here is what I attempted. It is no longer around....
It was my least favorite. I'm not sure what I was doing. First I did one that had so much foreground that there were no fields. Seriously, I did the sky, mountains, lake, foreground and ooops - where are the fields supposed to go! I have no record of that one :) Then I did it again and started with the fields so I could fit them in. I rushed to get the second one mapped out but there was no fixing it. Definitely a learning day for me! Janet's was better. Maybe she will post it!
Here is Janet's. We both were not thoroughly loving these... Day 3 was at Shelburne Farms - and we both joined Joel for a 6 am 'dawn' painting session.
More on that next post.
- Lauren