Plein air mini-hike

What do you do when your golf swing goes in the toilet and you don't want to meet your friends for a round? Why you go paint! 

So I grabbed my oil painting gear and headed into the woods. Onanda park "doesn't have hiking trails" but what it does have is an awesome walk into a waterfall with some more waterfalls if you are a billy goat--I had 45 pounds of painting gear on my back--so I opted to stay grounded. I eventually found a cool, flat, spot and picked out some tree roots to capture. It was an intimidating subject, but I had nothing but time in a very serene location. I even found a friend to keep me company! 

my only critic

Performances

The spring as an elementary teacher means performances. And performances mean--sketching! I would usually load up with sketching tools but for these I went minimal with usually one pen, and added the color later. A few of the performances were VERY DARK in the theater, so I had some fun drawing blind, and editing as I went (the ones with the orange background). 

[various pens probably filled with DeArtementis Document ink, D+S watercolors in a Stillman & Birn Gamma sketchbook-landscape]

 

Plein air afternoon

It was finally a nice afternoon around here and we had a sniff of spring last week. I grabbed the plein air kit and headed out to get some practice for the Finger Lakes Plein Air festival. I was accompanied by some locals who were sharing some VERY interesting life stories. 

[w+n/gamblin oils, allaprima pochade box--custom]

sketch

round 1

final

Barnes and Noble meetup (edit)

Here are a few sketches from our most recent (and long over due) sketch meet up. 

[sailor bent nib pen and D+S watercolors in a Stillman & Birn gamma sketchbook-landscape--and a cookie]

Speed sketch

I went sketching with my sketching buddy--Genine on what we thought was a nice afternoon. We found some cool old industrial buildings to sketch but when we got comfy the wind made us a little chilly so we opted for a speed sketch. We had 15 minutes for inking and color! Afterwards I went back in to add some value and details! 

[LAMY Safari M nib, with DeArtementis Document ink, D+S watercolors in a Stillman & Birn Gamma sketchbook-landscape]