Day 11 of 30 - Balboa Island "Early on the Dock

Early on the Dock

8x10

Oil on Linen on Board
$275

This past Friday, I was fortunate enough to get in an actual Plein Air Painting day.  And lucky enough to have my good friend and painting buddy Shannon Celia brave the early hour (leaving at 5:30AM) to come paint as well!  We drove down to Newport beach where we also met up with Kim VanDerHoek on Balboa Island.   Each of us got a painting done before having a nice lunch and getting to talk shop at Picante Martin's Mexican Restaurant.  Check out both Kim's and Shannon's websites to learn more about their work!

I am so grateful for the artists and friends I make on the journey!!  It is at least half the fun of painting for me.

On this particular day I was interested in doing something based on an unusual view and composition, cropping in to get more of an abstract feel.  I also started with my most delicate color and I liked the direction it took for the most part.  

It's such a great challenge to paint water, and reflections, along with all the movement of the water, and the sky reflecting in the water surface.
 There is a lot going on!   
What I noticed is that I tend to lay in all my brushstrokes to describe the water horizontally, and that makes it look really busy.   As I'm always working on getting better at simplifying.....I'm now thinking it's better to save those horizontal strokes for describing just the surface of the water and keep most of the reflections as shapes, just like I saw Wyllis Heaton do the other night in his demo.

 I get a little caught up with all the edges to soon and this new way would keep it more unified and not so broken up.  Something I will get even more conscious of next time I try it:-)

Happy Painting!