Artistman

TheArtistman
2005-05-15 00:09:47 (UTC)

to painters33

Today was pretty cool. Myself and a artist pal of mine
named Dan (who signs all his paintings Don Wan) went out
plein air painting. We followed the Delaware river a bit
and stopped at a place called "Frys run". A bit about this
area. There is the Delaware river which is a pretty large
river running through pennsylvania. Dont know where it came
from or where its going. Just know its here. Thats the one
where George washington crossed years ago. anywho...there
is a canal that runs alongside this river that has gates up
and down it that used to be controlled manually by
Lockkeepers. The gates that hold the water back are
called "Locks". Well, we just had a really big flood there
and the water and the canal actually joined to form one
huge river. In the aftermath...the locks and the canal were
badly damaged and they drained the canal for miles and
miles. Never seen anything like it. So me and dan stopped
and sketched the locks cuz its really a once in a lifetime
thing to have these canals empty. Then we went down to the
Delaware river and painted a really awsome river scene.
Spent a few hours doing that till we lost the sunlight. Its
amazing how much paint can be used on small canvases. I had
only a ten by eight or something like that. I was able to
get the canvas pretty much filled in. Thats one nice thing
about painting outside on a smaller canvas. You can really
get alot completed in pretty much a small amount of time. I
almost finished the painting but will put some final
touches on it when It dries a little in the studio. I
really gotta work on my reflections in the water more. One
thing I do when I paint outside is try to complete the
picture at once. That means that I dont scrub in the
painting first or use wimpy brush strokes. Thats not a bad
thing per say...Im just telling you what I seem to do alot
when painting out of doors. I now go at it with bold colors
and just try to build on them. It was great being there
today. The place I set up at was on sand by the water and I
do believe it is a bad idea to drop your brushes in this
setting as I did. Sand tends to want to stick to paint. I
like to paint small here and there because I can really get
my first impressions down at the spot then if I want to do
another canvas much larger I have a guide to go by. Some
artist call these small works "sketches". I call em' little
paintings.




Ad: