Mixing neutrals

Last night my class were mixing neutrals. This is a group of experienced painters who are preparing themselves to paint en plein air this summer.
The demands of direct painting out doors are challenging. Not the least of which is being able to mix the correct colour quickly and efficiently, without thinking about it. I have found over the years from personal experience that working with a limited palette where you know the colours intimately is both very effective and reassuring.
I know that this colour mixing is very useful, but I was also delighted to see how much they enjoyed the exercise. Total concentration on the task at hand.



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Posting photos

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Ok. It's done. I'm now sitting up in bed with a cup of tea, and after a couple of hours sleep. Finally found out the problem. Basically blogger will not enable you to post photos on iPad. You need a special app. Which I have downloaded.
So reassuring that it is not operator incompetence. I hope that subsequent challenges in the year to come are sorted so readily.
The photo was taken on location above the Cobb Valley. The first serious plein air painting after I returned from the UK. Our country is so beautiful but so different from ye olde England.


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Location:Maitai Valley Road,Maitai,New Zealand

The daily pleinair challenge

This blog has come about rather as a surprise, at least to me. I have been travelling away from home a lot this year. Both down South and in the UK. Every day I travelled I painted. I enjoyed it so much, I began to wonder why it is that I don't paint every day at home? I have decided to spend a year painting every day. Starting today, but my actual year will be from January 1 to December 31 2015. This gives me about six weeks to get used to the idea of painting and blogging every day, and frankly, to see if I can actually do it. Living at home with all the distractions and obligations of daily living, and still managing to meet the challenge.

At this stage I feel very confident, but I'm also realistic enough, and have lived long enough to realise that life is never that easy. Stuff will happen, things will go wrong. Methods will evolve, and equipment will change, and I will adapt.

The first challenge of the day has emerged: how to add an image to this post. Hmm.

I'll get back to you later today. This is altogether to complex for 4.30 am. Need to sleep on it.

Cheers.

Branford Park in Late Autumn

This will be the last autumn painting from Branford Park this year. It has been a wonderful season painting in the park. I haven't counted, but I must have completed well over a dozen autumn paintings. It is the best time of the year to paint. You can use the whole palette. All those gorgeous reds, oranges and yellows. Yum.

Winter has its own joys. I love the restricted palette that comes with the shorter days, together with the raking light and its strong modelling effect, not to mention the cool blues and greens of frost and snow working against the warm Sienna's and Umbers of the bare rocks and trees.

I have all that to look forward to over the next few months. In the meantime I'm off to Bali for my daughter's wedding. Wild tropic colours and exotic subject matter. The next couple of weeks will be awesome. Two more days in NZ painting and then away to the tropical sun...



15121. "Branford Park in Late Autumn". Oil on panel. 8x10 in. $150

Any plein air painting from this blog may be purchased by emailing me at

rosswhitlock@inspire.net.nz

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Waiting for the ship. Lake Rotoiti.

It must be one of the enduring mysteries of life. Why, when confronted with jetty or pier do we feel compelled to walk to the end and presumably contemplate eternity. Or at least, eternal questions such as, "When will my ship come in?", and "What time is tea?"

When I arrived at Lake Rotoiti today in search of snow, there was no snow left on Mount Robert, but on the West Arm Jetty was this solitary watcher. I knew that the search for my subject of the day was over.

I don't know what he was waiting for. There are no scheduled sailings on the lake. Nor were there any sea birds. The wind was gusting quite nicely but there were no yachts to watch, bending to the breeze.

I was compelled to assume that his watch was metaphysical. Perhaps he was waiting for his mythical ship of fortune to arrive.

Whatever. By the time I had painted him in he had gone on his way, so I did not have the opportunity to question him. The mystery makes for a great painting though. "Waiting for the Ship"



15119. "Waiting for the Ship" oil on panel. 8x10 in. $150

Any plein air painting from this blog may be purchased by emailing me at

rosswhitlock@inspire.net.nz

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The NZ Xmas Tree

The NZ Xmas tree. I wanted to paint something festive that wasn't snow or reindeer, but was NZ. I found this tree just coming out in bloom along the coast from Atawhai, Nelson. It even had a convenient bench for contemplation. Compliments of the season to all. Oil on panel. 8x10 in.


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