This weekend I attended the Plein Air Washington Columbia Gorge Paintout in Washougal. I chose to set up next to the Fern Prairie Modelers runway, across the street from the transfer station. This is a great location because you can paint right next to your vehicle, there are trees for shade, and restrooms nearby at Captain William Clark Regional Park. The view is looking east into the Steigerwald Lake National Wildlife Refuge.

When I started the under painting around 10am, the sun was in front of me to the right. It was very hot, but also hazy, and the haze was a good thing because it helped to keep the scene from changing significantly over the next 5 hours as I painted. During this time, the sun moved to a position directly to my right, so the main changes in front of me were the snowfields on Mt Hood (it went from back-lit to side-lit) and the form shadows on the near trees. Everything else – the distant hills, the barns, and the foreground meadows stayed pretty much the same.

I spent about 30 minutes on the under painting, using thin Burnt Sienna and then Raw Umber.

As often happens, I found the half-finished painting to be nearly as compelling as the completed piece. I really like the way the Burnt Sienna foreground plays against the Cerulean and Raw Umber in the distant hills.

Here’s the finished piece, a 9″ x 12″ canvas panel.

The paintout was a lot of fun and at the end of the day we all met for dinner at the Puffin Cafe, a Caribbean restaurant floating on the Columbia at the Port of Camas. All in all, an excellent trip with lots of painting, interesting people, and great food!

It was too hot to hang out at home so I headed to the cool woods of Kirkland Watershed Park to work on the painting I started last week.

I reestablished some of the tree shapes and then redesigned the pattern of light and shadow on the path.

I’m liking how it is developing, but feel the shadows in the foreground seem a bit overworked.

Afternoon painting in the shade at Kirkland Watershed Park.

My plan was to do an underpainting and then come back another day to finish up.

After about 30 minutes, things were looking good, so I just started painting the next layer.

Here it is after a full hour of painting.

Not sure whether to stop and call it a study or keep working on another day.

This morning I returned to Kelsey Creek Farm to continue the painting I started on Thursday. The first order of the business was to lay down some branches with the rigger brush and bits of Raw Umber, Prussian Blue, and Titanium White. The poplars in front have dark branches, while the birches in the middle distance have light branches. Next came the trees on the horizon, made with a mixture of Cerulean Blue, Raw Umber, Yellow Ochre, Alizarin Crimson Hue and Titanium White.

Next I began adding the shaded interior leaf textures. The darkest values were a mixture of Raw Umber and Prussian Blue. Other values included Raw Umber, Burnt Umber, Burnt Sienna, and mixtures left over from the trees in the background.

After the interior leaves, I felt it was important to add the large shadow shapes on the hillside and paint in the gravel path before modelling the sunlit sides of the trees.

In the end I decided it wouldn’t hurt to fix the color and value of the sunlit grasses as well. The next time I go out, my focus will be modelling the light on the trees, adding sky holes, and strengthening the shapes of the trunks and branches.

It feels like the composition would benefit from something more in the lower left. Either taller darker grasses, or perhaps a shadow form from a tree just outside the frame. I will probably add a splash of white flowers and a few dandelions as well.

I got up at 5:30am this morning to paint at Kelsey Creek Farm before work. Now I know from experience why I prefer to paint at the end of the day. In the evening, it gets cooler as time wears on and if you want, you can keep working on some aspects of the painting as long as it is light enough to see. You can enjoy the evening breezes as you clean brushes and pack up at your leisure in the fading twilight. In the morning, especially during a Seattle heatwave, it just gets hotter and hotter as you paint, and at some point you need to apply sunscreen, and if you get on a roll and don’t mind that the shadows have all disappeared, you apply sunscreen again – and then you pack up and wash brushes under a withering sun.

Still, I had fun, and I had wanted to return to this location to do a 9″x12″ version after a 4″x6″ study I made a few years ago.

Old study on the left. New painting in progress on the right. I’m using water miscable oils – some Holbein Duo and some Royal Talens Cobra. I started the under painting in Burnt Sienna, and then strengthened the darks with Burnt Umber and then Raw Umber.

I stayed long enough to paint the sky, but I forgot to soften the edges between the sky and the distant trees. No problem – I’ll do that tomorrow morning if I don’t sleep in.

It’s Father’s Day and the Summer Solstice and I am painting once again at Marymoor Park. No concert this evening – just the Washington Brewer’s Festival – and a couple of curious drones buzzing around overhead.

This time I had 90 minutes to paint. I started by reestablishing the cast shadows, then painted the remaining trees from back to front. After that, grass and then the road.

I could probably call it done at this point, but I will probably touch it up a bit in one final session. I want to add a few larger pieces of grass in the foreground with a rigger brush and work on the shadows along the edge of the road. Also add a few sky holes in the trees and a bit of sunlit tree trunk.

Here’s the sunset on the longest day of the year!