7.8.07 Green bank in shadow at Highway B triangle   7.8.07 Ready to work, looking at my subject.
       Feeling the warmth of the morning, the stillness, the meadow lark medley, trickles of perspiration.
              
          A wash of dark purple and swiggles of color for plants on top.         Working in my clean blue bibs.

                                                                      
                                                                      Acrylic on watercolor paper  I was disappointed with this.
       It's not what I wanted. Admittedly, I knew I was just going through the motions. Setting up the gear,
       pushing some paint, snapping some pics, going at it easy, tear down the gear, and trying it again
       at another location, and learning to SWEAT under a July sun.
         
       
            After lunch at home, I returned to Austin Hollow, hoping to render trees with paint, hoping to roam
      the dry river bed. I found the bed with water in it this time, which limited where I could set up.

       
    This painted piece left me uneasy as well.                                      Here is the scene I was working from.
    There is just SO MUCH INFORMATION coming at you in nature. I had an idea that I was working towards,
    but the light kept shifting as the sun crossed the sky.
        
    Light patches on the ground moved around.       Light patches moved across the water I was painting.
    Light patches illuminated  tree branches and creek bank areas. That movement can be disconcerting. 
    So I took photos. took my painting as far as I could take it, then packed up my gear and headed up the slope,
    through the field, to my pickup truck, drove up to the Austin's gate, got on the gravel road to town,
    and took Ely Street to my house.
          
           After being out I realized it wasn't going to be easy. Nature can throw you off guard. With no plan or
   color strategy in place I would end up with duds.
            I am intrigued by Juliet Hart Beers   26 x 17 inches, 1877
     In his oil painting Vermont Summers plants overlap plants in negative and positve forms, light on dark,
     dark on light. You can tell from the close up (below), that this painter knows his plant shapes, and
     has a color strategy in mind throughout the work. He assembled elements and colors that he enjoyed.
       I painted from this work to learn what I could.
     
            I found Glen Harrington and Benjamin William Leader on the Internet. Both of the pictures below
     have color strategies I would like to embrace in nature.
                         

  

            I told my wife "this is the year of the tree." I want to be able to describe trees and foliage with paint.
    Charcoal studies helped me to understand cows. Perhaps I needed to draw. The local office supply
    did not have charcoal pencils, so I ordered a dozen design pencils with wide thick softer leads.
    Then I sought out pencil instruction from the Carrollton Public Library.

         In Keys To Drawing (Northern Light Books, 1985), author Bert Dodson suggests artists work with
    two kinds of "handwriting," a loose free stroke and a more deliberate controlled stroke. Through the
    discipline of copying one can learn the approach of another artist. When you emulate, you pick your
    own idea and render it in another artist's handwriting or expression.

        So I began a series of pencil scribbles, while looking at the trees in my backyard. Choosing to stay
    loose.... to give my eyes time to become acquainted with this new subject.
 
7.23.07  Pencil scribbles on journal pad  #1                    7.23.07 Pencil scribbles #2

7.23.07 Pencil scribbles of tree #3                                      7.23.07 Pencil scribbles of tree #4

      
7.23.07 Pencil of bush row,sumac, and redbud #5               7.24.07 Pencil scribbles of two trees #6

        In Learn To Paint And Draw (Crescent Books, 1981) contributor Alfred Daniels suggests that
   catching the whole character of a tree is important. Doing just closeup leaves and too much detail
   can make a picture life-less. He describes doing outlines of the bigger tree shape first, then working
   with progressively smaller and smaller shapes within the tree. Try to find the tree's character. Hmmm....

    
  7.24.07 Craypa tree study #7                                            7.24.07 Pencil single tree #8

    
7.24.07 Pencil tree #9                                                          7.24.07 Craypa tree #10

     
  Side yard with trees                                                             7.24.07 Pencil of flowers #11

        I tried using wider color marks with craypas, also known as oil pastels. I did not like the results. Yuck.
  About the pencil though...I think it is like a magnifying glass, in that, each stroke helps my eye
  to rest on particulars in nature.

Nature is all that green stuff.  When you put down scribbles of the page,
  your eyes can focus on the edge of a leave, the groove of tree bark, the curve of grass, the oval head
  of Queen Ann's lace. The mess of information is given a place in space on your page.

        The next day I tried acrylic bark studies on 9 x 12 watercolor paper. Here they are (below).
  Working on small passages of bark and leaves and sky.....reminded me of creating poetry.

   
7.25.07  Acrylic     Tree branches  #1                                 7.25.07  Acrylic  Tree branches #2

  
7.25.07  Painting tree in my side yard                               7.25.07 Acrylic   Tree Branches #3

                               
                     7.26.07 acrylic  bark and leaves #4                

      
7.26.07  beside willow tree on Colborn Pond                      7.26.07  acrylic  bark and leaves #6  

          I was daily showing my attempts to my friend Joe Tonnar. An excellent drawer, Joe was struggling
   with wanting to paint in oil. It was new territory for him. Each of us were facing our own struggles, wanting
   so much to grow.  What I call homework. You can see his progress at

One Week 

            As confidence rose, I then tried three works on canvas panels. These supports are made by a
  professional outfit.
  
7.27.07  acrylic clouds above tree tops #7                        Square brush on left was helpful for thin lines and branches.
                                                                                           (Here, I had almost thrown it away)

  

 7.27.07 morning session out across Colborn Pond          7.27.07 acrylic Colborn Pond 9 x 12 canvas panel #8

   
 All of this was painted with one brush.    My friend Mark Hemleben had been right all along.
 When I visited him in Jerome, he had told me he painted with a similiar kind of brush. A brush it seemed
 that was too big to put down small details in paint.