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Archive for Texas plein air

 April 27, 2015

Clouds

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“Clouds” 9″x12″ oil on linen panel. Plein air.

Do you ever drive around and just can’t take your eyes off the sky? Off the clouds? This was one of those days. Myrrh and I were driving down a back road outside of Bellville, Texas, it was a straight road with fields on either side and the sky went on and on. We just needed a place to pull over, what was on the ground didn’t really matter, it was the sky we wanted to paint. But we needed a place to pull over, so we found space right next to a long dirt drive up to an old house. We set up to paint and my easel was actually in the middle of that drive. Halfway into the painting a car pulled up and I thought she just wanted to see our paintings, but no, I was blocking the road to her house.

In my painting I did have her little country house, but I took it out because I didn’t think the painting needed it. If it doesn’t add to the painting, then it doesn’t need to be there. That’s a BIG rule in painting, at least for me. It’s especially good to remember that as I’m working on simplifying my paintings down to the essence of the design.

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Categories : painting clouds, plein air
Tags : art for sale, cloud study in oil, Houston artist, Houston fine art, plein air cloud study, Texas landscape in oil, Texas plein air
 March 22, 2015

Painting a Cemetery

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“Chappell Hill Cemetery” 8″x10″ oil on canvas. plein air. SOLD.

It’s mid March and here in Texas the weather has started to warm up. Time to get outside and paint! My friend Myrrh Haslam and I went out for the day, we met at 8:00 a.m. drove northwest towards the little town of Chappell Hill. With daylight savings time we still had the beautiful morning light around 9:30 a.m. when we set up to paint our first painting. We drove past a pond among a clump of trees. Bare trees. While I love bare trees and all the colors in the winter grays, this clump of trees just looked dreary. And they were far away, huddled around a little brown pond like old men hunched over a card game.

And this was our first scene to paint. Hmph.

I was not inspired. (Can you tell?) But I saw some beauty in the scene and decided if I was going to be a plein air painter, I should be able to paint anything. That’s what I was telling myself anyway although I’m not sure it’s true. But, then . . . . I noticed a cemetery just to the left of where we were parked. Now this was eye catching! I picked up my easel and walked about 20 yards to the left and set up there, overlooking the small cemetery.

Painting the Chappell Hill Cemetery.

Painting the Chappell Hill Cemetery.

I set up my easel facing into the sun. This isn’t always easy, looking directly into the sun, but it was early morning and the sun was very filtered through thick trees. And it was either this or the pond! When looking directly into a stronger sun, say an afternoon sun, your pupils dilate and in my experience this makes it harder to judge the color and value. So generally I don’t paint facing into the sun.

I told myself this first painting was a warm up, but it turned out to be my favorite of the three I painted that day. The morning sun was beautiful, it was a peaceful place and the temperature was perfect.

Later the sky turned overcast and the day turned a bit dreary. There is beauty to be found in any kind of weather and anyway, we kept hoping the sun would appear. We painted two more small studies that day and there is always value in recording nature. Not always value in keeping it though since I did end up wiping off one of the paintings. But overall it was a wonderful day spent in the midst of God’s creation.

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Categories : landscape in oil
Tags : Cemetery painting in oil, Chappell Hill plein air, landscape in oil, Texas plein air
 November 5, 2014

“The Field and I” *

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Texas Haybales. 14″x7″ oil on canvas panel. $250.

Yesterday my friend Myrrh Haslam and I headed out to paint for the day.  I left my house at 6:45 a.m. and we met at our regular meeting place – Macy’s parking lot – then we put all our painting supplies in one car and drove west out of Houston.  This time we had a plan, to go to Round Top and paint barns and hay bales.  Myrrh had spotted some beautiful haybales when she was in Round Top last week and we made a beeline to the spot.  The forecast was for 40% chance of rain and 15-25 mph winds but we were determined.  We found the haybales and set up to paint.  A couple of local farmers drove by and stopped, curious about what we were doing. One had a funny look when we said we were painting his beautiful haybales.  He probably never considered his haybales beautiful before.  Maybe still doesn’t.

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Painting haybales in Round Top, Texas.

Conditions were perfect, the sun came and went behind the clouds and there wasn’t much wind at all.  A beautiful Texas November day, we painted for almost 2 hours in this location.  By then it was almost noon so we headed to the tiny town of Round Top for lunch.  We found a Mexican restaurant that was crowded and delicious.  Crowded because every other restaurant in “town”  was closed.   Not much tourism on a Tuesday in November so we concluded most places are only open Thursday – Sunday.  It was delicious though and I would go there again.  Plus, they have an ice cream machine in the back and you can serve yourself a free ice cream cone – the soft serve kind.  Bonus!

After our lunch break we were ready to paint.  It’s so helpful to be able to go somewhere and sit down and rest between paintings.  Not physically rest, but my brain needs a break from looking and mixing colors.  So feeling refreshed we began our search for the next location.  Myrrh had spotted some barns and we found them, but we decided the barns would look better with sunlight and shadows so we kept driving.

And then we found it!

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November Field. 6″x8″ oil on canvas. NFS.

Two words:  Field.  Gorgeous.

I don’t know what kind of field that is, or what that plant is, but it was beautiful.  Monet painted haystacks again and again and again, I want to paint this field.  I want to paint it in the morning, in the afternoon and in the evening.  In all kinds of light.  Imagine getting so excited about a field?  I’m glad the farmer didn’t drive by at that moment, he would have thought we were crazy.  I’m in love with his field!

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The field and me.

It was already mid afternoon and some kind of front was moving in.   You can see the darkening sky in my painting, and there really wasn’t much light for 3:00 in the afternoon, but it was still beautiful. We spent just over an hour on the side of the road at this location and each completed a study.  Then it was time to pack up and leave.  I said my goodbye’s and left the field.

By now it was getting darker and we had a 2+ hour drive back to Houston so we decided to start back, maybe stop and paint a small study if we saw something great.  Ten minutes later we found a large barn that was only partway visible because of lots of wild brush in front of it.  (Not the beauty of my field, but still painting worthy.)  So we unloaded everything and set up on the side of the road again.  It was late and getting darker and I didn’t get that little break for my brain after the last painting, but I painted anyway.  That one turned out okay, mainly it’s a color study and I debated about wiping it off.  (Debate was with myself and I usually win those.)  I decided to keep it for the colors, there is usually something valuable in the colors.  I have found that even if I feel like wiping off a painting, it’s a good idea to at least wait a day and then decide.

So we packed up and headed back to Houston.  In the dark!  I pulled into my driveway after a 13 hour adventure.  What a glorious day we had.  And I was so happy to come home with two paintings that I’m pleased with.  Each will provide reference material for a larger painting.  And of course my discovery of that gorgeous field, did I mention the field?  God could not have made a more beautiful field, in my opinion.  I know, the field and I need our own song.

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* “The Field and I” is a take-off on the 1956 movie “The King and I”, a love story starring Yul Brenner. It was remade in 1999 with Jodie Foster and called “Anna and the King”.

 

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Categories : landscapes in oil, plein air, Texas landscape
Tags : Haybales, haybales in oil, plein air landscape, Round Top, Texas plein air
 June 15, 2013

A day of plein air painting in Texas

Summer Barn  8″x10″  Sold
Another wonderful day of plein air painting in the countryside west of Houston with my friend Myrrh Haslam. I left my house at 6:30 a.m. and met Myrrh 30 minutes away, we always leave one of our cars in the Luby’s parking lot, and we drove west another hour. We saw lots of beautiful sites to paint, but couldn’t always find a safe place to park and paint. We finally found this beautiful little red barn, and across the road was another barn that Myrrh decided to paint.
 
The owner of the property came by and told us they were going to tear down this old barn soon.  Notice the big pile of dirt in front of the barn, I left that out, in face I hardly noticed it while I was painting. Just blocked it out. This was an absolutely beautiful spot and I remember saying to Myrrh that I couldn’t be happier, what a great way to spend the day.
Next we decided to try a couple of little roads off the main road. We turned on a promising road called Krebs Road. We reached a peak and could see for miles and miles in all directions. Saw fields and barns, so many possibilities! We settled on this barn way off in the distance. One lonely cow in this giant field complained about us setting up but eventually wandered off.
 
By now it was around 1:00 p.m. and lunch time. Myrrh looked at the map on her phone for the nearest town. Industry. Never heard of it and it didn’t hold much promise for lunch but we headed that direction. Our back up plan was a town 20 minutes past Industry.
 
We came to Industry, which was one intersection and a sign that said “population 305”. We found a BBQ place but it was closed. And questionable anyway. At the intersection we found a combination Shell station/nursery/meat market/hardware store/grocery store and cafe. Well, not exactly a cafe, but they sold ready made sandwiches and had 3 tables near the bathrooms. Perfect! We had lunch and bought some paint thinner to clean our brushes. It was nice to be in the air conditioning for 30 minutes before we headed back out.
A mere 5 minutes down the road we saw two barns perched on top of a hill. And a nice side street for us to safely park on. Four cars went down that side street while we were painting and every one of them stopped to see what we were doing and talk. That’s part of the fun of paining plein air.

By now the clouds were getting thicker and I heard thunder in the distance. I thought about putting some blue in the sky to make this a happier painting but decided I wanted my painting to be an accurate memory of that place and time.

After this last painting we headed home, taking photographs along the way. I pulled up in my driveway at 6:15 p.m., almost 12 hours after I left that morning. It is so refreshing to be outside and surrounded by God’s beautiful creation all day long!

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Categories : barns, landscapes in oil, oil painting, plein air, Texas landscape, Uncategorized
Tags : barn landscapes, Bellville, Industry, Painting a red barn plein air, plein air adventures, Red barn in oil, Texas, Texas landscapes in oil, Texas plein air
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