Gallery Plein Air Paint-out/Fall Semester Week 5

Today I went out to the new gallery I am in Parke Schaffer Fine Arts in Wayne, PA which is having an open gallery every Saturday in October where two artists come out and paint live in the gallery. Today it was David Grafton and myself in the gallery, David inside doing a landscape and myself, outside in the brisk fall weather. I sat in the sun, but the wind was blowing pretty good today so towards the end I was getting a bit chilly, or my hands were. I attracted many onlookers throughout the day as i painted in front of the gallery and my mom and dad stopped out as they are in town to see my brother and his wife who just made them grandparents and me an uncle last weekend. I tried to find a set-up that I knew I could paint and that would stay in good light for the afternoon and that if the light changed ( which it did) I could manage the change. It was sunny when I set up, but cloudy when I got going--but then about an hour before the whole thing came to an end the sun came back out so I had to make many, many adjustments and chase the fading sun--but that's what plien-air is all about!

This is a shot of the gallery with my buddy Will sitting with my parents as parke shows some work to a few perspective customers.

David Grafton doing his painting in the gallery

Will and my parents.

Here you can see my painting in a few stages of progress. I wanted to keep it simple and many of the cooler views would have put me into parking lot traffic, but eventually i had to paint the cars...

Cars are no harder than anything else to paint and actually they are easier than things like trees since their shapes are simpler. I love the reflective colors as well.

a nice shot of my mom and dad, it was fun to have them at the gallery as i painted and they enjoyed the process and the nice lunch Parke was so gracious to serve us.

In school news another week flew by and I missed one of my classes but I did put the final strokes to this painting I have been hacking at the past few weeks. Its so frustrating at times that the lighting conditions change so radically from session to session, dark and cloudy to bright and sunny, so if you are painting with the spotlight on the model, one session it's bright and warm--the next darker as the sun outside is blasting in. This week we are coming starting a new pose. meanwhile I am working on a few new paintings in school, a night painting from the 4th floor lobby and another train painting in the studio so i can have multiple paintings in progress.

I fixed a few things that were hard to see in the lobby but I really want to do this with my night vision, not from a photo.

Peter also had his cute dog Sasha in class as he uses her in the animal drawing class he teaches. We bonded over some extra turkey bacon I had for breakfast. I also started teaching my Illustration class in the After School Program and we had a good first class. If I get a chance I'll post some work from the class in the next few weeks. So as you can see--fall is in full swing--and the time is flying by.