Creek in June early evening

A return visit to the creek lathered with enough spray to repel all the ravenous mosquitos  this side of the equator from a slightly different vantage point.  One sniff of me and they either fainted or fled, I was happily abandoned. A veritable calm prevailed, I could hear the frogs and myself sigh in something approaching tranquillity.

oil on canvas panel 12" by 12"

Sunday life

These weekly life sessions help keep me copacetic. I've missed a few and won't alas get back to it till July. I'll have to improvise in the meantime - may try to take in Caravaggio and his followers in Ottawa on our way to Montreal and then will make time for the museum in Boston when we're down that way.

Below - three forty minute poses.

40 minutes 18 in by 24 in on Strathmore -
prior to tweaking when I returned home
- six of one half a dozen of another this
tweaking exercise

Strathmore as above

manilla 18 in by 24 in 40 min

Moving myself around

Not bothering about color harmony ( although if I do look worried I ‘ve had plenty of experience doing  that – ha ha) - as much as experimenting with mixing colors from landscape palettes to see what tones of this and that I can obtain – painting over a previous study – half looking half guessing being quite compatible with mud as that is something I have in abundance in my studio.

click on image to enlarge

oil on canvas 10" by 12"

untitled

I salvage some paint from a left over  palette to rework  a head study - alizaron crimson on forhead. – A notice from revenue Canada informs me that they don’t owe me a refund I owe them -  I force a smile which is not to say that it is a forceful or even necessarily a convincing smile but in this heat subtle distinctions are nothing to sweat about. I figure if I can be supportive to mosquitos I can hardly refuse to pay my taxes – meant as a joke of course.

oil 6" by 8" pre gessoed board

Head sketches from a few years ago - something like that.

on preparation

I was a hearty feast for mosquitoes  yesterday by a charming creek. As soon as I set up they attacked. Today I counted approximately 45 bites on shoulders and back – a conservative estimate. Bug smear was no deterrent. Then to add insult to injury I couldn’t find my brushes. That left me with my finger, rags and two palette knives. But when I loaded up my car and paused for a sip of tea I found my brushes at the bottom of my back pack. The plein air fairy chuckled (at my expense) and murmured sweetly – you had something to learn from this experience didn’t you? 

oil on board 9"x12"