Plein Air Painting in Clifton

I got up early this morning to paint down in the town of Clifton. My 10-year old son got up and wanted to come too. I had recently bought him a nice sketch book and good charcoal pencils for acing his geography test. So we drove down to the town. I wanted to paint the creek, but David wanted to draw the railroad crossing (such a boy). I obliged, of course. What a good idea he had. I really enjoyed the subject much better than the creek. I'm going to have to get his advice more often. Here is my painting from today. It's not finished. I want to put in the words on the signs after the paint dries, along with the red stripes on the gates. I also want to have a few more hard edges and straighter lines (to be done inthe studio). I did pile on the paint today, which is not a comfortable place for me, but I love the look. You need to be able to draw some very straight lines, which I was having a serious problem with (as always). Perhaps starting with charcoal would work--at least to set the lines before painting. I did that on a painting of tomatoes on a box of prunes (see earlier post) because I could control the drawing much better and get precise lettering. The charcoal then bleed into paint so that I didn't have to take the brush to the edge of the line and risk crossing over or blurring the edge. It was an amazing experiment that completely worked.

Today was so fun and the weather was perfect. I was in the shade and the wind was blowing softly to create a cool breeze. I could not have asked for a better day. I plan to go tomorrow with the Art League Plein Air painters to paint at the Old Town waterfront. Unfortunately that is going to be in full sun.