Painting Competition

Barrels  11x14 oil

The local plein air competition has now concluded and while it was largely rained out, I found other reasons to dislike it.  I guess I really prefer a more collaborative and friendly approach to painting and I'd love to see an event that centered on painters sitting around talking with each other while paintng instead of one based on the presumption that someone is going to "win".  I only signed up at the insistence of two painting buddies who did it last year, and I assumed we would be able to paint together, but they both bugged out and went to the beach, leaving me to dutifully pack my gear around in search of some spot that wasn't overrun with the public.  While the above subject isn't fascinating, it at least provided me with a place to perch off the trail along the river, mostly out of sight from all the dog-walkers and joggers.  It's an old metal container of some sort left over from ages past, and teenage boys love to jump off the top of it in the summer, ignoring the signs that tell them not to do just that.  I did make an effort to include some softer edges, as I have recently realized (how slow I am to learn!) that edges are perhaps my biggest weakness.  

A second piece I will also submit (and I'm only submitting anything at all just to force myself to expose my insecurities) is this one from just down river at Tryon Creek Cove.  We go there sometimes to let the dog swim, even though there are signs that tell us not to do that (I guess there's a teenage boy in all of us somewhere.)

Tryon Creek Cove 11x14 oil

One thing I would do better to avoid in painting plein air is anything architectural or structural.  It's so hard to make straight lines in the field.  And water, as always, is so hard.  In the end I find myself slipping into mindless automatic mode, slapping dashes and lines in an effort to create movement.  I know that there is a time pressure outdoors, but if I can't find a way to slow down and use more care in my work, I'll never be able to move forward.  And yet that's one of the nicer things about plein air, because there isn't time to get precious and it's the impression that counts the most.

End of the Trail 16x20

I include this last piece only because it began with such hopes, and then part way through it I realized that I had wanted the little bridge to be lower in the composition, so that the entry into the dark wood was a focal point in a better location.  As it is, it seems to get lost a little.  I stopped working on the tall grasses in the foreground and I almost considered starting over on a new panel, but the rain came.  I might give this one another go someday.