Painted Me

Susan Abbott Vermont Painting Workshop Day 1

Photo using camera painting movement of a tree by an artist's

pond in Marshfield, Vermont on August 15, 2015

 
Paint Me

A tree by a pond
in the green hills of Vermont;
it looks painterly.

by Bruce McMillan
Haiku text and photo © 2015 Bruce McMillan

 
Painted Me

A tree by a pond
with no green in the palette;
still looked painterly.

by Bruce McMillan
Haiku text and art © 2015 Bruce McMillan

The assigned task was to paint using only three assigned colors, Yellow Ochre, Burt Sienna, and Ultramarine Blue when we were out painting the Vermont Green Mountains, a palette which contains no green no matter how you mix them, a challenge using the same palette that English painters used many years ago.

Painted Me

a tree by an artist's pond in Marshfield, Vermont

sketched plein air on August 15, 2015

7" x 5", Winsor & Newton and Holbein watercolors,

and #3 graphite, on 140 lb. Fabriano Artistico

cold press fine grain 100% cotton watercolor paper

Traded with a workshop classmate for their art

 
Painted Me Study
thumbnail sketched first, 5" x 3.5"

Painting Workshop Day 1

 

In the morning after a talk by Susan and some hands-on studies we walked down the road to a farm and sketched four studies. When back at the studio, Susan reviewed our work collectively.

 

Among the exercises Susan had us doing, one was to look at this photo, thinking of various compositions, and pull out four sketches, which she demonstrated.

 

And which I did.

 

In the afternoon we painted plein air down the road by and artist's home with a lovely pond. While we went forth with our limited palette, Susan finished a painting she'd started, stopping to review her work in progress with her traditional one leg forward, lean back, study it pose, while in between making the rounds to advise us and review our work in progress. (Exploring the pond, I discovered an engraved marker on the pond's bank flush to the grass for "Earl, the Best Dog".)

The day closed out with a review of our plein air afternoon's studies. As Susan cropped them and added a frame, my mind wandered to what Wendy Watson, a Vermont children's book author and illustrator once said to me about framing when I was readying a show. "It's like getting dressed up, that final touch, putting on the tuxedo."