Saying Goodbye with some plein-air painting...

Hi peeps, 

[This post is to go along with the video I just uploaded to Youtube, a casual painting vlog of this plein-air painting session.]

Just before I moved (literally the day before) I decided to take a break and spend a day going to my favourite nature places and painting. 

I took some gouache, my Arches Travel Journal, my dagger brushes, some water, my camera and my tripod, and headed off. 

My first stop was a hotel lost in the woods, with a good amount of grounds, that I absolutely loved going to for dinner every so often (they have an amazing restaurant), or just to walk around.
I chose this scene because this tree always attracted me, and the very first time I saw it, I decided I would one day attempt to paint it. 

I love this tree to bits, as it looks like a big sleeping Ent to me.
I'm a bit sad that I didn't paint the details that make the stump look like a face. I think that, because it was my first painting of the day, I was stressed and trying to figure out how to paint the bark texture, instead of focusing on the different shape details. Lesson learned.
Figure out the landmark details. 

I'm still happy with this painting however, as I was convinced I was going to fail at it in the same way I failed my first plein-air session (which you can read all about here : https://www.patreon.com/posts/my-first-time-19999187 )
But I think I did a decent job, and I'm not unhappy with it at all!

This second attempt was where I failed.
I was exhausted from my first painting, so I decided not to film this one. It helped with stress, but I ended up not succeeding anyway, as I think I picked a scene that was beyond my level, especially tired. The values were confusing to me, and I am not very good at confusing compositions, with not many defining details. And I am also not very good at trees and bushes.
I didn't finish the painting, as I just didn't feel like it was getting anywhere, and I wanted to have the time to do another one that day at another location.
The good thing with failing repeatedly, is that, in order to keep feeling productive and successful, despite failures, I need to be able to take a step back from my feelings, and study what I learned and what I need to improve on and practice.
Looking at everything as a teachable moment makes for success on a different level, I think. :)

My second stop was a small nature reserve with a lake, free-roaming cows, a plethora of wild life and the most peaceful, gently little stream. Probably the place I will miss the most from where I used to live. 

This last one I am also happy with.
It was tough one, as I am very inexperienced with painting water, and the light was changing very quickly, so I could never decide on where to put my highlights, but I learned a lot about values and composition while attempting this scene.
Towards the end, I figured out a few things about painting water, and things fell into place a bit more, but the beginning was challenging!

During this session, I decided to start writing down my epiphanies, and the lessons I learned.
Most of them as concepts I already knew, but had never really truly understood and experienced myself. Sometimes, something needs to hit you in the face for you to actually get it, haha. 

Here's what I think I learned/confirmed/reinforced from this session : 

- Values and colours are closely intertwined.
We may think something is a certain colour, but we need to think about the value of that colour before the colour of the colour, if that makes sense? I may write a full post about this one day...

- Look at volumes and shape before colour!

- Determine foreground and background!
We may think we know what each are in the picture, but deciding it early on, and making sure we stick with it, is key in deciding values, colours, and detail.
The foreground requires a bigger range of value, and more detail and colour, whereas, the further the background is, the less colour, value range, and detail it will need, to be understood by the viewer correctly.
No matter what our eyes tells us!

- Something that worked for me quite well this time round, was deciding on an ambient, atmospheric colour, and laying down a wash of it first.
It allowed me to unify the background, set a mood and a light, and decide on which elements were going to be my foreground by keeping them white so that their highlights would pop. 

Those lessons felt good, and like progress, and this session was incredibly peaceful, needed, and healing. I was so so happy I managed to take the time to do this, as I know I would have deeply regretted it if I had moved without saying a proper and appropriate goodbye to these places that brought me so much calm and happiness these last few years. 

Here are the materials I used for this session : 

I used some cheap student gouache brands I got from my brother's art school kit when he moved away, as well as couple of my Linel and W&N gouaches for the colours I didn't have in cheap version.
I am pretty sure those small tubes of cheap gouache are not lightfast, since there is no rating on the tubes, but that's ok, I don't plan on selling those paintings.
The paints themselves seemed decent enough, the tubes were small (as the picture shows, in comparison to Linel), so great for carrying around.
I'll need to use them more before I can have a definite verdict. 

 ♦ The colours I used were :
- Lefranc Bourgeois : Yellow Ochre, Burnt Sienna, Carmine Imitation, Orange, Primary Yellow, and Emerald Green.
- Color & Co : Leaf Green (the colour I used primarily for the background washes, along with some yellow)
- Linel : Payne's Grey, Burnt Umber, Titanium White (for highlights)
- Winsor & Newton : Zinc White (to mix with the colours)  

  ♦ And of course, I used my favourite brushes : 

 ♦ And I painted in my delicious Arches Travel Journal : 

And that is all for me folks!

I hope you enjoyed this little write-up about my goodbye to my favourite places. 

I'll see you soon for hopefully some paintings, I miss sketching and painting so much and all the concepts buzzing in my mind are begging to be put to paper! 

Take care!