Plein Air Pumpkins

5 x 5 inches, Oil on Gessoboard Sold, Thank you

I'm brushing up on my plein air skills to get ready for the annual Seneca Lake Plein Air Festival. The artists arrive at headquarters, which is The Smith Center for the Arts, on Wednesday, September 30. We paint outdoors on Thursday and Friday. On Saturday evening is a gala show and sale. I'm a charter artist and I love this event. A link for complete details is Smith Arts

In the western part of NY, the weather has been heavenly. The sun is casting wonderful shadows and the sky is a beautiful shade of blue with clouds that tempt me to just paint them. In spite of the perfect painting environment, I still had trouble finding a subject to paint. Mostly due to dangerous parking on the side of busy roads.

Below is were I finally decided to paint:

Not the best picture, but you get the idea. Next is how I started:

And like always, I didn't snap photos during the rest of the painting process. It's hard to pull out the camera, when you're supposed to be painting what you see. All in all, I consider this a success because it is difficult to paint outdoors. I think the sharp sunshine helped.

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The Rare Snowman

The Rare Snowman, 4 x 4 inches, Oil on Panel Sold - Thank you! It's a warmer day today and the one snowman in the neighborhood is not faring well. In addition to melting he's got a problem with one of his twig arms. I take Cooper & Cookie for short walks several times a day and when I saw what was happening to this guy, I knew I had to make a painting of him. While returning home, I pondered how many snowmen are not created because of video games. I know that I don't see them much at all.

Two Snow Cones

4 x 4 inches, Oil on Gessoboard Sold - Thank you Every now and then, I get humbled at the easel. Like all artists, I have a love-hate relationship with it. This painting was inspired by a recent trip to the doctors. I've seen these shacks many times and each time I say: "I need to pull over and get a picture" followed by, "I'll do it next time." Sound familiar? Well yesterday, I pulled over and got the picture. When I got home, I was very excited to begin painting. The Easy-Peasey, this will be a piece of cake attitude was as thick as cigar smoke. I started out very worthy of my swelled head, but believe me, it went downhill. It's amazing how quickly I can turn on myself. It started by reminding myself how much housework I have, before I took my next breath, I reasoned that I could have made a nice dessert, cleaned the house, changed the oil in my ca...

Double Take

Indigo Bunting, 4 x 4 inches, Oil on Board Click to Bid I'm fortunate to have a mated pair of Indigo Buntings visiting my bird feeder. I say that because I've had the bird feeder for over 10 years and my first sighting was last week. The male of this species sports stunning ocean blue feathers...some teal in there also. I paint with a very limited palette, so I was challenged to come up with the right mixtures. But it wasn't very long before I realized that mixing the right "Indigo" color wouldn't be enough. So I subdued everything else, to include his cute little beak.

Brande Arno Art

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