Maritime Museum Plein Air Painting on Canson Paper, 8" x 10"

It was a beautiful day today here in New York. Breezy, not too hot, sunny, just beautiful. I went out with a good friend to do some plein air painting. The last time I tried this (2 weeks ago), I trashed everything I did. Three paintings (and I use that term lightly...) went into the garbage. I used primed paper that I made, I think it was Golden pumice gel.

Back to basics. I like Canson paper, I don't have to think about an underpainting, all I need to do is select the color and have at it. That's what I did. This time I didn't use the ever popular tobacco, but instead I used an all time favorite of mine, dark gray. It's a nice cool neutral, and it proved to be an excellent starting point for this particular subject. At least for me it was, it felt right.

Here is a photo of my subject:

Here is what I ended up with:



© by Christine DiMauro, all rights reserved.

Size is 8"x10" ish.... a bit shorter than 10" on the long side. I'm hoping the more I do this the better I will get.... I didn't capture all the colors I wanted to, I think more greens might have been nice. I also wanted to capture that redish color in the tree (the one with the light trunk), but I was having a hard time finding that right color. I sort of danced around it and never addressed it properly.... but I am a fan of blues and purples, so it works I think.