I went on a 3 day plein air painting course last weekend with Jim Lamb, at the Rockwater Art Center. I thought it would be a good challenge working from life, and I was sure right about that! Jim was a great instructor, he gave a good demo the first day and showed us a few tricks. He always ' warms" his white, with a little yellow and red, makes a huge difference. Also he showed how he makes a " mother color" which helps keep the harmony of the painting as you basically add color to that to make other color. Really useful if you have a lot of green .
I had a huge problem keeping my pallette organized, tidiness is not my best quality, and I soon had a big mess, but the paintings turned out pretty good, I thought. The main challenges were working with bright sunlight, wind ( that blew my easel over and ruined possibly my best painting by giving it a lovely muddy surface), and lack of toilet facilities, big problem for ladies.Anyway, here is one of my better efforts that didn't get completely ruined, although it did have a small accident in the car on the way home, a bag fell on it.
Jim was very good at spotting the compositional errors and telling us to always do a thumbnail, something I would never do in the past, but am making that a must do from now on. You can really see what will work if you get the values massed in on the small scale.
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