Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Beaufort Parking Places-SOLD

6x8
Painted in 30 mile an hour winds on Harkers Island most of today. its really tuff on the body and mind when youre hanging onto the easel with one hand and a paint brush in the other. you cant get accurate small strokes with the wind pushing on your hand and the board bouncing around. very tiring
On Beaufort Parking Places i found a sheltered area in Beaufort, and tried to capture the "contre Jour" scene. its a french term for backlit that literally means "against the day". A very poetic and fitting term. over half of what i paint are contre jour scenes. i'm fascinated with capturing the effect of looking into the sun. you also dont have to set up an umbrella (perfect solution to todays gale force winds) because the sun is behind your canvas and i made a sunshield attachment for my pochade box, to keep the sun off my palette. my advice is to always have your painting and palette in the shade. if you mix with them in the sun you will invariably mix the values too dark and you'll hate it when you get it under studio or gallery lighting.

2 comments:

Linda Popple said...

Another beautiful painting. Surprising considering the conditions in which you painted! I love the sparkles in the water. Well done - as always!

mike rooney studios said...

thanks linda- seems like the less youre able to think about painting and are "semi-engaged" the less worked over the thing looks.