Viva la Ice Painting!

I love snow! I think if it's going to be cold outside there had better be snow. Otherwise, what's the point? Fortunately for me, we've been getting hit with crazy snow here in Chicago! It's been wonderful. Peace, fresh air, drivers slowing down. Ah.

I like it when my watercolor paintings turn icy. But I like a little more play with the paint itself. Not instant freeze. I especially love painting in snowy weather. Today I had the chance to paint at Gomper's Park in Chicago. Not only is Gomps the park I went to as a kid, it is a lovely wetlands preserve. Everything was blanketed in white.

It was quite cold out there this AM. My watercolor paints froze almost immediately. I did my best to layer paint onto 300 lb paper very quickly to no avail. Here is what I ended up with. Last time I had my paints freeze they did at a slower rate (probably because it was sunny outside). Today there was no sun and I was out of luck. I figured I could put a couple of the hand warmer packets under my palette to keep it from freezing.

Palette of Slush - almost instantaneously.

View I was trying to paint:

Actual painting. After it 'defrosted' it faded even more. I like the granulation effect but the painting looks more like an extremely foggy lake scene. M aybe it's modern art - plein air style. I think I'll keep this one just for fun. Frame it, put it up on my wall and let it be a conversation piece. It's for sale in case anyone wants a painting made from ice and pigment.

After it defrosted :-(

At the top is a quick painting I did with darker values hoping they wouldn't fade after the defrost. See the frost/ice crystal formations in the paints. I painted it in about 30 seconds - really fast. Otherwise I was moving slush around.

Plein Air Workshop Day 2

Today we headed out to Bunker Hill Forest Preserve (part of Caldwell Woods). There was a LOT of green (grass, trees, shrubs, etc). In the AM we hung around a picnic shelter with our easels and worked on some abstract designs. Trying to establish "shapes" rather than something real. I painted in oils for this exercise as it was, pretty much, moving paint around as my friend Nancy Albrecht would say. Here is some of my video diary.

In the afternoon we put our abstract shape painting abilities into practice and did some real plein air painting. For this I brought out my good buddy - watercolors. How I've missed them. I was feeling lost and completely incompetent when I began the afternoon. I almost said "screw it!" - but how can I expect to grow if I give up. So I swallowed whatever fear was trying to get hold of me and dove in! It took only a few minutes for me to get into a groove and relax. My painting was 'eh" but the point was to think of everything as abstract shapes - and not a tree or a river, etc. This is harder than you think - plants and trees - all have leaves and a million little pieces to distract you. Resisting the urge to paint them all bit by bit is a challenge to the plein air painter. So this abstraction exercise was a good one for me. Everyone should try painting - at least once in their lives. It's a butt kicker. You'll learn a lot about yourself.

The day was beautiful - skies looked ominous at times but then the sun would come out and make you worried about sunscreen. Here's my video report for the AM.