Santa Ynez River and the Large Pochade

The members of PACC met yesterday to have our monthly paint out down at the Santa Ynez river just south of the town of Solvang. It is a great spot to paint but was much better about 2 months ago when all of the trees were in full Fall colors still. I was out of 9"x12" panels so I decided to break in my pochade box that I built to handle 12"x16" panels. Had to run down to the garage early in the morning to make an adjustment for the mounting plate of my tripod but that went smoothly. I also drilled to holes in the sides to mount my brush caddie too....can't do without that. Some gusty winds helped to evaluate the pochade box in a real life situation but that puppy hing in there and worked just fine.

I need a wet panel carrier for 12"x16" panels though so I'll make one and probably bungy it to the pochade box when hiking in or out. If you look at the small pic of my other pochade box, the 9"x12" you can see the size difference by looking at the brush caddie. On the 9x12 box it is almost flush with the top of the box....it is about 3" shorter on the bigger pochade box. The only drawback to this larger pochade box is that it won't fit into my backpack so it gets carried by hand. Maybe I'll make some sort of handle for it. It's not that big of a deal since I only paint on larger sizes like this once in a while. Overall though it worked great. If you are interested in building a pochade box check out the link to the right for Jim Serretts blog....he's the man with the plan.   

Palette...temporarily

I'm not someone who has gobs of paint to squeeze out on various palettes....I live on a budget too just like everyone else. The other day I needed to grab my pochade box and go painting on location at Lake Cachuma. I scraped the paint off my studio palette and put it in the pochade and off I went. After getting back I needed to do touch ups on that PA painting so I just set up my pochade box near my studio easel and finished the painting. After that I started a quick snow scene and continued to use the paint I had left in the pochade box as a make shift palette. Works just fine and I've been doing this off and on for a few years now. No wasted paint...no messy transfering paint. I think it would work even better if it was just a larger palette with a small lip but used in the same manner...maybe I'll build one in the future. If I made the lid more air tight and added a sponge soaked in clove oil I wouldn't need to refridgerate the palette at all. The clove oil would keep the paint from skinning over for up to 2 weeks. Hmmm.......

Plein Air in Nipomo

I dropped off my painting for the show in Nipomo yesterday at noon. I basically set aside the day to get this done so I took my painting gear with me. I looked for a spot along the groves of eucalyptus trees near the Dana Adobe and started painting. I don't know why it is but I have had the really bad knack of painting in midday sun the last 3 or 4 times out. Not a good thing to do despite it always being a convenient time since you aren't getting up early or waiting to chase the late afternoon sun, haha, and yes I mean chase that light if you're not too careful.

Here is a shot of the setup with the view. Not a bad setup out there...just backed the truck up under some shade and sat on the tailgate...that shade lasted about 20 minutes. It would have been perfect had I brought something to eat but I'm always running late and managed to only grab an iced tea out of the fridge when leaving.

I wanted to keep the background trees seperated a bit from the foreground trees on the left so I gave them less leaves and a lot more "air". Here is a shot as the painting was nearing the end....

I have been painting some ocean scenes using this pochade box so I had a lot more piles of paint on there than were needed for painting eucs in nipomo. This is a 9"X12" panel with just gesso on Masonite so the paint was setting up pretty good out there in the sun and nice little breeze that came up. I finished up out there with my stomach growling and headed for Jack In The Box!...saved by the Ultimate Cheeseburger. Here is the finished painting....

It's not a bad little painting and will make a great sketch for a larger studio version. I look at it now and see things I like and things that I'd change...in the studio is the place to really get a good look at what you did out there, digest what works and decide on strategies when doing more PA work...it's an ever evolving lesson on learning to paint better inside and outside. Was a fun day up there.