#61 Beach conversation

There was so much action in this scene that said, "summer is fun" that I wanted to get that feeling in the painting. The gestures of each of these figures combined to make an oval shape from the sand into the water and back again with the tall figure serving as a sort of anchor.

#60 red crown

Enjoyed using a limited palette for this one, in order to highlight the red crown in this handsome guy's head.  The stones in the back gave the painting some movement, though they are painted in subdued tones and colors.

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#59 Poppy power

I enjoyed trying a larger format out in the field. Seems like the larger canvas allowed for more distance in my composition.

#58 Poppies going home

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#57 Poppies by the edge

The poppies are about over, but they certainly gave me a lot of material to work with! Found out that they're kind of changeable; I never knew whether they would be closing down or waving their color wildly when I arrived to paint. It was fun--I'll be there next year too.

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#56 Somerset highway

I have heard of using gray to create harmony in the color palette but this is first time that I actually tried it. There is a bit of gray mixed from cad yellow, cad red and ultramarine blue in all the colors in this painting.

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#55 Sitting in poppies

Really pushing the color and the receding shapes in this one  to create distance.

#54 sitting in poppies 2

Did this one looking right into the field in the middle of the afternoon when  the clouds could not stop these poppies from being such a bright orange.

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#53 Tricia painting

Here I was lucky enough to have a seated subject with the light behind her, way up on a hill looking down. I had less than an hour to do a sketch, so here it is...

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#52 Poppies waking up

I set this up so the poppies would take you in, then back through the opening where the light filled morning sky goes on forever.

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#51 Late afternoon in Somerset

I found out that poppy fields are very sensitive to the time of day.  When I arrived to paint in the late afternoon instead of my usual morning session they were closing up as the afternoon went by.

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#50 Radiating poppies

I have a new tool called the "picture perfect viewfinder" that allows you to look through a viewfinder with a graph over it which makes placement easier.  It was helpful--especially since I was using a size canvas that I am not very used to.

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#49 Spring fields

The clouds moved in while I was painting this and softened all of the colors. The different wildflowers this time of year are such an inspiration.

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#48 Orange to go

There are not too many opportunities to use a large shape of orange in an outdoor painting. In this field, the poppies are so plentiful that they dominate the greens.

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