Plein air painting06 - Albert Dock

I have been in Liverpool for 2wks and today I finally had the courage to go out and do some plein air painting in public (Albert dock is a very busy place) I had some lovely comment from people which was great. With this painting I tried a different technique. I started off with a red undertone and worked wet on wet in oil from there, building up the layers. It was a challenging subject to paint as I had to be more precise in my perspective unlike painting trees and fields, but I can't wait to do my next one :)

Soft Edge study

I have been reading Andrew Loomis' book "Creative Illustration" recommended to me by Robert Lemler. It has been a really interesting and helpful read so far. I noticed with my recent plein air paintings that all my edges were hard and that seemed to flatten my paintings. So here I have tried Loomis' Soft Edge technique. where you use a combination of soft and hard edges in your paintings to help draw the eye to your focal point and to give it more depth. This is my first attempt ,using a photo to study from, it is not very good at all but hopefully I will get better with practice. This technique will definitly come in handy once I get the hang of it.

Plein air painting 05 - Marsworth Canal

This is my first plein air painting that I have painted in public, the others were done around my garden. I was a little nervous as I did not know what people might think, but I got some nice comments which made me glad I did it as it has boosted my confidence a bit. I am currently in Liverpool for the week so I hope to get some plein painting done, maybe of some more boats :)

Happy Birthday Dad

Plein air paintings 3 & 4

Spent about 4hrs outside painting these two. I had a lot of fun painting today as the weather was beautiful and I got to spend some time with a couple of horses in the field from the first painting. Can't wait to do more! 

Plein air painting 02

Since we have been having some really great weather I went out yesterday day morning to do some outdoor oil painting near my back garden. I tried to work more thinly with the paint at the start this time as I started off too thick with my first plein air painting making it tricky to add in the lighter tones on top. I had a lot of fun painting this as I had a better understanding of the medium, but I still need loads of practice. Since the whole week is going to be great weather I will take advantage of this to do as many paintings as I can :)

Liverpool Sketches

Here are a few sketches I did whilst visiting my boyfriend in Liverpool. I spent a lot of time at Albert Dock sketching boats. They were a lot of fun to draw, though next time I need to muster up the courage to do some paintings of them. The last one is not in Liverpool but my nanas back garden :)