Rain or Shine...

"Trellis on the Bluff"
8 x 6, Oil on Linen
(c) Lesley Powell 2014

I have written earlier about the issues of plein air painting on a cloudy day. Now I turn to something even more frustrating--the PARTLY cloudy day.

Few things are more unsettling for me as a plein air painter than a partly cloudy day. As soon as I get into the zone of seeing my subject with clarity, the light abruptly changes, and everything looks very different.
I have finally adopted the strategy taught by Maggie Siner: you must have two canvases going at the same time when you paint on a partly cloudy day. When the sun comes out, you work on the sunny canvas, and when the clouds roll in, you pull out the other canvas and work on it. When the sun reappears, you return to the sunny canvas. And so forth. It may seem like a difficult approach, but it is far better to follow this process than to continue to work on your first effort after the light conditions have changed dramatically. That's sure to be a disaster! (Once again, I think there's a life lesson here about adapting to change).

"Perched House"
8 x 10, Oil on Linen
(c) Lesley Powell 2014

Here are two paintings I did in this fashion, on a partly cloudy day near San Francisco. The first, smaller one is obviously the cloudy subject. And boy, when the sun came out, did that orangey color on the house ever pop. I am pleased that you can look at each painting and tell with a glance what the weather conditions were like. That's following in the steps of the Impressionists--capturing the moment in time, come rain or come shine.