Picking Up Where You Left Off

sketch May 2018

Last May, I went out with my portable paint set to do some plein air painting. I did a small painting from a cliff down at the ocean and took a photograph of the scene. Later I sketched it on a large board, planning to do a full size painting. It sat on my easel in the basement for a year, until today. I realized recently that I was avoiding painting large works because I didn’t like spending hours in the basement, where there is no daylight. So I thought about getting a strong but portable easel so I could paint upstairs and move around easily. I looked at one at my art shop but it was about $100. I then had a look at my heavy easel in the basement and realized that I could take it apart and get rid of the heavy bits, like the base on wheels, the heavy bottom tray, the counterweights and the sliding centre rail. So I ripped it all apart and was left with a much lighter easel. I set it up in the living room and spent all day painting. I should have figured this out long ago, but it took me a long time to come to the realization I didn’t like painting in a windowless room. Part of what finally got me moving was seeing the movie Mr. Turner, about JMW Turner. In Turner’s day of course, there was no artificial light. Seeing Turner portrayed at work in his studio with light from the large windows must have made something click, because ever since then I’ve had this idea in the back of my head that I should get going again with my easel painting. Whatever the reasons, I now have no excuse and hope to continue where I left off. Here are a few more sketches and paintings; one small, one medium and one large. It pays to work at various sizes, and especially at small scale, where you really can’t fuss with too much details.