Toft Point - Door County

Last week I went to Door County for painting and birdwatching and was very lucky to have perfect weather with high's in the 60's & 70's.  This is a view from Toft Point in early evening.  A Pileated Woodpecker was nearby.  I tried to put into practice what I learned at Kyle Martin's recent plein air workshop mainly concentrating on values.  I also signed up for his Values Workshop for June 7 & 8.  He is going to be doing a demo painting from noon to 2pm at the opening for his new show in Reedsburg on May 31st and I am hoping to go up there for that.  His demos are very entertaining and informative.  

For those of you who painted at the Token Creek Conservancy park with the group, or for anyone who may want to paint there, I thought I'd point out that I went back there yesterday in the late afternoon / evening and found the creek was pretty much all in shadow but the distant tree line as viewed from near the wooden bridge had some real nice side lighting on it.  I painted elsewhere but may even come back a third time for this view and light.  See photos. The second one is zoomed in and you'd have to do some walking to reach this view.

Tom Gilbert

Paintings from the first two gatherings.  One is from the arboretum and the other is from Token Creek.

May 15 at Curtis Prairie in the UW Arboretum

I know it was raining and we don't go painting in the rain but I thought I would anyway. I sat in the car with my 6x8 pochade box on my lap and looked out the window to do this. It's not a very powerful piece. Rainy days are more subdued, though. I'd like to go back there but will try a tighter focus. 

Lilac Time at UW Arboretum

Tomorrow we are scheduled to paint in the morning at the Arboretum so I thought I would have a trial run in the Horticultural Garden today.  It was chilly even with long underwear which I am so sick of!! Bundle up tomorrow!  

Token Creek: Painting from May 6th outing

Here's my painting from the May 6th outing.  About 90% of this was done plein air, with some final touches done in my studio. [8"x10", oil on canvas panel]   Had a great time!

 - Jan Feyzi

trying out an upload

Plein Air Painting Workshop

This weekend I attended a great 2 day "Spring Colors" workshop in Baraboo taught by Kyle Martin.   Kyle painted a demo painting each morning and we students painted all afternoon trying to use his suggested techniques.  Correct values and correct colors and accurate drawing were the basic things we worked on as we painted in a Baraboo neighborhood.  Now I feel like I have a plan and an approach for plein air painting to keep me busy all summer.  Kyle gave each student lots of help and individual attention and he is a very talented teacher as well as painter.  I signed up for his June "Values" workshop and highly recommend any of his workshops which are posted on his blog (kyle-martin.blogspot.com). The info for the June workshop is below. This workshop will be at his studio which is in the country between Baraboo and Reedsburg.  Should be alot of fun, too.

We had a nice outing this morning at the Token Creek Conservancy Park.  The weather was a bit cool but the sun was out, a good number of peopled showed up, and the park is a really nice painting location.  Spring is so slow in coming this year that I was mostly painting bare trees, but did get to practice my knife dabbing technique for the few leaves coming out (or leaves that I invented).