Friday, October 30, 2015

"Along Flowing Springs Road",14x11, oil, plein air, paintings of country scenes, Chester Springs art, Pennsylvania art, Chester County art, MAryanne Jacobsen original paintings

"Along Flowing Springs Road",14x11, oil

I just returned from a painting trip to Pennsylvania where I had the opportunity to paint a plethora of lovely autumn landscapes. We stayed in a lovely cottage in the little town of Chester Springs, where I lived and raised my family before moving to Florida.

I did a lot of plein air painting while I was there, as the weather cooperated and the autumn scenery was magnificent.

One of the scenes I decided to paint was looking right up the road from our little cottage at a barn at the top of the winding road.

I thought  that standing in the driveway was a perfect vantage point to capture the nice curve of the road, while being sheltered from any possible country road traffic. Little did I realize that I was standing under a hickory tree that had weapons of its own to throw at this hapless plein air painter!

If you've never seen the nuts of a hickory tree, I can tell you that they are mammoth! Before even getting started on the painting, I took a tumble on the gravel as my foot turned over from one of these nuts that were the size of baseballs. Not to be deterred, I set up under the tree anyway. But that was not the end of the tree's revenge on me.  It kept spewing nuts on my head as I tried to paint the scene!

After a couple welts, I decided I was not going to be target practice for the tree anymore. So I gave up, packed up all my gear and headed back into the cottage.

Happily, I could still see the scene  from the kitchen window, and so I finished the painting indoors.



If anyone had told me that hickory trees could be a hazard to a plein air painter, I would have laughed!

Not any more. I do think plein air painting could be listed as one of the top ten  most hazardous activites that people can do!

Thanks for reading and please feel free to contact me at maryannejacobsen@aol.com of you would like purchase info on this painting.

Wednesday, October 07, 2015

"Autumn on Shrimp Boat Lane", 12x16, oil on masonite, Shem's Creek, Shrimp Boat Lane, Mt. Pleasant Island, boats, Charleston, marine art

"Autumn on Shrimp Boat Lane", 12x16, oil on masonite

This is a painting that I did a year or so ago and was never really happy with. So I took it out and worked on it a bit yesterday and corrected the errors.

It's always a relief to me to be able to take out a painting after a while and be able to figure out what went wrong the first time. It certainly helps me know that I am still progressing.  I lightened up some of the shadows, especially on the fish house and corrected the drawing in a few places. I also noted that the value of the floating dock was too dark so I lightened that as well.

This is a painting of Shrimp Boat Lane on Mt. Pleasant Island  near Charleston. Also known as Shem's Creek, it is a very colorful place with ample painting subjects for an artist!

If you are interested in this painting, please contact me at maryannejacobsen@aol.com