Dragonfly Heaven, 9x12"

Dragonfly Heaven by Adriana Meiss

    I am so happy to have finished this painting that for months sat on a shelf in the studio. A dead tree in the middle of the pond had kept me from working on this one. I debated whether  to move it to the right or to the left, making it the focal area or to not include it at all.  As I remembered the day I was at this location and how at peace I felt listening to the insects and the wind I realized that the dead tree wasn't important; all it needed was a mood that invited the viewer to be there. I hope it will strike such feeling in people.
    This is on Rondaxe Road, Old Forge, NY. The road divides the pond in two, so there are nice views on both sides.

The View from the Green Bridge, Old Forge, 10x8"

View from the Green Bridge, pastel by Adriana Meiss

I was in Old Forge this past weekend to see the opening reception of the pastel exhibit at View Arts Center, and to take a portrait workshop with Alain Picard.

While there, some friends wanted to see how I painted on location and for that purpose we went to the Green Bridge, which offers nice views in both directions. The "demo" was very short, perhaps half an hour, and I pointed out the most important aspects of painting outdoors: 1. select the subject,  2. Make small sketches first to determine the right composition and what the focal area is going to be,   3. pay attention to color temperature and values,  4. block in the main masses, and finally 5. provide some detail. I like to work as fast as I can so that the changing light conditions do not tempt me to make too many adjustments to my painting. This is the original piece:

en plein air, View from the Green Bridge

In the studio I continued working on it and did some minimal changes to the composition.  What took me the longest was giving the idea of a swift current. I realize that the freshness the original had is gone, but I needed to bring it to a level  I felt comfortable with.
 
About the workshop, all I can say is that it was very informative to see the 2-hour demo Picard did the day before the workshop. I tried to approach the portrait as if it were a landscape, but one thing  is sure, you won't be seeing portraits in this blog anytime soon.

Last Year's Grasses-Green Lakes, 18x24"

This painting will be at the St David's Celebration of the Arts which runs this week only.

I had started it last year but had to put it away when it was 80% done because I had to prepare for an art fair;  I knew that if I tried to finish it in a hurry I was going to mess it up.  Anyway, I finished it last week, in time for the upcoming show.  It's a nice feeling when you finish a piece without looking at the reference material and you know (o think that you know) exactly what needs to be done.

Starry Night in the Adirondacks, 7x5"

Starry Night in the Adirondacks by, Adriana Meiss

This recently finished painting was done on an impulse from a photo reference taken during daytime.

I have never painted outdoors at night, but I do go out then very often just to see the colors and to take mental notes. It only takes a few minutes for the eye to get used to the darkness. Then I ask myself  how many colors can be easily identified.  It always helps me to imagine myself painting and looking for a particular color in my pastel box. The house that was red during daylight, is it now blue or purple? What color does white take in darkness? Whatever the answer is, in my experience some of the colors need to be exaggerated just a little bit, and you do not necessarily have to rely on black. The darkest areas in the painting above were done with dark blues and dark olive greens.

The trick about night scenes is to make them believable enough. Just look at Rene Magritte's painting The Empire of Lights: cover the bottom part and you have a daytime sky, cover the area of the sky and you see a night scene, yet the whole scene seems to be so real...

Mud Creek, 7x5 --SOLD

Mud Creek, original pastel by Adriana Meiss

Every time I'm driving on Rt 481 N I always try to slow down when I reach the area where the highway crosses Mud Creek--just a few miles before the exit to Rt 31. Both sides of the road offer great views to paint, the problem is that there is no space for parking, that is, unless you have car trouble or decide to risk getting a fine.

The time I took the reference photo for this painting was such a beautiful fall evening  and I was lucky enough there wasn't much traffic; most important, there were no highway patrols either. I'm not advocating taking risks specially when driving, I simply like to be ready if the opportunity presents itself. Countless times I have let other cars pass me by with the hope of getting a chance to take a good reference photo. I have one particular pot I would like to photograph but the traffic has made it impossible so far. My camera is always ready just in case.

This painting will be for sale at the Onondaga Art Guild Spring Show and Sale this weekend at Emmanuel Episcopal Church, 400 W Yates St East Syracuse
Sat 28th, 10:00am.-4:00pm
Sun 29th,12:00pm - 4:00pm
You are invited!

Orchard Gate, en plein air, 11x8"

 My second outdoors painting of the year, the gate to our orchard. Last year I had attempted to paint this same view only on the other side of the gate, and my aim had been the blooming peach tree behind the leafing apple ones. However, I had started by painting the old house in the background first and got so carried away that I ended up giving it so much detail. By the time I added the peach tree I couldn't pull it off. Angry at myself because this wasn't the first time it had happened, I took a brush to remove all the pastel I could and washed the board. 

For this one it was the light on the tower-like structure and the adjacent building that called my attention.  It was painted in early afternoon but went through some tweaking in the studio.

 Some good news: I have been accepted into the Finger Lakes Plein Air Competition in Canandaigua (June 8-10) so I'm very excited about it and a little bit scared too since this will be my first plein air competition. One more reason to get out there and paint!

Spring, 8x8"

I always get the impression that spring passes by so fast. By the time I'm into "outdoors painting mode" the trees have lost that beautiful and delicate minty green. 

It's been too cold and cloudy to paint outside lately so this one was from a reference photo of my neighborhood that I took a while ago. I purposely tried to paint loose just giving a few hints of dwellings.

This piece and fourteen other new ones will be in the OAG spring show and sale at the end of the month.