Gate to the Orchard, en plein air, 9x12

Gate to the Orchard, pastel on board by Adriana Meiss

This pastel is from a week ago. This is the gate that divides our backyard from the orchard. The late afternoon light on the apple trees was so bright that I had to try paint it.

Here is another painting of that gate but from a different angle, done in the spring of 2012. New is the small Walking Stick tree on the foreground. Two nice metal cranes are also in the Vinca patch between the tree and the gate but they were purposely omitted. To the left of the tree is the "pond complex", but that will be another painting...

Summer Weeds, 8 x 10" -Sold

Summer Weeds, pastel on board by Adriana Meiss

   The plein air group I go painting with has been very active this summer. This pastel is from the second time we went painting to the Grey Barn Farm in Tully.

  This time it took me a while to find something to paint that was different from the previous visit there so I settled on the weeds. I had to set my box on a slope which made it painful on my feet and after an hour I had to call it quits.

   Once in the studio I had to make several changes for the painting to read well, like lightening the color of the hill and trees in the background, and getting rid of a distant tree. As it invariably happens, once posted here, I saw several things that needed more fixing, but in general, I'm happy with the atmosphere of the painting.

Sailboat at Sunset, 10x8"

Sailboat at Sunset, pastel on board by Adriana Meiss

In August we took a dinner boat trip with some friends on Skaneateles Lake, and of course I came back with lots of reference photos to paint from. This is one of them, and hope to post new ones soon. I'm taking this painting and another one to Gallery 54 next week.

A Moody Day, 11x14"

A Moody Day, pastel on board by Adriana Meiss

Another painting in the exhibit at the Edgewood Gallery, which will run for two more weeks.

This painting is based on two different references. The background with the barn was from some friends' adjacent property that for a long time I've been wanting to paint it. The only problem was that I didn't want a manicured lawn in the foreground and I didn't know what to do instead. Then, I saw another reference with the blooming tree and immediately I knew the two would go well together.

I had almost everything worked out, but spend several weeks figuring out what else to do in the foreground.  At the end the opening of the trees in the middle ground suggested a path and I was satisfied with the way it turned out.  There is something about fog that I find very appealing, and one of my goals is to do a series of paintings on this subject.

Fading Light, 9x12"

Fading Light, 9x12" pastel on Ampersand Pastelbord, by A. Meiss

          
    It's been very busy around here but not because I'm painting. It seems that preparing for the show took so much energy away from me that I have not touched a dusty pastel since. I've started to feel the need to paint on a regular basis once again and to encourage myself a little bit, I went to get some beautiful flowers to start a few small sketches.... at least that's the plan for today...

   On opening night at the Edgewood, four paintings were sold, yeah! For the one above, which is in the exhibit,  I played with the original reference photo for  while, and ended up flipping it because it offered a better composition. I know it is very simple but I found it very challenging to paint, mostly because I wanted subdued colors in general, and had to fight the tendency to use brighter ones where they were not really needed. The scene is from the Otisco valley.