little June

"I wonder what it would be like to live in a world where it was always June." -  L. M. Montgomery The long June days keep me outside working on things growing which I hope to post soon. However, as I was putting my paints away just as the light was leaving, I looked out the door..

Little June, oil /cold wax on canvas, 8x10in,

copyright Jan Yates 2014, available

about time

On a grey day I find the Forsythia to be especially enchanting. It soon will be gone, so I made the time, to respond one last time, en plein air.

 May, last of the Forsythia, oil on canvas, 11x14in

copyright Jan Yates, 2014. available (300, secure online payment via paypal, shipping arranged)

 purchase here

Next time what I'd do is look at
the earth before saying anything. I'd stop
just before going into a house
and be an emperor for a minute
and listen better to the wind
or to the air being still.

When anyone talked to me, whether
blame or praise or just passing time,
I'd watch the face, how the mouth
has to work, and see any strain, any
sign of what lifted the voice.

And for all, I'd know more -- the earth
bracing itself and soaring, the air
finding every leaf and feather over
forest and water, and for every person
the body glowing inside the clothes
like a light.

-Mary Oliver

fading fast

I was able to sneak into the vineyard next door for some quick sketches to work from in-studio. It was too hot even for me to stand out there 'en plein air' this week!

With this drought and heat, the greens are fast fading..

July, Niagara Escarpment, acrylic on canvas, 30x36in, available

For some reason I always switch to acrylic paint when the weather is this scorching. I think it is in hoping all that dripping water will somehow cool me down. As well, acrylic takes longer to set up in the humidity and I like the little bit of pull on the brush as it is drying.

I also wanted this work to have an immediacy and an airy sketch-like quality to it and polymer easily lends itself to that approach.

 

Someone once said that the good thing about acrylic paint is that it dries fast-the bad thing about acrylic paint is that it dries fast. 

I've worked with polymer for many years and it is a fun and forgiving medium. It can, however, create some really bad habits if you work in oil or other transparent mediums. Because it is opaque, you really don't have to think about how it affects the colour under it if you are working in a direct painting technique. If you go back to working with oil with this approach you may soon be in mud.

I like using acrylic pigment for indirect painting methods, primarily glazing and scumbling.

Sometimes I will also do an under-painting with acrylic and finish the work in oil.