Painting a day: the beginning of a 100 day project

"Cormorants" oil on canvas, 5x7in. SOLD

I've been reading the blogs by other artists about their process painting a small painting every day. So I'm jumping on an already crowded and illustrious bandwagon to offer my plein air painting a day. I've got a pile of little panels prepped and ready to go, a couple of sites scoped out for the next week or so, and the adventure begins!

It's a basic tenent of the scientific method that if you want to figure out how something works, it's best to change one variable at a time, but I decided for the first paintings at least I'd try working on canvas panels instead of gessoed birch plywood. So far, it's been an interesting difference. The paint soaks into the canvas rather than sitting on top, and it takes more paint to develop the rich surface I prefer. The jury is still out. But it's definately fun painting these little guys. I'm looking at the landscape in a new way, thinking about how to simplify my vision to fit on a postcard sized bit of canvas.

I painted this painting at the harbor in Bodega Bay, watching the cormorants nap and preen on an abandoned pier.