Middlefork Savanna plein air painting

oil on panel

16" x 16"

I did a good amount of plein air painting once my kids started school this year. This was one of the first ones, but needed that extra 10% of tweaking at home to be called "finished."

Middlefork Savanna in Lake Forest is a beautiful place, and I plan to do more painting there.

More Plein Air acrylic efforts

I have been getting out at least once a week for some painting this fall.

These 2 are both acrylic works, the top one from Skokie Lagoons and the bottom from Emily Oaks Nature Center.

acrylic on 9" x 12"  board

acrylic on 10" x 10" board

2 Plein Air acrylic paintings

I have been trying acrylic paint for plein air work lately. (I briefly used acrylics when I started painting 4-5 years ago, but quickly moved to oils.) The advantage for plein air work is the quick drying time means you can go over an area without worry about disturbing the pervious layer and getting inadvertent mixes. I think my recent work with gouache has prepped me for acrylics, as they are similar (gouache= matte finish, acrylics=glossy finish)

(These are both 9x12 on MDF board)

Final 2 from Oregon

I posted one drawing from our Oregon trip in June.

Here are 2 more:

Walking up the hill ("mountain" to us flatlanders) my sister lives on to draw/paint, I found this dead animal head in the road. Who could resist?

markers and gouache

Heceta Head

pencil on toned paper

Ohio River, Kentucky Shore

oil on illustration board

7" x 2 1/4"

I try to make use of everything in terms of art materials, and have scraps of all kinds of surfaces around. This very small remnant of illustration board was used to paint from a photo I took of the Ohio River Kentucky shore across from Cave-In-Rock, Illinois.

Lincoln Park Zoo visit

I went to Lincoln Park Zoo recently to sketch. (Color on some of these was added at home.)

(various combinations of pencil, ink, watercolor and gouache.)

Stork standing over the nest

Kenya Crested Guineafowl

twisted tree in pen & ink

pen and ink & ink wash on Stonehenge kraft paper

I have seen this unique & twisted tree many times, and finally got around to drawing from it.