Thursday, September 13, 2012

"Painting on Coupeville Pier"


Usually there isn't anyone around to ask if they would be willing to take a photo while plein air painting. Or if there is I forget to ask.  This time I was fortunate to be painting near Christine Troyer, an artist from Mount Vernon, WA and she eagerly "shot" me painting.  Thank you, Christine!  
Many artists asked about my easel set up so I thought I might blog about painting in the great out of doors.  My easel is an EasyL by Artwork Essentials in Irvine, CA.  This one is the 11" X 14", that I have siliconed a piece of glass onto the palette area because I will sacrifice the weight issue for the comfort of mixing paint on a glass surface.  I have sprayed the back of the glass with a neutral dove gray at about a value of 3.  When I wreck this side of the glass cleaning up used paint with razor blade I use Easy Off oven cleaner to remove the paint on the backside, paint the wrecked side and flip the glass.  This way I use each piece of glass twice.  Once side usually last about 6 months.   The easel comes with the tripod and a quick disconnect for attaching the easel to the tripod.   I love the level bubble on the tripod.  When setting up, if your easel is crooked then anything you paint will be too, especially when painting cityscapes.  In my backpack I have a few auxiliary colors and a big tube of white.  Because you can preload the palette with nice big piles of paint, you don't have to carry the extra weight of several tubes of paint.   To ward off bugs a foil pack of "Skin So Soft" by Avon rubbed all over bare skin, keeps any flying winged creatures from finding you appealing.  I know some of you are wondering "whats up with the dark glasses?"  Well, if you start out wearing the dark glasses it's best to just keep them on but frankly you never want to paint wearing dark glasses and I never do.  Only when I am going to post a photo of myself painting (just kidding).  


2 comments:

Docent said...

Hi Laura, You are most certainly the envy of all plein aire painters everywhere, especially us Southern CA ones, getting to paint there in Washington state! Great shot of you at work, let's see more of those! Docent

Laura Wambsgans said...

Thanks! What you don't know is that it was so cold I have a heavy long sleeve shirt and a fleece vest on under the jacket. I would have had disposable painting gloves on too, but I ran out. It was wonderful to be cold after the long hot California summer.

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