Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Telluride Plein Air- Day 3

Morning at Leopard Creek
10 x 8

Leopard Creek is a small stream that runs north-south "down valley" as they say here in Telluride. I actually discovered it last year when I was here but never got a chance to paint it. So I headed there on the first day. The greens in the grasses are actually a bit cooler and more intense - the product of a last minute scumble with thinned cadmium green.

One of the many challenges of this week- in addition to the ones I mentioned in my last post- is integrating my "new" indirect painting method into plein air work. Plein air painting is an alla prima sport - the high wire act of painting. My strategy has been to do as many under paintings as possible the first couple of days, let everything dry, then glaze. Risky business since we have to have all our work ready by Thursday!

By the way, we are allowed to pre-sell all work so if anyone out there is interested in this piece, please contact me and I'll put you in touch with the Sheridan Opera Foundation (show sponsors) to complete the sale.

4 comments:

Sheila Vaughan said...

That's amazing Deborah. I think I'll give up.

Deborah Paris said...

Oh no, Sheila! I enjoyed getting my feet wet on this one. Thanks for visiting!

Bill Sharp said...

I was really looking forward to seeing if you would try to adapt your indirect painting method to alla prima. I know, from looking through your older work that you're an accomplished direct painter and could go either way if you wanted to.

Thanks for sharing your experiences there and your beautiful work.

Deborah Paris said...

Thank you Bill for your very generous comments. It was a challenge but I was generally happy with the results. Every piece was painted with an under painting and glazes except for the nocturne. I just had to do that in a direct way (except for the foreground) because of time limitations.