More Pumpkins 12x12"

 "Cheese Pumpkin" -- oil on canvas 12x12" -- Margie Guyot

"Baby Boo" -- oil on canvas 12x12" -- Margie Guyot

Once again I've fallen behind on my posts!  Life is FULL.  The weather here along the NW coastline of Michigan has been balmy, compared to previous years.  We've even had a few sunny days, which I've used to squeeze in a few more plein air paintings of the pumpkins.  I wish I could say I had grown all of them, but the deer population here would never allow it.  No, these are "store-bought" pumpkins from a farmstand in Traverse City.  I never cease to be amazed at the varieties!  All they had when I was growing up were the big jack-o-lantern types.

To paint pumpkins, I've been plopping them in the grass in front of my studio, setting up the Soltek easel and Bestbrella and sitting in my lawnchair.  Usually I stand when painting, but maybe I felt lazy.  And I always, always use a little viewfinder to see my compositions.  

Most of the time it would be sunny when I'd begin; often the clouds would roll in at some point and I'd lose my strong sunshine/shadow patterns.  And the temperature would drop very quickly.  Good thing I paint fast!   

Blue & Orange Striped Pumpkin

 "Blue & Orange Striped Pumpkin" -- plein air field study -- oil on canvas 12x12" -- Margie Guyot

This was another great find in Traverse City, at the pumpkin stand last week.  All pumpkins were marked down to $1 each.  Such a deal!  It was raining cats & dogs, but I thoroughly enjoyed wandering around, picking out such fantastical pumpkins!  Where were these beauties when I was a kid?

We had another sunny day here yesterday -- an amazing thing for NW Michigan in November -- so I set up the trusty lawn chair in the yard, my Soltek, the BestBrella (to shade the back of my canvas) and got to work.  The 4 cats came by to check on me now and then.  Miss America (who is really a "he") jumped up onto my lap at one point.  He's the one who's broken so many of my glass vases.  At least he didn't jump up onto the wet palette.  

The temperature dropped dramatically as the winds picked up at 3:30 (as they usually do), giving me me a final urgency to finish. 

Green Cabbage

"Green Cabbage" -- plein air field study -- oil on canvas  18x24" -- Margie Guyot

Sunday morning I went kayaking out on Lake Michigan with a couple friends.  I'd have gladly quit after an hour -- the sun was blazing, it was going up to 90 degrees and the waves made it rather challenging.  But nooooo -- we stayed out 3 hours!  I was pretty well tuckered-out by the time I got home.  Had to take a nap.

Ah, there's nothing like a little rest and cup of Starbucks to get me going again!  I loaded my Soltek, BestBrella, Gamsol and paints into the car and drove over to my neighbor's garden.  OK -- call me soft.  I could have carried it all over, but why suffer needlessly?  I'd had my exercise for the day.

Wearing my long bumblebee-free jeans, socks and shoes, I felt confident I would be safe from marauding insects, although I sweated like a pig.  90 degrees at 4 PM.  Did I mention I'm not a "heat person"?  But I had been wanting to paint one of the green cabbages for days.  Nothing was going to stop me.  Except rain.

How quickly the sun was sinking behind the row of trees to the west!  Brushes, don't fail me now!  I painted as fast as I possibly could.  Slap that paint around, girl!!!  It would be no good to try to paint without strong sunlight and shadows.  Notice how the sunlight seemed to make one of the leaves on the left side appear to almost glow?  It made the central vein appear a surprisingly strong yellow.

There's nothing like painting in good-old, strong sunlight!  You see colors you'd never be able to get if you were using a photograph as reference.  Depending on the angle of the leaf, some sections would be reflecting the blue of the sky; others would be reflecting the warm gold of the sun.  It's the strong shadow shapes that make an object "pop".   To me, if something doesn't "pop", it's just blah.  And why paint "blah"?

I usually do plein air in smaller sizes just because the light changes so quickly.  But I wanted to paint larger, showing the cabbage nearly life-size.  Impossible to do it proper justice on an 8x10" canvas.

The most difficult part of any painting, for me, is drawing it in.  I always use a little view-finder to help figure out the composition.  And I always use skills I learned from Betty Edward's wonderful book, "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain".  I used my brush handle as a kind of measuring stick, basing all the drawings of the leaves on the gauge of the tight cabbage head.  Otherwise this would have been impossible for me to draw.  And yes, I always have lots of wipe-outs!  But that's the great thing about oil paint -- it dries so slowly, it's easy to wipe out what you don't like.

Purple Cabbage

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"Purple Cabbage" -- plein air field study -- 18x24" -- oil on canvas -- Margie Guyot

Normally I wouldn't paint a plein air study in this large a format, but I decided to try it this afternoon.  I'd been over at the neighbor's garden, picking a few green beans, when I noticed their beautiful row of cabbages.  Aha!  Time to drag out the old easel!

Thank goodness I threw everything into my car and drove over.  It took a couple hours to paint this and the sun was hot and I was rather tired at the end.  My BestBrella didn't want to stay put in the wind, so I had to hold it most of the time with my left hand.  Then my canvas blew off the Soltek easel!  I managed to catch it before it landed face-down in the dirt.  But worst of all: a mean bumblebee (one of those fat, black & yellow jobs) crawled up inside my capris and stung me in back of my left knee!  OWWWW!  Talk about "suffering for one's art"!  I was happy my car was nearby and I could just heave all my gear into the back. 

Cabbages are so cool!  I might come back and paint one of the green ones.  But next time I'll be sure to wear LONG pants!