Painting of Public Art

  

Streets of Woodfield, 11x14", oil pastel on canvas

This is a sculpture in a local outdoor mall called Streets of Woodfield. I was intrigued by all the strong colors in this sunny scene. When I first started this painting, I thought the father and son would be the focal point. But as I worked on the painting, the sculpture seemed to demand to be the center of interest. After all, they were looking at the sculpture and so was I.

This painting was done exclusively with Cray-Pas Specialist oil pastels. This meant that it was a slightly different palette of color than I normally use. And because these oil pastel sticks have a harder consistency than the Senneliers, the paint layers are quite a bit thinner.

I’m pleased with the people and the sculpture but not with the background building. It doesn’t want to “fade into the background” and yet it is too large and devoid of detail to remain in the foreground. I will let this one sit for a while. Perhaps sometime later a solution will come to me. But even as it is, I still feel it turned out pretty well.

The Art of Making a homemade Paint Box

I liked the idea of plein air painting (or painting on location). But dragging all of my oil pastel painting equipment across a field or down a path was heavy work. Last summer, I wasn't sure I wanted to spend a lot of money on a paint box if it turned out I didn't like painting in the field. So before getting the Guerrilla Painter ThumBox this year (that pochade is in the airport photo in a prior post), I had a homemade paint box. This let me go out and see that I did like painting in the field.  So I graduated up to the customized ThumBox for oil pastels because I wanted to use a tripod and the homemade one was not stable enough.

However, it worked very well sitting in my lap. So I thought I would share how I made the homemade paintbox. This would be a great box to start painting on location. For about US$40, it got me out painting so that I knew I would not be wasting my money on a more expensive paintbox.

If you are interested in trying plein air (on location) painting but don’t want to invest in expensive equipment. This article is for you.

Here is my version of a home-made Pochade Box. I found this wooden box with metal hinges and metal clasps in the local craft store filled with a child’s “intro to art” supplies. All the hardware I found at my local hardware store.

Items 1 is a screw and nut to act as a hook. Item 3 is a screw and plastic bushing to act as a pivot. Item 2 is something called a turn-buckle. Because it has a long screw-thread on each end it allows me a lot of adjustment. I have one turn-buckle on each side that I adjust to make sure I’m pushing against them equally. Item 4, my paper stop, is the little twist thing used to hold screen windows in place. It twists up to hold my 6x8” clipboard and pad of paper. This set up also nicely holds an 11x14 board with a piece of paper held to it with heavy-duty rubber bands.

To close up, the turn-buckles easily unhook from the top screws and the paper stops twists down. A thick pad of foam goes over the pastels to hold them in place, the clipboard with paper goes on top and the lid closes. I also added two “D-clips” on the sides to hook a strap to. Since the box was already made, the only tools I needed were a screwdriver and a drill. (I drilled holes into the wood slightly smaller than the screws to prevent the wood from splitting.)

For the inside, I used adhesive backed foam sheets from the craft store to line the box and make the dividers. If you are wondering what kind of oil pastel those are with the funny labels, those are half-sticks of Hobleins with return address labels wrapped around them to cut down on the messy fingers or masking tape might have worked too.

When I arrive at the site, I sat in the chair, put the box on my lap and started painting.