Day of Painting the Brinton 1704 House

Yesterday, I was invited to paint the Brinton home built in 1704 as part of this year's Brinton Family reunion with about 150 people attending.
  There were 5 painters at different locations.  I decided to paint the back of the house with the flower garden.  About a month ago, it felt like a good idea to visit the home again and take photos of different views and decided on two that were different.   Fifteen years ago, this was the location I used for my Christmas card.  It was definitely a home that was a favorite of mine to paint.  
 So I enjoyed this opportunity to paint this home located on Oakland St. in the Dilworthtown area.  It is open for you to tour on weekends.  

Taking Time to Paint from Now Until September

I am working on a number of paintings to get ready for the art show in Media as they only allow original paintings.  So I am working on painting a number of small original flower paintings, historic sites and landscapes.  One thing I am trying to do is to try to highlight the focal point of each painting and spend less time on the details in the other areas of the paintings.

          Hanging in Starbucks in West Chester PA

This should enhance the painting visually and draw you into the painting.  Sometimes on a building, you need to include all the details, but other times it does not allow your eyes to rest.  So I will have to work on these changes.  That means some paintings will be completed but then never shown as they do not display the results I am looking for.

So keep the date of September 22nd in mind on the main street in Media that the trolley runs down.

Summer Painting

Coming up in July after getting back from our vacation, I am looking at finding a number of sites around Delaware County to paint as I have just been accepted into the Community Arts Center juried art show to be held in Media, PA September 22nd.    I can only sell original watercolors so will be busy painting new watercolors of all sizes.

One of the locations I will be working on are some historic homes in Chester county.  One will be the 1704 Brinton House.  I will also be working on over 100 of my new ideas that I will take from 100 new photos I have taken this spring.

KEY LEARNING EXPERIENCE:   After touring the Wyeth Studio in May, we recently went back in June with my wife, daughter and a guest visiting from Charlotte.  During that tour, it became apparent it would be really helpful to understand how Andrew Wyeth decided what to paint and then how he turned that idea into a painting.  He believed that you had to paint what your really were close to and knew very well.  He learned to concentrate in this way by his father - N, C, Wyeth.  So he concentrated on local homes, people , hills , trees, etc. from Chadd's Ford and the area around Rockland, Maine. As I read more about him and heard him speaking in the video - " Snow Hill", an even greater desire to learn to improve my painting and my watercolors began to grow in me.  While I will never be able to paint people like he did, my goals will be to improve my landscapes and still lifes as well as begin to paint people. 

STARBUCKS IN WEST CHESTER

This past week we were walking walking around West Chester and went to the Starbucks and saw that two of my :lein Air paintings are hanging in the shop on Gay Street.  So if you stop in there, you can see two of the paintings I did on the street.  The Academic House and The Sharpless House.  This is the Academic House on East Washington...just east of High Street.  Go see if you can find it.

PAINT THE TOWN...A SUCCESS

This past week, I spent from Tuesday to Friday painting in West Chester, PA.  Tuesday, I set up my chair and paint supplies under a treee in Marshall Park and painted the Sharpless home that was across the street.   Fortunately  there was a slight breeze that felt good on the hot day.  In the afternoon, I went to East Washington Street and painted the Academic house.  It was a French Academic School according to a book I purchased of Walking tours of West Chester by Mowrey.  I also sketched and started painting a small watercolor of a porch in East Washington nearby.
The next morning despite some spritzing I sketched and painted the Woman's Exchange on South Church Street.  In the afternoon, I focused on the office on the corner of Market and Church Streets.   The photo of this building is in the earlier blog post.

I painted about 80% of those that afternoon and was able to sketch a small backyard and garden on South Walnut before I finished for the day.   A kind gentleman came out of this house and shared some interesting details about the house including the fact it was built in 1855.

Thursday, I set up my chair and sketched across from Fairman's Skate Board store on Gay Street. That was a challenge because there was a stop sign right by the corner so often trucks and cars blocked my view.  A friend of mine joined me to sketch while I painted and when we finished this, we went back to South Walnut.  I was hoping to paint the backdoor and yard, which by the way contained over 67 varieties of roses.  The owner had moved his car out of the driveway for me to get a clear view of that wonderful back door and garden.  What a treat to paint this scene.
Friday I spent matting, framing and finishing s few little details on some of the watercolors before delivering 7 paintings to the 7th floor of the Chestnut St parking garage.  That evening, in spite of rain that was heavy at times, there was an art show and sale.  The next night, 400 people turned out for the West Chester Business Club's Gala that was a fund raiser.
I throughly enjoyed the experience.   This process of painting outdoors helped me in several ways.  I found I was painting quicker,  highlights and details near the center of interest were saved and other areas had less detail and the finished painting seemed to have captured the colors more realistically.
I look forward to continuing to paint " PLAIN AIR".