Lakeshore Plein Air

I'm starting two pretty big illustrations this week as well as attending the Chicago Wizard Comic Con, so there won't be much time for me to get out and paint for the next couple of weeks. So I woke up around 5:30 this morning and walked a few blocks east towards Lake Shore Dr and did this little plein air. I got there around 6:15 or so and painted until 7:40. The view, if any of you are familiar with Chicago, is looking north down lakeshore towards Evanston.

Unfortunately it was not the most pleasant painting experience . . . sure is hard to concentrate when you're ankles are the main course for flies and who knows what else? The entire time I painted I was bitten over and over again . . . lets just say my legs look like I've got leprosy. On top of that, I painted on a textured clayboard but forgot to gesso it, so the paint didn't spread nice and smooth . . . rather it felt like I was painting with gum or tar . . . anyways, I thought I'd still post it since it was an honest attempt to capture Lakeshore in the morning, and again another learning experience.

My palette this morning was an experiment as well. I used a split-complementary palette, blue-violet was my dominant color and my splits were orange and yellow. It was gloomy and sort of nasty looking as well as humid and sticky, so before I started with my split palette I mixed up a gloomy pile of mud and then mixed every color into this mud to create even more harmony. If anything, I feel successful in capturing the mood of the morning.

8x10 Oil on crappy clay board!