In June I decided to commit to painting 100 oil paintings. It’s taken me nearly 2 months to complete the first ten, but I’m not surprised. Summer in Maine is so fleeting that taking time to sit and paint didn’t really happen very often. There have been gardens to tend (and move and replant courtesy of the local deer), family visits to enjoy, places to go, work to be done. But also, painting.
I recently looked back and discovered that I made the same commitment to complete 100 meadows back in June of 2020, but I didn’t get very far because of a whole lot of life that happened. Hopefully this time I’ll complete my project and I hope to do it before the end of the year, but if it takes me longer, I’m okay with that.
So here are my first 10 paintings. All of these are on Arches Oil Paper and measure 4″ x 6″. All inspiration pictures are my own unless noted. I wish I could remember the sources for those I found online.
I thought I’d try to capture the unique blue that is the Maine sky. I came closer than I have before using Pthalo blue, but not quite. I painted this at night and had a hard time getting the green quite where I wanted, but overall, I’m happy with #1.
This is a scene from Aroostook County, Maine. I loved the colors in this. I’m not completely thrilled with the clouds here, but that’s one of the reasons why I’m committing to this project. Surely over 100 paintings I will improve, yes?
Again, greens are hard, especially when trying to mix them at night under yellowish artificial lights. But I like the feel of the field and the depth of the distant trees. And I like the clouds a little more. I tried to capture the warm glow, but I was pretty hesitant about using pink.
I tried painting this one faster – spending less time fussing over the clouds and just getting the colors and values in place. Again, the greens I was looking for were difficult to mix at night. I decided going forward to try to paint only under natural light until I can figure out better lighting options. I can’t find my inspiration photo for this one, but it’s one I took locally.
This one was fun. I loved the warm yellows and the distant house. I decided to not worry about getting the exact colors and just capture the summery feeling.
I was tired and a little discouraged about my progress (after only 5 of 100 which is ridiculous but that’s where I was) when I tried to paint this, but I really wanted to get paint down. I think I captured the distance a little better.
I like this one. I like the warm and happy sky. I like the buildings. I like the distant hills. I like the feeling of the tilled field and the grasses growing in the foreground.
Color. I really wanted to play with color, and this small format was just what I needed to play. And I LOVE the way the tree leaves turned out on this one. I’m learning to use my brushes as a tool for more than just moving the paint from palette to canvas.
Okay, so it’s not a typical meadow, but I live in Maine. And I think sea meadows should be allowed in my project, yes? I may have to do another project of 100 seascapes to get some practice in capturing water, but overall I’m happy with this.
Phew! 1/10th of the way done! I can’t find my inspiration photo for this one, but it’s a scene from somewhere nearby. I’m working on blending the sky better as it fades from dark to light, and I like the light in the distant field. But goodness do I need to work on my clouds! I am much happier with the greens here. Daytime color mixing seems to be the key.
My takeaways so far – painting frequently and small is better for learning and growing than painting infrequently and larger. When I don’t paint for too many days I need to relearn which colors I like to mix and which brushes give me the strokes I’m looking for. I’ve already painted #s 11 and 12 (I’ll show you later) and I’m really happy with #11.
Thanks for sticking around to the end of this very long post! If you have any meadow photos you’d like to share with me to use as inspirations for my project, please let me know! I love Maine, but it would be fun to paint some other scenery for practice.