Day 3, Pissarro's "The Artist's Garden at Eragny"

This was my progress today when I broke for lunch.

I painted over the little plants I had put in the garden last time, and I moved the figure to the right.

At the end of the day. I put the little plants back in. I painted over the sky, with a lighter blue, and whitened the clouds. It was a very busy day at the museum, with tons of groups coming through. They were distracting, but so appreciative that I felt like a rock star.

It still needs work - the tree in the middle is too large. The place where I'm standing is about 5 feet from the painting, but when I walk right up to it, I can see all of Pissarro's tiny brush marks, each a different color. I'm going to try to work toward that next time.

"The Artist's Garden at Eragny" by Camille Pissarro - Day 2

 This is my copy at the end of Day 2 - about 3 months after Day 1! I just wasn't able to get back here until today.

I worked on it from the top down, and from left to right. I only got as far as the tree in the middle, and as low as the back of the foreground, where the shrubbery starts.

I had a really good day, with lots of very nice people talking to me. Some school kids even asked me for my autograph!

New copy:"The Artist's Garden at Eragny" by Camille Pissarro

The Impressionist galleries have just reopened after being closed for two years for renovation. I really missed being able to copy the Impressionists, so as soon as I could, I got a permit to copy a Pissarro landscape.

 I came in with a white canvas (24"x30"), and got started blocking in the composition.

 I spent a long time mixing piles of all the colors I could identify, so that when I started painting, I could just pick up the right color instead of stopping to mix. This is how I paint outdoors, when I'm racing against the light.

Here is the painting after just under four hours. I wanted to get the whole white canvas covered up. The first coat just gets absorbed into the gesso, but next time, the paint should slide around more easily.

I can see a few problems with the composition to be corrected, and I'll adjust things here and there while I go into it next time. It's so great to be able to walk right up to the Pissarro and see how he painted everything together, wet into wet. The flowers and the spaces between them, the little plants and the dirt, the figure and the shadow. It all looks like it was done at once, with thick, luscious paint. You can't see that in a book!

You can see Pissarro's painting here.

"The Red Schoolhouse", by Winslow Homer, final

I finally made it back to the National Gallery after almost a year! I'm not really happy with this copy. I couldn't get the color or the value of the dress right. This was the reason I chose to copy this painting - I thought it was a simple composition with a very challenging problem. The dress is in shadow, but doesn't seem dark. At first, my copy's dress was much too light. I darkened it today, and put more color into the sky, but the color of my dress is wrong, and it seems too dark. Oh well, I don't want to work on this one anymore. I'm going to try to do a still life next time, if I can get approval for it. Watch this space - I'm going to aim for every other Thursday.