July, in paint

Humid days and cut hay. Storms and sunshine. Thundershowers and wildflowers.

Evening Light, Northside Woods - 10 x 8" plein air oil on linen/birch.

July 1st. It gets dark much sooner down in the woods, and I didn't start as early as I would have liked. But the light was so beautiful among the trees on this north bluffside. I painted quickly, trying to capture a bit of the late light before darkness fell, and the coyotes began to howl.

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July Hay - 6 x 8" plein air oil on linen/hardboard.

July 5th. Another late evening start. The sky showed pink, reflecting the colors of the sunset to the west, and the drying hay and small square bales caught the warm light.

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Hay Day - 11 x 14" plein air oil on linen/hardboard.

July 7th. The weather looked uncertain - now dark and piling clouds, now sunshine. I set up with a good view of the sky in case it turned stormy. The patterns of the rows of hay and the contours of hillside fields are always beautiful to me, as is the fragrance of the cut grass, clover, and alfalfa drying in the heat of the day.

 As I finished up, the clouds were breaking apart, and I did this little study of the moon rising in the dusky sky.

In the Still of the Evening - 5 x 7" plein air oil on linen/birch. 

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Between Storms - 10 x 8" plein air oil on linen/birch.

 July 20th.  It was a warm, sticky evening. Patches of the long grass had been knocked over by the previous night's storm. I was surrounded by the sounds of tree frogs and the frogs from the nearby pond, and occasionally the sounds of startled deer. Everything was wet with dew as I finished up at dusk.

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Pennycress - 12 x 10" alla prima still life. Oil on linen/birch.

July 25th. Indoor painting day. I got this lovely vase from Cheesbro Pottery earlier this year, and it was perfect for holding a bunch of pennycress that I'd pulled out of the fields and that had dried, with its many seedpods arranged on its delicate stems.

*****

Old Gold - 6 x 8", plein air oil on linen/hardboard.

July 27th. A little study of weathered wood and yellow blooms.  I don't know what these flowers are actually named, but I always heard them called "Showers-of-Gold". They have been growing here for many, many years. The old building is the known as the summer kitchen, and has "1895" written inside the door. Old beauty.

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Poplars in the Pasture - 8 x 10", plein air oil on linen/birch.

 July 28th. Dusk in the pasture. Wild carrot and yarrow flowers, and two slender poplar trees.

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Pepin Cloud Study - 5 x 7", plein air oil on linen/birch.

 July 31st. Little studies of the sky, the bluffs, and the Mississippi River. The first was done in Pepin, Wisconsin. A warm breeze blew off the water, as the clouds shifted and made threats of rain on their way past.

 The second was done at the Garvin Heights Lookout in Winona, Minnesota. (A popular spot, it seems, for both man and mosquito!) It's a beautiful view over the city and the water. Though I'd planned to try a sunset paint, I instead faced the other direction, loving the mood and atmosphere looking downriver towards rain.

Rain Across the River - 8 x 10", plein air oil on linen/birch.

 *****

July Fieldwork

After a spell of poor weather for hay-making and equipment breakdowns, it's good to see the stacks of square bales growing taller and wider, and a few herds* of round bales scattered across the fields. Here are three of them:

Three in the Field, 9 x 12" oil on linen/hardboard.

And today I worked on these two studies of a soybean field in Wisconsin. Soybeans are not something grown on my home farm, though some neighboring farms often have them. I'm not as familiar with them so this was a good opportunity to admire the green rows through a stand of poplar trees. 

Bean Field Study 1, 8 x 6" plein air oil on linen/hardboard.

There was a nice strong breeze, which rustled in the poplar leaves, rippled across the rows of bean plants, and blew occasional cloud shadows over the fields.

Bean Field Study 2, 6 x 8" plein air oil on linen/hardboard.

*Not a technical farming term. But come on, it works!

Do you ever wonder who's behind these paintings?

You might be surprised:

My smallest painting buddy.

Trying to paint figures again. This time two jolly little girls who joined me on a short jaunt to the woods. Drawing or painting people from life is, I think, always challenging. With children, it's pretty much always a quick pose. There just aren't enough goldfish crackers in the world to keep that youngest one still! Besides that, there was her friend's hair to "braid" (she's probably still working those knots out) and a toad to follow, and a few improvements to add to Auntie's painting (there should be pink in more places, and Auntie should use much bolder strokes!) 

 Paintings don't always turn out how I want them to, but there's always something gained.

Picnic in Mosquito-Land, 9 x 12" plein air oil on linen/hardboard.

Late July Greens

West of the Crossroad, 9 x 12 plein air, oil on linen panel

Though we've had a wet summer, and the landscape is still overwhelmingly green, the greens are changing as the season progresses. I have two different yellows that I keep on my palette: a lemony sort of yellow, and a cadmium yellow. In the spring the former gets the most use when mixing my greens, but as we move towards autumn, the cadmium becomes the most squeezed tube.

I set up yesterday in the slight shadow of a scrubby little box-elder. The dogs were with me, dashing off after every strange sound or smell, and then returning to pant happily in the shade. Fields and pastures are filled with blossoming Queen Anne's Lace, yarrow, asters, clover, and many grasses going to seed.

Time to Make Hay

Time to Make Hay, 14 x 18" oil on linen

I love seeing a good herd of hay bales out in a field. ;-) 

Billowing clouds above, warm sunshine, the fragrance of cut hay. 

The actual painting of this went pretty quickly, and was a lot of fun. Prior to painting I did a fairly detailed pencil sketch, followed by a watercolour study. 

I sometimes rope my farmer dad into being my technical advisor. Being out in all weather, and farming all his life, he's got a good eye for skies, and can sometimes give a good dose of reality to my rural landscapes. In this painting I ended up adding more bales than I had originally drawn because it apparently looked like a pretty sparse harvest!

End of July Paintings

8x10" oil on linen

 July 27- Rainy day painting at Little Bean's Estate. "Little Bean", my youngest sister, doesn't actually own the place, but would if she could, and sometimes I take her up there just to look around. There's a beautiful view overlooking a marshy part of the landscape near the river, and on this day, with the rain and constantly changing clouds, the bluffs appeared and faded along with every fluctuation of the weather.

 July 28- Gorgeous evening; sunny, cool breeze, just enough clouds to keep things interesting. Watched the shadows grow and spread over a hilly bit of pasture. Was going to paint the cattle grazing there, but they moved on too quickly, the fickle beasts.

9x12" oil on linen panel

It was great to be out in the fields, observing the changing colors of summer, and the Queen Anne's Lace growing thick along the fence line. It was time to quit when the wind died down and the bugs came out.

Same place, different day

July 22 plein air, copyright 2012 Hannah C. Heyer, 9 x 12" oil on linen

I can't help it, I just love that tree!

 Last night I went back to the place I painted on June 4th for another go. 

The painting is still really wet and shiny, and there's a bit of glare on the left side in the photo, but you can see how it compares with the one done in June below.

The fields and colors have changed so much: the plowed field I painted before is now a corn field, the grain has ripened and is a beautiful golden color, the hay has been cut, and the grasses and weeds in the meadow/pasture are all sorts of lovely.

 I was farther up the hillside this time, with a slightly different perspective on the curves and angles of the land. Before, I painted in the morning/early afternoon, and this time I painted late - trying to finish before the sun disappeared!

June 4 plein air, copyright 2012 Hannah C. Heyer, 9 x 12" oil on linen

Wet Paint + Bug

I went out painting last night, and posted a quick snapshot of the painting over on my facebook page.
 I brought the painting home tucked away in my easel, and left it there overnight. When I took it out today, I noticed some, shall we say, embellishments? And a dried up... slug?

Poor Mr. Slug!

Scraggly Tree Plein Air, 10 x 8" oil on linen.

The slug has been removed, but the evidence of his winding journey across the oil painting remains. It kind of works out with the branch-y stuff happening in that area, I think. Call it a collaboration?

:-P

Today

Today was one of those days.

I need sleep, ok?

But the evening was beautiful, and I got to go out and paint. I didn't have much time (it was probably around 7:30 when I started) so I had to find a place close by and not too complicated. Fortunately, I live in one of the most beautiful places ever, and the light in the evening makes anything look gorgeous.

Spring Wheat Plein Air, 8 x 10" oil on linen

 I picked a field of spring wheat, loving how the heads caught the light, and the backdrop of the bluff-tops and distant fields.
 Word of the day: awns. The bristles or beards of the grain. Not painted in detail here, but they are lovely!

Moo.

I set up in the shade of this shed. The weather-vane is inaccurate, but I like it anyway. :)

Sleep time...