Taking a Lesson from Peggi Kroll Roberts

I  joined the Vero Beach Art Club Plein Air group to make sure I keep my weekly art days as suggested in The Artist's Way.
This is my first photo of beach goers on a sunny Florida day. It felt good to take the time for my art journey toward becoming the best painter I can be.

SUBJECT:

                   PRIME THE CANVAS:

While reading my newest issue of Watercolor Magazine I discovered an article; "Blueprint for Success" by Peggi Kroll Roberts. She is a proponent of simplified shapes, loose brushwork and expressive color which sounds delightful to me. I am using acrylic instead of watercolor but I'm hoping the technique will serve both media.

I am following her steps to learn from her style:
       *  Choose an appealing subject; DONE
       *  Determine light source and determine the darkest dark and the lightest light. DONE
       *  Create value and color thumbnail sketch ( I am so impatient; I dislike doing this step but here I go. The darkest dark is the back of the man's chair and the lightest is the foam of the ocean waves.
       *  Paint in 3 values with a flat brush, massing the shadows and simplifying shapes. I DID MASS THE SHADOW SHAPES AND NOW ON TO THE 3 VALUES
I tried something new with the 3 value thing; I cropped out individuals in the photo and will try to ID the values that I will use. I will also premix three values on my palette before painting them.
       *  Use expressive color.
       * Avoid an equal dark to light ratio.

SKETCH

MASSING SHADOWS

3 VALUE STUDY

Call it lazy but I rather like my idea of printing off an enlarged portion of my photo then drawing the 3 values over it. I tried colored pencil, Conte pencils and they did not work very well. Pastel chalks worked well and I did take some artistic license with the placement of the values.

Next Roberts masses the lightest parts of the painting.

MASSING LIGHT AREA

3 VALUE LOCAL COLOR

ALMOST DONE  

LESSONS LEARNED:  I do not do well painting small (8x10), the limited palette is working well for me and I liked the steps presented by Peggi Roberts. The final results leave a lot to be desired.
The value sketch of just the two women would make a better design to try.

Let's end on a high note; with practice I can paint simple, loose and colorful.

DONE #2

DONE #1