Friday, June 01, 2007


This is my landscape palette. I take this out when I paint landscapes (it has a lid) and hang it on my easel below the painting and above the palette where I mix my paint. It looks odd - in a beautiful sort of way - but it allows me to paint much, much faster than I would if I had to stop and mix all those values on the spot. And when you are out of doors you want to paint fast because what you are painting is changing by the minute - and also because you are generally hot or cold or wet or being devoured by bugs or you just knocked over your brush cleaner with the last drop of turps in the county or you recently realized that the serene chomping sound nearby was in fact a cow licking off the only good painting you have done in a week (this actually happened to me once).
The reason I have posted a picture of my palette box instead of a painting is that the painting I did yesterday, which I did en plein air in order to break in my new landscape easel before the trip, was so horrific that I wiped it out. As soon as I got home I dissolved it back into simple chemical compounds, returning it to nature: R.I.P.

1 comment:

Diana K Gibson said...

Hi Elizabeth! Hey, I know this palette! :) So cool to see that you use the DuMond strings!! :) I am enjoying your blog! Your candor about painting and your experiences is greatly appreciated. So can identify with you!
Hope to see more of your work posted soon!
Best wishes! Diana