Painting Month: Days 14-16 recap

For day 16 of my painting month, I’m back in the Bay Area and planned to paint at Black Diamond Mines Regional Park and Markham Nature Park.

Black Diamond Mines Regional Park

Black Diamond Mines, once the location of the largest coal mining operation in California, is now a park in Antioch, CA with rolling hills, copious hiking trails, a historic cemetary, and some historical ranches.

After arriving, I really struggled with what subject to focus on for painting. While there was a lot of natural beauty around, I wasn’t feeling inspired. Here are some of the options I considered before landing on my eventual choice:

Distant cluster of dark cypress trees and white grave markers on a golden hillside, seen past a foreground pine's needled branches. — Rose Hill Cemetery is a historic cemetery that serves as a monument to the lives of the former residents of the coal mining community.

A gravel path curves up a tree-covered slope, oaks bare and rust-colored in the foreground against darker evergreen canopy above. — At first, I was drawn to this pathway carving up towards the hillside, and all the different oranges, greens, and browns. It didn't feel like it would make an interesting painting though.

Sunlit and shadowed folds ripple down a grassy hillside, cut by parallel ravines, with a line of dark trees along the base. — I really like the shadow patterns on the far hillside, but I couldn't find a composition I liked.

Eventually, I drove back down to the ranch by the entrance and found a scene I was interested in painting:

A weathered wooden barn with a rusted tin roof sits among trees at the base of a golden hillside, an old pickup and fencing nearby. — The ranch

Once I got started, the painting came together fairly quickly. While not a finished painting, I did have the chance to add some more details that I typically reserve for the studio. Here are some progress pictures:

Looking through a handheld slide-mount viewfinder to frame the barn and hillside scene before painting it.

Open pochade box on a tripod in a field, palette loaded with fresh color, canvas holding only the loose burnt-sienna line drawing of the barn.

The pochade box now holds a blocked-in painting with sky, tree masses, and the barn's basic shapes and shadow side established.

Closer view of the same painting further along: barn walls, dark roofline, and a blossoming tree rendered with more developed color and value.

And here is where I decided to call it done (for now):

The finished barn study: red barn with black-and-white roof beside a flowering tree and dark shade tree, warm dirt road curving through gold grass.

Markham Nature Park

I had never been to Markham Nature Park in Concord, CA before. I’ll definitely be going back, but perhaps not for painting. I really struggled with my painting here and didn’t end up finishing it. I attempted to paint a picture of this creek:

A shallow, rocky creek bends through a shaded grove, a leaning tree trunk arching low over the water.

Unfortunately, I was and was not able to compose a painting I liked, nor was I able to match the various browns and greens in the water. I learned that I’d like to practice painting creeks and rivers in the studio before attempting them in plein air.