Lee Boynton Plein Air Oil Demo

Joined fellow plein painters of MAPAPA for a Paint Out at Jug Bay Wetland Sanctuary' River Farm last weekend. We were lucky to have a demo by painter, writer, (comic), and instructor Lee Boynton, who is a follower of the Henry Hensche model of Impressionistic painting.

This barn will become central to Lee's composition, although not not focal point.

Lee used an 11x14 Mars Violet-tinted piece of mounted linen.

This is the way people who paint in local color see the color and light.

This is the Impressionistic way to see light. Note, the focus is on the light, not the color.

Lee crafts these large and well-balanced palettes and their accompanying cases.

Beginning with the greatest source of light, Lee scratched in a pale yellow and tops that with a Cerulean blue for the sky. He put in the middle light value, the land mass, and then darkened the verticals/trees in the distance. The primary three landscape structures - the sky, land, and verticals - with their accompanying values were in quickly as references for the rest of the painting process.

Lee's goal was for the road and shadows to be his focal point.

The figure provided balance for that side of the board.

After this point, Lee put in a lot of time with the finishing details.

The light had changed so much that I must apologize for the differences. I wound up using two different cameras, so the colors vary as well.

While I consider myself a rather Impressionistic painter, I now believe I am a more local color painter, this despite plenty of purples in the shadows, pushing other colors, lots of blending, and often inventing skies.

Pastelists traditionally begin with darks, because pastel lights are too hard to effectively cover with darks later on. Pastelists are usually in the singular during demos and paint outs, too, so our difference can be evident!
Almost like a watercolorist (which he is, although he was using oils this day), Lee began with the sky, establishing his lightest light first. I certainly see the value of beginning with the sky and could see doing that and juxtaposing it against the darkest darks early on, as long as the lights are something I don't want to cover with darks later.


See also this sidebar element:

Directory of Demos Blogged

Trisha Adams - oil still life
Kenn Backhaus - oil en plein air
Lee Boynton - oil en plein air
Louis Escobedo - oil from landscape photo
Bruce Handford - watercolor en plein air
Carol Iglesias - pastel, alcohol underpainting en plein air
Mark Isaacs - oil & acrylic, landscapes
Richard McKinley - sketchbook, field sketch, pastel underpainting, watercolor underpainting [all en plein air]
Barbara Nuss - oil en plein air
Sara Linda Poly - oil en plein air
Stan Sperlak - pastel landscapes
Daniel Wise - pastel en plein air