Plein Air - Miamiville OH

 

I finally got outdoors with my weekly plein air group, the Brush & Palette Painters, on Tues Apr 23. Because I was hosting 8 for dinner, I knew I only had 30 minutes in which to paint. And I wondered how much I could accomplish in that amount of time.

I've learned that if I spend one hour each day, what I can accomplish in those 60 minutes varies greatly from day to day. So I recognized that I actually got quite a lot done here in a short time.

It was worth it to get out for the first time regardless of results. Kind of like my first golf game of the year. After so much time off, I forgot what I needed to take with me. And how fast acrylics dry up, even on a wet palette, in half an hour.

Here I was "drawing in paint," just trying to roughly capture shapes and values. The flowers and foliage that usually inspire us at this location hadn't bloomed yet (or bloomed weeks ago), so most of the artists were painting buildings.

I liked the way the sun was shining on this home. But I quickly remembered how fast things can change outdoors when the wind below and the sun kept hiding behind clouds.

But the feel of the sun and the breeze, the sound of the birds, and just being outdoors were inspiring and I can't wait to paint out again next week.

I've been experimenting a lot lately with watercolors and oils, so I decided to prepare for next week in 2 ways: 1) scout out my location ahead of time, so I'll have more time to paint, 2) try a different medium (oils or watercolor).