Sharing the beauty in life...

We were finally able to work around all the rain and get out to do some plein air painting last week. Some portions of Alta Mons were closed because of problems from the recent flooding so we set up in a parking lot at a church on the entrance road. I'm glad we did! The view across a field to a row of evergreen trees with a mix of trees showing fall color around them extending up onto the mountains behind was all I could ask for!

This was the view I was painting. I'm always amazed to look at the photo and see how much less    you can see in a photo than you can when you are actually there. The human eye is an amazing creation.

I always tone my canvas ( a Centurion Oil Primed Deluxe Linen panel in this case) and used burnt sienna on this one. I try to keep a bunch of these ready for plein air painting. When I blocked in the shapes for placement I used Transparent Brown Oxide (Rembrandt).

After settling on the composition the race begins! I usually feel like I've been sprinting for the 2 hours or so I have to work on these. The light changes so quickly that I really have to focus and get the paint on as fast as I can before the sun moves too much and things are totally different. I took this one home and worked on it a little more. It's a nice reminder of a beautiful day painting with friends.