Painting #257 - It was a paint out day, just getting practiced up for next week.

What a beautiful day for a sketching trip, of course we didn't go far (Susan, Bev & I), just her backyard, but what a perfect day to paint plein air. It really started to get hot, but not at first, just a bit, this happens to be Susuan's lane and what a beautiful place, I was sitting in the weeds but the only bugs I noticed were spiders, of which I killed, at least I think I did, I saw it's guts but it was still kicking when it fell off my easel, and that was in the weeds so I couldn't see if it lived. I'm sorry, I just had to kill it, I'm allergic to spiders so it had to go. Anyway, I had a great day painting and here it is, I used my opaques and I painted on a gessoed piece of MDF (which is what I used to call masonite), the board was kind of a gift, I helped my friend frame the pictures she bought from me a couple weeks ago, and these boards were used for the backing (she didn't need them, so she gave them to me, there were no holes, and they were smooth on both sides, so, I decided to gesso them, and now I see that they do ok with paint one them, of course it's just like painting on the hot pressed illustration board that I coated with gesso a while ago, so, I enjoyed painting on it. We had a lovely day and when it was lunch time, we went inside, there I worked at a table and painted the rose that was just outside her kitchen window, so that one was even plein air, technically. Of course, I didn't get that one done yet and it's late so I'm not finishing it tonight, it's late but not as late as I usually am, I might even get to bed before 12:30, amazing.

I am going to make this short, I am tired though, so, I started with the blue for the sky, then I moved down and laid in the golden color and some greens for the tree line, then I just kept moving down, I laid in the path with some beige, made with yellow ochre and brown with white in it, then I started by laying in some shadow, then I went back in with some lighter beige color (with white added), to lighten the light strips on the path and I just kept doing that until I got the the foreground, I did about 75 per cent of this in the field, then I came home and put in the branches on the trees and the foreground weeds, I like this little painting and I hope you do too.