Plein Air October 6

Plein Air October 6 #1, Oil on Canvas Panel 6" x 8"

Plein Air - October 6 #2, Oil on Canvas Panel 6" x 8"

Back out to Rock Cut for painting. I headed to a spot on the west side of Pierce Lake. This area has picnic amenities and is the convergence of several hiking and biking trails. It is a busy area. Fortunately for me, the passers by are busy with their own activities and leave me to paint.

As I was setting up to paint, I heard a voice. It seemed familiar. A man in sunglasses riding a trail bike rolled up to me and smiled. Once he took off his sunglasses, I was able to recognize the man as a friend of ours. This sight was out of context. We spoke for a few minutes and he rolled on and let me get back to painting.

Although I had to move my set up occasionally in order to avoid the sun shining directly on my painting, I must not have moved enough. As I was nearing the completion of my first painting, I realized that I had a couple wooly bugs crawling up my pants leg. They must have thought that I was very similar to the nearby oak tree.

Painting #2 was a little more of a challenge. As I was laying in my design and trying to capture the shadow patterns, a man rolled up and parked his large pick up truck in the middle of my design. You see, the area which I depicted as grasses, is actually park of a parking lot. I stopped for a few moments to evaluate the situation. Do I continue with the painting? Do I stop and wipe out the drawing and pick a different subject? Do I ask this fellow to please move his truck? The fellow got out of his truck and grabbed a small shovel and large bucket from the bed of his truck. He was stopping to gather acorns. I figured that this couldn’t take too long. Could it?  I continued with my painting. He took a little longer to gather his finds than I had anticipated. I had to make more adjustments to my shadows than I needed to, but in the end, it worked out.