Art Meditation - En Plein Air

All set up and ready to go.

Sitting in the Shade Listening to Birds Sing

The Full Setup! 

Seventies and Sunny sounds like an opportunity to plein air paint! I emailed my art friends and invited them to plein air paint with me at a local farm. No one could join me, but  being an artist often equates to solitude and painting. What a beautiful day! 

Throughout the painting process, I would stop and enjoy the view. The cool breeze and sunshine felt great. I heard the birds singing and even watched a few geese families go by with their little fluffy goslings! Just the experience of taking time to paint outside made me feel calm and happy - an art meditation.

Adding darks, a good start.

Full sun would have been too much, so I enjoyed the view from the shade. Here is my setup -- I painted a small 8x10 canvas panel and used a fairly limited palette. 

Getting it all on the canvas -midway.

I started with my darks, getting everything placed on the panel, I love this part of the process. I was painting a pond that had water and lots of green. The small delight is found in the purple iris which I painted in toward the end. The rocks edge the small pond that feeds into the large pond (which is what you see behind the fence). The fence was wooden and deliciously crooked and imperfect.

Soon I was mixing colors and working on composition and light. The hardest part was finding and painting the pond blue--the sky reflection was so very light on this warm day. There was quite a bit of sun so this is a high key (light) painting.

The finished painting, fun bright colors!