Another Story to Tell

I have many stories to tell of painting outdoors.  They vary from being butted by a goat or having my whole easel knocked over by the wind.  This story is a new one.

There I am in Manning Park looking at the trees and stream as posted below.

 

I have my easel set up and watercolors and pastels all laid out on the picnic table.  What intrigued me about this scene was the small patch of dead trees shown middle left.  So I started with a very quick watercolor sketch in my sketchbook.  I just wanted to see if the general composition would work.  Everything is green, green, green. I was trying to figure out what to do about that.  The first sketch is below.

 

Then I thought I would start the pastel painting on treated pastel paper.  I started with a watercolor background and put in the dark pine trees in a Viridian type green.  I took a big brush and swept some of the dark green around.  I had also put in the patch of blue sky and white clouds which don't show in this photo.

 

Then there was a definite change in plans as shown below. There was at least 1/2 an inch of rain in about 5 minutes.

 

With the mad scramble to get out of the rain there was water all over the painting, sand all over me and the painting from the back splash.  Truly a mess all around.

The end result was the first photo.  I took some bright color representing the happenings of the day and called it another story to tell.

Oh the joys of being an artist!  Happy Painting, Bente

NO DP