I’ve come to find a few people read this—so I should keep up.
It was an extremely dry Fall here in North Georgia and even though I was worried about my shrubs dying it made for a very colorful and paintable season. All the usual suspects were visited at one time or another. Starting with Mabry Farm. While Colley Whisson visited last summer I took him on a tour of my favorite place to paint. He took loads of photos so you might see a Mabry Farm painting from him eventually. While giving the tour I noticed a small spot that had gone without my attention and a few weeks later I spent a nice quiet few hours painting this working woodshed. Someone had been busy here and the ax was still in a log—although I moved it out into the light.
I guess the next weekend was Halloween and on that Friday I was over again looking to catch a view North- one that I’ve painted before. My intention was to do a big 18 x 24″ but when I looked in my trunk all I found was a 12 x12 and an 8 x16 board so I walked around the pasture and finally centered on this view. I posted it on the En Plein Air FaceBook page and a few days later Bob Barr from Plein Air Magazine emailed me about my “Halloween” painting. ?? Sorry, Bob, I didn’t paint any ghosts or goblins. After a bit of a mixup, we figured out he was talking about this 12 x 12. The story is here.
That same weekend I took some hours Sunday to revisit Mountain Park. As soon as I got there I was attracted to this view from the spillway of the poplars as bright orange as orange can be with a fantastic reflection and a nice contrasting cool blue background. This one almost painted itself.
Just a few weeks ago on perhaps the last good color weekend I was back over to Mabry for this view—Mabry Oaks, of the huge oaks behind the old farmhouse.
This is another spot that I had not taken advantage of before and I found another view here —Red Oaks, that I started and finished up a few days later.
That same weekend I was driving around and noticed a Ginko tree on the side of the road. It reminded me of two giant examples that grow in the front yard of McFarlane farmhouse so I drove over and was delighted by this view I call Ginko Glow.
The rain finally came and with it no more leaves and a dramatic shift toward winter here. The light changes cold when there are no more leaves to filter it and the lower sun is brighter now. Time to shift again and look for views that take advantage of it.