The temperature and the light are changing as the Fall season gets underway. I’ve been busy working and painting plus trying to get ready for my Hawaii trip. The last few weeks I’ve tried to follow my usual schedule of getting two days a week painting but with so much going on I find tha
t my concentration is not as good a usual. Friday the 29th I drove over tot Smith-Gilbert Gardens killing two birds with one stone. I picked up two paintings at the gallery there and spent a few hours doing another. Saturday afternoon I went to Woodstock and painted a view of the new downtown there. It was still very warm and I was working on a rather large 18 x18 canvas for 5 hours and I was badly sunburned by the end. That’s one hazard that could cut short my plein air career. The resulting work is ambitious —another word for to much going on. But it is evocative of the energy that has transformed this once little sleepy train stop town in a rather well planed urban center. If you would have shown me the painting 25 years ago and said this what Woodstock is going to look like…
This last weekend I was totally spent from a full week of work—no Friday fun this time. I took Saturday off though and painted along the Chattahoochee near Roswell till late in the afternoon. The second of two ended up being worth the time. The first was rather ill planed and overworked. I scraped it off when I got home. A good 11 x17 board is worth more to me than another just passable painting. The other though went together quickly and I like the play of values and nice afternoon light that is so special this time of year. Sunday morning I finished up a small study of one of the lolbolly pines that grow so tall here in my yard. Not a great painting, but I will never paint a pine tree the same after about four hours staring at this one. The rest of the day was wasted doing much needed yard work —perfect painting weather too.
