Day 2

Morning Walk:

I headed outside this morning around 7am. I didn’t want to waste any time. The lighting wasn’t right for finishing up my painting from yesterday, so I walked around with my camera. It was so foggy, in places, I couldn’t see the river because of the sun. The fog stayed for several hours, so I wanted to find a good spot for a possible study (a painting done with little detail in a short amount of time) for another morning.

Here are some of the photographs that I took.






I can now say that after two days here, I am getting a little used to the bug thing. Yesterday, after seeing about 4 spiders and 5 unknown bugs within 10 minutes, I had the creepy crawlies for the rest of the day. This morning, I went down toward the edge of the water in obvious spider territory, standing close to about 4 spider webs just to get this photograph. And while I was painting, I looked down and saw to my horror a huge bug crawling on my leg. I think I painted him as I pushed him off of me.



This might be the site of my next painting.





The Pavilion - where all the services are held. Seems sort of Heavenly, here.









Another overlooked use for the volleyball net, spider condos. How cute.



Painting:

News flash: a foggy morning of a soon to be sunny day is not the same lighting as an overcast afternoon. I will finish painting #1 sometime before I leave, if the weatherman is right, I’m sure.

After much debating, I decided to park myself near the lovely bridge. I didn’t intend for it to take the whole day, and I almost packed up about 3 times due to what I like to call the “ugly stage” (lasts for about 3 hours of hard work – the time where you question why you even started painting, you doubt all your abilities. . etc. Every painting has it. ). But I stuck it out and decided each time to have one more sitting and try again.

I bit off more than I could chew, yet again. The bridge is surprisingly detailed and complex, many times I thought, “what did I get myself into??”

It was cloudy, then it was sunny, then the wind blew and it rained leaves and water from the trees, I got cold, I was hungry, spiders were crawling into my bag, strange large bugs were on me, and after all of that the sun had the nerve to shine on the other side of the sky ( I guess that was really the earth’s fault.) But I stayed there (taking a few breaks, of course) asking God for help and didn’t stop painting. I stayed until 3:30.


Maggie came to say hello to me – what a great dog!




Here is the progression:

1 no more block-ins, I wanted to get it right the first time. Large obvious shapes first.


2 Staying with thin paint


3 Adding thicker paint and more color. Redefining darks.


4 Yes, I’m avoiding the bridge


5 Almost There


6 Suddenly a 16x20 shrinks to an 11x14. I will probably work on it from photographs when I get home.






After deciding that I was done, I had an hour and a half until dinnertime. ( I had a special invite). The sun was out, and there isn’t much promise that it will be out again this week, so I took all of my things over to the dining hall determined to paint the bell. It strangely never entered my mind that it was a silly idea to try to paint and finish a painting in an hour and a half, but here I go.

Disaster Strikes:

While I was going back for my second trip while moving my set up, a gust of wind tipped my easel, with the bridge painting on it. Not surprising since I had a huge wooden board on it that acted like a big sail. Praise the Lord nothing happened to it. It looks worse than it was, which is why I was able to take the picture (for you all) before rescuing the painting.

Grand Finale:

The boost that I needed for the end of a long day. Enjoy.







It is signed before I even take it home. This is the fastest painting I’ve ever done that still has paint on the canvas at the end. Usually if I’ve started and finished a painting this quickly, it means that I failed and it ended only because I wiped all the paint off.


~ Day 2 was a very profitable day. I feel that I’m getting better as I go. Landscapes are quite overwhelming to me since I only do still lifes. Could be that’s why the bell painting turned out so quickly.

Thanks for reading.
~Bec