This will be my last post to this blog for 2009: our plein air schedule ended on October 31. Unfortunately, the last three sessions of the year - October 17, 23, and 31 – were all cloudy, rainy, nasty days, and we were not able to paint. I did get one more session in, myself, though, before the month was over. I had a piece in a show at the South Street Gallery in Easton, MD, and on October 10 I drove over for the artists’ reception. I stayed overnight to attend a pastel demo given the next afternoon by Colleen Howe (excellent!), and that gave me the morning before the demo to paint. I’d done some reconnoitering the day before (no painting though: once again, cloudy and misty weather made it useless to set up and paint) and I decided to turn out early and head to Claiborne, one of my favorite spots. The light was perfect, the morning cool and crisp, and I was delighted! I set up along the side of the boat launch parking lot and focused on the water, grasses, and small trees. I’ve painted this same scene before, from photographs taken in December, but in early October the light and the vegetation were much warmer, with some splashes of color not present later in the year. The result, posted here, is “Claiborne Morning” – my last plein air piece of 2009, as it turned out. Stay tuned, though: we’ll be back in May!

It seems our luck is improving. This was also a lovely day, and several of us spent the morning painting the more mannered and tamed landscape at Brookside Gardens – we had not been there since early May. It’s a truly beautiful place, but neither of the pieces I’ve done there has been satisfactory; I don’t know whether it’s just coincidence or something prompted by the very manicured appearance of the lawns, ponds, and trees, but on both occasions I’ve gotten bogged down early in too much detail and never managed to recover. Among the things I want to accomplish over the winter is a studio piece derived from those failed studies and from photographs, one that moves decisively away from representation towards abstraction: maybe that will help!

Although not on the published schedule, a friend and I returned to the Conservancy on Thursday the 8^th to continue painting. In the intervening time, the cool nights had sent some -- but not all -- of the trees to the red side of the color wheel, providing a perfect opportunity for a study in the red-green complements: the piece I did is posted here. Even with the parking lot full of school buses and a children’s program under way in and around the Gudelsky Center, it was a much quieter day, and we painted undisturbed in the sunny fields for two wonderful hours. 

At last, a truly glorious day! Despite predictions of rain for most of the previous week, the day itself dawned clear and the sun was very much in evidence. We’d been planning this particular paint-out for months: a plein air event on the grounds of the Howard County Nature Conservancy, in Woodstock, in conjunction with the Conservancy’s annual Fall Fest. About 25 of us – a mix of HoCo plein air regulars and other Maryland Pastel Society members – arrived in the morning, well before the festivities started at noon, and set up all over the grounds. Some folks went out into the fields for the long distance view, while others focused on the closer motifs, like the historic farmhouse, or the rock fountain in the Honors Garden. We were serenaded by strolling musicians, bought lemonade for a dime, and could make applesauce, buy native plants, or take a hay ride if we needed a break. Several of us formed a pod of painters (a pool of painters? a pigment of painters?) in the shade of the Montjoy Barn and produced remarkably diverse paintings of the same view – it’s so much fun to see how each of us approaches the subject so differently! My version is posted here. At 3:00 we gathered at that same spot for a quick show and tell; there were at least 20 lovely paintings propped against the tall grass verge, some complete, some well begun; a couple of people had completed several small studies instead of one primary painting. We had lots of attention from the public and answered many good questions about pastel and pastel painting: all in all, a very good day!

A better day than we’d had lately, but still a bit cloudy in the morning. Only two of us were there, and we drove down to the fishing pond. It makes a nice enough subject, if a little bland, but the diffuse light coming through the cloud layer made it difficult to find a good composition. I settled on a view that focused on a tree beginning to turn orange at its top, hoping to play the cool and warm colors off each other. Since my time was limited (I was due in Timonium that afternoon), I concentrated on getting the tree and shoreline blocked in; the pond is still unfinished. If I complete the piece in the studio, I will not only have to finish the pond, but also strengthen (i.e., invent) the lights, as it remained overcast all morning. The sun was just beginning to peek through the clouds as we were packing up, of course.

I was not able to join any painters on what I think was the first clear paint-out day in weeks: I was at the Strathmore Mansion in Bethesda giving a talk to the docents about pastels and pastel painting, in conjunction with the Maryland Pastel Society’s biennial national pastel exhibition, Shades of Pastel, set to open the following day. I don’t know whether anyone else went to Lake Kittamaqundi to paint that day.

Well, I tried! I arrived at the Howard County Living Farm Heritage Museum on a misty, cloudy morning with hopes that the weather would clear early and there’d be some sun. The grounds were just lovely, though, in the cool light, with the distant trees only smudges against the horizon and the puddles reflecting the clouds scudding across the sky. I drove down the back road to a spot I’d picked out on an earlier reconnaissance, and set up to paint. Almost immediately the mist became something more like a very light rain, but, not to be denied, I went back to the car and got my Guerilla Painter umbrella. “Ha!” I said, as I drove it into the ground. That worked well for about 10 minutes, when a little breeze kicked in and began driving the light (but wet) mist/rain up under the umbrella and onto my painting surface. Golly, OK, I get the message. At that point I gave up and packed it in. No painting to show for the morning: I barely got the drawing and first layer down.

Another soaking day. Sheesh.

However, I will take this opportunity to insert a program note: next week’s paint-out (let’s all chant: “no rain no rain no rain”) has been moved: we’re now scheduled for Friday, 18 September, at the Howard County Living Farm Heritage Museum (where we were supposed to paint today). This is because many of us have to deliver work to the Strathmore Mansion in Bethesda on the morning of the 19^th, for the Maryland Pastel Society’s biennial national pastel exhibition, Shades of Pastel. It opens on Saturday, September 26, and I cordially invite you to come to Strathmore to see the show, which runs through November 7.

Yet another wash-out. It's been raining all night and that's expected to continue throughout the day. As I've been cleaning house all week in the wake of the window installers (22 new windows, 2 new doors, and a truly gigantic mess), I'm actually a bit relieved...I'm pretty pooped. We're not scheduled to paint out next week, since we decided to skip the Labor Day weekend, figuring that most people would have other plans. The next session, therefore, will be on September 11. Meanwhile, I hope to finish up some of the studies I started earlier this summer and get them posted. Have a great Labor Day!

A rainy wash-out, I’m afraid…we had to cancel.