This was our first painting session at the Howard County Conservancy (we’ll be going back on October 3, to paint during their Fall Festival). I was the only one there (although one person did come by to take some photos later in the morning), and I had a lovely morning to paint. There are several places around the Gudelsky Environmental Education Center that offer nice views across fields or of the farm house and gardens, and there are also short(-ish) trails for the more adventuresome. I positioned myself near the Montjoy Barn, a unique late 18^th century structure that was recently disassembled at its original site, repaired, cataloged, and moved to the Conservancy’s Mount Pleasant Farm grounds. (For more information, see http://www.hcconservancy.org/mtJoy.php ) This spot gave me a nice view across to one of the trailheads, with trees and fields beyond (no Big Green Wall!). Like the piece I did the previous week, this one needs some finishing before it’s ready to post here.

This was a warm and quiet day along the reservoir at Brighton Dam. The azaleas are of course long over, so we moved to the other side of the road and painted along the river. There were lots of families at the picnic tables and plenty of fishermen; very pleasant for the middle of July. However, I am beginning to get a bit overwhelmed with the greens! Maryland in July is green green green and more green, and the trees are so full that they can easily close off any possibility of a distant view. I was not unhappy with my work, but I allowed myself to create a Big Green Wall that will need to be opened up a good bit to allow the painting to breathe. I’ll be working on it later. Apart from that, I was stunned and disappointed to see that a lovely little grove of young trees that had been situated along the left-hand side of the pathway leading from the parking lot down to the river and picnic area had been cut down at some time in the past year – I have no idea why. Only the stumps are left. I really liked this little stand of trees: it reminded me of some of Wolf Kahn’s paintings – lots of narrow verticals with bands of lovely colors behind and among those shapes, holding it all together. Sigh.

After a hiatus for the July 4^th weekend (which I spent in the studio making some real progress on a new colored pencil piece), we painted during the morning at the Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens in Washington D.C. We’d gone there in the 2007 plein air season, and I remember producing a spectacularly awful painting. This year I attempted to paint the same view (or very close to it) with the exact same results. So at least I’m consistent. One useful outcome, though: I have decided to stick with the surface I like best, the Kitty Wallis paper. I’ve been experimenting with a variety of other pastel surfaces, but I keep finding it difficult to achieve the outcomes I want, and last Friday was my tipping point. So that’s at least one lesson I’ve managed to learn. Otherwise, it was a very pleasant experience. The grounds are beautiful, consisting of many large lotus and water lily ponds side-by-side, other flowering gardens, and a long wooden boardwalk that allows you to venture out over the river marshes for a closer view of the flora there. There were quite a lot of us who turned up to paint, and I think there was some general agreement that while perhaps it is not the best place on the planet for plein air painting, it is a wonderful source for floral subjects, especially lotus flowers, water lilies, and other aquatic plants not encountered elsewhere. I took loads of photos, as did everyone else: I suspect there’ll be a lot of lotus flower paintings appearing at future Maryland Pastel Society shows…