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This will be my last post to this blog for 2010: our plein air schedule ended on October 29. We were supposed to paint at Great Falls, but as far as I know, I was the only one who went. I think next year we’ll either skip this trip (no one seems to want to go that far) or maybe set it up for earlier in the year. The day was just as beautiful as last week’s – sunny and clear – but cooler and much windier. I tried all three of the overlooks, but none offered any protection from the wind or the brilliant sunshine. My ShadeBuddy artist’s umbrella was also not an option: it’s the kind that stakes into the ground, and the overlooks are all rock and/or concrete. Besides, it would have been airborne almost immediately. I was also worried that if I set up to paint, my easel and pastels would sail back to Maryland without me. So I settled for taking a ton of photos, enough to keep me busy all winter.

Although it started off on a tragic note with the loss of our dear friend and fellow plein air painter Donni Dingman, this ultimately turned into a wonderful plein air year. Only two days had weather bad enough to cancel (one rainy, one too hot), and we’ve had the opportunity to meet and paint with a lot of wonderful artists as several different plein air groups began to find one another and share schedules. Donni would have loved it! My thanks for all that great company and for tuning in this year: we’ll be back in May 2011!

This was just an incredible day at the Patuxent Wildlife Refuge, with the trees turning gold, orange, and scarlet, the wild grasses a soft gray-brown, and the deep clear blue of the sky reflected brilliantly in the lakes. Elaine, Rita, Maria, and Kim were there, too, and we set up along the causeway between the two lakes to paint. I actually find this a difficult time of year to paint outside. Although I love the cooler temperatures (I was not made for anything above 80 degrees), the light is so bright and often the wind so strong that I get home exhausted from fighting both all day. Not to mention that the riot of color can really get away from you if you’re not careful. So I wandered around for 40 minutes trying to make up my mind before selecting a spot. It was pretty windy, and for that reason I opted to work on one of the 8 x 10 panels I’d made in preparation for the Cumberland plein air event, Wallis paper adhered to artist-ready Masonite. I’ve about decided, however, that I don’t like working on those hard boards – there’s no give to the surface and it affects the way the pastel goes down. (Lisa, you were right!) Also, I like having a 1” border of foam core or mat board around the adhered sanded paper so I can handle the painting when it’s done without sticking my finger in the pastel. The piece I did this day is one I’m not crazy about, although it’s a good enough field sketch for a later studio painting.

This turned out to be a chilly, windy autumn day, albeit quite sunny, and I ended up settling for a concrete bench in the sun and doing some sketching. Only three of us were there (as far as I know) – Elena, who was working on a lovely painting as I left, and Brenda, who did not paint but came to take photos. My day started out in confusion, as I could not find the entrance that I had used several years ago that led to the parking lots in front of the mansion. It turns out that that entrance (and the parking lots) had been eradicated in a major redesign of the property over the past couple of years: the new parking lots are in front of the new welcome center, and you have to park up near the greenhouses now, to walk to the mansion and gardens. After I figured all that out, it was later in the morning than I’d wanted to start, and I was pretty chilled, so I took a look inside the mansion and then toured the grounds, taking photos before I settled to sketch near where Elena was working in the front gardens. I did a simple drawing of the mansion’s front elevation in ink and watercolor stick, and then the damp cold bench got to me and I headed home for warm slippers and coffee.

This was the day of the annual Fall Festival at the Howard County Conservancy. We had a great turn-out last year and this year was just as much fun. There were 5 of us there: Maria M., Mary, Elena, and Elaine, and while we all selected painting spots on the west side of the Montjoy Barn, we each took a different compass point to focus on, and the results were all wonderful. We got started early, before the Festival itself began, so we were all well into the painting process by the time the crowds arrived. I had enough time to finish my piece, “Early Autumn,” before I had to leave for home to wash up, change, and get back to the Conservancy to take the afternoon shift at the Artists’ Gallery show in the Gudelsky Center: I’d set up signs that morning directing Fall Festival visitors inside to see the show, “Vanishing Howard County,” and four of us from the Gallery were on hand all day (in two shifts) to answer questions and make sales. An exhausting day, but very successful! We’ve been very lucky with the weather this year (OK, except for the god-awful heat in July & August), and I’m keeping my fingers crossed for the rest of October.

Maria G. and I had a lovely day at Quiet Waters Park in Annapolis. Neither of us had been there to paint before, so we took some time driving around to see what there was and what we might want to capture in pastel. Maria wanted to get down to the water, so we headed to the two little gazebos that look out over the Harness River, and settled ourselves in the left-hand one. The views were absolutely gorgeous, and the weather was perfect. Maria focused long-range, up the river, and I focused on the other gazebo, with the river behind. I’m happy with the result as a site sketch – I don’t think it’s good enough to post or frame. But it has given me ideas for a colored pencil piece that I want to do, and I started that piece the same weekend.