It seems like it’s taken especially long for summer weather to reach us notwithstanding a few scattered days of fine Spring weather. The warmth of Spring in New Hampshire can mean only one thing, lupines and lilacs! The online call went out among fellow artists to head to the White Mountains and paint the lupines. I jumped onboard, I hadn’t been outside to paint since the Fall. Another artist had a place closer to home that she suggested, even better I thought. It turned out it was a private home where the owners welcomed painters, and others to come and enjoy the fabulous view from their back yard. Now there is generosity of spirit, I am grateful they believe such scenery should be shared and I thank them for doing so.
It was a glorious day and it felt good to once again be painting outdoors. Looking out at the view of the field of lupines, great big boulders scattered about, beautiful manicured gardens and Mount Monadnock, I composed a painting with a few sketches before I moved to my canvas. The sketches led me to two decisions, I needed to move the mountain, and I wanted to focus on the garden. I enjoy making something a huge as a mountain incidental to the painting. It’s hard to be subtle with a mountain, but it seems like a fun idea. While I didn’t complete the painting while on site I did get quite a ways through it. I also found myself making compositional changes when I returned to it in the studio. As always seems to be the case once you walk away from a painting for a little bit, you almost always see more work to be done when you come back to it. That was true of the painting I had just completed before my outing, “Tulips and Lilacs”.
My next plein air adventure was a trip to Wells Harbor, Maine. Another beautiful day that produced a partial painting. I will be working on it and hopefully completing it in the next couple of weeks. I have another painting I want to get to first, in anticipation of the Amherst, N.H. July 4th Art Show on the town green. Time is running low on that one so the harbor painting will need to be put on hold for now.