plein-air

Took a 4-day river kayaking trip with some of the young men in our local Latter-day Saint ward. It was a lot of fun traveling the river, and so pretty.  Lots of beautiful spots, and we collected agates along the way -- which is so fun!  I managed to get in this early-morning painting of the scene where I was camping.  That's my tent on the bank.  A lovely spot.  Carrying a wet painting on a kayak is something I might need to rethink.  Even though I have a Raymar painting box, and I had it wrapped in a plastic bag -- things didn't go so well.

This week we just returned from a wonderful trip to Orcas Island.  This was our second time visiting and staying on Orcas. It's so pretty there. Orcas has a lot of character, and great spots for painting!  We found this little private beach near the vacation house we rented.  Nobody around!  

This week I took a 25 mile loop 3 day solo backpacking trip into the Goat Rocks wilderness area in the Cascade mountain range in Washington.  Such a beautiful location.  It was a very hard climb (at least for me).  I also recently purchased a light-weight plein air painting set-up from ProlificPainter.com and was anxious to try it out.  It was a pretty amazing trip, with gorgeous sweeping vistas, and beautiful wildflowers in bloom. 

This morning I got up and headed over to the river, this pretty river is just down the road from where I live.  Every time out I'm trying to learn and get better.  For this one, the goal was to simplify.  I've been so inspired by several paintings I've seen other artists do recently, and I really want to learn to get better at creating simple masses, large shapes, working with large brushes and adding in spots of detail later on, at the end.  It's a real challenge to capture evergreen trees, unless you leave it as simple shapes, and just indicate what's happening very lo