On Top of Sugar Loaf Mountain



West View, Sugar Loaf Mt., 11x14 oil on linen panel

 It was an art filled weekend.  I spent most of Saturday working on the pond painting and worked until evening when it was once again too late to get a decent photo.  I have now covered the entire canvas and spent most of the time working on the water and trees.  The dock has been roughed in and I am trying to decide where to place the heron.  I will write more after my next session with it when I will be sure to take a photo earlier in the day. 

Most of Sunday was spent on Sugar Loaf Mountain for a paintout with the Washington Society of Landscape Painters. http://wslp.org/ I am now a candidate for the society and as such am able to attend all their paint outs which I really enjoy!  We started around 9:00 and worked until 12:30 when we broke for lunch and then critique at 1:00.  I stopped painting maybe a half hour after I took this photo as I felt I had taken things as far as I cared to.
      I have often said that working with Mother Nature is a humbling experience. As I turned to start stowing my gear a gust of wind came up and I turned back just in time to keep my painting from landing face down on the wet palette.  Unfortunately I didn't catch it and it just ricocheted off the palette and hit the ground face down.  Thank you Muthah!  I suppose I should consider myself lucky since I had my umbrella up and the whole thing could easily have flipped over.  Geez, I even thought to tape down my panel, you can see the blue tape sticking up from the top of the painting.  Well, it was a mountain top. Not a very high mountain but humbling never the less.  I had enough time before the critique to patch the scrape through the sky and pick out most of the grit and bugs. I received some good advice from the other painters and will make some minor, but I think important, revisions this week.  I'll post the painting after I have done that.
     I am really itching to get back to the painting of Jesse and would like to have it finished to enter into a juried show the middle of this month.  I will just have to start getting up earlier.  It would be wonderful to be able to just get up each day and head to the studio or out to paint and work as long as I wished.  Life just isn't like that is it?