Morning at the Aquatic Gardens

"Aquatic Garden", 11x14 oil on panel

     Once again I have been on hiatis from my blog.  This is not intentional, just the result of a busy life.  Happily much of the time has been spent painting! 
      This morning I traveled to the Aquatic Gardens in Southeast Washington DC with some members of the Washington Society of Landscape Painters.  After all the years I have lived here I am surprised that I have never visited this place.  It is beautiful. It is varied.  It is bug free!  Well, not exactly but the ones that irritate humans, ie. mosquitoes were not feeding on us.  A park ranger explained that the frogs and dragonflies eat the mosquitoes and therefore they are not an issue here.  Given the heat and humidity of the day it was a welcome surprise.  This is a well balanced eco system!  There are some small changes I would like to make to this painting such as breaking up the strong curve of the reflected green in the water but I think I will ponder this for a day or two.

     The rest of the group painted the magnificent pink lotus flowers that were beginning to bloom.  A week from now there will be a vertitable sea of pink blossoms.  I was tempted.  After I saw the finished (or almost finished) paintings I wished I had.  Still, I am not much of a flower painter.  I don't know why.  Every morning I see my beautiful mass planting of hydrangeas and think I should paint them but I don't.  I am lured by water.  It sucks me in every time.  In the photo below you can see what I mean about the lotus paintings. Beautiful!

      I finished "Summer Pasture" and am sorry that I didn't take photographs of session three.  After looking at the painting a couple of days I decided the third horse I had painted in looked weird.  I painted it out.  I still need another horse in that spot but it had better be an improvement on the last one. I will have to rework that area so the figure goes in wet on wet.  I will post a before and after photo when I get back to work on it.  Aside from the pathetic horse I am pleased with the rest of it.
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