Getting Out of the Studio

Painting the Perennial Garden at Bon Air Rose Garden in Arlington

      Finally my favorite time of the year!  I adore spring and all it's glory, particularly flowers. Along with wanting to get my hands in the dirt and plant new things is the desire to be out painting all that color and light.  We have been having so much rain (pouring as I write) that I haven't been out and about as much as I would have liked. However, last Friday the sun blessed us from time to time on a mostly cloudy day and I was able to join friends from the Washington Society of Landscape Painters at the Bon Air Rose Garden in Arlington Virginia.  The roses were extraordinary but the textures and intense colors of the perennial garden lured all five of us.

"Larkspur" 8x8 oil on panel

      This is the little study I did of the bed I was facing. The actual color of the larkspur is somewhere between the color in the photo and the color in my painting.  I had left my cobalt blue at home and I think that would have been the right blue to mix with alizarin or pyrole red or cad red to get just the right color. Instead I relied on ultra blue with a little cerulean and alizarin.  I used a palette knife for most of the painting but also a loaded brush here and there. The panel was toned with a wash of salmon pink and you can see some of it shining through in the trees, among the flowers and along the walk.  I thought it a good choice for both a cloudy or sunny day painting.
       I would love to do a large, studio version of this one. Perhaps 30x30?