An Exercise in the Cold

Seeing as it's sunny, warmish, and blue sky today....decided that I was going to try to figger out how to do a plein air painting while in the car. Without making a mess. Haven't done plein air in ages!

Well it was a bit cooler than I thought, with the wind and all. I drove around town and area, looking for 'the spot' that caught my eye but didn't have much luck. (Something isolated too, since I hate having an audience, lol, had a schoolbus stop one time when I was sittin on the side of the road, painting a field study couple winters ago - "Is your car okay lady??" I'm like, yes, it's fine, I'm PAINTING. He didn't seem to get it. lol) And then the sunlight threatened to disappear altogether with clouds rolling in, which woulda totally SUCKED because paintings need lighting to make them interesting.

ANYHOO! I ended up going down the highway a bit just past the next town over, to a lookout spot overlooking the north Saskatchewan river valley. Wasn't the greatest setup, and someone showed up in the parking lot about partway through my painting process so I just rushed through, because I'm a bit bashful and wouldn't have known what to say if they got curious and came over. lol (The painting was a mess, okay??) All in all, about 20mins spent actually painting. My hand was getting cold, it was windy! But the paint managed just fine. I sat in the passenger side of my car, door open, pochade easel standing next to the car. Radio playing, car running with heater blowin'. I guess not BAD, but I do far better when I'm not interrupted. lol Next time too, I'll start by prepping the panel in sky blue so that the WHITE snow shows up when I paint it. :P So this is very loose, just to capture the gist, 8x10 acrylics on panel.

It was an exercise. We'll call it that. Yes, an exercise. NEXT!

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