At the beginning of the week, I had reached a state I’ve only achieved once before in the last 43 years: I had caught up with all my orders. For about twelve hours, I daydreamed about what I’d have time to do…
Then I dropped them off at the shop and came out with a brand new stack of orders to fill.
Within a day, I got an email to re paint the Santas I’d just brought in, since they’d sold. I love to hear that!
My annual calligraphy job was delivered this week as well, so I’ve got lots to do.
The weather has been on the warm side since Thanksgiving. That means it hasn’t snowed and its been above freezing. So today, despite thinking we’d be inside until spring, we painted outside!
We met at a park west of town and hiked up a hill to a ridge with a spectacular view. We were facing south and could see for miles. The sky was overcast but not uniformly so. The clouds were thin enough in spots to let just enough pale, golden light through to bathe the scene before us in soft neutral tones but thick enough to make the light stable and I didn’t have to wear my golf cap. There was very little wind, so the conditions were more than we could ask for.
Four of us climbed up high on the ridge to get a good view of a very picturesque cedar. It stood there posing like a champ against a backdrop of distant hills, valley and a winding river, reflecting the muted sky.
It was a study in neutrals. We started by blocking in two large values; one for the hills and and one for the sky and river, with an idea for where the third for the cedar in the foreground would go. The next few hours were spent in working into those values all the color and temperature shifts within those narrow values. It was a blast!
We all started out with similar compositions but after he got his first wash down, Rick decided that he was more interested in what the sky was doing so he reworked his composition, dropped the horizon down below the middle of his canvas and went to work. It turned out gorgeous, of course.
The rest of us produced nice canvases. We were all painting the same scene at the same time yet we all saw it our own way and painted what we saw and came up with three unique paintings.
I had dressed in layers, knowing that standing still for several hours outside is a very different experience than say, walking around the lake. I had my ears covered, to protect them from any breeze and I wore socks under my very warm boots.
At one point, I took off my headband and unzipped my coat but I’m glad I’d worn as much as I did. I envied Rick’s snow pants. My legs were the only part of me that got cold, as jeans are not good insulators. But my fingers didn’t go numb and that’s the main thing.
As always, I wished I could get organized and motivated to paint more than just once a week. I need about six more hours per day, that’s all! Unfortunately, I’ve never been one of those people who can get by on two hours of sleep a day. Or one of those people who can get organized. These days I feel like a cat and the whole world is made of laser pointers.
Slowly but surely, things are getting done.