STORIES FROM THE FIELD:
Monday June 2, 2025:
Tuesday June 3, 2025
The season kick-off for summer 2025:
The First Hill at Caddy Park.
I arrived at my chosen painting site and unpacked all my supplies when at the end, I discovered I had forgotten my panels.
No way to salvage a painting session without panels, so back home I went to retrieve my painting panels so I would not to face total defeat.
I returned and studied the view and decided that what was directly in front of me what the motif I was going to work on since it was so breathtakingly inspiring in golden atmospheric light. There were rabbits and many area birds, but as usual, the best part is when I see the Egrets with their pristine pearlescent plumage dotting the velvet emerald green salt marsh grasses.
I spent a couple of minutes just imagining the scene before me already completed on the panel, and then I made my first strokes.
Initially I had planned to finish this painting alla prima, but it didnt turn out that way today. Two women decided to sit down on the bench right behind my head and begin their two-hour long private conversation about their housing difficulties and what they were going to do about them. Evidently, not caring who could hear what they were saying, they continued on their cell phones also talking with their lawyers yatta yatta yatta ….
It proved to be one of the ultimate tests of a plein air painters patience, devotion and perseverance. Well, these are the challenges of plein air painting. Over two hours later when I packed up and left the site, I could see from across the road, that they were still engaged conversing about their ongoing saga.
The next day I returned to the site and continued by adding in more of the elements that inspired me initially.
After returning home, I realized that the painting needed the most important element. The Egrets.
I completed this painting entirely en plein air, but only added the Egrets later in the studio, because I wanted them to be placed just right with no mess-up.
Salt Marsh Egrets 9x12 plein air oil on linen panel
