March 4, 2012 - I went back to William B Pond, with my
family this time, on a lazy Sunday afternoon (the plus side of having a mild
winter). I found a nice quiet spot on
the bank by the “Islands” just down river from the bike trail bridge. I liked the contrast of nature and
architecture in this view.
I really did not
spend a lot of time working on reflection on this painting. One of the hardest parts of watercolor is
having patience enough to wait for areas of the painting to dry enough so it
doesn’t bleed when I add another layer. When I first started to add reflection,
it bled into the water…not the effect I was going for but let’s make all the
reflections blurred to match the first one!
I really played with adding an abstract background. I
avoided drawing individual trees but put in clumps of color to imply groups of
trees. The bridge was a challenge because I couldn’t figure out the color of
concrete. In hind sight, I should have just left it a negative space with a few
lines to show the shadows because the black is too dark. This will be a spot to
return to later to try that!
The geese were all over the place this day and I almost
painted one or two right into the foreground. There’s space in that large area
of blue at the bottom. But I had no idea
how to draw geese so I did a little “study of a goose” painting.
After I had packed up my painting supplies (which takes
about 2 minutes) my family wanted to walk around and see the other areas of the
park. We headed over to the fishing pier
by the pond. There on the pier were two other painters doing the same thing I
was doing – bringing their paints outside and painting in nature! I couldn’t
believe their set up—chairs, easels on tripods, paints and paintbrushes galore.
Although I had been working with a minimalist approach when it came to my
supplies, I was quite impressed. One was
working with acrylic, which I had never ventured into trying, even back in
college. The other artist, who was working in watercolor, was doing a study of
the geese! They were quite inspiring on that day. After talking to them a bit and watching over
their shoulder as they painted (I appreciated this because I know having
someone watch as I paint is quite nerve-racking), they told me that they were
there because of a Meet-Up group called Plein Aire Painters. I had never even heard of Meet-Up at this
time, and up until this point I was just saying I was painting outside. Now I
had a name for what I was doing and apparently there was a group of people in
Sacramento that was doing the same thing! So I was anxious to get home and check it out!
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