Round mound and Nevada beach revised

Frequently when I am painting outdoors, I miss details that I don't notice until I get back to my studio. This painting of Round Mound and Nevada Beach was one of those that needed a little revision once I got back indoors, especially since toward the end, I was focused more on the impending storm than the painting.
My original plan was to have the painting's focus be on the clouds and they just weren't capturing my eye, so I reworked them to be a little more eye-catching. Of course I also realized if I don't want the viewer to focus on the hill and beach, I would need to rename it as well...Impending Summer Storm

Round Mound and Nevada Beach

So I decided to find a spot without the crowds..a tough thing to do anywhere along Lake Tahoe. I went for a walk starting at Lakeside Beach and went past the No Trespassing signs (with fine print that says "ok to pass at waters edge"). I found a nice shady spot under a tree, and started to paint Round Mound...yes, that's the official name, I looked it up.  My main focus of this painting was the clouds (but I did get caught in the trees). The thunderheads were building quick, and you can tell by the how dark it got that I finished just in time.

Plain air painting at Lakeside Beach

Trying to escape the heat, my family headed up to South Lake Tahoe. The scenery up there never disappoints. One of our favorite beaches is Lakeside Beach. Although the beach can get pretty crowded, if you get there before noon, it's not to bad. I scoped out a spot back among the trees to avoid getting any more sunburned than I had the day before and started to paint. Already the sunbathers were out and I had to determine how many of them would make it into my painting.
I narrowed it down to three although my original sketch had 5. Painting subjects while they are moving around is quite a challenge, and although these sunbathers didn't move around too much, it was enough. I'm not sure I'm happy with the composition of the painting. I need to crop out some of the sand. The focus of the painting is also unclear: the lake and mountains, the sailboat, the sunbathers, the clouds?

Kiva beach, plein aire

There are so many opportunities to paint plein air at Lake Tahoe, sometimes I get overwhelmed. I just want to soak it in mentally, take pictures, and say I'll do it later at home. That defeats the purpose of plein air though. So on a beautiful fall afternoon, I finally decided on a spot out on the Camp Richardson pier...the beach was all shady and cold. The sun seemed to be going down really quick and the shadows were changing even quicker. I did the majority of this piece in an hour. When I was finished, I was looking straight into the sun.
My goal was to make it look like the foreground trees were all in shadow with the light filtering through. I tweaked the details a little more once I was home. I think I could have gone even darker for the shadows, but I always worry it will go too dark and lose the color. 

The fun part of this was that every 10 minutes or so, people would be walking down the pier, stop and watch for a few minutes, make a few comments to each other about my painting and then keep walking. At first it was a little intimidating but then I got over myself and enjoyed the commentary.