Summer!

What to do on the first, hot, day of summer? Why, paint of course. Even though the temperature was 92 degrees, I went to Canterbury Shaker Village, thinking that I could find some shade and that there might be a breeze up on the hill. Right on both counts! I also pulled up a chair in an attempt to save my energy in the heat. 

There are cows at the Village this year. When I arrived, mid-morning, they were all walking around munching grass.

A few hours later, they had flaked out and were lying around like a bunch of hot hounds. 

There was water available for them. 

The gardens are smaller this year, but still beautiful. They aren't growing any vegetables, from what I could see. 

Here's a closeup of those poppies near the barn. 

A lot of the plantings are medicinal herbs and other useful stuff. Everything is labeled, so there's something to learn. 

One of my favorite flowers. These old-fashioned roses smell wonderful! 

Shaker Village

Here's a work-in-progress that I started a couple of days ago at Canterbury Shaker Village. It's a view up past the Sisters' house, where there were some wonderful old-fashioned pink roses by the doorway. The painting progressed further, but i forgot to take another photo before I packed up. I still have some adjusting to do along the rooflines, so that they're not "kissing" in the middle. This is the painting at about the halfway point. It was a beautiful day with perfect weather and no bugs!

Garden Sheds

In spite of all the rain, I've been out to paint a few times. Here's a little study I did of the garden sheds at Canterbury Shaker Village on one of our recent sunny days. I'll use it as reference for a larger painting later. It's 6" x 8" in oils on RayMar linen panel.

Plein Airless

Working in acrylics outdoors proved to be almost impossible. The paint dried way too quickly, even though I was working pretty fast. I did 5 little studies, from 6" x 6" to 6" x 8", in as many hours. As you can see by the above example, I didn't get further than an underpainting. The very next day, I learned that there's a new product on the market as of July 1, Golden Open Acrylics, that promises to remain wet for hours or even days. I'd really like something in-between, paint that would remain open for a couple of hours. It could be worked into wet-in-wet for awhile, then allowed to dry and worked over. I now  have some gel retarder that I'll try with the regular acrylics before investing in a whole new gamut of paint colors. A couple of days after the painting trip to Shaker Village, I scanned that little underpainting into the computer and did a kind of fun experiment that I'll post tomorrow.