My plein air adventure was a hike back to Little Bear Lake in Sierra County Bear Lakes Loop Trail where my grandson, Rollin and I took a hike and picnic a couple of weeks ago.
It is so green, amazing! is this the California in summer? Yes, indeed! in the high country it is very green, I didn’t see a dry blade of grass, all green.
Flowers everywhere, so amazing!
What an inspiring place to paint. I ended up here about 7 am and in fact I wished that I arrived more like 6 am but I didn’t get the rest that I needed so I slept in a bit.
I wasn’t very happy with my rock. I had such a difficult time with my rock and I am good with rocks! I still liked the rest of the painting, the lighting on the water was beautiful and I was able to depict it quite nicely.
Guess what? Those rocks were giving me trouble….again. I HATE those two rocks but at least it was fun trying to paint the rest of the scene.
I truly enjoyed painting this one though the smoky skies were hard to paint. I found that I wished I had more complexity with the trees. I had an artist angst of sorts yesterday and I hated this painting. Today I am warming up to it.
For such a complex painting, I decided to paint it without a line of drawing but now I wished I had! It was like trying to put a puzzle together. That tree (hate that tree) was a hard one to paint because of that angle but here it is, flaws and all! It was an experiment of sorts.
I was getting tired by now but determined to soldier through. I figured why drive up here and hike out this far and paint only a few paintings.
I decided to go loose and crazy. I painted this one in a mere 2 minutes. It doesn’t look like much but when I put it under a mat, it popped with color and vibrancy. What I initially hated turned out to be something that I like very much.
At the end of the trail for this post. I plan on going back before the end of the season before the snow flies and they close off the road. I want to come back and get a better painting experience in this wonderful part of the country.
I have a continuing problem that crops up occasionally in which I castigate myself and my art and it reared its’ ugly head the last few days. I know that eventually I will get to the bottom of this and throw it out for good! I can only hope.
My Learning Points:
- Rendering complex scenes doesn’t necessarily make a painting better, simplicity can be golden.
- Paring down my equipment is a must, this hike wasn’t necessarily long but the elevation made it more strenuous.
- By golly, it is just art! Lighten up!
- Good for me, I took only a pint of water (just in case the lakes were dry!) in the past, I would take a quart or more when hiking to paint the river, go figure.
