The weather this morning was gray,  murky & around 75 degrees.  We had rain early this morning and things were still wet and dripping by the time I left home, a little after 8:30 am.  Heavy mist was in the air by the time I got to Linkfield Rd, so I found a place to work where I could sit in my car.  I chose this spot on the roadside heading north, at the top of the hill, next to an apple orchard.  I haven’t painted in this spot for many years, although at one time it was a favorite, especially in the winter.  Color was barely discernable here today;  the farther away trees and hills were obscured in mist.

I used my own mixture of Black to do the value pattern.  The paper started out sopping wet and as it dried, I worked in increasing heavier amounts of the dark pigment.  To keep the values low, to match the day and the value pattern on the painting, I mixed another gray – warmer, more colorful but still a low tone, using UB (Ultramarine Blue) and BS (Burnt Sienna).  I used this gray with a tiny bit more added UB to do the sky, used the UB/BS gray mixed with color to do the foreground tree, grass and roadway.

I’m not terribly happy with the painting, but am happy that I went there to do it, happy that I learned something new even if I’m not crazy about the result.  It was 2 hours that went by very quickly.  When I was done, I stepped out of the car to take a few video shots.  I’d shot some video scenes when I first got there and 2 hours later, a whole lot was more visible.  I saw the jogger come up from the top of the hill and heard him breathing somewhat heavily as he got closer but it wasn’t until he shouted out “Hey Lady, fancy running into you here!” that I recognized the jogger as my landlord.  He’s training for a half-K Marathon and apparently Linkfield Rd is part of his training territory.  It was fun running into him this way and nice to talk honestly to him about the problem we’re both having with one of his tenants.

So, like a day of fishing, not so exciting a fish – er, painting but glad I went and tried.  I enjoyed my time while I was working on it, enjoyed running into my landlord, enjoyed making a lot more videos of certain areas of the farm and had a really nice lunch time with my mother, so all in all, a good day.