Belleville Park

Had some nice paintable clouds at Belleville last week (they didn't move away too fast). I showed this painting to my wife and she said: "good, so far".  "So far?", I replied, "it's finished". "No, it isn't" she insisted. She thinks all the green trees and grass need more definition. I usually listen to my wife.  ;-) but, I dunno.

Annual Pot Luck August 15th - Painting at Cherokee Park 8am

We will meet to paint at Cherokee Park in Madison (not Cherokee Marsh) https://www.cityofmadison.com/parks/find-a-park/park.cfm?id=1185  This year Joan Sieber's is hosting us at her home near the park.  More details will be posted closer to the date.  Many thanks to Joan for hosting us this year and to Marla Brenner for hosting us in years past.  This is always a really fun and well attended event so we hope to see lots of painters there!  

Next Plein Air Painting dates: July 24 and August 8

We will paint on July 24th @ Belleville Community Park @ 4:30pm and August 8th @ Creek Bed Farm @8am.  See Events Calendar for details.

One More Indian Lake Painting

Here's Marla's painting from the last outing. A rather peaceful scene.

Indian Lake Sunset - June 11th

About 8:30 pm

Pam attempting a quick sunset

Nearly finished

My quick watercolor sunset

Around 6pm

Indian Lake County Park outing

It is a great location, with some nice views from the shelter itself. So convenient and lots of options to paint ! 

Indian Lake - Evening Plein Air Painting - this Thursday July 11th 4:30pm

We will paint on Thursday evening this week with hopefully much better weather than last weekend.  Looks like the last relatively cool day for awhile, too.  Sunsets will probably be hazy and maybe colorful due to the wildfires up north in Canada.  My sketchbook painting was a quickie watercolor done at sunset last year when we painted there on May 29th.  The other sketch  was from March 11, 2018 when there was still snow on the ground.  It's my favorite sketch of the lake.  I sat next to my car in the parking lot .  I remember how great it felt to be out there painting again with a hint of spring in the air.  I think painting or even doing just a quick sketch can preserve memories so much better than a photo ever does.  I really like the softcover Stillman & Birn sketchbooks.  They lay nice and flat.  These both have cold press watercolor paper; the Alpha is 90 lb and the Beta is 140 lb.   The 90 lb paper holds up really well with wet media and either ink or graphite.  They also make great hardcover sketchbooks that lat flat pretty well but not in the 8 x 10 size which I really like.  The company also makes sketchbooks with really nice smooth paper more like hot press watercolor paper and has choices of bright white, ivory and also tan or grey.  They are some of my favorite sketchbooks.  (Obviously, I am kind of a sketchbook junkie!)  See you Thursday!  Pat

Watercolor in Stillman & Birn  8x10 Softcover Beta Sketchbook

Watercolor and Tombow markers in Stillman & Birn 8x10 Softcover Alpha Sketchbook

New Life Lavender Farm

The weather took a turn for the worse on Saturday and so we only had about 6 painters show up.  There was a very light drizzle almost all morning.  We kept thinking it would end but it didn't. But it was light enough that we were mostly able to paint by using umbrellas for shelter.

I'm attaching a really nice painting that Marla Brenner did of the surrounding country side rather than the lavender fields.  I couldn't quite finish my painting on site but then worked on it at home.  I did try to include lavender fields but the result looks sort of weird to me. But I'm posting it anyway. I might title it the "Violet Rectangle".

Following painting a few of us had a nice lunch at the Driftless Glen Distillery in Baraboo.

Tom

Doug Haynes Painting

Doug Haynes is visiting Korea right now and even thought that's out of Dane County I thought I'd post this really cool painting of his.

Schumacher Farm Park - June 26th

My pastel on Pastelmat

Marla's finished oil painting