If a tree falls in the woods…

I did this little pastel this past Saturday during our Saturday Plein Air Painters meeting. I started in on my painting and looked up to see a doe looking back right through the light I was trying to capture. She is not quite there in the painting. Just as she seemed real, she moseyed on into a dark patch.

"Light in the Woods"  approx 7x5

Painting plein air is a recording of a place and time. The light changes. The shadows move. The sky grows cloudy. The temps go up and down. The wind blows. Critters grace the painting with their presence. It can't be replicated - that moment in time. It is a record of a couple of hours and then the world turns again, on into a different space and time. 

And that… is why I paint outdoors.

We worked at a classic Adirondack camp that has been in the same hands for 60 years. The property had suffered a bit of blow down in the most recent storms that have swept across the 'Dacks this summer. A huge white pine was down from the roots up, narrowly missing "The Studio".

For more information about Saturday Plein Air Painters contact me: deleifheit@gmail.com

And the good news is…

Busy? Yeah a little. Doing work that pays for the work I love doing has gotten on the heavy side of the seesaw. But the good news is some things pay off, in their own way. I wrote earlier this year about the Mapping the Familiar project I was a part of. I am pleased to say my map "An Incidence of Bridges" has been accepted for publication in Strokes of Genius 5 to be published next fall 2013. I had entered a piece - "Dreamland", that had been published in the first Strokes of Genius several years ago. So that is some of the good news.

Other good news is I have a well attended one day workshop coming up at the Hyde Collection next week. It got switched from the 10th to the 31st. I am gathering my thoughts on how to get across the idea of the joy of painting plein air, how to work in pastel, about choosing a scene that one adjusts for composition, color and value - all in one day. Stay tuned for that.

Other workshops are filling including the Adirondack Plein Air 5-Day Workshop at White Pine Camp  in September.

Workshops and Saturday Plein Air Painters keep me charged up. I have to do it and while others benefit from the workshops and the painting, I feel like it is all just for me. By getting these events going and being immersed in the work and the painting, I feel like I get more out of it than the participants. I hope that my enthusiasm catches others and it gets into their own work.

I do need to get back to the other work. I will make a better attempt at writing a bit and more often.

I'll leave you with a couple of images quite opposite each other but both from my hand.
An Incidence of Bridges and Dreamland.