BWS Paint Out

Yesterday I was to the beautiful rolling hills of Maryland horse country for an outing of painting with some members of the Baltimore Water Color Society. Our hosts graciously opened their grounds for about twenty artists to tramp around, photograph and paint. Southern Living had been there just days before to take photos for a future issue. The gardens were in glorious color, the house, barn and out buildings were a Tom Sawyer white washed clean that sparkled in the morning sun. No humidity, light breeze, clear sky...what I call a "water color day".

As part of the 125 year celebration of the founding of BWS, we were treated to a demo by Stewart White. Stewart is a well known artist from the B'more area with many,many awards for his plein air paintings. He does architectural renderings as his day job.

This was my set up. I had things laid out , ready to go to work and even had the scene sketched in and was watching the demo when I turned around to see "Sophie" aka "Princess" lapping up the water from my container. Just like home. :)

Here is Stewarts finished demo piece.

And here, an informal critique before heading home.

Second from right is my friend Debi Watson. She wrote on her blog afterwards that plein air painting isn't for whimps, citing the bugs, heat, etc, etc. Debi is an aclaimed watercolorist but who preferrs the studio to plein air painting. This was my first serious outting probably since college and I have to say I rather enjoyed being outside, esp. with a group of other painters... hmmm...perhaps a workshop tour someday?

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