Usually I am a morning person - I like to be up and out the door early, especially since parks here in Colorado are crowded by 10am. On this particular day, it was late in the afternoon when the spark of inspiration struck. I grabbed all of my gear already packed, refilled my water for painting, and headed out the door. When I arrived, only three cars remained at the park; A very lucky start! I scouted around for a shady spot and set up.
Materials in the above photo: custom wood platform, watercolor easel, viewfinder, bamboo brush holder, paper prop, watercolor sketch pad, earbuds, water container, palette, old paper towel that keeps the palette moist and alive between outings.
What to paint? This is one of the hard parts. There are so many things to look at it can be completely overwhelming. The easiest way is to "flatten" the 3D image into a 2D one using the viewfinder, like so:
When I am painting, this is what my palette looks like (below). I pull the colors from the wells on the right side, then add in different colors as I adjust the hue and consistency of the paint to suit the wash (aka layer) I need to apply.
Example: Let's say I start with green to paint a tree. If I want to warm up the color because the tree is in the sun, I add yellow. If I want to cool the color because the tree is in the shade, I add blue. If I want to desaturate the color because it is too loud, I add red.
If everything goes right, I end up with a painting like this:
I had the park to myself for the remainder of the afternoon, except for one excited volunteer ranger that came to say hi - apparently they were watching me through their binoculars. She even suggested some good spots to try next time.
The air was still as the sun set, which was ideal because wind is not the painter's friend out here. All in all, this was one of the best days of plein air painting I've ever had. Beautiful colors, no crowds, no wind... sometimes the best days come from spontaneous decisions, and the luck I had painting while enjoying nature boosted my confidence for the next outing.