Spring Training

Saturday morning was pretty cool. I was painting in the Florida sunshine with my buddy Joe Miller, on a sidewalk outside a baseball park, just an hour before the first pitch. He and I were in Ft. Myers, FL painting the City of Palms Park, home of the Boston Red Sox every March since 1993.

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 I put the final touches on the Hohokam park painting today. I mainly shortened the shadow and put in some highlights.

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 I've updated the Hohokam painting. There are just a couple more things I'd like to do, but it is much closer this time. It is amazing how much more you can do in the studio on a dry painting, as opposed to en plein air. And yes, I had a snooty look on my face as I wrote en plein air. I think it is required. But the big drawback in the studio, in addition to not being there, is that you can't look at the subject. I don't like to work from photos too much, and didn't have any good ones to use in this case.

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 I'm so excited that Spring has finally arrived.  I like all the seasons, and I love to paint snow, but I much prefer to paint the awesome new greens and assortment of wildflowers that we will see in a few weeks. I am also looking forward to more opportunities to go camping, hiking and expanded day light hours.

To get a head start on the season each year, my uncle Andrew Oppmann and I attend Major League Baseball's Spring Training. We rotate between the camps in both Arizona and Florida. I don't follow baseball as closely as I used to, so for me it is mainly a long weekend of sitting outside and drinking beer. This was our 17th trip, and were accompanied by my father-In-law Bill Cummings, and our friends Andy Rubin and David Batten.

This year I decided to paint one of the parks we visited, something I now plan to do each year. I chose the Cubs' Hohokam Park, which has been recently renovated. Andrew joined me and we found a spot outside the outfield fence. Getting a view into the park wasn't as easy as I thought, but what I found was better than a scene of the outside of the stadium. Hohokam is nice, but it isn't as scenic as the Rose Bowl.

On the blog is the painting with some touch-ups via Photoshop that will be similar to some adjustments I plan to make on the original (in oils) this weekend. I'll show the finished piece in a week or so. Much like my Rose Bowl painting, I really enjoyed watching the preparation of the day from those putting on the game. When I paint landscapes, I strive to express what it is like to be there, in the moment, and doing so with an event such as a ballgame makes it even more immediate.

After the rest of the crew departed for the airport, I went up to South Mountain Regional Park. It was nice to paint a nature park, which I'm more used to, after the challenge of a ball park. South Mountain claims to be the largest municipal park in the country, and it is only about ten miles from the Phoenix airport. This was mighty convenient for me, as I dropped off Andrew and Andy at the terminal early on Tuesday, then headed there. I quickly found a great trail (The National Trail), hiked a bit, then did this piece. In the distant valley is downtown Phoenix. I plan to do a few more modifications to this piece also this weekend, but not much. I just want to tweak a few cacti, and I have to remove some debris that got on the painting when I was travelling.

So after a great weekend of friends, sports and a great painting hike, I returned to Atlanta and I'm ready for the warm weather to stay a bit longer than it did this weekend. I'm really looking forward to getting back up into the hills on North Georgia this year. 

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