Well, the last two paintings I attempted were two more forays into speed painting. The first, which is shown here, was done in about twenty minutes. We were at the Rocky Mountain National Park on the Ute Trail. The view was sublime and the spot I was at was over 12,000 feet above sea level. I think it was my first
painting above the tree line.
The temperature was cool but very nice. The mountains reminded you of a scene from The Sound of Music. I talked to a couple of park rangers about my work. Kate and her folks were going to hike the
Ute Trail, so I had a good couple of wonderful painting hours in front of me. Except for those dark clouds off in the distance. They had me a bit concerned.
The clouds came up quickly. I adjusted my painting speed accordingly. I furiously mixed paints and slung them across the canvas. I saw Kate and her parents coming back on the trail after just being away about ten minutes. My brush was flying across the canvas and as soon as Kate got to where I was set up, I started packing up.
About the time I got the last few items into my pack, a crack of thunder struck. Then it started to rain. Kate and I ran down the trail. Before we got to the car, it began to hail. Alas, the perfect painting session was cut a bit short by Mama Nature. They aren't common, but this was another day that I was very irritated at Ma Nature's mood swings.
The next outing didn't produce a painting, at least not yet. I may work on it later, not sure. The last day, Kate and I returned to the Rabbit Ears Pass Trail where we had hiked earlier in the week. There was a particular spot that had an incredible vista.
Kate painted with me this time, and I was very happy that she was starting to paint with me. We both got set up, and I was excited because there was not a storm cloud to be seen. Perfect sunny day, great light, lots of beautiful wildflowers, perfect temperature and we had the whole afternoon.
Then a couple of mosquitos bit us. We had sprayed ourselves with repellant before we came out, but these two suckers found the spots that weren't sprayed. Then about the time I had a few strokes on the canvas, eight billion mosquitos attacked us. Not the huge Texas or Georgia mosquitos, but little bitty S.O.B.s.
At first I was going to fight through it, but then they started biting through my clothes. Kate packed up and walked around to shake some of them off. I then threw in the towel and packed up. As I was packing, tens of them were on my face. It was as if they were saying "Get the hell out of here! We hate plein air painting!"
We ran back to the car and decided just to go hiking (if you were moving, the pests didn't seem to attack you). I was slightly disappointed, but the vacation was so great it really didn't bother me. I was very pissed off at the mosquito nation. And made a note of yet another outdoor painting device I need - a bee keeper's suit.
Submitted by donthacker on Sun, 2010-07-18 10:18
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