"A Morning at Snook Haven", 12x16, oil on board by Maryanne Jacobsen, plein air, Myakka River, river scenes, Snook Haven, Old Florida

"A Morning at Snook Haven", 12x16, oil on board

Today the Light Chasers painted at Snook Haven, an Old Florida style park on the Myakka River that has canoeing, a restaurant, a stage featuring live music and , of course Snook.

Whether of not the snook were biting is beyond me as I was too busy painting the river scene below:

 I finished most of it onsite, but tightened it up a bit when I got home. You can see that I realized that I'd misjudged the lighted portion of the river towards the top and adjusted it at home once I saw the photo of the scene:

It was an especially great day, for two reasons!


Number one: Fellow artist Terry Mason and I got to see our friend Jane Sither again! We had met Jane at the Calvin Liang workshop back in March and Jane traveled quite a distance to paint with our group today! Jane, we are so happy you were there! Please join us again very soon!!!!!!!!!!




Jane is a fabulous painter! She adores plein air painting and her dedication is obvious. She nailed these two canoes in only two hours!

After we'd all painted we had some lunch at The Snook Haven restaurant. Although the service was slow, it didn't stop us from having some fun! Man, not only do we paint well: we dance better than the Broad Street Mummers , too!

                                                                                                    Here's the group of us relieved to have finally rec'd our lunch. Diane Mannion is sitting next to me and she just took the Top Prize at The Women Painter's of the Southeast first annual juried show for her painting, "Mahogany Woman". I was so happy to see Diane receive this award last Saturday night at The Course Gallery in Jacksonville!

The second exciting thing that happened today is that I am now the proud owner of an original Terry Mason painting! Terry is a wonderful artist, totally committed to plein air and representational art, and the fearless leader of the Suncoast Plein Air painters, aka The Light Chasers! Terry painted the same scene that I did from a different angle, and you can see she did a great job with that old boat they use in Terry's river cruises! (It's a different Terry, of course!) :

I love everything about this painting and it now joins my small collection of art of artists I admire, which includes Hodges Soileau, Clayton Beck, Julie Hanson and some of favorite fellow daily painters including Dreama Tolle Perry, Karen Brunson, Julie Oliver and Karen Margulis!

I just love days like this!