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"Mister Chris", plein air, 14x11, oil on linen
I feel as though it's been ages since I have written in my blog! The past couple months have been a whirlwind of Paint-outs, paintings and plein air workshops, and I will confess that I am tired!
I truly enjoyed my back to back workshops with
Katie Dobson Cundiff,
Kim English and last week with
Morgan Samuel Price, and I do feel that the expert teaching and all the plein air painting that I did has helped me gain confidence in my future plein air endeavors.
The above painting was painted this past Tuesday at the quaint old
Cortez fishing Village in scenic Cortez, Florida. It is very hard to find a place with so many amazing birds, little islands with mangrove trees and fish shacks, and turquoise waters filled with old working fishing boats galore! There are scenic views of Longboat Key, Bradenton Beach, and Sarasota Bay (north end) and even a crazy restaurant (I say crazy because the rules are more in line with Seinfeld's Soup Nazi then a traditional seafood restaurant!) that serves some really fresh seafood straight off the dock! I will confess that eating at the
Starfish Company restaurant is an experience, but not necessarily one I would want to repeat during spring break or snow bird season!
In order to paint this boat, called the Mister Chris, I had to stand for a few hours on a rickety old dock in the blazing sun, smelling gasoline fumes from the rags in the boat docked next to me, and hoping to remember that if I stepped backwards the wrong way, I'd end up in Sarasota Bay. Yeah, it was fun!
I am going to work a lot more on water reflections in the future, but Morgan's workshop was very helpful in teaching us how to capture these tricky reflections. This painting is part of the "Paint the Town" Paint-out exhibit and can be seen along with many other gorgeous plein air paintings at
Art Center Manatee through May3rd. If you are in the area,stop by and see the paintings created by some of the area's finest plein air artists.
