leaf day

The weather this weekend was so warm!  Feels like spring is really here: buds on the trees, birds building nests and temperatures around 20C.  

Way too nice out to be working indoors, so I took my gear outside and set up in a corner of the yard.  First time I've worked on large canvases outdoors.

Working under the open sky brings such a feeling of spaciousness!  
Instead of the ground-level view from my basement studio windows, I could see a lot of street lights, utility poles and wires, a few rooftops with furnace vents and other bits... and I didn't have to move carefully to avoid hitting the ceiling when moving my paintings around.

In one fell swoop, I have become a convert of outdoor painting, haha.  
True, I have been painting landscapes en plein-air for a couple of years now, but this - large canvases, semi-abstract, imagined urban imagery - is totally different from making 10x10 studies of rivers, fields and trees.  

Not sure how it will be when the temps hit 30C, but for now I'm planning to work outdoors as much as possible.

After an intense weekend of almost non-stop painting, my husband and I went for a walk last night - and look, the leaves are out!!  

It's finally leaf day!

:)