and again!

I have been doing other things besides plein air painting these last few weeks, but not documenting that work yet, so here we go: another plein air blog post.

Today we went out past Okotoks, sorta near the junction of hwy 549 and rr 338, just above the Sheep River valley.  Beautiful spot, filled with the type of Alberta prairie stuff I love - lots of long wild grasses and flowers of all sorts, very meadow-y and beautiful, a bit damp yet, but much to our surprise no mosquitoes!  After all that rain!  Lucky us.

the view

the preliminary sketch

Dirty camera lens, heh.  Still, good for field shots  :)

the palette

In addition to these colours I used raw sienna and cadmium green, finding I needed to warm things up a bit mid-way through.  Around 7pm things go a bit more gold...

the almost-completed work

I wound up altering this one a wee bit after we got home.

before, in the field

Above, what it looked like when we packed up to go.  

Below, what it looks like now: 

after, on the back deck

The main change I made was to the top edge of the trees at left, and a bit of the hillside beyond.  I also brightened those dabs of blue in the foreground - a slough with just a bit of water showing through the long, darker grasses.

It's not often I change a painting after leaving the field, and I can only really do it with any degree of authenticity immediately we arrive home, while my memory of the place is very fresh.

That last one I quite like.  Sometimes the old camera gets the focus bang-on.