Shady Spot

My plein air painting buddies and I headed out to a nearby park the other morning. It's a beautiful spot with gorgeous scenes to paint in every direction, but finally we decided to paint this stand of Arbutus trees. We all love Arbutus trees for their beautiful red peeling bark and often wind twisted trunks. Unfortunately there is a disease striking these trees, and many of them are having to be removed. So in honour of these west coast beauties, we all started painting. A short time later, a photographer arrived and informed us that a wedding party would be arriving soon, and they would need the entire area. We promised we would leave, and started painting with great speed, trying to get down the necessary lights and darks. I think he misinterpreted our zealous painting, and thought we were going to be problem painters, because he kept coming back and giving us a countdown. We were gone before the first of the happy wedding party arrived and we all finished our paintings at home. I had trouble differentiating the tree foliage in the midground with the shrubs and trees in the background. We may just have to go back to that spot again, but never on a Saturday! :-)

Shady Spot