I just loved painting in the rain at White Rock Lake, Dallas, yesterday. Amusingly, for a ‘retreat’, 30,000 other people chose to go on the same rainy Saturday for the March of Dimes, which raises money for premature baby research and treatment.
This is a snapshot of the painting from my iPhone. It’s not great image but it is quite representative.
The lake looked white, as did the sky, with undertones of grey and just a shimmer of purple. The distant shoreline stretched taut across the horizon line, a collection of greys, blues and multifarious greens. The challenge I set myself was to paint in the same way I sketch. This painting took a little under an hour, when I was interrupted by fat, heavy raindrops from that misty sky. Nevertheless, it is my favourite en plein air painting I’ve done. I love the details to the right and left, fading the shorline into indistinct haziness, to focus the eye on the center of the shore, thus creating the illusion of a circular edge to the lake as intended.
I am also pleased with the way I handled the foliage and details of the shore itself, and the colour palette.
I intend to go back and make some more of this lake, before the Texas heat kicks in and the sun bleaches the state into a different one altogether.