The perils of plein air.

"RAIN....rocks, surf, and sand on the West Coast"

   I have always had a love of New Zealand's South Island and especially the West Coast. With beautiful beaches, rocky outcrops, pounding surf, and beautiful native bush down to the shoreline, it's a painter's delight.
  Mind you, you can't always say the same about its weather!
  With four painter friends, I spent ten days up there just recently. The first two were glorious – perfect painting weather. The rest .... rain and mist, but with occasional glimpses of hope on the horizon.It was a good time of fellowship but disappointing from a painting point of view.

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  So.....despite there being no wet weather  bonus pay, we decided to get out there and do some work anyway.
 I think one of the essential qualities of a painter is persistence – born out of passion – almost to the point of stupidity!
  It's like any activity that demands a high degree of skill –you can't afford to rest on your laurels. If you want to do well, you need to push through the hard times. As if there weren't enough of those times! Just the usual difficulties with tone, design and colour,etc, are usually enough, but then we needed to contend with the conditions as well.
  As you can see from the top photo, you can produce a painting on a wet day but it's not easy. The lighting is dull so that everything is flat and lifeless. It becomes difficult to find nice colour in the subject. The wet brushes become floppy and the oil paints become an emulsion on the palette – hard to mix and difficult to apply to the canvas. (You can't actually see in the photo but the painting was completely wet with drops of water running off the bottom. Fortunately, it doesn't penetrate the oils and they dry perfectly normally.)
  I was disappointed with my effort but decided to keep it anyway. At the time, I just wanted to get out of the rain! 
 However, nicely comfortable back at home, I've had a fresh look at the painting and can see definite hope. I like the rock formation and the sea certainly feels stormy - it carries the flavour of the day. Perhaps one or two seagulls on the beach to create a point of interest and I might have a successful painting for my efforts. 
 There was light at the end of the tunnel ...... I'm feeling better already!!

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