Amana day 2

Another hot 90+ day. Used two umbrellas on my morning picture! One for me and one for the palette. Guess I was in a tree mood today  - this row of apple trees looked appealing in the morning light and I've always wanted to try something like Sargent did in his Corfu olive tree pictures.

It would appear he did those trees in a 3 step process:
1. Big shapes of color corresponding to the foliage at the back and center of the tree or group of trees. This paint is laid in fairly thin and the sky holes are placed with thick paint into those big shapes.
2. Branches on top of that
3. The closer, individual leaves done in broken strokes with thicker paint over that.
Simple super -imposition of layers: Farthest first, closest last. Works for me...I like it better than the usual chunky, blocky trees I tend to do. That's OK for distant groups - but less tree-like for close in images.
In the afternoon I went after a lone apple tree with lots of dead branches mixed in with the live ones. John Evans did a KILLER pastel version of the same tree in the morning.

You'll notice I removed 1/32 of a mile of highway 151. I was happy with the day's tree experiments but I'm no Sargent yet.
After pizza with Jeff Allen, Barb Grimmer, Jessica Kirby and Gin Lammert we went night painting on the streets in Main Amana. I learned not to pick a subject facing east as it all just goes black. Virtually no difference between sky, building and trees...just glaring street lamps floating in a dark sea. Paint and learn...
Tomorrow is framing time and then the quick-paint event followed by dinner and the awards celebration. There are a lot of paint buddies who are here but who I haven't caught up with yet - that will be the time to do it.