Met three people from the plein air group at Roaring Rapids in Springfield on Friday. This view is from the Roaring Rapids Pizza patio which overlooks the river and solves the problem of where to paint by the river and have fresh water and bathroom close at hand. But, the view was so tremendous I had a little trouble not freaking out at trying to paint it. Finally I just painted part of it, away from the rapids which I couldn't even begin to think how to paint...so my view was just of the area along the far shore which was a little tamer. Spent a fair amount of time on the first one, being very careful (it's actually called "Roaring Rapids 2" here, even though it was the first one I painted...go figure). Then, I decided to just quickly do another one before I had to leave. I think, because I wasn't being so careful, and I was playing more, it came out better ("Roaring Rapids, without the 2").
While I was waiting to pick up Phoenix for soccer I did a quick drawing in a coffee shop and then added paint to it during her practice. So the colors aren't true to the real place.
When I was taking the paintings across the street to go up to my apartment, someone on the street asked me if I was an artist and if he could see the paintings. I started apologizing about them before he even looked at them and said I was just learning to paint. He looked at "Roaring Rapids" and said "Oh, that's out at Roaring Rapids, isn't it?" Whew, I guess I captured the essence of it anyway.
This is so much fun.
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