Rainy days and Mondays....

Rain.  Ugh.  Who wants to paint IN THE RAIN?????   Still, I set up my easel because my painting buddy wanted to go ahead, while all I wanted was to go ahead with was finding a hot coffee somewhere.

Lesson # 1 - YOU CAN'T ALWAYS GET WHAT YOU WANT

I had waited all week to get out painting, and had made arrangements with my friend to get together and paint this area, and it was supposed to be nice out.  I wanted sunshine, birds, and NO precipitation.

Lesson #2 -BUT IF YOU TRY SOME TIMES....

The Samoans have an poignant saying:  "Never judge a day by the weather".  There are a few advantages to painting in the rain - no sunburn, no bugs, consistent light, saturated colors.  Hmmm....maybe I can work with this.   I had an umbrella, after all.

Lesson #3 - YOU GET WHAT YOU NEED

What I needed was a lesson in working on an overcast/wet day.  Working with the constant light made things easier and  working with the saturated colors was great fun - so many different greens; it was tricky, but interesting.  The paint flowed easily with the humidity in the air.   During the last ten minutes of painting,  a ray of sunlight filtered through the cloud layers and hit the cliffs.  I debated including it because it only lasted a few seconds, and I didn't know if my visual memory would serve me well enough to pull it off; in the end, I think it was a good choice.

I plopped a suggestion of a road in the foreground to lead the eye in, and I was finished.

As I sat with my hot coffee afterwards, I reflected on what I had learned and decided it had been a really valuable painting day.  Don't you love a surprise?

Best,
Gaye