Plein Air Painting at Thanksgiving Point

You really get to know a place when you paint it. I’ve spent the last three days at Thanksgiving Point Gardens participating in a fun outdoor plein air painting competition. We’ve had free run of the whole place and I think I know the gardens very well now. I completed four paintings and a number of sketchbook drawings and feel pretty good about the body of work. We turned in our competition pieces tonight and will spend the next couple of days exhibiting and hopefully selling our work.

Many people stopped by while we were painting to watch us work. I did this little sketch of one of the waterfalls and followed it with a watercolor painting. Here I’m holding both together.

A close-up of the sketch and the plein air watercolor painting.

I enjoyed this shady spot in the Secret Garden and was intrigued by the way the light crept over the brick wall and danced across the courtyard. I started the painting one morning, and when I came back to finish it the next day, all the benches and pots had been removed. The foibles of plein air painting! I think I captured the feel of the scene anyway.
The finished plein air painting, “Secret Garden”

A quick little painting of one of the glorious hanging bouquet baskets lining a footbridge over the creek.

A flower lined creek meanders through the gardens. While I was working on this little painting I spotted a skinny water snake slithering along the surface and watched the frogs scatter.