Empty Handed - Posted on June 26, 2016 at 2:25 PM

Posted on June 26, 2016 at 2:25 PM

     Plein air was pretty much a bust this week.  I only managed to get out once and I was just OFF for some reason.  Just one of those days when things that would normally fire up the boilers just sat flat, laying down in front of me without any life to anything.  Of course, one thing leading to the next, I was getting overly annoyed at the bugs, the wind kept blowing my rag onto my painting, the cars wouldn't stop passing by on the dirt road so I have grit in my paint piles and the wet spots on my canvas, and out of frustration I got caught in the wipe/restart cycle where every 20 minutes or so I keep starting, wiping, restarting, rewiping, restarting again, rewiping agan, ...you get the idea. 
     I really like the spot I was in so I'll be going back there this week to do it justice.  That's just how it goes some times.  It's a lot like fishing in the sense that you can't say you're going out to catch a 20 lb. pig of a fish.  All you can do is get all of your gear together, get it all in the boat and shove off to the fishing hole with hopes of landing something.  Sometimes you arrive back at the dock with nothing to show for the day but a lovely sunburn.  Oh well.  The weather was beautiful and you know you'll go out again soon and maybe next time that lunker will hop in the boat for you.  But you have to be there in order for that to happen.  It's hard to catch a fish if all you do is stay home reading books about fishing.  At some point, you have to get out on the water and throw your line in.
     I've also been enjoying working on the studio painting currently in progess so I was fairly divided when I went outside to paint.  Here's the aborted attempt from earlier this week...