Getting up at the crack of dawn to plein air paint in the Adelaide parklands with fellow artist Kathy Doley was, we both agreed, a success (and alot of fun.). We each bought with us four supports and intended to paint on them all…two study boards and two top quality surfaces…and it didn’t matter what order we painted them, just that we painted on them all. The purpose of this excursion was to have, at the end of it, something to submit into the Adelaide Parklands art prize. With the theme being “inspire” we thought to be inspired by the early light of the balmy morning sun dappling it’s light through the trees…
As we stepped out of the car and took in the enchanting scene we were greeted by a local bin chicken… I mean you can’t get more bin chicken’y than an actual bin chicken on an actual bin…
As we settled into some serious painting, a channel 7 news reporter thought we’d make a good addition to the story he was putting together about the new pandas in the zoo. “may I…” he asked. “Absolutely sure you can…” we enthusiastically responded…
There was a 10 second glimpse of us on the 4pm news that afternoon, I’m told…
We both painted two paintings here in Botanic park- I used one study board and one of my best canvases and later that day completed the canvas at home.
25x25cm parklands on stretched canvas.
After a couple of hours we decided to move to a different spot, (stopped for tea in the botanic gardens coffee shop), and then hiked it to park 20 on the GreenHill rd side of the city. By now it was mid morning and heating up… we got pretty hot and found a shady spot among the tree climbers…
Here I did my best work.
…and it was a toss up between these two paintings that I would enter into the Parklands, the following one is on a beautiful clay-board surface…delightfully smooth to paint on and I’m glad I saved it until last.
the end.