Thursday, January 9, 2025

Plein Air Tuesday - 1/7/25 - Cultural Park Trailhead, Day 1

Pretty Spot!

 We're back!!!!  Forgot to tell the weather that it was supposed to stay nice at least until Noon.  Fortunately, we arrived before the nasty wind and cold really showed up.  I arrived and Nita2, Kris & Barb all arrived immediately behind me.

Barb

(L to R) Nita2, Kris

Betty pulled in soon after as did Cathy and then Pat2.

Betty

Cathy in her Red beret to match her Red car!

Pat2 putting on her glasses so she knows who we are!

So don't you wonder where all the 1's were?  I knew a few more would be arriving but also knew they would know how to find us.  I think everyone was anxious to get started doing some plein air painting after such a long hiatus.  Guess it was just the way Christmas and New Year's fell this year.  But at least we had our party before hand!

As we were taking in the views and deciding on spots, Mike showed up to do the same.

Mike

Betty and I picked spots near one another, yet we managed to paint different views (so what else is new - we all have a different eye).

(L to R) My spot, Betty in her spot

Mike picked a spot right near us.  But, of course, on the other side of a tree, see --

Mike -- the white paper is the tell

And, a slightly better pic of him.  Oh you can see mine and Betty's spots on the right.

Mike in his spot

Yikes, what is that ominous looking shadow on the left 😲 - oh, never mind, it's just me.

So, I wanted to see if I could find where the rest of the spots were.  Found out LeAnne was back in town.

LeAnne

Looked like quite a few decided to hang out at or by the bench near the cars.

I'll need to get closer to see who they are


(L to R) Carolyn, Nita1, Nita2

Let me turn that around see if you can see them better.

Far left - Red Beret Cathy, Nita2, Carolyn (standing), Nita1 (there's a 1)

Cathy had her spot right there as well with her red beret and her own chair.

Cathy

And, actually in the parking lot and facing the back side of a car 

Tecla -- she actually had a pretty view from there too!

Oh, here is Pat2 in her spot.

Pat2 in her spot

Guess it was time for me to head back to my spot and finish up my painting.  The wind should've dried it by this point.  Speaking of the the wind.  When we arrived, it was really just fine and seemed like it was probably going to be a pretty sunny and nice morning.  Well, it was sunny, but the wind decided to really make its presence known after a while.  It really did get a bit nippy.

So, on that note, I packed up and headed back to that bench where everyone was gathering and guess what??  They were packing their stuff up too.

(L to R) Nita2, Cathy, Tecla, Carolyn, Nita1

Everyone was saying how great Carolyn's painting was and her response was -- "Guess I do good when my hand's shaking from the cold."  - We did all laugh.   Cathy then went out to find the rest and inform them that we were packing up and heading out.  They apparently opted to keep painting.  For us the wind proved to be more than we planned for.  So, we set up a gallery as best we could under the circumstances.


Great looking paintings and so quickly done as we didn't stay for the full 2 hours.  A slightly odd thing happened too.  There appears to be the same 2 feet appearing multiple times, hmmm 🤔  Well, I did say the gallery was set up "as best we could".

So, those of us who believed Cathy when she said we were ready to take pictures showed up and here we are while the rest stayed frozen in their spots (wonder if they were even able to continue to paint?)

Back Row (L to R) - Nita2, Carolyn, Nita1, Tecla, Cathy
(Front Row) Me, Pat2

Well, I did tell everyone to toughen up in the email leading up to this day, and they all took it to heart and did.  If it wasn't for the wind, we would've been just fine.  Here's hoping the wind isn't present next week for Day 2.

Cecilia