Plein Air Tuesday - 1/27/26 - Schnebly Hill Road - Day 1

 

I arrived before 10, probably around 9:55 and the strangest thing happened.  One of the first people I saw was this cheery person.

Nita 1

Can you believe it -- it was, Timestamp 9:55, Nita 1 -- SHE beat me there.  Oh dear, well that threw me for a loop.  What a shocker!   Ok, now that I've established my reason for forgetting to take photos (I only have a very few), let's move on.

I also saw Betty soon after as I was looking for parking.  A man I was parking in front of was kind enough to get in his car and back up to give me a bit more room so that I wasn't in front of the "No Parking" sign.  As I was talking with him, Anna drove in.

Unfortunately, I didn't get pictures of either Betty or Anna  --  my apologies, again!  You will get to see them in the group photo though and maybe even a surprise one.  What's actually comical about that fact is that my initial spot was right by the two of them.  But when I went looking to see who else was there I decided on a different spot and forgot to take their picture.  Told you, Nita 1's beating me there really threw me off.

Oh, but I did manage to get this picture.

Great, I know, THAT patch of dirt I have a photo of 🙄.    My phone had a mind of its own this day.  But notice all the shadows being cast by each little rock.

Pete also beat me there and was all set up when I found him - or at least he had his spot picked.

Pete in his spot

Nita 2 wasn't too far away from Pete, just down a ways.

Nita 2

And, just as I was heading back to retrieve my stuff from where Anna and Betty were, Janel came walking down the hill

Janel

I wound up joining both Nita 2 and Janel in their chosen area.  Oh, I should note that while everyone who didn't show up this day because they thought it was going to be too cold -- it wasn't!  In fact it got  pretty warm in the sun.    All jackets came off immediately!

We were all surprised by the number of visitors at this location.  It not being a particularly busy week, never thought that a Tuesday morning would find this location packed with cars.  

Well, that's all I've got except for the end of morning photos with an extra one snuck in by my watch.

We gathered back at the top where the picnic bench is.  The plus to ending at noon is the group tends to gather quickly as their stomachs start talking to them.

And, here is the bench gallery:

There is something I'd like for you to notice in Anna's painting -- first of all it's not a particularly large painting, yet she managed to capture that Road Closed sign perfectly.  If it were me I would've just had some squiggly lines for the words.

Oh wait, I can't let this go unnoticed too -- Nita 1 got COLORFUL!!!  Love your mountains Nita!  Now you all have to go back and look, I'm sure you'll recognize her 4 paintings!

But, wait, there's more!  At this point I was trying to set my tripod up to take our group photo and once again; unbeknownst to me, my watch started taking candid photos all on its own.  Here's one of them.

Betty

Yup, it took a really good picture of Betty, she was even smiling.   Speaking of smiling, here we all are, smiling on 2.

Back Row (L to R) Lauren, Pete
Front Row (L to R) Nita 1, Betty, Janel, Anna, Nita 2, Me (kneeling)

Ok, that's it for another beautiful Tuesday morning in Sedona!  

Cecilia

Plein Air Tuesday - 1/20/26 - Behind The Sign - Day 2

 

I know the photo doesn't look too inspiring.  But it is a neat location and there is actually something very special that's happening in that photo.  Can you see it?

There's someone sitting on the rocks in the water.   I see I'm probably going to have to physically point him out to you.

Now go back up and look at the first one -- can you see the person?
 I think they're leaning over drawing.

Honestly, he jumped right out at me when I first put it in the post.   Oh, good heavens, he's even casting a shadow.

Well, it was another day where I didn't do a lot of picture taking (sorry about that).  But I did catch a few of our favorite artists.

Here's Carolyn and Tecla -- looks like they're hitch hiking.

Carolyn, Tecla

Those two do tend to get into trouble sometimes, and they look so innocent.  Oh look there's the sun shining down on smiling LeAnne.

Smiling LeAnne and Tecla on the right edge

Anna also joined us, carting her stuff - chair, table, art supplies.   She & Mike have similar setups 😊

Anna

Speaking of Mike, here he comes rolling in.

Mike

Didn't get a chance to see if his coffee mug joined him.

Pete, wasn't wasting any time.  Here he goes down the trail -- I should note that he was kind enough to wait for everyone first and held the gate.

Pete

Got to the bottom, climbed over the river rock and found this artist already painting.

Dona -- Pete is the brown jacket continuing on

Speaking of artists continuing on down the trail.

Mike on his way to find a spot

Mike commented that he didn't understand why Nita wasn't there, she would love this location with all the rocks as evidenced in that first picture with "Rocky, the artist".

Anna found her spot out there on the creek's edge in front of Dona.

(L to R) Anna, Dona

Apparently your name had to end with an A to be in this photo -- oh, funny, even my shadow is in it too and my name does end in an A.

The area doesn't lend itself to my doing a lot of going back and forth to find people in their spots.  So, I stayed put and tried painting (several times I might add - good thing I had extra paper), while not happy with my end result, I did produce something for the gallery shot.  So before long, Jim showed up -- this signified our time was up.  So, we packed up and headed up the trail.

(L to R) Dona, Jim

Jim ventured to the top of the hill surrounding us and was able to see the creek far down below as it wound its way toward us and beyond.  As they climbed out of where our spots were located they stopped to have a quick chat with Eileen.

(L to R) Jim, Dona, Eileen (still painting)

Since I took that picture, you can tell that I was following right behind.  I looked up toward the trail above and spotted a few artists busy at work.

(L to R) Carolyn, Tecla

Yes, it was our hitchhikers from earlier.  Guess they gave up on that idea and decided to just paint.

Got out to "The Sign" and found this artist hanging out at the gate.

Barbra

So, it turns out that while the rest of us arrived as scheduled and went off to find out spots, Barbra was busy doing "The Grand Tour" of various signs along 179.  As she merrily drove along past our designated Sign, she continued to drive down 179 to the sign by 17.  Got out and looked around expecting to find other artists or perhaps even a car or two and finally realized that "just perhaps" this wasn't the right sign. She did eventually drive back again to find our Sign and low and behold, a bunch of cars too, some even looking familiar -- imagine that!  Well, at least she found us in the end and even had time to come up with a pretty painting.

As we all waited for everyone to return to the sign, we proceeded to build our gallery.  This gave us all a chance to view each others' masterpieces and chat.   The sign does conveniently provide all these little ledges to place our paintings, no backpacks required!

And, for their close ups ...

Well, after that, all we had to do was gather together and with a shake of the wrist, smile on 2.

Back Row (L to R) Pete, Mike, Eileen
Middle Row (L to R) Dona, Carolyn, Teca, Anna, LeAnne, Barbra
Front Row (L to R) Jim, Me

Just FYI, if Dona's hat looks a little large today -- turns out it's really Jim's since she forgot hers.  I thought I'd mention it as she doesn't normally try and go quite so incognito.

Well, there you go; another fun Tuesday, done and dusted!   

CeciliA

 

Plein Air Tuesday - Behind The Sign - 1/13/26 - Day 1

 

So, the question is:  What IS Behind the Sign??  Turns out it's a lot of artists!  You'll see what I mean by the end of this post.

I don't have a lot of arrivals -- here's one of the last few and she was packing a lot of stuff!

Nori and her stuff

That's all part of the pastel artist's workout program.  If you want a variety of colors in differing values, you have to do some weight lifting.

Here are a few more who arrived when I did.

Tecla, Carolyn, Janel in the lead

That's also the gate that is there at the sign.  It should always be kept closed, Tecla & Carolyn knew that Nori and I were right behind them, so they were kind enough to leave it open for us.

Oh, the reason for the gate to be closed -- remember those cows from the previous week?  Guess where they hang out!   Didn't see any this day though.

Dona & Jim also arrived about the same time.

Dona picking a spot

I walked the upper trail along with Carolyn & Tecla and when we got to the end we found Barbra

Barbra

She arrived earlier as she was going to have to leave for a noon appointment.  She looks a little bundled up - it actually became quite warm in the sun.

Other people were there, but I didn't see them.  However, as I was going to walk down to check out the other trail, I met up with Pete.

Pete

He was walking down the upper trail to the end to see what was there -- what he found were these 3.

(L to R) Barbra, Tecla, Carolyn, Pete walking

He didn't stay there long and walked back down the trail a ways to get a better view of the rocks.  I, however, found a spot near those 3.

Dona's spot was down closer to the water's edge.

Gray dot is Dona

I actually took a long walk around trying to find some of the people whose cars I saw in the parking area.  I did catch these two across the creek.

(L to R) Nori, Betty

Oh, as I was walking back again I saw Jim, dutifully closing the gate.

Jim

There were artists all over the place and a lot of them I never saw in their spots.   Nori, however, found a few and took a couple of pictures for us.  Here they are:

Front to Back - I know you thought there was only 1
LeAnne, Janel (I'm guessing), the next is possibly Mike, & David 
(Photo by Nori)

I had to really zoom in on that photo -- but when I did I saw a hint of Red in the far background, which meant it had to be David's red vest - he and LeAnne are the only two I'm sure I got right in that guess.

Ok, so it's still not obvious in this capture, but trust me, he's there.

Nori also provided this great photo of Betty with a very colorful look at the creek.

Betty and the pretty creek
(Photo by Nori)

At some point I caught a photo of these 3 and after a thorough examination of the picture, I figured out who they were.

(L to R) Janel, Bonny, and based on the blue sleeve and black back pack shape I'm saying it's Nori

I also had to base it on the hat, and Nori's the only other possibility.  Now, what's funny is, even when I took the picture, I really didn't know who was there because I was surprised to find out Bonny was there when we gathered for photos.   Speaking of which, it's about that time as I've run out of photos.

So we all headed back to The Sign and found it to be a great place to hang our gallery.

I forgot to break that down into more viewable pics, but let's see what I can do.

As you can see, we had quite the variety of views and interpretations of the same view.  Which just once again proves that no matter what the challenge, this group of artists isn't afraid to tackle it and come out with a bunch of winners.

So, on that note, we all gathered together with Barbra sneaking in last minute to say, "I'm still here, but I have to run".

Front Row - Jim, Nori, Betty, Anna, Barbra
Middle Row - Janel, David, Tecla, LeAnne, Me
Back Row - Dona, Mike, Carolyn, Gail, Pete, Bonny

As I mentioned at the top, there were quite a few of us Behind The Sign.   And, even though we all dispersed to a variety of spots, we came together to smile on 2 and enjoy looking at what we all created.

Cecilia