Saturday, December 24, we had incredibly mild weather, and I called my outdoor painting buddy and we went out to paint at what he calls "The Beauty Spot" along the Potomac River above Great Falls. This is referred to as "Plein Air Painting". It was popularized during the time of the French Impressionists, and you may have thought (if you knew anything about it) that they simply came up with this brilliant idea to paint their pictures "on the spot." In fact, however, the ability to paint on location was facilitated by a technological advance: the production of colors in tubes. Before that time, dry colors had to be ground into the paint in the studio prior to painting. It was the production of tube colors and the availability of a wider range of colors than previously that allowed the radical change in how the painter could paint. (Oh, and by the way, the impressionists didn't — as popularly supposed — complete all their paintings on location. Investigation has uncovered that some of them worked on their paintings long after the event.)
In any case, Saturday, I headed out to the Beauty spot, and Jack and I each painted two paintings. And he will tell you that my second painting owes its existance to him, because I was happy to pack up after the first and he was eager to continue. Here they are, each 11 x 14:
Potomac above Great Falls VA, Dec 24, 2005
The Beauty Spot, Potomac, Dec. 2005
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