Fullerton Arboretum Again

 The Southern California Plein Air Painters Association were meeting at CSUF arboretum.  

 I had the board already made in the trunk of the car.  I think if I was going to create a board for the day it would have been a medium to dark purple.  Because the day was overcast the dark underpainting would have sped everything up.

 I had to make sure to stay dark as long as I could in the painting because of the overcast day.

 A couple of fellow plein air painters.  Because I live pretty close to the campus I was able to start a little before 9 am.

 It seemed like it was going to rain several times during the day.  I was thankful that I did not have to pack everything up while everything dissolved in the rain.

 One of the challenges of painting when it is overcast is to save the color until the very end.  It can be difficult to get the variation in color when everything is getting flattened out by the overcast indirect lighting.

 The size of the blooms always get exaggerated when I paint flowers.  If I were to paint them to scale they would be lost in a sea of green.

 Finished.  After four hours.  

 My mom checking out the flowers.  She came out for my son's graduation from CSUF over the weekend.  I drug her along for the trip.  Watching someone paint is not very exciting.  

 The finished painting.  The painting measures 24"X36" and is soft pastels on sanded board with acrylic paint and pumice gel.

The value shot.

The detail shot.  Simplification is over rated.  When it detracts from the quality of the painting it is needless. The idea that we could even paint near the detail that we see in the subject is ridiculous.  Our brain simplifies the complexity before we try to simplify things any further.