Dan Schultz Fine Art

My latest plein air painting excursion was inspired by a beautiful blossoming tree I saw one evening while driving home from my studio.

I returned to the area the next morning with my painting equipment (including my trusty Open Box M pochade box), and surveyed the area. Obviously the light wasn’t the same as it had been the night before, but I had hoped that the bright color of the tree would make it an exciting subject in any light. That didn’t prove to be the case, so I set up and painted a nearby tree with white blossoms instead, which was more striking in the morning light.

Still wanting to paint the other colorful tree in better light, I decided to come back to try again at a time later in the day. This time of year in Colorado Springs usually sees quite a few afternoon showers and thunderstorms, which made the idea of painting in the evening somewhat risky.

However, the following evening seemed like I might get a good chance for enough sunlight, so I returned to the spot and set up to paint despite some threatening clouds overhead. I painted for about 10 minutes (hurrying to block-in the color of the scene with the 2 minutes or so of direct sunlight I received) before I began to see lightning and noticed that the clouds looked even more threatening. I decided that I had better pack up if I wanted to stay dry (and un-electricuted), so I packed up and headed to the car.

The storm seemed to be moving pretty quickly, so I decided to wait it out as the rain fell. I mostly just watched the clouds to try to determine whether the sun would even come out again (and ate a granola bar since it was past dinner time by now). About 20 minutes or so went by before the rain stopped and the sun was beginning to appear again. So back I went to my spot, set up again and continued my painting. The sunlight even stayed fairly steady for the remainder of my painting time, but I was glad to have chosen just a small 6″ x 8″ canvas panel.

In this particular painting, I had to change certain things so that I could make sure to remain focused on the tree which had inspired me to paint here in the first place. Instead of painting the street in front, I changed that area so that it would help support the tree and not distract from it. I also chose not to include the stop sign or the fence to the right of the tree.

It’s a good feeling to capture the look of a scene despite the various challenges that always seem to appear when plein air painting. I feel especially good after noticing on my way home today that the color of the blossoms of the tree have already begun to fade. Had I waited even until the next evening to paint there, I would have missed the full beauty of the tree that was so inspiring.