Studio (outdoors) Closed

"Summer's end" 6x8 oil on linen

The next 2 days will be spent (if all goes well) en plein air but then the gear becomes retired until April. As many know I like to spend the closing of the summer with my homage to Van Gogh by finding a mammoth sunflower and doing a portrait. Having "circumstances beyond my control" I sort of missed the sunflower season in all my usual haunts so I spent a few weeks with cut sunflowers (no mammoths) painting from natural light... not quite the same but--- I'll take it. Then a fellow "fan of Vinnie" told me of a small waning few in a small community garden on Fox Island. I was due to meet my plein air group for what would be the last session of the season on Thursday but pale weather and looming deadlines for the show created from this group had turn out to be poor. Uninspired by the settled gloom of a grey day at a site I have painted twice before I waited but nobody showed up so I snuck over to the rumored sunflower stash and low and behold I found my summers end model. By the time I had set up and the drawing roughed in the clouds parted and my monster mammoth glowed as only they know to show.