Saturday Plein Air - Dawes Arboretum

Another beautiful Saturday for painting! We had a nice size group of painters today at Dawes Arboretum in Newark Ohio. I took many reference photos of scenes, but not many of the other painters because we were spread out all over 1,800 acres.

I decided to work on my pastels today and wanted to keep things loose and colorful. I had a couple of failed pastel paintings on UArt sanded paper that I wanted to reuse. Last night, I brushed off most of the pigment and then used a wash of mineral spirits to dissolve the rest back into the grit.

I feel I had a very successful day. Below are process shots of my first pastel of the day:

"Tall Trees", 6"x9", pastel on 320 grit UArt

Then I moved about 150 yards to the east and painted the barn in the distance:

"Farm Lane", 8"x10", pastel on 400 grit UArt sanded paper