This was painted for the fall of 2026 for the Elkin Foothills Plein Air Festival and Show at Grassy Creek Vineyards. The weather was perfect and I got there early in the morning before the vineyard opened and set up to paint during the golden hour as the sun came up. I'm including a photo of my underpainting here as it shows a good example of how I lay in my value croma and color relationships before I start filling the ground color. This helps when the light is moving fast and I need to establish all the important relationships within the painting quickly before the light changes. Once I've established how everything is working together, laying in the ground color becomes the easy part. I'm showing this because it's a very good example of what is meant by the old plein-air painting adage "I can explain this to you in a day but it will take you a lifetime to master". It's very easy to understand what I'm doing here, little harder to do it. You can also see where I accidentally chased the light with the shadow on the building (it should be called chasing the shadow) but I fixed that before I finished.
This was painted for the fall of 2026 for the Elkin Foothills Plein Air Festival and Show at Grassy Creek Vineyards. The weather was perfect and I got there early in the morning before the vineyard opened and set up to paint during the golden hour as the sun came up. I'm including a photo of my underpainting here as it shows a good example of how I lay in my value croma and color relationships before I start filling the ground color. This helps when the light is moving fast and I need to establish all the important relationships within the painting quickly before the light changes. Once I've established how everything is working together, laying in the ground color becomes the easy part. I'm showing this because it's a very good example of what is meant by the old plein-air painting adage "I can explain this to you in a day but it will take you a lifetime to master". It's very easy to understand what I'm doing here, little harder to do it. You can also see where I accidentally chased the light with the shadow on the building (it should be called chasing the shadow) but I fixed that before I finished.