Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Stanford Quad, Saturday Dec 15th

Stanford Notice Board in the rain
Brrr, another chilly day for painting outdoors, but the Stanford Quad has copious paintable views so it was worth braving the weather. I plunked myself down at the first available spot and began immediately sketching the meditating group of people in front of me. It didn't turn out as well as I hoped, so then I moved on to a view of the statues on the approach to the quad. I gave up the pens and just sketched freely with the brush and monochromatic paint to try and capture the lights and darks, and drama of the poses. It was a bit tricky as the paint dried so slowly - you really needed several paintings to work on at once, otherwise you were tempted to go back into still wet paint - and therein lies disaster!
Statues

We had a warming respite in the cafeteria over lunch, and enjoyed the yummy chocolates Rajit brought along to share. Then back out into the cold - and now rain! I was intent on going home, but the notice board grabbed me on the way out and I had to paint it. I got a decent view of it from a fairly sheltered doorway. Returning to the car I had to carry my sketchbook under a towel because the paint was still well and I didn't want the rain to wash it off.
Meditation in the Quad

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