It’s Father’s Day and the Summer Solstice and I am painting once again at Marymoor Park. No concert this evening – just the Washington Brewer’s Festival – and a couple of curious drones buzzing around overhead.

This time I had 90 minutes to paint. I started by reestablishing the cast shadows, then painted the remaining trees from back to front. After that, grass and then the road.

I could probably call it done at this point, but I will probably touch it up a bit in one final session. I want to add a few larger pieces of grass in the foreground with a rigger brush and work on the shadows along the edge of the road. Also add a few sky holes in the trees and a bit of sunlit tree trunk.

Here’s the sunset on the longest day of the year!

Spent about an hour this evening working “en plein air” at Marymoor Park. This time it was hazy and beginning to cloud up, so the colors weren’t as brilliant and the shadows less defined.

I began with the sky, using a mixture of Cerulean Blue and Titanium White. I really wanted to mix in a bit of yellow and red to replicate the warm, sunset air I had seen the night before, but this evening, the light was much cooler because of the clouds, making the visible patches of sky appear blue.

After painting the sky, I mixed in some Raw Umber and painted the distant treeline, taking care to soften the edges. Next up were the trees on the upper left, using a lighter, more saturated green made with Prussian Blue, Yellow Ochre, and Raw Umber. The highlights in the trees are Cadmium Yellow with a bit of Yellow Ochre. At some point I began losing the light and switched to darkening values across the painting with Raw Umber and the green I used for the trees. The plan is to cover some of these darks with lighter leaf and grass textures.

Plein air painting this evening at Marymoor Park! Twas a beautiful afternoon, with nary a cloud in the sky as I made my way past a long line of cars queuing up for an A.R. Rahman concert in the park. Once past the concert traffic I made my way to the dog park and then onto the Audubon Bird Loop. I stopped at this lovely spot, which I had scouted the night before.

It was halfway through the golden hour so I rushed to set up my pochade and block in the painting. I spent 25 minutes in total on the setup and the block in. The plan is to return another day to start on the color.

What a wonderful evening! After packing up and saying “hi” to some dogs, it was beginning to get dark, but I could still make out the dying embers of the sunset as I made my way back to the truck.