I Did It Again, This Time By Myself in Town Square on Saturday

I got up early

and drove down town to our town square, around 9 a.m. on Saturday.

There was a live jazz band setting up, people at the Pure Grain Bakery having coffee and pastries, it was warm so many people were taking their refreshments outside. I decided the Bakery would be my subject matter and I wanted to draw people today. I did this sketch in twenty minutes.

 Then I took out my new tubes of paint with their "real artist colors" like burnt umber, phthalo blue, viridian hue, burnt sienna, sap green, ultramarine, yellow ochre, crimson, flesh tint and payne's gray just to name a few. And new brushes, but I think I got too inexpensive a set as the wide brush kept falling off the brush handle! Not good. But it continued to work for me when I replaced it a few times.

I loved my morning of plein aire painting.

People came up to see what I was doing. Some just said good morning. Or Are you painting? Or You ARE painting...like that was a strange thing to see someone doing downtown. One man blessed me for doing it. One woman said she was a painter too, but she only did it at home. One little boy jumped up on the rock I had my paints resting on and said he was a super hero and was there to save the world. I thanked him.

I went on painting.

The band started up and the jazz music seemed to get inside of me in a very good way.

 Into the second hour I got my pens out and started my outlining. I love how this makes everything pop.

After about an hour and a half I had to leave as we were to pick up our grand kids and bring them to our home for the weekend, so I finished the sidewalk once we got home. There are still a few touch ups to do...but I like what I did.

It was funny, when I looked up toward the end of my outlining and found the people I had been painting had all left those tables. It was as if they had walked out of my painting. It gave me a good laugh.

When I hold this picture up and stand back I can see the layers, the depth of it. from the tree to the tables to the pillars to the bakery walls and even inside the bakery behind the big windows.

I learned I can do this, enjoy this and really move into a whole other realm.  I told my DH that it didn't bother me when people stopped to chat a bit, as it was as if they were talking to someone who was altogether other than myself. I'm not quite sure who she is, but she is very comfortable being an outdoor artist.