A plein air painter is born…
My five year old daughter, Olivia, must have about 100 paintings to her credit. Many times while dad is painting she has to also… Livie got acrylic paints, brushes, and an easel for Christmas and was well armed for her first plein air outing with dad this past Sunday. The out of season weather at 75 degrees had plenty to do with our choice to make Sunday afternoon… the day a new plein air painter was born.
We set up at the Cedar Point State Park and Maritime Forest to paint a marsh scene.
I drew a simple sketch of the scene for Livie and she quickly got busy with her brush.
I was quite impressed at how well she was doing… she asked me what colors things should be and I taught her how to look and notice things. She soon was able to recognize her colors and only needed my help in asking what colors she had to mix together to get the colors she needed… which she mixed and applied.
We met many people as we positioned ourselves on the boat ramp near a dock. Olivia was quite the social butterfly as usual talking to each and everyone who came by… saying things like… “Me and my dad are painting”… “You can buy my dad’s painting but mine is not for sale”. We had a great time talking to Donnie and Connie (I think… sorry if I’m wrong) Banks who took the pictures of us together…. including this one of the artists at work and the view we were painting.
Don’t you just love that hand on that hip?…. that’s our Livie!
Here’s Olivia’s first plein air painting… she titled it…
“Daddy’s Art Class”… Artist: Olivia ,8×10, Acrylics on canvasboard, en plein aire, 1-14-2007.
Here’s mine…
“A Pleasant Afternoon at Cedar Point”… 5×7″ Oil on Panel, en plein aire, 1-14-2007.
Needless to say… Olivia finished before I did and found time to make mud pies and play in the water…
As you can see from that last photo the tide began to come in on us… the day and paintings were done…
A GREAT day… a GREAT painting day… a GREAT father and daughter day!
