I had a half day of work on Friday and my parents and I had planned to visit a family friend who is also a painter. Her name is Lorna and my dad has known her a while since she and him worked together a while back. But Lorna has a really nice garden with a lot of flowers and she likes to have afternoon tea (she grew up in New Zealand) so we decided it would be fun to visit with her, catch up, drink some tea, and for me to paint some flowers from her garden.
I should mention that this was also my first experience doing plein air watercolor painting (painting in the out-of-doors). And I thought it would be difficult, batting off bugs, dealing with the wind, and what not. But it was actually very relaxing and inspiring.
And the piece turned out nicer than I thought it would. I ended up painting impatiens, which, compared to the rest of her garden, are rather modest flowers to say the least. But I tried going sans pencil lines and everything just kind of fell into place. It's just a quick piece but I think it really embodies the way I felt while painting. We were all just sitting out on Lorna's back deck, the large tree shading us and the light breeze rolling in above the creek (yes, she has a creek in her back yard!). It was very relaxed. I plan on mailing this piece to Lorna so she can hang it up. She was very fond of it.
I showed her some of my other work and she loved it. I was very proud considering she's been painting for longer than I have been alive. It was really special to let her see my work.
