Harvard Ave in Humarock

Painting outside as often as I have been means that my painting gear needs to be ready at a moment's notice.   When I was only occasionally painting outside, it seemed like a large effort to pack up.  This was an illusion.   Now the car always has an easel or two, extra clothing layers, paper towels, my sun umbrella and a little fold up table; I consider those "should haves."   As I head out the door. I check for the three essentials, the "have-to-haves" - brushes, palette, and a canvas.

On this day, I met a painting friend in Humarock,  a section of Scituate, Massachusetts.  We pulled into the parking lot just over the bridge from the Bridgewaye Inn and Restaurant.    The last house on Harvard Ave at the river had a large raspberry tree that provided some shade.   I had never heard or seen a raspberry tree before, and it actually had thousands of black raspberries on it.  The owner said that we were welcome to paint there and to also help ourselves to the raspberries.

The temperatures were going to be in the mid-90's, and it was already 82 degrees at 9:30 AM.   My friend set up facing the river and a pretty boathouse on the other side.   I set up facing east looking straight down Harvard Ave toward the beach.  

The dark rust and blue-green cedars on the left made the bright yellow wild daisies really stand out.  The sky was bright and hazy white; I only added a small amount of cobalt blue for top of sky gradually adding a small amount of alizarin crimson to the whitish mixture.  I liked the pair of beach houses at the end of the street.  The one on the left was getting southern light.  The house on the right was a darker greyish brown, plus it was shaded.  The desired flow of my eye was down the telephone wires and up the street to the end, where the red cabana overlooked the beach. 

I got all the greens blocked in and was about to sketch in the houses at the end of the street when the owner pulled an SUV down to a shaded spot that precisely blocked the area I was about to paint.  I took that as a sign to finish up.   I needed to go buy a new hot water heater anyway and it was now 89 degrees. 

I painted in the houses from a photo in my studio.   I don't think that was too bad since their neutral colors wouldn't be adversely affected by the camera.