Mill Pond in Ashland

Mill Pond Ashland

On Saturday while exploring the Western Greater Boston Area, we stopped at a very pretty pond and waterfall in the town of Ashland.   We brought painting gear thinking if we saw a nice spot, we would stop and paint for a while.  There was a dam near where we painted and we could hear the water rushing over it into a stream as we painted which was very relaxing.   
The sun was to the right of an opening to the pond, named Mill Pond, but as time went on, the sun moved directly to the opening causing a bright glare.   The challenge was to match colors when the sun was brightly washing everything out.    The leaves closest to the opening looked bright yellow more than green as they were actually transluscent.  I do like the reflection of the far trees in the pond, but I'm not very happy with the brash yellow leaves.  In the name of full disclosure, I'm sharing it anyway.



John Painting the Pond

I stepped back away from the bright opening to the water for the second painting.   It can't be good for the retinas to be staring at the glare for so long.   I was planning on doing some planted flowers near the car, but once I set up in that spot, I saw this scene of John painting and I had to paint it instead.

I finished this in 15 minutes or so, thus the very impressionistic background, but I love this rendition of him immersed in his own work.