Searching for green...the sequel

I’ve been spending the last few days out at the multi acre farm at the university with a little coterie of painting students, learning to paint en plein aire.  I’m using materials and colours I’m not familiar with.  Painting outdoors looks easy for the lovely young women in the class with their portable easels and pretty summer frocks.  I have a little fold up three-legged stool to sit on that sinks into the dirt and tilts backward, and I balance a board with my paper clipped to it, and my palate covered in desperate attempts at green, on my knees.   I’m covered in paint from swatting at mosquitos with my brush-laden hand and leaning on my palate to squint at the scene I’m painting to determine values. 

The instructor advised us to tuck away our day’s work so as not to be too self critical, because, she said, the charm of the pictures would only be evident after a good night’s sleep.  The three ‘studies’ I did on the first day were of a green house on a beautiful field nestled next to vibrant rows of squash complete with cadmium flowers stretching into the distance. 

These revealed themselves, after sleep, to be paintings of the hideout of desperate revolutionaries in a jungle, hurriedly rendered at night by a journalist concealed in the nearby shrubbery, using the only tools at his disposal; the remains of his dinner.  The instructor was plucky in her attempt to be positive.  “I love this area right here…it’s beautifully understated..” she was pointing to a corner of the canvas left blank when I ran out of time.

As we complete our little daubs we bring them for a group critique.  It’s not as encouraging as you might think to have a group of ten smother little cries of dismay as your painting is brought out, and then stand thoughtfully staring at it trying to find something useful to say, while the instructor says brightly, “anyone?”  Finally,

“It’s quite exciting the way it looks like that browny-green part there is on fire.”  Not for me the little private thrill of relief at seeing there’s someone worse than me.

While I admit that by the afternoon of the first day I was tempted to pack it in and go back to my usual vacation activity of scouring the house looking for my glasses, I was cognizant of the hefty sum I paid for the course, so I have stuck it out.  Day two was slightly less awful, because I nipped out after my course on the first day to pick up a couple of tubes of ready made green, and was able to render, as one kindly course mate said, “a very nice pole.”  It still looked like a pretty nice pole the next morning.  I could get into this.