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Painting Outdoors

I joined SASA at the end of last year. It’s turning out to be one of the best things I ever did!!! Besides the very stimulating meetings and talks they have, I went on my first painting outing to The Company Gardens. I was incredibly nervous, as I have never painted out in the open before. What a wonderful experience! Now I begin to realise why some people will only paint in situ. I don’t have the luxury of being able to do that all the time, it’s just not safe on your own and besides, I am a slow painter.


It took a while walking around to find a spot where we would be in the shade as the sun moved over. Actually one of the most difficult things to do is to find the right spot! Being my first time I did everything wrong, like taking too long on the drawing, making it too detailed, getting the size all wrong as in the open air everything looks very different and you have to choose your boundaries. In painting from a photograph you have already chosen the composition. Then I was trying to paint with acrylics in the open air on a very hot day. It was somewhat impossible as it dried too fast. The others mainly used water colours. Oils would also work but I have not started that yet.


At lunchtime we gathered together to chat and eat our picnic lunches. What a wonderful group of very talented people. I never got to finish my painting but took some photos so that I could finish it in my studio and here it is; a section of the Synagogue at the Jewish Holocaust Museum with Table Mountain in the background. That day there was no cloud so I added some. You can’t have Table Mountain without its tablecloth!


For more about the Company Gardens you can try this link.



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