91.  Original Plein Air Watercolor Painting, “Plein Air, Lakeside Ultimate, 8.27-28.24”, Watercolor and white gouache, 30 x 42”, 2024

Location: Seattle, WA

Event: Lakeside Magazine

This painting was a true challenge and a true pleasure to make. The original assignment, changed on the day, was to attend and paint football practice. Hours before I headed to the school to start work, I read an email telling me instead to be ready to draw ultimate frisbee practice, recently recognized as a Varsity sport at Lakeside. As an alum, of the frisbee team as well, I was stoked, but definitely wondering, hm, how on earth am I going to paint the frisbee team? Bear in mind that I am not working from photos - from life, only, for this kind of work. The first day of trying to sketch the team in my sketchbook in marker didn’t work at all - I had nothing printable - maybe a first for me for the first day of a Lakeside Magazine assignment. An auspicious start, it was. I returned for day two of four of practice that week with my painting stuff, and dove in, beginning work on a 30 x 42” painting, keeping the figures loose and only partially defined, to be augmented later with additional washes, and white gouache if need be for its opacity. I knew that the green of the Lakeside Quad itself was as much a character as the players and coaches, and that the dark line of trees beyond the football field in the background was equally significant to hold together the spirit of the place. I played frisbee here, too, and at this time of day and year, that brilliant green backlighting of the grass, along with the ultramarine blue of the pines in shadow, the straining up to reach the disc as it vanishes in the glare of the sun, all combine to make the aesthetic coherence of the moment. We mistake very specific combinations of light for memories, for emotions, for dreams, which become real to us as soon as we think they are. A second day of work brought the figures into focus, including their high-viz tops. One of the players asked me “is it done?” to which I replied “well I’d like to work on it tomorrow, one more day”. He told me they didn’t have practice the next day. I said, “Then I guess it’s done.”