Dear Art Lover,

This weekend I leave for Rhode Island, to attend the opening reception for the Rhode Island Watercolor Society (RIWS) show “Falling Into Winter”.  I am grateful to be a part of this exhibition, and especially grateful to the juror Jonathan McPhillips for awarding my painting “Plein Air, My View in the Snow, 12.20.22; 2.22.23, 8-9-am”, first place.

This will be my first time visiting the RIWS in person, and I am looking forward to it.

The painting itself was an experiment in painting fleeting atmospheric conditions, from inside my old apartment in the Mt. Baker neighborhood, looking west to North Beacon Hill.  If I’d been outside in the snow itself (which I’ve tried), the water in my brush and palette would have turned to frozen slush, making painting impossible.  Similarly, while it is possible to paint in the rain, it is more effective to find shelter for paintings of rainy scenes.  The paintings below were all made in this way, looking out at the rain from under a covering, so that the falling water didn’t wash away my progress.

Cheers,

David