A book I read on plein air painting recommended painting shapes, not things. I know what that means. But it’s hard to do. A windmill is a windmill, not a triangle. A tree is a tree, not a sphere. And a cloud is a cloud, not an oval.
I found this spot in Kimble County, just south of Junction on the western edge of the Hill Country near the state park there. It worked well as a composition, with strong vertical and horizontal lines, but lacking in dramatic shadows. The colors that morning were not vivid. The greens and yellows were a bit dusty from the caliche road. The pecan trees shimmered with strong areas of light and dark and the clouds threw patches of shadow on the ground as they passed. The strongest bits of color came from the violet blooms of the thistles that popped up in the field and along the road. Bees on the flowers all around created a low background buzz like a turned-up amplifier, the only thing you could hear other than the weak breeze rattling the leaves of the trees.
Setting up under a shady tree at 9:00 a.m., I finished up before noon. The clouds worked themselves into shapes, moving like big ships when I started but they burned off as the heat rose and he sky turned denim blue. A Texas Hill Country landscape, as I see it, is not a shape and cannot be painted that way I used eight colors, four brushes, got a sunburn on my arms and chigger bites on my ankles. A glorious morning.
