My plein air group had our last meeting of the season in November at Viansa Winery in Sonoma. I’d made a good start on the painting plein air, but it needed work. Today I got tired of looking at the unfinished painting and completed it (above), using both brushes and palette knife.
I’d set up my easel at the edge of the parking lot and had a great view of the vineyard. But there were so many interesting things to see that I included all of them in my original painting below (except maybe the cars and the birds and bees—that’s some progress I suppose).
There are some passages in the painting I liked, especially the top fourth, but there were some problems too: the strong yellow diagonal line leading you out of the painting, the bright gold triangle top right, the green line of bushes beside the purple road, both of which weren’t needed even though they were there in real life.
This is the photo I took at the beginning of the painting session. The sun and fog and clouds kept changing but the overall impression I had of the day was sunny.
A previous Viansa painting can be seen here. It’s nice to see the progress I’ve made since then.
Jana Bouc, Artist 