Cloudy Morning on the Severn, oils on board, 9" x 12"There was a light drizzle falling as I drove off for the first class of the fall session of Lee Boynton's plein air landscape class. I wondered if we would be able to find a dry spot from which to paint, but Lee knows his way around Annapolis so well, I figured he would have some alternative sites where we could stay dry.
As it turned out, by the time the class had convened at Maryland Hall and Lee went over the basics of equipment, palette and painting surfaces, the rain stopped. We caravanned over to Jonas Green Park to set up under the Naval Academy Bridge, where there is a view of the Severn that extends out over the Chesapeake Bay as far as Kent Island on the Eastern shore (the blue strokes at the horizon on the left).
The sky was clearing but there were still some dramatic clouds overhead so I composed my painting to feature the sky and picked one sailboat out of the many lining the shore as a focal point. Simple but elegant-- I am pleased with the result.
