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I have an odd complaint. The recent weather was too nice.  Summer and especially fall gave a generous dose of blue skies and pleasant temperatures.  Being from Michigan and knowing what is in store for us from November thru Mid April I felt I had to take advantage of every beautiful day and use my painting time to work plein air.  Now it is November and the cold gray days have descended and I have a studio full of half finished plein air pieces.  My work schedule was erratic so it was difficult to return to the same spot twice under similar weather conditions so my tendency was to start a new one each time I went out.  For most of these I did not take photo references and I think there may be real freedom in trying to complete these in the studio using visual memory and concentrating on what will make the painting work.  I’ll post some of the before and after on this blog.

My first before is of a line of tents from a civil war reenactment.  I did not get to finish because the soldiers returned back to their tents after morning exercises and promptly fell asleep in the tents.  To keep painting seemed awkward.