Our Plein Air Painting Experience

What a glorious day of weather we had yesterday, just what we ordered for our first plein air painting adventure. We arrived at Mr. and Mrs. Cordell’s Gardens just after five. We were immediately greeted by a beautiful German shepherd and Mr. Cordell. He had us all sign in ‘the book’ to register our visit and then he suggested we make ourselves at home.

Their gardens are absolutely breathtaking! I can’t imagine how much time they must spend working in their yard. In fact, Mrs. Cordell was in one of the gardens weeding most of the evening. This is quite amazing as the Cordell’s are both 85 plus in years. The garden is just full of kana lilies which need dug up at the end of the summer and replanted in the spring. The garden is full of marigolds, zinnias, geraniums, B-Balm, tiger lilies of many varieties, black-eyed Susan’s, Rose of Sharon, wax begonia plants, cox combs, and many more. The temperature was around 80 degrees with a light breeze blowing.

Upon completing our tour of the gardens we made our decisions where to place ourselves for our subject matter. We all had a delightful evening and certainly found it relaxing. I always struggle with carving out what I want to paint because of the panoramic view. We hope to go back again before summer is over.

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