Painting Outside Is Always a Challenge, but So Much Fun! - Yield to Pedestrian, Oil Painting

"Yield to Pedestrian"
Oil on Panel, 12"x16", framed
Available on my website

Every week I go on a plein air outing with a group led by the talented Joe Lombardo. Last weeek we did a few 10-minute studies of different views of the same park, then it started pouring and we had to flee.

The 10-minute studies were fun and non-committal, I just had to get the main ideas down, no need to make a finished painting. And they were small. Easy peasy.

This week, the task was to make a big painting en plein air, and finish it. What???
The weather was crappy again, and I really dislike painting rainy landscapes.
I was really intimidated, so I picked a board that was big, but not huge. A 12"x16" would do. Much bigger than the usual 6"x6" I get out on rainy days. : )

But I was determined to do it. I had a strategy. :)
I talked to my self in the car, on the way there. I told myself:
I am fearless.
I am talented.
I am courageous.
I am creative.
I fear nothing.

Yes, you got it, my new motto shall be: "Fake it until you make it".  lol
But hey, it worked.

I threw all fears to the side, and tackled the board as if it was the easiest thing on earth.
The painting came out pretty good, I think, and most importantly, I had lots of fun figuring out how to render the various elements.

This is me painting under the shelter, out of the rain.

Maybe I should also mention that, just to make it a little more challenging, I worked from a tetrad limited palette*, making only four family colors available. To mix certain colors I had to get really creative, like for the bright orange of the cones, impossible to mix from my tetrad, but I got as close as I could to the bright effect.

When I got there Julianne took this photo of me and my umbrella:

"Maybe if I keep smiling the rain will go away"

* A tetrad limited palette is when you use two couples of complementary colors from the color wheel. If you connect them with imaginary lines on the wheel, they form a square or a rectangle.
I used: blue violet, yellow orange, red violet, and yellow green.

Here is an example of tetrad color scheme that I did for one of my articles on hubpages.