Hello my friends and welcome to February’s journey of Plein Air 365™ 2011,

I hope March is finding warmer days for you than we had in February. I, for one, enjoy the winters we have in Colorado but I am glad that we only have a few weeks of extreme cold each winter. Besides the frozen pipes, dead batteries and ice packed roads, Mother Nature likes to make plein air painting just as challenging in these sub zero temperatures. February started off with a painting titled “Winter Underbrush” that was painted at -11 degrees BELOW zero. I’m often asked “how can I paint at those temperatures, wouldn’t the paints freeze?” I answer them with the fact that the oil paints don’t freeze they just get very thick. I refer to it like a constipated tube of paint, and that usually answers that question.

As you may know the following week of temperatures didn’t get above -8 degrees and we even had a couple of days of -20 temperatures to paint in. It sure does make you appreciate a warm fireplace. One thing frigid painting can do, is make you very confident in your palette. No time to think, it’s too cold to anyway. Just time to move, move, move. This is one of the reasons that I love doing alla prima plein air, to push myself and my tools to their limits.

February also brought the chance for me to paint for the first time in Arizona. The family and a couple of the kid’s friends decided to visit friends in Mesa, Arizona. Wow, what a great trip. I only wish I could have spent a few more days there. I was pleasantly surprised to find that there were so many new scenes for me to paint. I first found myself drawn to paint a local legend called Superstition Mountain. I also had the chance to paint palm trees! Since I was a kid I have loved to draw palm trees, I don’t know why but I am fascinated with them. They are so much different than the typical pine trees we are used to. This was my second time that I have gotten to paint them, and it was great. I hope to be able to have the chance to paint them again soon. After a short trip, we had to head back to Colorful Colorado, but I could then put another new state on the map of Plein Air 365™.

I hope you have a wonderful warm March and until next time, please enjoy February’s journey.

Best wishes,

Ted Garcia

May Love Fill Your Heart and Art Fill Your Life.

www.tedgarcia.com/jan_11.html
tg@tlcunlimited.com

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