Outside at Last

Today was my first day this spring getting outside to paint.  It was marvellous... I found a quiet spot in the sun by a creek.  It was partially cloudy out and so I would occasionally have very bright sun on the view, followed by cloud cover.  As you can see in the 2 pics below - it can sure makes a difference to your colours and values when it is cloudy vs sunny.  I attempted to get the 'sunny' view - however - I made the mistake of bringing a canvas stained with a deep orange.  I think for my Plein air painting - a lighter warm colour (grey or Sienna) would be better.

Only wildlife, other than geese overhead, was this colourful fly who sat on my easel for a few minutes, warming up.  Would be cool to paint him, but he didn't stick around long enough.

 I did two fairly quick 'sketches' - one is the general view - very thinly done with thinner and oil - so the orange really shows through too much.  The other was just a 'sketch' of the little tree in front of me.  Both I 'erased' after to reuse the board for my next time out.  I just made sure to paint the panel a light grey for next time.