Art at the Park @ Mayfield Park and Nature Preserve

My friend Suzy took me to Mayfield Park in West Austin on Sunday. I had never been to Mayfield before and it was quite a treat. It’s a very small and adorable preserve (home to many peacocks) with a small trail leading off it. We found a nice spot to plonk our art supplies down and do a quick plein air sesh with watercolors before taking a quick stroll on one of the trails.

My view vs. my very sloppy watercolor. This is technically my very first ‘official’ plein air attempt that’s not just me messing about in my backyard. It quickly became apparent to me that I need one of those plastic view catcher squares to help me figure out composition. Once I got set up and was sitting in the middle of the space I quickly lost sense of the edges of my view. Spatial relationships and composition was difficult to figure out as everything became a 360 panorama. It probably didn’t help that my watercolor sketchbook was a wide format book, but I liked it as the extra width helped me grip the book like it was extra paper space for a handle for me to hold my painting up to my face while I worked.

I also used my new Royal Talens Shades of Nature Pocket Box for the first time and I really love it. Having a curated set of colors really take the guess work out of mixing and helps pull everything together a lot better. I think I definitely would have struggled if I just had free rein of the colors.