Plein Air Painting at Spring Grove Cemetery & Arboretum

Yesterday, I traveled with a group of artists to Spring Grove Cemetary & Arboretum.  If you live in the Cincinnati metropolitan area and haven't been, it is worth a trip.  The cemetery dates to the mid-19th century, and they have fabulous grounds with numerous state champion trees.  

It's open to the public, so we wandered in and painted, sketched, drew, and meditated in an area of the cemetery that had ponds, bridges, and beautiful cypress trees with cypress knees.  

I cleaned out my bag before I went, so I was portable--one of the first posts I wrote for this blog was about plein air painting, where I got stuck at the parking lot because my bag was so overfilled.

Siberian Iris Abstracted

When we first moved to Cincinnati in 2007, my mom gave us some lilies, viburnum, and siberian iris.  I like all donated flowers, but am especially fond of the iris.  They are low maintenance, and I think they are elegant when they bloom.  (They are blooming right now!)

Here's my abstracted version.  Approximately 12x20 inches on Arches 300 lb cold press paper--wet into wet.

An Abstract From a Farm Seen From I-71, SW of Columbus, OH

Over spring break, my family and I drove out to Hocking Hills, a state park located south east of Columbus, OH.  We'll usually camp, but fearing cold temperatures, we rented a cabin.  It turned out to be a good choice, since it started to rain about an hour after we arrived and didn't stop until we were well into the drive home.

I took a lot of pictures from the passenger seat of the car--storm clouds, fallow fields, and distant farm houses.  Between Cincinnati and Columbus(ish), driving I-71, the landscape is flat with big sky.  Closer to Hocking Hills, the landscape borders the northern edge of Appalachia, and it switches to rolling hills and aspiring mountains.