Old Randolph County Courthouse Painting

Old Randolph Co. Courthouse

8x10 acrylic on masonite en plein air

Every first and third Thursday night, the Randolph Arts Guild hosts a drawing session for anyone who would like to practice their drawing skills. It's a great way to gather with other like minded artists who are eager to create, learn and just have good fellowship. This was my first time participating with the group and I decided to do a plein air painting. Our subject matter for the evening was the old Randolph County courthouse located on Worth St. in Asheboro, NC.

One thing I've learned recently, one of the hardest parts of painting in plein air is to simply get started. I walked around the place, up and down parking lots, in the shade, out of the shade, etc...looking for that perfect perspective and composition. After wasting about 20 minutes of good daylight painting time, I finally settled on the view above. I chose not to paint the bank teller shelter in the parking lot that is actually located on the bottom left. I was afraid it would 1) cover too much of my main subject, 2) be too much to paint in the given time. 

Why should I be concerned for the time? Well, when you're painting in the evening, beginning at around 6pm...you will only have about 2 hours of that same light. From around 8pm on, you're going to have a more sunset type of lighting. If you're going to paint sunset light, then it's no big deal to start your drawing early and wait to paint your shadows and color shades till later. But, if you're going for that 6pm light and color shades, you're going to have to put the pedal to the metal with that paintbrush. Another factor last night was rain. Throughout the session, we tried to avoid the occasional rain drop while looking over our shoulders at the upcoming rain cloud. Possible rain showers is a great motivator for painting quickly.

Overall, it was a great night. I was so impressed with the talent that we have here in Randolph Co. Feel free to email Les Caison at the Randolph Arts Guild for any details or questions.

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