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At Aragon Alpacas 16x20 Inches Oil 

 Yesterday’s plein air venture at Ann and Mike’s Aragon Alpaca Ranch took unsettling but not serious turns. Among our PPLC group of plein air painters I, usually, am the first to show up on the site. Yesterday morning, after chatting with Ann, the owner of the Alpacas for awhile, I chose a scene of buildings with a backdrop of lovely hills and meadows, and commenced to set up my easel and palette and was ready to paint when I discovered that I forgot my brushes. Of course this was a major concern on my part, just in case it was the start of something more serious. Of course, I am saying this in jest because that morning I put things together at the last minute and it is understandable how I may have gotten distracted by one thing or another. Our home is about 25 miles from this ranch so I decided to skip painting for the day and go home. After I returned and had lunch, I decided to check my email. I found an email from my friend Victoria who was at the Ranch by then, saying,  Sarkis, do you know you forgot your Travoy? The Travoy seen in the photo is a wonderful cart that holds everything I need and I can drag it around. That was another surprise that caused me to be concerned about forgetfulness in old age. To cut the story short I decided to go back, take along my brushes, and do some painting after all.

That afternoon when I got home I unpacked, and cleaned up my brushes and called it a day. This morning looking at the painting I decided there were too many things wrong with it or so it seemed. Normally, if I am unhappy with any painting, I usually scrape it off completely right away before the paint dries up. In my opinion, when paint dries up any touch up would invariably look like an after thought. This morning sure enough the paint was pretty much dry and I was not keen to touch it up or alter anything. But I needed to do something, so I decided to take a chance and work on it anyway. In my experience as happened here, one thing usually leads to another and one ends up repainting the whole thing. Also in such a situation the outcome is usually a totally different painting, or else, a tired crusty and overworked painting, especially if one relies on memory. In my case I didn’t think of taking a good photo of the subject for reference, so I relied on memory for the most part.

My assessment of the outcome is that I like it and am glad I did salvage it because it definitely gives the impression of the lovely site.