By Marcelle La Cour

I am by nature an indoor painter; my works usually take a lot of forethought and planning: quite in opposition to painting outdoors where the fleeting nature of the light and landscape toss indoor methods to a place where the winds won't harry them. But being in a place where the outside just wouldn't be denied, I thought I'd give it a go; take a class just for the sheer fun of it.

I think I have gotten myself almost too busy here in Santa Barbara, but then again, I just had to make the time to try this. Making panels – that took all week as I had to gesso them and tone them with a burnt sienna mixed into the Gesso as an under-painting layer. But today, I finally had my first outdoor painting session in my group, and what a day we picked.

It was gorgeous; sunny, brilliant light that danced and sparkled off the sand and sea, but with it came a poltergeist of a wind that bludgeoned everybody's attempts to paint. We were at Goleta Beach where a sandy rise gives over to a swath of beach below, and small cliffs rise up to support a stand of elegant Eucalyptus trees. Thick and deep, they loom over the booming waves below them. As the eye travels along the coastline and back into the distance, the whole of this vista creates a composition that is too enticing not to paint.

There weren't many students there today. Maybe they had foreseen our termagant breeze. Getting set up with easels, palettes, paints and whatnot was a rickety business. That afore-mentioned wind had started to pick up and was trying to pick up our canvasses and everything else along with it. But a few of us persevered. It took me about an hour to get ready; mixing the colors in this light was very different for me, but finally I had it done. By then that windy menace was becoming a real pain. I had to keep one hand holding the canvas down on the easel, while the other had the brush.

The instructor came along at that point and took one look at what I was doing and with a sly smile said, "Aha! I see you've painted before, and that you know what you're doing!" He is a joyful rascal, with a twinkle in his eye and a ready wit to hand out at the slightest invitation. Or not. We got on famously, right at home with each other. I continued painting through the sudden blasts of raucous wind, but in the end it became too much. Sand was in everything, even in the paints on the canvas. I packed up, which took a tremendous effort to accomplish as the air was pushing and pulling everything out of my hands. I finally got the painting safely in the car, having won the battle (but not the war) with my gusty opponent in getting it there unharmed.

I thoroughly enjoyed my new adventure, every minute of it, amused by every trial in getting enough paint on my canvas to make it worth my while, and happy to be in a group of painters bent on the same. What a treat. Willful wind or no.

Mr. instructor ambled by, on his way to his car, to see what I had accomplished, and remarked on how well I'd sized the people in the composition in relation to the stand of trees farther back. That tickled me. He then said to me, "Only the die-hards will paint out in this kind of weather and stay this long to carry on through it, and you've even accomplished quite a bit here – so you are now a true member our die-hard group!" That twinkling eye was accompanied by a grin, which I returned. I didn't tell him that this was the first time I had ever painted outside my studio – plein air! And plenty of it!

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