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I have several artist friends who live somewhat nearby.  Tina Chong is a go-getter who often nudges me outside to paint.  She is awesome and recently gathered three other friends to decide on a date and place.  Honestly, she's great because we are often like a herd of cats and trying to get us to decide on a date is not for the faint of heart.   We all love painting outside, but each of us has other priorities which sometimes conflict.

This time, however, it was a total success!!!   We all drove out to Peter Strauss Ranch in the Malibu Hills.   The last time I painted there with Laura and Tina it wasn't as beautiful.   That day I had decided to paint a mostly-dead but interesting tree which I titled "Tenacious":

This time I arrived before everyone else and the first words out of my mouth were, "It's a glorious day!"   As usual, we all (Tina Chong, Laura Wambsgans, Sharon Weaver and Sandy Fisher) spread out after we had found our spot.  I took lots of photos and may paint a scene looking the other direction which was also fabulous.  

It WAS a glorious day!

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After we all did what we did in the morning, we decided to drive to a local salad shop and enjoy a lunch together.  During that time we talked about all sorts of things, including, of course painting.   Laura told us all about a new app she had found and was enjoying called ChromaMagic.

Although I was not unhappy with my plein air "capture" I rarely can just let it be.  I can only think of one recent plein air piece that satisfied me enough as it was to resist my clean up efforts.  This was also a day that Tina, Sharon, Laura and I painted together although the day was definately not as glorious.  Here is my totally plein air effort called, "Plein Air On A Grey Day":

At home I downloaded the ChromaMagic App and played with it a lot.  I can see many possibilities for exploring color, value and helping the artist see a bit differently.   On the whole I like the changes I made using the tools suggested by the app, but I also realize that I do pretty well with mixing colors all on my own.  However, I definitely will use the app again.

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If you click on a color swatch, it will suggest a variety of ways to mix that specific color ... very interesting  ...  and fun!

I love to play with paint.

By the way... many mornings I listen to a commentator named Michael Smerconish.  Although he most often talks about politics and events, he has long been advocating what he calls "mingling".  He said in today's world we are too often busy with our phones and are siloed into repeated ways of thinking without the benefit of mingling -- mixing with a variety of people just to listen and be listened to. 

He believes, and I agree, that it is important to our emotional well-being to gather and be with others frequently.   I called in to his show one time to express my opinion that painting together with other people is a form of mingling.  We walk around and talk about the scene, we often compare what we are painting together and we discuss a variety of things before after and during our painting time.  And of course we talk about what's going on in our lives.

Definitely good for the soul.