This is another painting created for the Gunpowder Falls Plein Air competition (www.gunpowderfallspleinair.com) held each June so that artists can come and paint our beautiful Northern Baltimore County area in Maryland. Unfortunately, two full days of  pouring rain slowed us down, and I painted this scene from the driver's seat of my car. It might have been because of the windshield wipers coming on every few minutes, but these horses watched me carefully for over an hour as I worked on this watercolor painting. Someone told me that horses with a white blaze are extra friendly, and maybe it's true.  My only mishap, if you can call it that, is that a kind lady from across the road came over to see if I was OK, thinking that I had skidded off the road in the heavy rain.

Although I teach watercolor painting, I paint more often in oils these days, and my definite preference has been to paint in oils for competitions. However, painting from my car was the only option I had after I ran out of friendly porches to paint from, and watercolor is a lot less messy than oils. It was challenging to paint in such close quarters, but I managed with a watercolor board against the steering wheel and the rest of my supplies spread out on a beach towel on the passenger seat so they would be to my right as I worked. Since I like to paint atmospheric paintings in watercolor, but had been restricted to working from photos for this type of painting, I will give this a try again. I really enjoy painting on location, and even if your car isn't "en plein air" it is close enough!