I shall keep those time frames in mind, thank you for that. We plan on having an hour out somewhere tomorrow, I can't wait. Fingers crossed it works for us both. As a bonus I may get some half decent photos off him to copy from too. Win win for sure.

Sounds like a great plan, Jennifer. Best of luck. When we are on holiday and I want time to sketch or paint, the secret seems to be don't take longer than an hour (or 15 mins for sketching), so my husband does not feel left out. If your husband only has a short time for photos with his new camera, he might even start asking you to paint for longer so he has longer to take photos - win / win!

This is really something special. I love how you decided you were going to do something and you stuck to it. I have been wanting to sketch outdoors for quite a while now, but the hubby and kids get so impatient with me, I never get time. I came up with the most fabulous cunning plan before Christmas. The kids are now all in school full time, and the hubby really wants to start getting into photography, soooooo I bought him a brand spanking new bells n whistles camera for Christmas. I'm hoping he will now want to go to the places I want to sketch during the day, I can sketch/paint and he can photograph, we can spend an hour or so apart doing our own bit and meet up for lunch ha ha. Wish me luck it works.

This is lovely, Melanie. Like you I've been sketching outside but I only used pens and am impressed that you braved the weather to paint! :)

Thanks. Yes it does require a bit of madness, but the light this time of year can be fabulous. All I need to try to do now is to covert this small lively study into a large scale oil without loosing the feeling captured on location. At least that means working in a warm studio.

Well done Melanie. It takes some bravery (or madness!) to paint outdoors at the moment. This has lovely colours and a loose feel and I think that having to do it quite quickly concentrates the mind to include just what’s necessary. I think this will make a great larger work and look forward to seeing more. I have done as much plein air painting this year as possible, and some from my car which is the next best thing!