Lavender Farm

An oil painting of a lavender farm by artist Simon Bland

Lavender Farm. 9x12, oil on linen panel. 2015

A plein air painting done this morning at Blooming Hill Farm in Purcellville, VA. It was a lovely day to be painting outside and I couldn't get the paint down fast enough, even with a large palette knife, to keep up with the movement of the sky.

While finishing up I picked nearly 40 flies off the painting then proceeded to drop it face down on the lawn. This required more than a few minutes of careful brush work to fix, after which the whole easel and palette promptly fell on top of a tree peony.

Despite this, the battle scars were mostly fixed on site—those that are left serve as a reminder that this is a true plein air painting.


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