Camp Limberlost Garden
12×9″
Oil on panel
Plein air
©2013 Lucinda Howe

The lakes of the Adirondack Mountains are home to fabulous rustic compounds known as the “great camps”.   On the last evening of the Publisher’s Invitational Paintout, we were invited to a party at Camp Limberlost on Upper St. Regis Lake.  The  party was lively fun, but the real treat was being invited back to paint on the grounds the next morning.  As usual, I was more attracted to the garden than the lake.  I tried to capture the characteristic white birches surrounded by evergreens and perennials.

This painting was started by scrubbing in a thin yellow ochre underpainting on an oil primed panel.  After building up the many variations of green in the trees and lawn, I scraped out the trunks of the birches almost back to the white of the panel and finished with the contrast of the purple in the flowers.