Michael Chesley Johnson Workshop - Day Three

Today was the last day of our workshop, and for our final day we had glorious weather - sunny and crisp, low 70s, a nice breeze blowing. We met this morning at Ocean Hammock Park in St. Augustine Beach, a lovely gem located right on the beach. It's a very new park, still under development. So new it doesn't even seem to have a web page, LOL. 

A few people got held up in traffic this morning, and while we waited for them we all gathered in the parking lot, and Michael passed around a couple books that he felt are very valuable for every landscape artist's library:

1)    Carlson's Guide to Landscape Painting, by John F. Carlson
2)    Composition of Outdoor Painting by Edgar Payne

After that we left our painting and drawing stuff in the car to just take a walk along the 1700-foot boardwalk. It led us through the hammock, where the Muhly grass was in glorious bloom.

 From there we passed on and over the dunes, lively with waving sea oats.

And then out to the broad wide expanse of the beach.  After this overview we all had the morning to do our color sketches and drawings, and to take as many photos as we pleased of the varied scenery.

At mid-day again it was time to pack up and head back to the studio. Michael first reviewed our paintings from yesterday's studio, as we had not had time for that before the end of day yesterday. He then reviewed our drawings and sketches from this morning, which was helpful in deciding what to work on in the studio for the afternoon.

After that we all got to work on compositions based on the morning at the park. And then we had our final review of the works we did today. What fun it was to see all the work done by the students in the class. We all had a great time, and it was hard to say goodbye to Michael and head out the door. Maybe we can invite him back again one day.

But in the meantime Michael said we are certainly welcome to come to one of his other workshops in Sedona or Campobello, or wherever they happen to be.