#2035 "Killarney La Cloche Quartzite"

The 2017 Southampton Art School Annual Adventure was carrying on the legacy of my friend and artist Jane Champagne. This was the eleventh demonstration painting and the fourth of Day 3 of the Plein Air Paint Out. The artists were all in the same area and we bantered back and forth a lot while trying to stay in the artistic creative zone. The weather of the cold frontal trough had moved well to the east and it was a beautiful autumn afternoon. Everyone was having a great time although the shadows from the forest behind us on the ridge were obscuring the colours on our palettes and canvases. One needs to have light in order to really see the colours.

This is the partner to #2034 "Killarney La Cloche Ridge" where I suggested painting a scene that was so far away that you could not see any detail anyway even if you wanted to. Detail was getting in the way of some of the artists preventing them from really seeing the shapes and colours of their scene. The view is shifted to the west from the composition of #2034.

I always marvel at the colours and shapes of the La Cloche quartzite. I Googled some background information. Quartzite (from German: Quarzit) is a hard, non-foliated metamorphic rock which was originally pure quartz sandstone. Sandstone is converted into quartzite through heating and pressure usually related to tectonic compression within orogenic belts. This causes streaks and lenses to form within the quartzite. Killarney is a great place to paint en plein air.