en Plein Air

I took Shelly to Hidden Lake Gardens to paint/draw.  She had never been there before so we took a tour of the gardens.  I hadn't remembered this tree.  I called it tatooed.  The gardens are so pristeen and manicured that this was a surprising sight.  I believe this is a corkscrew willow.  Perhaps the foliage concealed  the vandalism on my other visits.
It wasn't colorful enough at the gardens and it was too cold.  I never finished my picture and that was just fine because I was really hating the reslts from the oil pastels.  I have never worked with oil pastels and now I have a new respect for the medium. The other thing is I think I was trying to be too literal in line and color. What I like is that I can see how the photograph distorts the veiw.  Everything is so compressed in the photo.