Adventures in the Plein Air

I want to keep you informed of my progress toward my plein air oil painting class that is next week, starting the day after the election.
I have to document my adventures, beginning today. I took my new French easel to the Garden of the Gods, pretending that my class was starting today. That's a great place to paint, I've hauled a number of large canvases there to paint. Today was dramatic:

A rainbow in the west greeted me.
My goal was to get one 20" x 24" canvas as finished as I could in 2 hours. As it turned out I had to quit because of wind and rain after an hour and a half; it hasn't hardly rained here in the past 2 months. I just want to show what I got done, not only as a point to compare my class canvases with, but also to show that I am actually getting some oil painting done.
Oil sketch of the Garden of the Gods, 20" x 24", Oct 25 2010:

I know it's pathetic, it's easy to see I need to learn a lot. I was determined not to draw it first in oil, as is my wont, but instead just to paint the colors I was seeing. I was just starting to add blues and greens, and was having to hold my cap and the easel at the same time, and when I discovered my wind breaker was not waterproof, I folded the easel and got it back to my truck, which conveniently was nearby. The painting and I were soaked, but the water didn't affect the oils.

Here's what the scene I wanted to paint looked like when I began it:

The scribbled gray blue at the middle top of my painting was where I had been hoping to place Pikes Peak, which is ordinarily spectacular at that spot. But I left it alone, thinking I could add Pikes Peak the next time I go.
Here's that scene as I painted it in 1990. This took me considerably longer than an hour and a half.
Garden of the Gods, 1980, oil 24" x 36":


The Palette
I was using my new palette, which Don Sahli specified:

There are just 16 colors, from lower left: carbon black, ultramarine blue, cobalt blue, cerulean blue, viridian green, cadmium yellow light, cadmium yellow medium, cadmium yellow deep, cadmium orange, cadmium red light, alizarin crimson, burnt sienna, burnt umber, English red light, yellow ochre and titanium white.
Sahli said in his Youtube instruction video that a new palette should be prepared ahead of time, using a lot of oil that will become hard, so new oils won't run out of the box. I ended up scooting those first oils to the edges of the plexiglass, and had to spread them and lower the height of the oils so I could get the easel closed without getting oils on it.

I'm excited that my class is so near. I'll let you know how it goes.