One More Hour of Painting

I've finished my practice 3-day class in preparation for my real 3-day plein air painting class that begins in just a couple days in Denver. I wanted to be sure to be able to set my easel up at 9 a.m. all 3 mornings. Here's how it went:
The first morning it rained, and the next 2 mornings was below freezing at 9 a.m. It has not hardly rained here in the past 2 1/2 months, and had not yet frozen, until my practice class. I can only hope my real class will be better. I showed you the painting I started that first day. All I needed was one more hour of painting to get it to where I liked it. In the next couple days I did get one more hour in, and here's the result.

Garden of the Gods, oil sketch, 20" x 24":
It took me 2 1/2 hours total. If I can just get 2 or 3 pictures like that a day in my class then I'll be happy.
I didn't go outside to paint again after the first hour and a half before it rained the first day. By that afternoon the rain had turned to sleet and then snow. The mountains had 2 feet of snow that day.
The second day at least was sunny, but it stayed below freezing til 10 a.m. and had a hard, cold wind. I could not have got out that day to paint, since I needed a winter jacket and I was unwilling to trash my good ones. So instead of painting I went to ARC to get a jacket for $6. That made it possible for me to get out the 3rd morning, even though it was so cold. That day was sunny and warmed up nicely.
But I have to admit, on that first day I set up my French easel in my studio to dry out, and I proceeded to actually make a Garden of the Gods still life, and that's where I painted one more hour.

My new studio:
My new easel and pallette got well broken in by the time I was done:

I love how the new easel fits so well into my old studio, with the bright light flooding in on my painting. I can see that I'll still have lots of fun in my studio this winter as we're waiting to put our home on the market in the spring.
I'll keep you informed about my class.