"Morehens and Pickeral Weed" , plein air oil painting by artist, Brenda Hofreiter

This painting was created on location at Orlando Wetlands Park, near Ft. Christmas, Florida. This is one of my newer large format plein air paintings. Working large allows me lots of time to absorb the sprit of the place. It is one of my favorite places to commune with nature. This painting shows one of the flooded areas within the park. You can see the blue haze of the distant horizon and the stands of flooded palms in the middle ground. The dirt road on the raised berms winds along to the right. It is early summer and the pickerel weed is blooming in the marsh. There is a pair of Moorhens swimming and calling in the water. I usually don't put birds into the scene because they move so much, but every time I showed up to paint, there they were! I also shared the edge of the marsh with a little 2 foot gator who was sunning himself on the banks within a few feet of me. I could hear his father grunting out there somewhere and was glad I wasn't sharing the bank with him!