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Mike has been holding what he terms as 1/2 day workshops for a number of art students in Northern California.  This particular group has been studying with Mike about 5 months.  During the March 17 session Mike took the students outdoors for their first plein air experience.  Mike completed a small 10" x 12" demo on his mini ranch in the Sierra foothills of a neighbors house across the street through some oak trees on his property.  His primary focus was to demonstrate that as a plein air artist you should not be to literal and should adjust the scene to what you believe to be an interesting less complicated composition.  Mike then turned his neighbors home into a small cabin as viewed through the oak trees:

Mikes students then did an excellent job in simplifying their scene and completed their studies in a little over an hour.  Great job for this small group!  The scene that was painted can be seen between the two oak trees to the left side of the group photo.