"Willys Fleetvan" -- plein air field study -- oil on 9x12" stretched canvas -- Margie Guyot

It was a beautiful, sunny (and cool) day here. Perfect for getting out to paint! I had to drive up to Charlevoix to get the oil changed on my Flex, so thought I might as well drive over to my friend Linda's and try painting her vintage Willys. I think she said it's a 1962 model.

In reality, the sun visor is dented. A tree fell on it. But it's in otherwise fairly decent-looking shape. Decent-LOOKING is the keyword here. Needs brakes and a muffler replacement, but ah -- details, details! I'm told this is one of only 6 left in the US.

Boy o boy -- this was pretty tough to do. Weird shape. I'm a sucker for reflected light, so maybe some people will look at this and think she was on drugs when she painted that! Well, no -- it's still springtime up here in NW Michigan and the grass is a rather furious shade of bright green.

I painted this whole thing with one brush: my favorite #8 flat.

Egad -- now I must sign off and go change clothes. I just came in from spraying Liquid Fence on my hollyhocks (to keep those naughty deer away) and some of that stinky stuff spilled onto my jeans. I need to leave for band rehearsal in a few minutes and I think it's not a very good idea to go in stinking to high heaven....

"Willys -- 9 Degrees" -- plein air field study -- 8x10" -- oil on birch panel -- Margie Guyot

This Willys belongs to my neighbor Sue. She lived in this car for 7 years, while studying to be a cobbler. It's parked alongside her house and I've been admiring it. I especially love painting cars covered in snow, on sunny days, with the deep blue shadows. Well, today it was sunny (a rarity here in NW Michigan), so I layered the clothing and donned my big snowboots and waded through the knee-deep snow with my gear.

Sue's Willys is a two-tone in shades of deeper and lighter turquoise-type tones. That backside in the shade was picking up some good reflections from the snow. There's a black pickup in the back, on the left, that I'd like to paint some day before our snow melts.

I knew it was rather cold out despite the sun. By the end of the painting, my fingers were getting stiff. Toes are still thawing out. My Soltek easel's legs had frozen, so I just laid the whole thing flat in my Explorer, legs frozen in the extended position, and am letting it thaw out in the studio. My vehicle's got a thermometer and I was kind of surprised to see it was only 9 degrees out! No wonder I was feeling rather chilled. I'm forever in search of warm gloves that are not too bulky.

I dream of a nice, above-freezing, sunny day with no wind!

" '63 Willys" -- oil field study -- 11x14"
-- Margie Guyot

For the past two weeks I'd been out in Victor, Idaho, taking a plein air workshop with Scott Christensen. My good friend Carole Flaherty let me stay in one of her little log cabins. Their property butts right up to the national forest (in the Tetons area) and it was very beautiful. A few years ago Carole bought this interesting-looking '63 Willy (I'm not sure if I'm spelling it right) as a birthday present for her husband. Never mind that it didn't have a working motor! Patrick's a hellfire mechanic. He put in a new motor and they tool around Victor in it. The front windshield's got a crack in it, but I think it adds to the charm.

After class I'd come back to Carole's and set up my easel by the Willys. The sunlight falling across the hood only stayed like that for about 5 minutes for me, by the time I got there. So it was "paint fast"! I'd set my easel up at the side of the gravel road leading up into the mountain and had to move it a couple times for jeeps on their way up.

Painting this vehicle was a nice little break from painting mountains and fields all day. At least it was close up and a big, solid shape.