Started painting at Deep Eddy about 8.00 am. Quite a few swimmers there already, still fairly cool - around 79 degrees - won't last long. Set up in the shade of some trees on the north side of pool. Wanted to show the contrast between the shade and sunlit water and include some of the swimmers. While painting I usually zone out of whatever is going on around me but I became aware of some conversations going on nearby. At that time of the day most of the swimmers are there to swim laps usually 2 to each lane and I became aware of a line that formed at some of the lanes as swimmers waited for a turn. One women was a little distressed that a swimmer was hogging the middle of the lane and she felt she couldn't swim easily without bumping the other. I recalled when I used to swim at Gregory Gym and the old Anna Hiss pool. Being a very weak swimmer I was always nervous when another swimmer got in my lane and I remember a few remarks about my slowness. The nice thing about painting plein air is that though there is a time element involved I set it myself - two to three hours depending on th composition. Longer than that, the light has changed and its time to finish.
