CAYUGA - It isn't too often that central New York residents get to enjoy a 65 degree day in mid-November.

And as luck would have it this provided the perfect opportunity for a handful of painters to spend some of their afternoon, brushes in hand on the shores of Cayuga Lake.

Local artist Tom Hussey put brush to canvas for the second year in a row, demonstrating techniques and ideas on painting while sitting by the lakeside and taking in the late-fall scenery.

Hussey worked deftly, creating an impressionistic view while moving colors around on his canvas, taking his inspiration from a willow tree that was hanging on to all of its golden and orange fall foliage, its branches dangling over the water's edge, while men fished from the dock with jetties on the water.

Hussey focused on how he was building up the shades and tones of the sky and the tree's leaves and colors.

“The sky is very soft,” Hussey said as he dabbed away at the picture. “I'm only putting in a few of the branches of the tree. When you are doing something like a tree or foliage it is best to focus in on one or two big shapes. I'm only using a few colors on my palette, it makes it more of a challenge, you'll have to mix colors to get the colors you are after.”

This marks the second year Hussey was sharing his skills by the lakeside.

This has been part of a larger effort to bring more things like art and music to the village.

Hussey said he was more than happy to come back this year.

“We have a pretty good turnout,” Hussey said. “We were supposed to be inside (in the historic village train depot that now serves as a town hall), but it is a nice day and we are outside. It is a lot of fun.”

Hussey demonstrated his techniques for creating landscape scenes and tried to convey his theories to the crowd that made them accessible from the experienced artist to those just getting started.

Hussey gave pointers on important principles like having a flat horizon point and picking a color value for the piece and then building on that to create the depth of the picture.

Hussey's demonstration drew an avid crowd, many of whom brought pieces of their own work to share and also took paint to canvas and started new pieces while sitting by the lakeside.

Among those new to trying their hand were Nathan Harding, 12, and his sister Emily, 10, of Auburn.

Their father, Jake, brought his children out after recently taking them to a showing of Cezanne's works.

They really liked it,” Jake said. “When I heard about this I thought it would be a great way to spend the day and decided to bring them out for this.”

The children watched as Hussey created his demonstration from scratch.

“I thought it was really cool,” Nathan said. “He went from a blank canvas to having all this detail.”

Nathan and Emily said they have only doodled and worked on a few watercolor pieces, but were inspired to try more.

Emily was trying her hand at the water tower perched on a hill above the lake and Nathan was focused in on re-creating the great expanse of the lake twisting off to the south.

“It is fun,” Nathan said. “It is a big lake and I want to try to paint the way it goes off to the horizon and get all the background.”