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Thursday, October 8, 2015

 It felt like an orange day.  I made three different sizes.  I made a 2'X2', a 2'X3', and a 2'X4'.
 There couldn't have been a better day or a better place to paint.
 I picked the largest board so that I could get everything in the painting at the size I wanted.
 I worked to get all the pieces of the painting to fit together.  I made adjustments to make sure they were the right proportion to each other.  I lowered the hills in the background to be able to fit the palm trees into the painting. 
 I started working the detail in the painting.  The light and shadow patterns were going to change and I had to decide at what point I wanted to capture them.  I had to keep in mind that I would add to them at the end of the painting.  I did not try to finish them at this time so that when I put the final touches on the painting the bluff would not be overworked.
I was reading a post from another plein air artist about how she tries to keep her technique a secret from the people who watch her work.  It seemed like a really selfish and shallow thing. It made me think about the information I share.  I wish I could put down my thoughts throughout the painting process so that I could share my decision making more thoroughly.
 When I am painting, I work to keep all the parts of the painting at the same stage of development.  When one part gets ahead of the others, I will switch to get the other areas caught up.  I think that keeps the feel of the painting consistent.  Because the light is always changing and my paintings tend to run longer than other painters, this is a way that I can keep my painting true to the lighting conditions in the moment.

 There is a moment in every painting when I have to decide the point when I am going to lock in the time and conditions that I am painting.  From that time on, I work more from memory.
 At the very last moment a passer by asked if I was going to put in the flag pole...so I did.  I added the monument next to it too.
The value shot.  It looks like I got the values right.
The detail shot.  The finished painting.  2'X4'

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