Mike Major's blog/daily paintings

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.