I recently found a
painting spot that could provide many months of painting, in fact I feel I could
probably paint this area for quite some time.
When I come to a new site,
I don’t start painting right away. I look around and make some loose sketches
and notations, thinking about composition, elements I might leave out or
simplify.
From experience I have found that I might discover something that may
at first seem like it really works but then to find that it is not paintable; I
have to move around and see how things look from different angles.
Once I have a few ideas figured out, I will start a small oil sketch,
something from 8”x10”-12”x16”. I really am not to bothered about copying
exactly what is in front of me. I may be interested in a certain color or form,
a patch of light or an atmospheric effect. Not all my outdoor paintings would I
consider finished pieces. They are color/form notations and along with some
graphite sketches I hopefully have enough information to produce a larger
painting back in the studio.
The hard part is getting everything to come
together and trying to maintain the freshness of the oil sketch -sometimes I
pull it off and other times I may have to put the work aside and work on it
another time. I am always learning and hopefully I always will.
I've enjoyed your landscape work on Facebook, Simon. Look forward to taking a peek at your process on the blog! I'm particularly interested in something you mentioned tangentially above: taking your plein air work into the studio. I've been doing lots of pieces on site, but haven't had much experience taking that very immediate, experiential work into a more deliberate setting.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your methodology and the resulting art. I've already added your blog link to my blog so others might benefit from your insights.
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