Practice on the little stuff

Even with the good weather I've still been working a lot on still life. Part of the reason is to build up enough work to show together, and the other is working from life on this scale is good practice for me to do large outdoor work. The little geisha doll painting above was done back in February. It has been sitting in the room that we did still life in at the pump house for as long as I can remember. It always caught my eye but seemed too complex and small for me to tackle. After looking at it so many times I finally decided to paint it by breaking it down into small shapes. Once this painting was done I started challenging myself to paint more complex items. So far it seems to be helping with my plein air work. It is getting easier for me to see the abstract shapes instead of the preconceived idea of an object. A problem I have outdoors is bringing form to objects as they recede. The more I'm thinking about it, color and temperature change seem to be what is stopping the objects from being modeled in my outdoor landscapes. Now I continue to practice on still life and apply it to my other work.

1st place non-prof plein air paint out

This is the painting I turned in yesterday for the paint out. It received the blue ribbon in the non-professional class. This small red trailer was parked underneath of a tree back at the northern fence of the fairgrounds. There was hardly anyone around and it was in the shade so it was perfect for knocking out a painting quickly.

Red vs Blue

Today I was busy and didn't start painting until 10:15. This is the product of rushing through a painting in an hour and doing everything the wrong way. I think the composition of this painting is strong besides the road in the foreground. Now on to the bad parts. The painting looks sloppy and the brushwork is a mess. The brush strokes used for the grass were poorly executed and far to many were placed without proper planning before hand. After realizing the mistake, I tried to force in massive amounts of paint to cover it up which looks even more rushed and not thought out than before. I do think the values are decent and if I have time I will paint this again later. Next time I will start with the darks instead of trying to build up layers.