Being Selective

Oh are we ready for spring!  Yesterday was a beautiful day and I just had to get outdoors.  And what do you do when you go outdoors, well paint of course. Out back behind my house was the logical direction, so I will show you what I found. 

There is beauty and inspriation everywhere as I go about, but I am becoming more selective before I start to paint, for I have made a lot bad paintings in the past.  I still do paint bad ones, but I try to learn from my mistakes when I understand them.  One foudational step in creating a good sound painting is to consider the design of the scene.  I ask myself, does the beauty have a design possibilities?

8x10

As you can see there is a backward S pattern in the water that takes you through the scene and the dark creek bank in the distant tree is a focal point. The interest to me also was the beautiful warm color in the creek bottom, the quickly moving clouds across the blue sky with the feeling of spring.  These types of scenes are always a challenge for me because in my past life I would paint every branch and rock.  You just can't do that outdoors in 2 hours; this forces me to be looser and more suggestive in what I am conveying.  I feel this approach is more exciting.  I hope you can find something out back to paint this week.

I will be teaching an 3 day plein air workshop June 1st, 2010 near Charlotte, NC.  I will spend time with 10 students concentrating on the basic elements of oil painting and will include exercises to reinforce foundational skills needed to paint outdoors more effectively.  For more on this artist workshop go please visit  http://www.scottboyleart.com/workshop.htm