Most of my smaller paintings are done en plein air, which basically means they are painted outdoors, on location. (But it sounds more impressive in French, no?)
Painting large outdoors is very challenging, so most of my larger works are painted indoors in my studio. For reference, I'll use my photographs, memories and/or my smaller plein air paintings.
The two paintings below are an example of how I sometimes create a larger studio painting from a smaller plein air piece. The larger painting is usually pretty faithful to the original, but at some point it has to take a life of it's own and not be just a copy of the smaller one.
The 8x10" piece was painted on location in Mercer County Park North West on the first day of spring last year:
"Mercer Meadows" (small)
8x10" oil on board
Sometime later, probably on a rainy day when I couldn't paint outside, I did this 18x24" painting in the studio, based on the smaller 8x10 plein air piece. This larger version has some more detail, and I added the tree on the right to improve the composition. I muted the ochers of the field to better balance the colors in the distant tree line and mountain:
"Mercer Meadows" (large)
18x24" oil on canvas
These 2 paintings and more are on display in
"Get Lost" - my 2 person show with
Beatrice Bork, running
November 11 to December 4, 2011 at:
Closing Reception: Sunday, Dec 4, 2-5pm
